Provocative in Pearls (12 page)

“Could be he wants to sail north too,” his son said. “Would be good to take him if he does.”

The father chewed that over. The son ceased working the sail. Verity was horrified.

“If he is indeed the earl, which I think very unlikely, he would have his own yacht,” she said. “He would not need to hire this boat to go north.”

“True. True,” the father said, scratching his chin. He looked to the shore, where Hawkeswell stood in a pose of noble power, arms crossed and legs parted. “Looks like a fine gentleman, though. He could be an earl. Never saw one before myself.”

“I have,” Verity said. “They look much finer than that man does.”

“He be yellin’ again,” the son said. “I’m gonna take us in a bit closer to hear.”

“No!” Verity cried.

“Won’t take but a minute or two. If he is an earl, it won’t do to just sail away, now, will it? M’wife will burn my ears if I turned down the chance of a lord’s hire of the boat.”

The boat began a broad, circular turn while the son moved the sail. Verity sickened when she saw that it would end up too close for comfort to Hawkeswell.

His image turned crisp as they neared. Blue eyes pinned her in place.

“It was wise for you to come back,” he called to the captain. “Had you not, you would have answered to the magistrate.”

The captain’s eyes bulged at the threat. “For what?”

“That is my wife you are abducting.”

“The hell you say!” The captain turned on her in shock.

“You are not abducting me. Should any magistrate become involved, which I doubt—he is only throwing false threats—I would swear that I had hired this boat and—”

“If I say it is an abduction, it is,” Hawkeswell called.

“Return her at once, or answer to me.”

“If you do return to that shore, you will answer to
me
,” Verity said.

The captain scratched his chin again. He removed his hat and scratched his head. He looked at Hawkeswell, then turned sheepishly to her.

“Don’t want to get in the middle of a row, if you understand, Madam. Best we go back.” He gestured to his son, and the boat aimed at Hawkeswell.

Verity fumed the whole way. Three more minutes and . . . Better to not have tried than to have success snatched from her grasp like this. She had screwed up her courage to brave the sea too!

Hawkeswell no longer glared when they drifted into shallow water. He smiled ever so graciously, as if he welcomed a friend’s return from France on a ship decked out for royalty. She was not fooled in the least.

The boat glided up against the short, low dock. Hawkeswell strolled over to the boat’s edge. “Testing your bravery, my dear?” He smiled at the captain. “She fears the sea. Five more minutes out there and you would have had a screaming lunatic on your hands.”

“A narrow escape, then, m’lord.”

“Oh, most certainly. Yes, indeed.” Still smiling below blazing eyes, he gestured for Verity. “No need for you gentlemen to tie up. Come here, darling.”

She obeyed, because there really was no place else to go. He grasped her waist and, as if she weighed nothing, swung her high over the railing and planted her on the dock beside him. The boat began drifting away again.

Hawkeswell looked down at her, none too pleased. She looked back, not happy either.

“You will be relieved to know that Miss Johnson is safely on her way.”

“Thank you. I knew that you would see to that far better than I.”

“The next time I obtain your promise not to bolt and disappear, I will have to phrase it like a lawyer, and cover all contingencies and modes of transport.”

He did not appear nearly as angry as she expected. Barely vexed, if truth be told. More thoughtful than annoyed.

“Do you have such little faith in your powers of persuasion, Verity?” he continued. “You did not even give me a chance to accept or reject last night’s offer.”

“A rare opportunity beckoned, and I took it.” They began walking. “Since you do not appear too angry, can I hope that you have decided to accept my offer?”

“I have been contemplating it at length. Putting aside pride. It is why I came back, looking for you.”

“Have you made a decision?”

“Not quite yet. Let us walk back, while I contemplate some more, and try to put my irritation about this little adventure of yours behind me.”

She gladly accompanied him back to the main lane, then onto the terrace. She said nothing at all, so he could contemplate all he wanted. She prayed that her attempt to get away had not changed his mind for the worse. He would not be so cruel, so stupid, as to keep her in this marriage over that. Would he?

She indulged in memories of home, and barely contained her joy. He was going to do it, she was sure. He was going to accept her proposal.

 

 

T
hey walked the length of the village again, along the terrace. They went down to the beach once they had passed the shops. It was a fine day and other yachts were out on the water, their sails puffing in the gentle breeze.

Hawkeswell spotted Summerhays still fighting fish on his boat, a good ways out. It would be another hour at least before the yacht returned.

If he had stayed on that yacht, Verity would be many miles up the coast before anyone even knew she was gone. She was succeeding in her goal to prove she was much more trouble than any man needed in his life.

“Let us walk this way,” he suggested, guiding Verity away from the village’s western end. They strolled west along the shore. The breeze picked at the narrow shaft of her pale yellow dress, pushing and pulling it against her legs and hips so her body’s form was more visible than she realized.

The village lay in a little cove, and the land rose a bit toward its western point. He helped Verity up the cliff and hill, and found a spot where rocks gave way to some grasses. The prospect was impressive, with views of the entire cove and the coast in both directions. Tall ships heading into the Thames estuary could be seen on the southern horizon.

