A Wedding by Dawn (8 page)

“So your plan is,” Millie began slowly as the dressmaker’s assistant laced India into a set of stays, “that you will seduce him and he will suddenly bow to your every command?”

“He will be struck powerless,” India corrected, and tried to believe it. “Isn’t that what Auntie Phil says? That a man is rendered powerless by the sight of a woman’s breasts?” She surveyed her breasts now and smiled. They practically spilled from inside the whalebone.

“I don’t think she meant the way a pistol shot renders him powerless,” Millie scoffed.

“A chance of rendering him powerless—or distracted enough for us to escape, in any case—is better than no chance.” Although that night in his cabin, standing there while his hands wandered over her, she’d been rendered practically powerless herself.

The memory of it came alive, smoldering across her skin with fresh yearning, and now she thought of how possessively he’d kissed her, and how good it had felt to be held that tightly, and—

“Let us
hope
it will work as quickly as a pistol shot,” she said. “Every moment of delay only takes us further from an easy means of escape.” And escape was what she wanted—not the feeling of being in Nicholas Warre’s arms. She may have succumbed a little before, but now she knew what to expect, and there would be no more weakness.

“I shall do it while we’re still close to Marseille, so it will be easy to find our way onto a ship.” She watched in the glass as the dressmaker pinned her smartly into a gown that, if she’d been at Father’s house, would not have even done for her lady’s maid. The gown took shape, molding to her form. Her breasts sat high above a blue ribboned stomacher pinned over her stays, and panniers caused the paler blue jupe to flare at her hips, accentuating her waist.

“I don’t suppose you’ll actually bestow your virtue on him,” Millie said doubtfully.

Bestow her—

India exhaled. Felt a trembling of nerves deep inside, much different from what she’d felt in that Maltese tavern. “Perhaps I will,” she said. “Depending on the exact...situation.” Millie watched her in the glass with unhappy eyes, and India bolstered her resolve. “And I’ll not listen to your objections this time. If bestowing my virtue upon Nicholas Warre will secure us a means of escape—” a whisper of heat feathered her skin “—then I shall simply see it as killing two birds with one stone.”

Yes, that was exactly how she would see it. She would have given her virtue to that Egyptian sailor in Malta... There would be little difference in giving it to Nicholas Warre.

Millie smoothed her palms across her breeches. “Well, in that case...” She fiddled with the button on her jacket sleeve.

India waited. “In that case, what?”

Millie looked at her in the glass and raised her chin a little. “I was only going to say that if you’re going to do
that,
you ought to do it sooner rather than later.”

“So you do
not
object?”

“Of course I object. Only...” Millie fussed with her sleeve once more, and India knew exactly what she was thinking. Millie couldn’t see any alternative, either.

“Only nothing. You mustn’t feel guilty. You know how I’ve been anxious to be rid of this vexatious virtue.” Butterflies converged behind her belly button as the dressmaker pinned a tuck near India’s hip.

“Your husband will appreciate this gown very much,” the dressmaker told India in French.

“I do not want him to merely appreciate it,” India replied as confidently as she could, ignoring the dressmaker’s misunderstanding. She smoothed her hands down her sides and hips, studying her reflection intently. “I want it to drive him to distraction.” Literally.

One thin, dark brow rose. “In that case...” The dressmaker pinned a quick adjustment to India’s stays and stomacher so that now, were it not for the short lace trim, a shadow of nipple would be visible.

India smiled at her reflection. Oh, yes. Once Nicholas Warre saw her, the seduction would be as good as complete. And
then
they would see who was in control and who wasn’t.

* * *

T
HEY
WAITED
IN
the back while the dressmaker and three assistants quickly stitched up the alterations to this and the two other gowns. A short while later the dressmaker helped her dress, and her assistant pinned India’s hair into a simple chignon instead of her usual braid. In private, India helped Millie put on one of two ill-fitting gowns she’d accepted as-is rather than expose her wounded back during a fitting. India gave herself a last glance in the looking glass and turned away, confident that the pale blue gown would do everything it needed to.

The dressmaker opened the door to the front, and India swept out of the room with Millie in her wake. Nicholas Warre stood in front of the door looking out the window, and now he turned.

His eyes grazed her from head to toe, and his expression darkened. “No.”

Her knees felt a little weak, but she forced herself to approach him. “Why, Mr. Warre,” she said sweetly, “I thought you wanted me to dress like a woman.” She pushed her shoulders back a little, and his gaze dropped.

Her skin tingled in response.

“Cover yourself.” Now he was staring straight into her eyes, and he looked furious.

