One Night of Passion (16 page)

Georgie had sensed his hesitation when he’d come to her virginal barrier. Thankfully, Mrs. Taft had told her to expect some measure of discomfort when it was breached and it had hurt, but only for a moment.

Now . . . it was pure bliss.

Even though that had been her only goal of this night—to find herself breached and ruined—now she wanted so much more. She wanted him to find the same release she’d had under his skillful touch. She wanted him to remember this night, and never to forget her.

Somehow she knew he wouldn’t—for this hasty, wild passion between them had bound them inexplicably together, entwined their hearts.

Now as he moved inside her, he carried her back to that same place he’d taken her before, and this time she didn’t hesitate to follow, knowing the heavenly reward of that heady climb to the top.

The fire blazing between them carried them upward and onward, together.

She heard him groan and cry out, loud and triumphant, just as she had done earlier, and even as his ragged breathing whispered hot encouragement in her ear, she too joined him in that breathless freedom.

Colin rained kisses down on her soft lips, her damp forehead, on the tops of her shoulders. He hauled her closer to him, so that their bodies continued to be but one. He didn’t want to let go; he didn’t want this night to end.

Ever.

Suddenly her boisterous ways, her outspoken nature, her reckless manners were no longer such oddities—they were something he would always need. All his old ideas of womanhood fell to the wayside, for they had been what was expected—to find a respectable, biddable miss and marry her. Have a family and live his life finding passion somewhere other than in his own bed, in his own home.

Just as he’d never thought his career would find him outside his beloved navy, a world of order and regulations, of duty and unquestionable honor—now he found that he no longer wanted the kind of woman he’d thought so essential to his well-being.

As Georgie nestled against him, a sly smile tugging at her lips, her eyes closed and her features smugly content, he found himself wondering what she liked for breakfast, tea or chocolate? Why did she love the sea? Where had she come from? And a myriad of other questions that would take a lifetime to ask, answer, and explore.

For if there was anything he knew for sure now, it was that he wanted her. This impossible woman.

Wanted her for a lifetime.

The daunting , exhilarating notion left his mouth dry and his heart pounding.

Dear God, in just one night, he’d fallen in love.

He tugged her closer. What could he do? He had only two days before he must sail, and he didn’t know when he’d be back.

His mind raced with options, including taking her with him, but that was impossible, as much as he suspected she’d leap at the chance to sail away—sail anywhere. Yet his mission was too dangerous—and she was too distracting.

At this, he smiled. A delightful distraction she’d be, but where he was sailing, he couldn’t afford to be diverted.

While officially all his property and money had been seized by the court, he still held a small manor house in the Lake District that was free and clear.

He could send her there, along with an income to ensure that she didn’t want for anything.

But what if he didn’t return? Then what would happen to her? And what if there was a child?

There was only one choice. He’d have to marry her. It was the only thing he could do. Besides being the honorable thing to do, it was also the right thing to do.

But how? And on such short notice?

Then he remembered the special license in his jacket pocket. It hadn’t held the name of the bride, for it had been dashed off by the archbishop upon the request of Nelson. Somehow in Nelson’s correspondence Lady Diana’s name had been left out, so the archbishop had added a note that the bride’s name could be entered by the officiating clergy.

Colin grinned. He’d marry her. He’d haul her down to the local parish and marry her at first light. And if the vicar balked at the unusual request, he’d take a page from her book and bribe the proper and upright man.

Dammit, he’d do it right now, but he doubted the vicar would be all that amenable to being awakened at two in the morning.

No, there were more pleasant ways to pass the hours, on this his wedding night.

Georgie jolted awake as she did most mornings, her body drenched in sweat, her nostrils filled with the stench of smoke from the fires that always haunted her dreams.

No, please don’t shoot . . .
The desperate words died away before she had a chance to cry out.

It always took her a disoriented moment or so to awaken and this morning her confusion was only compounded by the fact that her surroundings were completely unfamiliar.

