My Seduction (17 page)

She cried out, and he cursed, stopping. “I swear I could not—”

“No!” she panted. “No. It is just that …You feel …so…”

“I cannot be…” he said helplessly, misunderstanding. “This is my body. It… I cannot be less.”

“I would not want you to be,” she breathed, and at his startled look she half laughed, half sobbed, need rippling through her. He’d begun to withdraw, but now he stopped. She moaned softly.

He was a big man in all ways. She wanted that. She lusted for it. She lifted her hips and clung to his shoulders and squeezed her eyes shut and bucked to meet his next thrust. Another. And another. He plunged deeper now, the cadence taking hold of him, but he never lost his awareness of her.

He knew with each thrust the body receiving him was Kate’s, the mouth he plundered was Kate’s. He felt the impression of each finger clasping his shoulders, heard each little shivering gasp. He cupped her soft buttocks and rolled over so that she sat straddling him, her knees bent either side of his hips. Her eyes widened, startled by the feeling of him still deep within her.

“This is better,” he managed. “I’m too heavy and— Ah!”

She’d lowered herself more fully upon him. Her back arched and her hair fell down her back and trailed across his thighs, silky and fine as kitten fur. He would surely die of pleasure. He cupped her soft, pale breasts, kneading them as she rose and settled, riding him with increasing neediness. Her face grew tense with yearning.

“Use me, Kate,” he whispered in a hot, wicked voice. “Use me. I would pleasure you, Kate, I would service you and have you pleasure yourself with me, on me.”

The words were a litany of passion and desire, a carnal recitation of want and need, and she heard and heeded, her body tightening, the aching narrowing to a shuddering throb, a point of ever-concentrated passion. She sobbed and he stroked her, she bucked and gasped and… and then… The world trembled, spiraled, and exploded outward. Pleasure suffused her, liquid and molten, and she cried out with the exquisite culmination.

For a long moment she was suspended there, the world both vortex and vacuum. And when she had finished, she collapsed against Kit’s sweat-sheened chest.

But after the last tremors subsided, she heard the thick pounding of his heart, a rhythm at such variance with the tender caress of his hand that she rose once more to her knees. Her hands splayed across his chest, and she dug her nails lightly into his flesh. She looked into his heated gaze.

“I didn’t beg,” she challenged him.

He laughed, rolled her beneath him, and captured her hands, holding them above her head as he drove deep and smoothly into her.

“Not yet,” he agreed.

SEVENTEEN

DEALING WITH ERRORS IN JUDGMENT

“MRS. BLACKBURN!” MEG CALLED through the chamber door.

“What is it, Meg?” Kate came awake knowing she was alone.

“There’s a carriage from the castle standing in the yard come to fetch you.”

Kate looked around the room. Kit was gone. Her dresses were gone, too. Only debris littered the floor. The trunk still lay on its side.

Meg tapped on the door. “What should I tell the driver?”

She stood up. She should be assuring Meg of her imminent departure, bounding from the bed to pack what she could salvage of Grace’s belongings. But she stayed, wrapping the thin blanket around her, woefully aware that she felt no pleasure in the fact that the marquis had sent his carriage for her.

She was a fool.

“This night is mine,” Kit had whispered at one point. They’d both known no future awaited them beyond this chamber’s door. He’d left before she’d awakened, and she should be grateful, she told herself.

In the heated darkness she might pretend, but morning brought familiar desperation: she wanted those things she’d once had—security and safety. She wanted to breathe freely, laugh heedlessly, and close her eyes without the next day looming like an enemy. She wanted the life she’d once had back.

Even if he’d asked her to stay with him—which he hadn’t—and even if she would have been tempted to say yes—which she wouldn’t—what prospects did they have, a penniless soldier and an impoverished widow? Within a year or two, she would be exactly where she stood now, at the threshold of regret, yearning for the past and fearful of the future.

She might be a coward, but she was a sensible coward.

“Ma’am?” Meg called again. “Are you feeling quite yourself?”

How was she to feel herself when she was no longer clear on whom that was? Abruptly, she dropped the blanket. Enough. Nothing had changed. She would put last night from her, stow it away like a maid’s tender dreams. Forget it.

If only her body didn’t remember what she was trying so hard to forget.

If only Kit MacNeill seemed more like what he was and less like what she wanted him to be.

“I heard someone come in and wrecked yer things, but I swear I had no to do wid it.” Meg called plaintively, alarmed by her continued silence. “Ma’am!”

“Yes! I’ll be there at once.” Viciously, Kate pinched her cheeks and bit down on her lips. The marquis had sent his carriage. It was an auspicious beginning, one she had to avail herself of. But garbed in what manner? She spied something white wedged between the bed and wall. Her chemise. She snatched it up. It was Kit’s shirt.

Her eyes squeezed painfully shut. Her hands fisted in the thin material, his imagined warmth seeping into her palms, the masculine musk subtle and evocative.

“Please, ma’am. Yer frightenin’ me. Open the door,” Meg implored. “I have the dresses tha cap give me to fix,” she called hopefully.