“I don’t think I will.” Whatever effect the sight of a woman’s breasts was supposed to have on a man, so far it wasn’t working. And it certainly would not work if she covered herself.

“Is the second gown the same as this?” he barked at the dressmaker.

“
Oui,
monsieur.”

“Fix it. And bring the lady a fichu for this one.”

“But I don’t want—”

“Bring a fichu.”

One of the seamstresses was already bringing a length of gauze. Nicholas Warre snatched it from her hand and shoved it toward India. “Put this on.”

“No.” India took a breath that pushed her breasts nearly to the point of full exposure.

“If you do not put this on,” he ground out, clutching the fabric in his fist, “I shall put it on for you.”

She raised a brow at him even as her pulse throbbed wildly in the base of her throat. “By all means, Mr. Warre. Your assistance would be most welcome.”

A heartbeat later he had the gauze hooked around her neck and was crossing it in front of her bosom. The backs of his hands grazed her skin, and he took the ends of the fichu in his fingers, and her lungs stopped cooperating. His expression had turned positively black. Whatever Auntie Phil had meant about a woman’s breasts, it wasn’t working on Nicholas Warre. He wasn’t supposed to be looking at her like this. He was supposed to be...

Slathering.
That was the word Auntie Phil sometimes used.

“It will never stay after the fact,” she managed. “You’ll have to tuck it in very securely.”

He raised his eyes and observed her for a moment with his hands hovering at the edge of her stays. “Will I.”

Already her breasts felt heavy with desire, and it was so, so difficult to breathe. But this was no time to give up. “Unless, of course, you
want
it to come loose.”

There was a flicker—a lightning-quick bolt of intensity before amusement touched his eyes. “Oh, Lady India,” he said, and slipped the fichu inside her stays. She gasped as his fingers slid against her peaked nipples, trapped by the pressure of tight whalebone, softened by the fichu’s gauze. “I most definitely would
not—
” he pushed his fingers deeper “—want that to happen.”

She couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, couldn’t feel anything but a screaming need for him to keep touching her this way, except that they were standing in a dressmaker’s shop and Millie was ten feet away staring pointedly out the window, and devil take it, she wasn’t
supposed
to want his touch—

And just that quickly, he pulled his hands away.

She tried to speak, but her mouth had gone dry. She moistened her lips. His gaze dropped. His face seemed strained, and his green eyes seemed on fire. And then the dressmaker emerged with the second gown, which now had an extra strip of lace stitched across the top of the stomacher, and he turned away.

“Excellent, madame,” he said. “Oh—and if I might have two lengths of your widest ribbon...”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

H
IS
SANITY
FOR
fifty thousand pounds. That was to be the bargain.

The French countryside passed in a blur. Olive groves and vineyards hugged the terrain. High above, a medieval fortress town perched on a hilltop. The hired coach jolted so badly Nick could hardly read the words jumping across the page of the open book on his lap. The draft interest schedule on the seat next to him kept sliding to the floor, and directly across from him—nestled snugly beneath that blasted fichu—India’s breasts sang a siren song straight to his cock.

He should have insisted
—demanded—
that she return to her breeches and waistcoat. But no, in his infinite wisdom he’d decided she should dress like a woman. And somehow, between the robbery at the church and the fiasco of her new wardrobe, they had gone from
I shall kill you in your sleep
to
Please do touch me.

Holy mother of God.

He shifted the book on his lap. Focused on the words. And still, all he could think of was the firm peak of her nipples crushed against his fingers. Not that these thoughts were anything new... He’d been thinking about those soft, full globes ever since that night she’d sneaked into his cabin.

You’ll have to tuck it in very securely.

She hadn’t expected he would really do it.

He
hadn’t expected he would really do it.

And now all he wanted was to tear the stays away entirely and fill his hands with her flesh. But she had no skill for subtlety, and her game was only too obvious. She thought she was going to distract him with her feminine charms. Perhaps she imagined she and Miss Germain would be able to run off while he sat dazed in the throes of passion.

“People will see me like this and know I’ve been abducted,” India warned now, raising her bound wrists. Three-inch ribbon, it turned out, made surprisingly strong bonds.

He was a fool to feel even the smallest amount of guilt over tying her up. His cheek still stung where she’d scratched him—a shift back toward
I shall kill you in your sleep.
The look she gave him now could have felled an entire regiment.

“With a cloak around you, they’ll see nothing,” he said. Next to her, Miss Germain sat staring out the window with her body contorted into an unfathomable shape to avoid having her wounded back slammed against the seat with every rut.

Lady India glared at him. “I need to use the pot.”

“No, you don’t.”

She didn’t respond to that, so he returned his attention to his book.