The panic she usually was able to shake off suddenly gripped her tighter as beside her, someone stirred.

She sat up in alarm. She wasn’t in her own bed. And she was far from the quiet and safe shelter of Mrs. Taft’s cottage, or even the noisy and pretentious halls of Uncle Phineas’s and Aunt Verena’s house.

She was . . . with
Colin.

Her cheeks grew hot, her body quaked with memories, ones still so fresh and new she had a hard time believing they belonged to her.

Then she remembered why she had come to this place.

Oh dear goodness. The examination! Lord Harris’s physician would be arriving at Uncle Phineas’s in a few-hours, and Georgie still needed to find her way home.

Panic nearly sent her catapulting out of the bed, but she held herself in check. If she wasn’t careful, she’d wake him, and that was the last thing she wanted to happen.

He might insist on seeing her home.

Might?

She smiled to herself. Her knight, her hero would insist. No, she had to leave, and quickly, before the servants stirred.

But before she fled, she paused for a moment and memorized every bit of him. The dark cast of his hair, the cleft in his chin, the line of his jaw now shadowed with a dark beard hiding the thin scar there.

They’d made love twice; no, she remembered, three times. And with each passing instance, she’d fallen more and more in love with him.

Reluctance to leave kept her nestled in the warmth of his body, in the refuge of his bed. How she wanted to reach out and touch him, but even that, she knew, was too much of a risk.

Ever so carefully, she slipped from the bed. The morning had yet to break over the horizon, so the room was still cast in shadows, the candle long ago gutted out. She felt around the floor and found her torn corset and shift.

Tiptoeing from the room, Georgie made a silent retreat to the adjoining study where the rest of her garments lay scattered. She groped around and found her remaining clothes, but not her shoe.

Wretched, accursed thing,
she thought.
Where the
devil could it be?

Back in the bedroom, she heard Colin tossing about, the sheets rustling as he rolled to and fro. She held her breath and waited until he stilled again and his breathing resumed its even cadence.

Taking one last look around, she realized her shoe was nowhere to be found—and considering she had already lost the other one, there seemed no point in continuing to search for its mate. Instead she discovered a pair of men’s slippers that had been set out near the fireplace, probably by some thoughtful member of the staff. When she stuffed the two halves of her corset into the toes, the added fabric made them fit her feet—somewhat—well enough so that she needn’t pad her way through the morning chill barefoot.

Casting one last look at Colin’s sleeping form, she restrained herself from rushing to his side and kissing his brow in farewell.

Instead she blew an airy kiss in his direction and left without another glance back, tears stealing down her cheeks.

Chapter 7

Naples, Italy

One year later

C
olin rowed silently ashore with only the vaguest bit of moonlight to guide his course. The lack of visibility didn’t bother him, for he’d made this trip twice before in the last twelve months, all with the same precautions to ensure that no one saw him.

As he pulled the small rowboat ashore beneath the British Ambassador’s palatial residence, he cursed under his breath.

Sir William Hamilton’s house glowed like a beacon, illuminated with hundreds of candles and brimming with guests, their laughter and voices spilling out of the villa’s open windows and graceful balconies.

Hardly the perfect time to make his secretive report, but Nelson’s message had said to come at once, so he had no choice but to attempt to slip into the villa unnoticed.

Before he continued, Colin took a glance back past the boats nestled in the harbor. He continued scanning the water, searching to see if he could spot his ship, the
Sybaris,
moored just beyond the mouth.

Even though he knew exactly where she lay at anchor, he couldn’t see her. He’d given orders to run without lights and to maintain strict silence, so as to avoid being detected, and it appeared his precautions were working.

By morning, he and the
Sybaris
would be well away from Naples and no one would know they’d been there.

He didn’t want anyone reporting back that his ship had been spotted so close to Nelson—they needed to maintain the illusion that Colin was still on the wrong side of His Majesty’s Navy.

