In the Arms of a Marquess (28 page)

“What is it?” he said quietly. “Do you wish to tell me the news that brought you here tonight?”

“You brought me here tonight.” Her eyes were too wide. Wary. It stilled his heart.

“The other reason you came,” he made himself say.

“I suppose I must. I don’t wish to think about it, but until I tell you I will not be able to let it be.” She glanced toward their clothing strewn upon the floor. “It is quite unpleasant. Perhaps we should be dressed for this conversation.”

“Under no circumstances.”

Hesitation entered her eyes. “Ben, I do not—”

“Octavia, you are not going anywhere any time soon.”

“But—”

“You came here of your own volition. Pay the consequences of your folly.” He could not help smiling.

Her lips twitched. But then she frowned. “This is very important. It is also very grim.”

“I have been responsible for dealing with important and grim matters every day for the past seven years, and longer. That you are involved this time is my sole concern.”

Her warm eyes questioned, pools of liquid hope.

“Tell me about your business,” she whispered. “About what you do.”

“My business is . . .” He drew a breath. “ . . . broad.”

She nodded, rapid little movements of her head, her cheeks flushed. A sensation filled Ben like a fist opening up, releasing years of regret and resentment.

“I pursue and halt those who seek to do harm to others.”

“Halt them from doing harm in what manner exactly?”

“Enslaving people. Waging unjust war. Bankrolling tyranny.”

“Good heavens.” She released a breath, a soft swish of air. “Quite a bit broader than I had imagined.” She seemed to consider it for a moment. “Tea and woolens serve as a cover for all of that?”

“Something must. Not everyone considers the activities of my organization in a positive light.”

“I daresay. Where does all of this take place?”

“Wherever it is needed.”

She said nothing in response. They sat for a moment like that, the flame-lit night holding them in its generous embrace. Finally she drew in a long breath.

“Marcus is being blackmailed by the Mr. Sheeble he spoke of before, to aid him in shipping poor girls to India to be wives for English soldiers and Company clerks. Apparently this supply of English girls is to prevent them from taking Indian brides.”

It was the missing piece of the puzzle. Better than Ben had assumed for the girls who survived the voyage, but not by any means legal. And so many had died.

“Is that all?” he asked.

“Well, I dare say that is quite a bit of ‘all’ already. Although perhaps not to you, I suppose. But, no. There is a girl involved. Her safety is Marcus’s greatest anxiety. It seems that something untoward is occurring, and he is unhappy about it. He is assisting with this next journey only in order to protect this particular girl from danger.”

“They are being taken under false pretenses and are perishing on the voyage east.”

“Dear Lord.” Then her gaze sharpened. “You know about it already?”

“Some, but this completes the picture. How much did he tell you about the girl?”

Tavy held Ben’s steady, warm, perfectly beautiful gaze that she could live inside forever.

“He did not tell me. I met her.”

His regard did not alter, but a muscle ticked in his jaw. Her fingers itched to smooth it away, to uncurl his fists. She did not care about the girl or Marcus’s faithlessness. Tavy understood better than she should why Marcus had treated her shabbily. She had lied to him as much as he had lied to her, both of them trying to escape what their hearts wanted most by using the other as a shield.

“It is all right,” she assured. “Not about all those girls, of course. But about the one girl and Marcus.”

The furrows between Ben’s brows deepened.

“Truly.” She dipped her gaze to his hands, which held the fates of so many people, and worked her fingertips along his palms until he released his grip. Strong hands, and beautiful. She loved the way he touched her, the way he looked at her. “I have been considering it all day, you know, and I think he imagined I could guide him away from his infatuation for this girl. Not that he would transfer his feelings for her to me, but that I would be a steadying influence on him. He actually said something like that once or twice. That I was steady.”

Silence met her. Tavy looked up and her heart pirouetted. A half smile crooked Ben’s mouth.

“What?” she breathed.

“He does not know you very well, does he?”

Throat dry, she shook her head.

“Not well at all,” he murmured.

“You do?”

His grin slipped away.

“What if I have changed?” Her voice quavered like a silly girl. “What if I have decided that adventure is not exciting after all? You see, I think after this escapade, I am weary of it.”

“Then,” he said without a hint of levity, “you must forthwith live a quiet and staid existence. Perhaps take up stitchery or some such thing.”

“Stitchery.”

“Yes. Or is that what old spinster women do?”

Her heart thudded. “Spinster women?”

“No,” he replied without a moment’s lapse. “Stitchery would not do for you. Absolutely not.” His voice was husky.

Tavy laughed and his eyes sparkled. A thrill of happiness scurried through her. Ben pulled her to him, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her on the mouth, then on the brow and neck and everywhere in between. She slipped her hands along his sides to his waist, her heart expanding. Being with him felt so right. And yet it had felt this way before, in the country, when she was foolish enough to believe that making love with him meant something else. Something more.

She had felt it long before that too. Seven years ago.

But this time she knew better. This time she would not be so foolish.

“I should leave now.”

“No.” He spoke against her neck, his mouth delicious and hot upon her skin, making her tingly all over. “You will not.”

“You are accustomed to people doing what you wish, I suspect. But would you hold me here against my will?”

He drew back, his eyes serious. “The temptation would be great. Do you wish to leave?”

She placed her hand on his chest. He covered it, flattening her palm to his firm muscle. His heart beat steady and fast, and hers tripped in reply.

She shook her head.

