Brazen Bride (19 page)

That this time he’d ceded the reins to her and was letting her drive them both.

Her breath tight in her chest, she opened her eyes and looked down at him. His face showed the strain—the battle he waged not to seize control—as, his hands clamped about her hips, he urged her up, showed her how.

How to ride him.

How to pleasure him and please herself.

“Your chemise—take it off.”

The guttural words cut across her concentration, her inward focus on all she could feel. She considered them. Eyes closed, she rose up, sank down, down, down again, then reached for the chemise’s hem.

Opening her eyes, she drew it off over her head, flung it away.

Smiled down at him as she used her thighs and rose up yet again.

Closed her eyes as she slid down.

Felt his hands caress, then claim, her breasts, felt his long fingers close about her nipples.

She rode and he paid homage. There was no other word for the way his hands moved over her body, reverent and sure.

Too soon, she was panting, flushed and heated, her hair a mane of living fire writhing about her shoulders, lashing her sensitized skin, sending sensation lancing through her, flashing down to where the exquisite friction built and built between her thighs.

Eyes open yet near blind, she rode on in increasing desperation, searching, wanting. The peak was so close, but not yet within her reach.

Beneath her, he shifted, then drove upward into her, timing his thrusts to her downward slides so she felt him higher than before, sparking a furnace deep inside.

One hard hand captured one of her breasts, gripped and framed the swollen flesh. She glanced down, through her lashes saw him prop himself on one elbow and bring his mouth to her breast.

He licked, laved, then he took the ruched aureola and nipple into the hot wetness of his mouth. The sensation of scalding heat closing about the excruciatingly tight peak had her gasping.

Then he suckled and she screamed.

He suckled harder and she shattered. Flew apart in a long agony of bliss that went on and on and on. His mouth feasting at her breast, his hips pumping beneath her, he drove her through it, through the raging fire, over the precipice, and into ecstasy’s waiting arms.

She was barely aware when he gripped her hips, held her down as he thrust high and hard one last time. He held rigid for a fractured instant. Then on a long-drawn groan, he collapsed back on the pillows.

Boneless, she sprawled atop him.

Logan lay there, his heart thundering, feeling her heart beating against his chest. Waited for both to slow.

Eventually, he raised a hand, brushed back the rich fall of her hair enough to tilt his head and look down at her face. “I meant what I said. You can’t seriously imagine I won’t be back for you.”

She stirred, but didn’t seem able—didn’t seem to have the strength—to lift her head to look at him. “No matter what you say, once you get back to your normal life . . .” Weakly, she waved. “You’ll fit in there, and you’ll realize that’s where you belong.” She paused, then went on, “What can I offer you that you won’t have—and have in greater abundance—there?”

He knew the answers—the many answers. A ready-made family, the home of his dreams. A place he belonged. Her. Those many answers burned his tongue, yet he didn’t give them voice. Other than she herself, he couldn’t make a strong case for any of those things meaning as much as they did to him without revealing his birth—his bastard state.

And that he wasn’t yet ready to mention. He would, would have to, but not yet—not until he had set the stage.

Telling the lady you wanted to marry that you’d been born a bastard, albeit a well-born bastard, was something that needed to be handled with care.

Linnet wasn’t surprised by his silence—what answer could he give? She wasn’t the sort to undervalue herself, but in this she was simply stating fact and clinging to reality by her fingernails.

In order to protect her silly, foolish heart.

She couldn’t afford to believe his almost-promises.

Because her silly, foolish heart had already commited that most wayward of acts and fallen in love with him.

But he didn’t love her; he might desire her physically, but she wasn’t wife material, as he would realize once he returned to England. And he would soon be on his way, and that would be the end of this. Of them.

He shifted, reaching for the covers, dragging the sheets and quilts over them, then settling her more comfortably on him. She sensed an instant of hesitation, then he murmured, “No matter what I say, you’re not going to believe I’ll come back, are you?”