He climbed up the hillside and into Sir William’s statue-laden garden. As he picked his way through the classically laid-out landscaping, he realized that since his last visit, the British Ambassador had added several more pieces to his prized collection of Roman antiquities.

Just as he was about to step out onto the pathway, the distinct bright laughter of a woman filled the garden, diverting his attention. Colin knew he was about to be discovered by Sir William’s other
pièce de
résistance,
Lady Hamilton.

“Come along, my dear,” she was saying brightly. “You must join my party now that my wretched Lord Nelson has decided to work all evening on his dispatches. I will be quite desolate without some good company.”

“I must beg off, my lady,” her companion demurred. “I have to be getting back to my lodgings.”

He couldn’t quite see the stranger with the ambassador’s wife, since she walked on the other side of Lady Hamilton, but her voice sent his heart pounding.

His earlier concerns forgotten, he leaned dangerously out into the path, searching for any clue that would reveal this mysterious woman’s identity—the color of her hair, the way she tipped her head, the way she moved.

He found himself peering through the half-light of the garden, trying to discern her face, straining to hear more of her voice.

It’s not her,
he chided himself.
It can’t be.

His Cyprian. His Georgie.

In the twelve months since that unforgettable, passionate night, he had dreamt of nothing but Georgie. She might have stolen out of his bed, but not out of his heart.

When he’d awoken and found her gone, he’d been devastated. Especially when he’d pulled back the sheets and discovered the truth of the matter.

The stain that had been her virginity.

She had been an innocent, and he’d ruined her. The only other evidence of her arrival in his life had been her forgotten shoe, which one of the servants had found later in the day discarded where it had been aimlessly tossed—up on one of the bookshelves.

He’d immediately enlisted Temple’s help and the two of them had scoured the city, using his cousin’s connections to find the little Cyprian, but to no avail. And in the end, Colin had sailed down the Thames without knowing what had become of her.

So as the two women breezed past him, their heads tipped together like chattering schoolgirls, he refrained from leaping out like a madman and yanking off the straw hat which hid the woman’s features.

Yet there was something so familiar about her.

“Georgie,” he whispered into the night.

The lady stopped and turned, glancing back in his direction.

“Is there something wrong?” Lady Hamilton asked.

“Nothing,” the other lady murmured, before she rejoined Lady Hamilton. “I just thought I heard someone.”

Lady Hamilton laughed. “I fear you’ve been spending too much time skulking about ruins if you are hearing voices in Sir William’s statue garden. We must keep you here in Naples until you’re fully recovered and used to the company of the living.”

The lady laughed and shook her head. “Your civilizing influence will have to wait, for we go north tomorrow to see a Roman temple that is reputed to be the finest in the area.”

“Old piles of stones!” Lady Hamilton complained, “I’ll never understand their appeal when the sights and charms of Naples are ever so much more delightful.”

Both women laughed and then said their good-byes. Lady Hamilton continued gaily into the house, while her friend paused for a moment looking over the garden before taking a side path around the house toward the street.

Colin remained in his hiding spot until the garden once again was still.

He shook his head. He was certainly going insane when he started seeing Georgie in the bored wives of English antiquity hunters.

“You’re a bird-witted fool, Colin Danvers,” he told himself softly. Stealing through the remaining garden, he climbed the trellis that ran to the balcony of the room set aside for Nelson’s use as a study in the Hamiltons’ palatial Neapolitan home.

Once Colin had made his secretive arrival into Nelson’s rooms, a solitary figure stepped from the shadows of the villa. Glancing once at the balcony, the silhouette froze momentarily, before reentering Sir William’s house and rejoining the party that would most likely continue until dawn.

Later that evening, long after the candles in Lord Nelson’s study had burned low from the passing hours, there was a knock at his door.

“My lord,” called out Lady Hamilton from beyond the locked door. “The gaming is about to begin. Will you join us?”