Fifteen minutes passed without another word. Thirty. An hour, as the sun sank lower in the afternoon sky thanks to their late start out of Marseille. But he could not have risked an overnight stay in a port city, not with these two women. They would travel as far as they could into the countryside and find an inn for the night far away from the blasted sea.

They were traveling through a picturesque valley when Lady India suddenly stood up.

“I think I should like to face the other direction,” she said.

“Sit down.”

“But the valley behind us is so lovely in the sunshine.” She wobbled a little, standing with bound ankles.

“Sit
down.
” The carriage jolted, sending her sprawling onto the seat next to him. His book slipped to the floor while Lady India struggled to right herself. She finally sat up, flailing a little with her bound wrists. One end of the fichu had come entirely untucked, and he now faced a crest of pink nipple peeking from behind light blue lace trim.

“Mr. Warre,” she said, settling in next to him in a way that involved squirming on the seat such that her entire right side moved against him, “if we are to be married, I think it only right that we take every opportunity to become better acquainted, especially since our courtship will be so brief.” This looked suspiciously like an attempt at seduction, and if it was, the journey to Paris had just taken a turn for the worse. “So many couples scarcely have a chance to become intimately acquainted before the wedding—in private, I mean, without prying eyes—but thanks to our unique situation, we may do as we wish.” She gazed up at him, so close he could see the smattering of freckles on her nose.

Oh, yes. They’d come full circle once again.

“I never for a moment doubted that we could,” he told her, fully aware they were
not
alone—the ever-helpful Miss Germain continued to stare out the window across from them—and even more fully and painfully aware of Lady India’s right breast pressed against his arm.

“Tell me your dreams, Mr. Warre. I want to know everything about you—absolutely
everything.
I want there to be no secrets between us. There should be nothing about each other that hasn’t been laid entirely bare. No depth that has not been plumbed.” He thought Miss Germain made a choking sound.

India moistened her lips in a way that was clearly unconscious, and Nick didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. God, what he wouldn’t give to feel those lips close around his—

“Indeed,” he managed. It would take days to reach Paris. Days of enduring her attempts at seduction that were all the more intoxicating because she didn’t know what in God’s name she was doing.

He met India’s gaze and immediately regretted it, because behind her faux adoration lay a yearning she wasn’t quite able to hide.

If he wanted to...

He could win this game she was playing. He had a good deal more experience with
plumbing depths
than she had, and if he did this right—if he could stand it—he could snare her in her own trap.

* * *

T
HE
SUN
HADN
’
T
yet set when Nick finally couldn’t stand it anymore. It was only five o’clock—they could be at least three hours closer to England if they kept going. But devil take it, he needed to get out of this carriage. Now.

He pulled the bell and ordered the coachman to stop at the next inn, which turned out to be twenty minutes farther in a picturesque village that might have been a charming place to spend a few days with a willing companion. Instead, he found himself surveying the inn’s stone walls for drainpipes and contemplating the wrought-iron balconies outside each room.

They pulled behind the inn to the carriage yard and finally, thankfully, came to a stop. India’s cloak sat next to him on the seat and he shook it out just as a footman outside opened the carriage door.

“Stand up,” Nick ordered, blocking any view of her with his body so nobody would see that her hands were tied.

When she stood, the fichu sagged open and gave him a clear and unhelpful view of the cleft between her breasts. He bundled the cloak around her and wondered how he was going to endure the rest of this journey.

“I shan’t be able to walk with my ankles tied,” she purred. “You will need to carry me.”

Excellent. And it was too late now to untie her without calling attention to the fact that she’d been tied in the first place. Already a footman was handing Miss Germain out of the carriage and into a small chaos of barking dogs, footmen taking their trunks from the roof and two children offering to carry coats and bags.

“A single cry,” Nick reminded her, pulling her to the door.

“I shan’t be able to climb out.”

“Bonsoir, sir, may I carry your coat?” A small boy tugged on Nick’s waistcoat, while another struggled with a smaller bag the footmen had left on the ground, and a shaggy mongrel nosed Nick’s leg.

“Mr. Warre, I’m losing my balance,” India said.

Rarf! Ruff! Ruff!

Lady India was hanging back inside the carriage. “Come here,” he ordered. She resisted.

Enough was enough. He shoved his hand into his waistcoat and tossed each boy a coin then grabbed Lady India around the shoulders, hooked his arm under her knees and lifted her out of the carriage.

“Oh,
thank
you, Mr. Warre,” she murmured. “I was so afraid I might fall from the carriage, but only to see how chivalrous you are.” Now he was close enough to smell the exotic scent that he already suspected was some kind of foreign soap she used, and even her cloak, stays and gown weren’t enough to keep him from feeling every curve against his body as he walked.