“No.” Spreading one hand over the spot beneath which his heart beat strongly, she pillowed her cheek on the thick muscle of his chest. “I’m a realist.”

He sighed. “You’re a bone-stubborn witch, and I’m going to take great delight in proving you wrong.”

December 15, 1822

Mon Coeur, Torteval, Guernsey

“I
. Am. Driving.” Linnet glared at Logan, then, the disputed reins in her hand, stepped back and waved him to the wagon’s seat. “You can sit beside me.”

Logan glared back, but as Edgar and John were coming up the path from the cottage beyond the stable to join them in the yard, he reluctantly climbed onto the wagon’s step, hoisted his bag—the one Muriel had given him to carry his few possessions—into the wagon’s tray behind the seat, then turned and held out his hand for the bag Linnet held.

As if suddenly remembering she had it, she huffed and handed it over. Stowing it beside his, he noted the strange sound as the bag connected with the wagon’s bottom. He wondered what had caused it—what she was carrying that sounded like a scabbarded sword.

Edgar and John came up as he swung around and settled on the seat. They grinned at him, tossed bags similar to Linnet’s into the tray, and climbed up to sit in the bed of the wagon, facing rearward, legs dangling over the tray’s edge.

Logan turned to watch Linnet take her leave of Vincent and Bright. They’d already farewelled Muriel, Buttons, and the children in the house. When he’d come downstairs that morning, Linnet had, in a low-voiced aside, asked him not to mention returning to Mon Coeur to anyone else. Given he knew he’d be waltzing with death in the next days, he’d reluctantly complied.

So the rest of the household thought he was leaving for good, but they’d all, each and every one, pressed him to return.

He’d told them the truth, that he would try.

They’d believed him, at least.

So they wouldn’t be surprised when he turned up again—not like the witch who climbed up to the seat, sat beside him, and flicked the reins.

The four donkeys between the shafts pricked up their ears, then started to trot.

He’d never been in a donkey-drawn vehicle before. Sitting back, he folded his arms and took in the scenery as they rattled along.

They joined the main road that Linnet had told him ran along the island’s south coast, eventually turning north to St. Peter Port. The journey, apparently, would take three hours or more.

A mile or so later, she murmured, “We’re just crossing out of the estate.”

Considering that, he felt a curious tug—both back and ahead at the same time. Now he’d left Mon Coeur, he was impatient to get on and finish his mission so he could return. The compulsion was real, a palpable force inside him.

He glanced at Linnet as she sat alongside, her thick wool cloak wrapped about a dark red gown, kid gloves covering the hands that held the reins, competent and confident as she lightly wielded a whip and kept her donkeys trotting along. He was tempted to ask what she was carrying in her bag, but after that scene in the stable yard, she’d probably bite off his nose before telling him he had no right to pry.

An assertion he might well respond to, yet she did have the reins in her hands. Along with a whip.

Edgar and John wouldn’t appreciate ending in a ditch. The donkeys probably wouldn’t, either.

Aside from all else, he had to mind his tongue because he needed her help to get to Plymouth. That was the principal reason he’d quashed the impulse to filch the reins from her back in the stable yard. He needed her to introduce him to this captain who would, she insisted, be willing to take him to Plymouth, apparently just on her say-so.

He didn’t know that much about oceangoing vessels, yet it seemed odd that such a ship would simply be standing by, her captain amenable to what would almost certainly be a rough Channel crossing for no other reason than to oblige a friend.

But he had to get to Plymouth as soon as possible.

Shifting, he looked at Linnet. “If the captain you mentioned can’t put out immediately, what are the chances of finding another ship?”

She glanced at him, then her lips curved. “Stop worrying. The
Esperance
will take you—I can guarantee that. But it won’t be tonight.”

Before he could say anything, she tipped her head back and called to the two in the rear, “Edgar, John—I’m thinking the tides will be right for the
Esperance
to leave harbor tomorrow morning. About eight o’clock?”