Forcing herself to the door, Kate pulled it open. Meg waited without, Kate’s gowns draped over her arm. On her other arm swung a small sewing basket, the cushioned top sprouting pins and needles threaded with silk.

Meg’s mouth gaped when she saw the room. “Ach! Look what they done to yer things.”

“They aren’t mine. They belonged to my cousin Grace and her husband,” Kate answered tonelessly. “She sent them to me before she died. I was returning them to the marquis.”

“Must have been someone lookin’ fer money, and when they dinna find any they took it out on these things. Filthy buggers,” Meg said, setting the dresses on the bed.

Meg righted the trunk and pulled the ripped lining back into place before pinning it there. “A few stitches, and this will be right as rain.” She didn’t wait for Kate’s approval but sank to her knees by the trunk and, with a few neat movements, tacked the lining back into place.

Kate moved among the litter, listlessly collecting a few of the books and stacking them on the bottom of the trunk.So much ruined. So much lost .

“There now, ma’am, you needn’t look so glum,” Meg said, standing up. “Here. Look what I managed, and ye’ll feel a sight better.” She shook out the blue gown and held it up for Kate’s inspection. “There was a nasty bit near the hem, but I used the ribbons to cover it up, see?

“And I cut the stained panel out of the purple one and stitched it back up again. Won’t make no difference, seein’ how slender you are, ma’am.”

Kate accepted the proffered dresses and managed a smile. “I don’t have any money,” she said. “But I am sure that the marquis—”

Meg flapped a hand dismissively. “The captain already give me payment enough,” she said. “I never seen Callum Lamont bested and yer man done that and then some.”

“What?” Kate asked. “When?”

“Last night,” Meg said. “Just after ye’d gone up from yer bath. I come in here to find Callum danglin’ like a rag doll from tha cap’s fist, eyes bugged out and tongue lolling and every other man in the room lookin’ like the devil hisself had appeared.” She gave a short bark of laughter.

“Then all of a sudden he drops Callum and is up the stairs before anyone knew what he was aboot. Not that anyone was like to follow him. Not lookin’ like he did.”

“My God,” she whispered. “Is the man dead?”

Meg shrugged with brutal indifference. “Nah. Heard him moanin’ while his lads dragged him oot. Bound to be hurtin’ today though,” she added with obvious relish.

“All I am is ferocity.”Kate’s limbs began to tremble. She hadn’t believed him. She should have.

How could she have forgotten, especially after witnessing his savagery at the White Rose? The man whose hands had shivered with liquid delicacy over her flesh had only moments before used those same hands to beat a man senseless. God. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes.

She needed to get away from here. Find a sanctuary where men were civilized, and women were protected from the world’s ugliness, where a man did not come to his lover fresh from the fight.

“I have to go,” she whispered urgently.

Meg, misunderstanding, nodded. “ ’Course you do. Who’d want to stay here when a castle is waiting?”

Kate began repacking what hadn’t been destroyed, focusing intently on the task, refusing to give her thoughts free rein. But her gaze kept straying to the rumpled bed and images of his body, sleek with perspiration, rippling with well-toned muscle— She slammed the lid shut on the trunk. She had to get out of the room. She wheeled about and fled, leaving the rest for Meg.

Below stairs, a coppery-headed young man in smart, clean livery jumped to his feet. “Mrs. Blackburn? I be John, the marquis’s driver,” he announced proudly, hurrying ahead of her as she raced toward the door.

She paused in her headlong flight, looking about distracted and uncertain. “I must settle with the innkeeper first.”

“The marquis had me make all necessary arrangements, ma’am,” John said. “If you’d wait in the carriage, I’ll see your things are brought down.”

“Oh. Of course.”

He opened the door for her, bobbing his head respectfully as she exited. Outside an open barouche stood, its sides gleaming like black oil, gold braid holding back the half-collapsed hood. The stable boy stood by the heads of two magnificent matched bays, his face reflecting his awe. When he saw her, he flung open the carriage door and hastily extracted a set of steps from within.

Kate climbed in, forcing her attention on the luxurious appointments. She had never been in so fine a carriage before, not even in York. The marquis was clearly very wealthy. The coach was extremely well maintained, and the horses perfectly groomed. Her visit was bound to be fruitful. She had made some disastrous decisions in the last few days, but coming here was not one of them.

She took a deep breath. Kit was gone. That was the end of it. There. She took three deep breaths. There. She felt much more herself now. She was going to be fine. She was—

“Mrs. Blackburn.”

His smoky voice called from behind her. Her heart jumped into her throat, and for half a moment she remained where she sat, trying to compose herself. She turned.

He was so masculine. So big and tough-looking. So overtly, overpoweringly male.

He sat astride his gelding, the wind whipping the collar of his coat against his lean, bronze cheek. He went bareheaded, as though purposely defying the sun to reveal every scar on his well-weathered face. But he’d shaved, she noted. His jaw would be smooth.