A footman held the door and he edged in sideways, addressing the innkeeper more sharply than he might have. “My wife is feeling poorly. Have you a room she may use while I settle business with you?”

Within moments they were upstairs and the innkeeper was turning the key in the door to a small room with a giant bed.

* * *

I
NDIA
’
S
HEART
POUNDED
furiously when the chamber door shut behind them. This was the moment she’d waited for—the moment she needed.

And she was already failing.

It was the moment to say something saucy, something seductive, but being in his arms was bringing back all those dangerous feelings she’d experienced before and all she could think of was how much she wanted him to keep holding her.

It only proved what a ninny she actually was. He carried her so she wouldn’t escape, not because he wanted to hold her.

He set her down in front of the fireplace—slowly, so that every part of her body touched every part of his body before her feet met the floor. And still he held her against him, and still the sensation of it touched a place that she desperately tried to slam shut.

“Surely you can remove the ribbons now,” she managed.

“Given that you’ve likely spent the entire carriage ride plotting a new plan for escape, I think I shall leave them in place.”

Naughty. Say something naughty!
“But surely we can entertain ourselves more without them.”

“The ribbons are no obstacle to entertainment, Lady India,” he murmured.

They weren’t? He kept his hands on her upper arms, slowly moving up and down in a way that sent a shiver along her spine. His eyes searched her face.

She looked into them and got a little lost. They were beautiful eyes—so green, framed by dark lashes and dark brows, and at this moment, alive with desire.

For
her.

A hot rush sizzled through places she’d scarcely been aware of before now. She raised her bound wrists and tried to put her hands against his chest, but she couldn’t turn them, so she raised them farther and dared to caress his jaw. “But they make it so difficult to touch you,” she said. Butterflies careened wildly through her belly.

Something dangerous flashed in his eyes, and a smile bent the corner of his lips. “Yet they create no difficulty for my touching
you.
” He traced a finger down the side of her neck and along her collarbone. “Hmm,” he murmured. “I daresay I was mistaken about the need for this.” He took hold of the fichu and slowly, deliberately pulled it away.

Her breath caught. “I tried to tell you.” She watched his eyes feast on the swell of her bosom, and a heady sort of thrill caught her chest.

This was going to be even easier than she thought. He was enjoying this. He
wanted
her. She didn’t need Auntie Phil’s experience with men to see that.

She became acutely aware of the bed against the far wall, of his hands now moving up and down her sides, brushing the outside of her breasts. Of the rise and fall of his chest, of the thundering rush of her pulse in her ears.

She traced his lips. They were firm. Warm.

He kissed a fingertip and took it in his teeth.

She fought back a gasp, and a lick of fire reached up from her belly to her throat.

He trailed his lips along each finger, while his hands feathered across the tops of her breasts. His touch was maddening—he did not dip his fingers inside her stays like before, but her nipples practically ached with wanting him to.

“I shall need help removing my gown for the night,” she breathed, even though Millie was the obvious assistant.

“Will you.” Those fingers moved farther from her breasts, not closer, and began a soft caress along her neck and shoulders. He dipped his head and touched his lips featherlight to the spot where her jaw met her ear.

She shivered.

“Cold?” he whispered in her ear.

“No.”

He skimmed his hands down her back and trailed his lips along her jaw, her neck. His hands spanned her waist and moved up, up, until she felt them cover her breasts, but the bloody stays kept them caged from any real sensation.

Between her legs, sensitive flesh throbbed. Her passage—the very place Frannie had said a husband would penetrate—felt warm and open. Even the brush of her thighs together had become an aching torment.

She turned her face to kiss him, but he moved at the same moment and brushed his lips against her other cheek. An involuntary sound of frustration escaped her lips.

He pulled back a little. The look he gave her could have set the sea on fire. “My apologies,” he breathed. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, I—”
I what?
She couldn’t tell him she wanted...

Wanted
what?

I want you to touch my breasts again, like you did before.
And kiss me like you did on the ship.

He stepped back. “I’d better go settle things with the innkeeper,” he said.

“Must you?”
Hold me. Please just hold me.

A smile touched the corner of his mouth. “We can’t have him tossing us into the night.”

“No. Of course not.” She smiled, but her body was tight with so many yearnings that the curve felt unsteady on her lips. “I shall be waiting.”

What was she thinking?
She
wasn’t supposed to want
him.

The door shut behind him, and she lowered herself carefully into a chair by the fireplace. Her bound hands trembled in her lap.

He
was supposed to want
her—
and he did. Knowing that filled her with a need she could scarcely describe. He wanted to touch her, wanted to kiss her.
Her.