“Aye,” John called back. “Eight o’clock’d be about right.”

Linnet glanced at Logan again. “Even if a ship beat out of harbor under oars, the coast is such that she would have to remain under oars, driving against both wind and tide, until she rounded the north tip of the island, and that’s simply too far. So you won’t be able to get out of the harbor, not on any vessel, until tomorrow morning.”

Logan pulled a face. He couldn’t argue with wind and tide.

He did, however, wonder what it was that Linnet was so carefully not telling him.

T
hey reached St. Peter Port a little after noon. The town faced east, overlooking a roughly horseshoe-shaped bay delimited by slender, rocky headlands. A castle and associated buildings lined the right shore, with gun emplacements guarding the narrow channel linking the bay to the sea.

“Castle Cornet,” Linnet informed him. “It’s still garrisoned.”

Logan nodded. Looking down the precipitous, narrow cobbled streets leading to the wharves built below the town, he understood why there was such great demand for donkeys in St. Peter Port.

Yet instead of driving her four beasts and the wagon further down, Linnet turned into the yard of an inn on the high ground above the town proper.

Sticking his head out to see who had arrived, the innkeeper immediately beamed and came to welcome her.

Logan watched while Linnet exchanged greetings, then turned to include Edgar and John, who had hopped down from the wagon’s tail. Unsure what was planned, Logan listened. When Linnet made arrangements to stable the wagon and donkeys for a few days, he climbed down and hefted both his bag and hers from the tray. He stepped back as three ostlers, summoned by the innkeeper’s bellow, came rushing to take the wagon; once it was pulled from between them, he walked across to join Linnet and the innkeeper just as Edgar and John touched their caps to Linnet and, bags swinging, headed down into the town. Inwardly frowning, Logan watched them go.

Linnet glanced at him, then turned back to the innkeeper. “This is Logan.”

He inclined his head to the innkeeper, pleased she’d remembered his insistence that they say as little about him as possible to others, the better to ensure no Black Cobra minions learned he’d been staying at Mon Coeur.

“I was thinking,” Linnet continued, “that Logan and I would let you feed us luncheon before we get on with our business below.”

“Aye—come you in.” Beaming, the innkeeper waved them to the inn. “The missus’ll be delighted to see you. She’s got pies just out of the oven.”

Linnet smiled and fell into step beside Henri, very conscious of Logan at her back. She always left her donkeys and wagon with Henri and his wife, Martha, until she needed the wagon to fetch goods from below.

“So is the
Esperance
putting out again?” Henri glanced at her. “The weather’s turned, and there’s storms to the north.”

Linnet smiled easily. It wasn’t surprising that Henri would be curious about what might take the
Esperance
out in this season. “I expect she’ll be going out for a short run—some unexpected business to attend to over there.”

Reaching the door to the inn, she passed through. Not needing to look at Logan to know he wouldn’t want to invite further questions, she paused and told Henri, “We’ll wait in the parlor for our lunch.”

“Yes, of course. There’s a good fire in there. I’ll send Martha in.”

Collecting Logan with her eyes, Linnet led the way into the neat—and at this time of day, deserted—little parlor.

Logan followed. He had curious questions of his own, but Linnet gave him no more than she’d given the innkeeper. Apparently she had business to attend to in town. What with the innkeeper’s wife popping in and out, and the serving girls, and Linnet’s chatter about the town, and the remarkably delicious pie, the meal was over and he was following her from the inn before he’d learned anything to the point.

Carrying their bags, one in each hand, he followed her down the steep streets, noting the many donkeys and the busy industry of the people all around. They descended past houses built cheek by jowl, propping each other up; all looked well-cared for, neatly painted, the stoops scoured and swept. Further down, they came to shops and businesses of all types. As St. Peter Port was the center for all commerce on the island, it hosted banks and merchants of every conceivable sort.