To refer to him as “Mr. MacNeill” seemed disingenuous, “Kit” far too intimate. “Christian. I…”

This was impossible. Her skin tingled with sensual memories. The texture of his lips was imprinted on her own. Her breasts carried red abrasions made by his beard, and… Her gaze fell to his beautiful, lethal hands. Deep red gouges marked his wrists where his victim had clawed him. She swallowed.

He regarded her with the old, inscrutable expression. She couldn’t do this. She was not a woman who took lovers and then met them the next day as if nothing had passed between them. And yet what choice did she have, with the boy standing there, his ears pricked and his expression interested? “Thank you for accompanying me here.”

“Next you will be offering me references.” He sounded mild enough, but heat flared in his eyes, and she felt an answering flush.

For a moment she thought he would say something else, something disastrously intimate, but he only said, “I’m afraid you’re not shy of me yet. I promised to see you safely to the castle, and that’s where I will leave you.”

Please. No. Being with him was like opening a wound. “That isn’t necessary.”

“I disagree. You’ve seen the sort who lives here. The roads are filled with the same, and none with the benefit of knowing you’ve already been robbed. This carriage is too fine. The marquis might as well have sent out an invitation to every highwayman in the district.”

She flushed more deeply. “I believe he had my comfort in mind.”

“And I have your safety in mine,” he clipped out.

“And you always keep your word,” she answered heatedly, immediately regretting it.

“You would know, ma’am.” His voice dropped low, and she flushed, her gaze dropping as she recalled how last night she had used his fealty to his word to gain his bed. His teeth clenched. “That’s not—”

Before he could say more, John emerged from the inn, smiling delightedly. Kate drew back. Kit pulled Doran from the side of the carriage.

“I’ll be comin’ the distance with you, lad,” Kit told the young coachman, winning a surprised look of gratitude. “But I’ll be riding ahead a bit to mind the road.” He touched his heels to Doran’s flanks and sprang ahead up the steep track leading out of the fishing village.

He did not return.

The drive was long and necessarily slow. Toppled mountains fell into the sea, mile after mile of rents and inlets tearing into coastline. Breakers pounded against hidden pockets and subterranean caves, spewing geysers high into the air and veiling the feet of the cliffs in shimmering mist. Kate caught her breath as she looked down over the edge of the road where the sea wall plummeted into the foaming surf.

’Twas small surprise Charles and Grace had died yachting in such a place. The only wonder was that they had trusted themselves to venture out at all.

But too soon even the coast’s drama could not keep the previous night’s memories at bay. Images crowded her thoughts, and her other senses were quick to ignite them: Kit’s mouth on hers, Kit’s arms around her, Kit whispering in her ear, urgent and passionate.

Finally, in desperation, she leaned forward. “Have you worked for the marquis long?”

John nodded easily. “Born at the castle, I was. My da was head coachman before me.”

“Ah. Then you knew my cousin, Mrs. Murdoch?”

John’s smiled faded. “Aye.” He shook his head mournfully. “Terrible business, that. But don’t you fear, ma’am. The marquis is set on finding those responsible and seeing justice is done.”

Kate stared at him in bemusement.

“They’ll not go unpunished,” he avowed staunchly. “And why would they ever think they would? Killing the master’s own brother and his lady. Mad, they must be.”

“Killing them?” Kate echoed in confusion. “But… they died in a yachting accident.”

John’s ears grew bright red. “Oh! I thought ye knew!”

“Knew what? What happened?” Kate asked. “The marquis wrote to us that Grace had drowned in a boating accident. Isn’t that true?”

John stared miserably ahead, his shoulders hunched. “That’s what we all thought at first. But…”

“Tell me, please.”

He rubbed a hand through his coppery hair. “There weren’t any water in Mr. Charles’s lungs, though they pulled him from the sea, and so the marquis knew he hadn’t drowned. And once that idea was planted, well, there were marks we thought come from bein’ tossed against the rocks, but afterward it seemed like— I’m sorry! Oh, ma’am! Should I pull over?”

“No. I will be fine.” She steadied herself with a hand on her stomach. “Why wasn’t my family informed of this?”

“I could not say, ma’am,” John said glumly. “And I reckon I said enough already.”

“Who killed them?”

John’s shoulders lifted. “Highwaymen. Smugglers. Everything possible is being done to find out, that you can be sure of, Mrs. Blackburn. Smugglers been in Clyth long as I can remember, but they crossed the line this time, and I ’spect they know it and that’s why they went to such pains to make it look like an accident.”

“But why kill my cousin and her husband at all?” Kate asked. “Why not just rob them and leave them be?”

“Mr. Charles weren’t one to take being robbed lightly. And if he saw the men’s faces…” He trailed off. “But nothing will save them now, the blackguards, because when the marquis realized murder had been done, he sent to Edinburgh and straight off the militia come to put things right. And now they have their own reason to catch the culprits.

“Fact is, Mrs. Blackburn,” John said confidingly, “their captain was killed soon after they arrived, and some say that the smugglers are responsible for that, too.” He nodded. “Don’t worry. His replacement arrived last week, and a finer, fitter officer and gentleman you never hoped to see. Now there’ll be justice for Charles Murdoch and your cousin, ma’am!” he finished triumphantly. “You just wait and see.”