He drew her down into his arms. She curled against his body, the male beauty she still could not quite believe she could touch after all the years struggling not to dream of him. Her palm smoothed along his chest.

“I wanted for so long to put the past behind me, that time when I imagined the world was made for adventure,” she whispered. “I have been trying to forget it for years. But, it’s strange. Sometimes those memories feel a great deal more like reality than now.”

“They are so vivid to you?”

“I daresay you have had such an exciting life since then you barely have any memory of that time at all. Except of course for the indecency of my shift.” She smiled uncertainly against his shoulder.

He cupped her hand in his palm and ran the pad of his thumb along each of her fingers.

“To shade the sun, you carried a yellow parasol with white lace.” He spoke softly just above her brow. “You wore your hair a great deal shorter, the ribbon of your bonnet tied to the side as though it constricted your throat to wear it otherwise. You spoke to merchants in the bazaar like you had known them your entire life, and they the same to you, despite your wretched Hindi. You laughed without inhibition. And you chewed on your nails.”

Tavy struggled to draw breath. “I used to do quite a few things I no longer do.”

“You still chew on your lip at times.”

“A gentleman would not mention that.”

“It makes this gentleman want to kiss you.”

She lifted her head and met his gaze flecked with firelight. The intensity of the black depths was not at all in company with his teasing tone.

“Shalabha,”
he only said.

“Why did you call me that?” she whispered.

He turned onto his side, hand slipping to her hip.

“Because, grasshopper, you were all legs.”

“No.”

“Yes.” His fingertips traced a path up the inside of her calf and thigh, halting just shy of her tender crux, his palm warm. Tavy’s breathing stuttered. He had just made love to her, yet his slight caress ignited her desire again, this time languorous but still so strong.

“And here I thought it was because I fluttered about your flame.” She tried to sound amused, but her heart beat so hard he must feel it. “
Shalabha
, a moth, a plain insect unnoticed by everyone.”

“A beautiful girl,” he murmured, stroking. “Beautiful legs.”

“All legs. And elbows, and—”

He moved atop her, pressing her knees apart. “Legs that my hands ached to explore.” He reached beneath her knee and his fingertips dallied upon her skin, the barest touch licking across her like sunshine. “Legs I imagined myself between.” He drew her thigh alongside his hip, his smooth, hard arousal coming against her. “Legs I wanted wrapped around me.”

“You did?” she breathed. “Back
then
?”

“Yes. Cross your ankles.”

She did so, sighing a long breath of mingled pleasure then mounting anticipation. Ben kissed her throat and she dropped her head back, already feeling him inside her even as she anticipated it.

But these were lover’s words. She had been an awkward girl, the girl she often still felt like.

“I think I don’t believe you,” she said very quietly, so perhaps he would not hear it.

“I find that difficult to comprehend.” He shifted his hips, caressing intimately. A sound of want stole from her throat, and she twined her fingers in his satiny hair.

“I mean about then. I was not— I was different.”

The tip of his tongue traced her ear. “Before you desert the past, Octavia, know the truth of it,” he whispered against her skin. “I imagined this. Having you. You wanting me.”

She trembled, gripping his arms, and where he stroked her soft flesh she throbbed. She tilted her hips up to meet him more fully and he came into her in a fluid, possessing thrust. Her back arched, her body pleasured as he filled her so completely, stretching her and making her want everything. His palm circled her jaw and he bent his head and kissed her like he was drinking from her lips. She sighed, the past and present tangling together in her heart and body, doubts and certainty twisted so that one looked like the other.

“You might have had anyone you wanted,” she said upon a sigh.

“I wanted you.”

“I was no one.”

“You were beautiful. Your smile, your laughter, the words upon your tongue.” He made a sound deep in his chest as he stroked into her, his thrusts controlled, seducing, making her need him more with each slow invasion.

“Ben.”

“Your eyes and glance,” he murmured above her lips. “Your touch.”

“I never touched you. Not until—”

“You often did. You did not know that you did.” He kissed her, capturing her breaths as he moved in her, caressing her to a madness of helplessness, his body a masterpiece of giving that made her only want to give more until she was empty. He wrapped his hand around her hip and held her firmly to him, his voice deep and rough. “You were not afraid.”

Never. Enthralled, as he had accused her weeks ago. Intoxicated. Beyond infatuated. But not afraid.

She turned her cheek to the pillow, dragging her gaze away, reveling in his thrusts, pulling him in as the sweet ache built alongside the pain of wanting him more than she could endure.

“Perhaps I should have been,” she whispered, surrendering to him fully, finally, a sob of mingled relief and agony catching in her throat for the heart she was losing after so many years of holding onto it like life. But there was no life without him. She had known it then and nothing could change it. Not now. The moment she had met him—a naïve, wide-eyed girl seeking adventure—it was too late.

He touched her face and turned her to him.

“No,” he said roughly. “You should have been mine.”

Tears stole along her cheeks as their bodies sought, dancing with the beauty of skin and sighs. He touched her deep, and everywhere, making her his again and again with each caress, each breath drawn as one. And when the violence of her need grew too great, he touched her anew, deeper yet, and she came apart, crying out in blind, wordless ecstasy, then again when he found his pleasure in her.

He brushed the moisture from her cheeks as he had that night in the garden in Madras, and again at Fellsbourne. But he did not ask why she wept now because he must already know—although she did not really, whether she wept from joy or sorrow. She had given her heart once, had it destroyed, and held hard onto the remaining pieces for years since. This second giving away was anguish.