“I want to talk to you about your offer,” he said. He shed his frock coat and laid it down so she could sit. It was utterly private up here. The world would never know what was said and agreed upon, and whether, having sold his troth for some silver, he now sold a bit of his honor too.

A better man would let her go free and accept no money as consolation for losing her fortune. He could not afford to be that good.

She settled down on his coat, smiling optimistically about the talk to come. She saw it in him, no doubt. The decision had probably etched his face. Her eyes sparkled with delight at her quick success.

He looked down at her and a memory flashed vividly in his mind, of last night and her naked leg. It had been surprisingly difficult to let her foot go. It had been deucedly hard not to kiss her leg, her knee, her thigh, and more. He inhaled, looked out to sea, and managed to banish that leg from his thoughts.

He sat down too. She had her legs straight out, like a girl’s, and her ankles showed beyond the pale yellow hem. He noted that she could use some new shoes.

“I need to know something,” he said. It was pride and conceit that needed to know and nothing more. “If I agree to your plan, do you intend to marry someone else? Is all of this really about another man?”

“There is no man waiting, if that is what you mean. I may marry, however, if I find the right man.”

“One of whom your father would approve. One who would be a good steward of his legacy.”

“Yes.”

“A man like Mr. Travis?”

She laughed, and clapped her hands together. “Mr. Travis? Oh, my. No, not Mr. Travis. Why, Mr. Travis is even older than you are.”

He might mind her speaking of him as if he were ancient if her mouth did not captivate him while she laughed and smiled. When in repose it appeared small and fashionably bowed. When she laughed it looked larger, sensual, and luscious.

“I am only thirty-one, Verity. Although ten years your senior, I am hardly ready for canes and false teeth.”

“I only meant that Mr. Travis is much too old for me. It is not my intention to marry him. Also, if I marry anyone, you will still have the income I promised. As I said, we will arrange that before any husband can interfere, and in a way that a husband cannot break later. My father always said that in England anything can be accomplished with the right contract.”

“Well, I had to know.”

“I expect that you did.” She said it kindly, as if she understood something of a man’s mind, and why he would have to know. “Are we agreed, Lord Hawkeswell? Will you join me in trying to undo this wrong?”

“I am still thinking about it,” he heard himself say.

He had intended to make quick work of this, and say something else entirely, but most of his attention had suddenly been distracted by a lock of her hair that had escaped her bonnet and teased at her brow. That one lock, and the way it feathered against her pale skin, looked unbearably erotic for some reason. It maddened him. All of her did.

“Perhaps you should try to persuade me.”

“Persuade you?”

“With a kiss. If I agree, you will probably say that the kisses are over along with my claims to you. I would like one very nice kiss from you. While we are still married, and before our union is officially challenged.”

He was teasing her, and she knew it. Her exasperated expression was not so much scolding as amused. “You want me to kiss you before you tell me your decision.”

“Yes, only not like last night. A sweet kiss, not a bird’s peck.”

“It would still be a very fast one, sweet though it may be. I think that you are silly to care about kisses now. It would be wiser to kiss no more.”

“What harm can there be in it? No one will see us here.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “Only one. No more.”

“Of course.” He plucked at the ribbon of her deep-brimmed bonnet. “This was built to prohibit any kisses. It is like the wimples worn by the nuns in France. You will never be able to kiss me with it on.” He untied the ribbons and removed the bonnet and set it aside on the grass.

She looked beautiful with the afternoon sun highlighting her hair and her cheek as she turned to him. She considered her situation, and rose to her knees. She appeared very serious, like a student puzzling out a difficult cipher.

She lowered her head. Her lips touched his delicately. She kissed softly. Sweetly. Her lips lingered a moment. Their velvet softness rested only one extra instant, but it was longer than needed, and that told him everything he wanted to know.

He cupped her nape with his hand so she could not end the kiss too quickly now. He encouraged her to linger a few moments more. Then a few more yet.

The reason for coming to this isolated rise escaped his mind. Only the delicate breath of her kiss mattered, and the heat flashing through him, destroying resolve and good intentions.

She trembled. Her lips pulsed gently against his own. The smallest pressure pressed against his hand, as if she thought to move her head away.

He could not allow that now. He embraced her with his other arm and turned her quickly, so she rested in his arms. She looked up in surprise, stunned by this change in position. He kissed her before she could speak.

Not sweetly either. He was beyond that. Beyond delicate lures and subtle games. He took her mouth hard, releasing a hunger that had been building for three days.

Her hand touched his shoulder and arm. Not in resistance. If she had thought to press and deny, that never emerged. Her hand just rested there, on the arm that circled and supported her body.

Hard now, furiously so, he seduced her mouth open so he could taste, explore, and possess. Her gasps and breaths spoke her shock and acceptance. Pleasure defeated her objections.

Yes.
He ravished her mouth carefully, coaxing cries from her throat and sinuous flexes in her body.
Yes.
He laid her down and looked into blue eyes wide with astonishment.
Yes
. He kissed her neck, her pulse, and caressed down the side of that yellow dress while lovely sounds of feminine wonder sang in a halting melody of surprise.

Her form felt small under his hand. Almost frail. She did not fight his hold as he grew bolder, feeling her hip and thigh, smoothing along her leg, learning her body and seeing it in his head, naked beneath him, knees bent and raised and willingly open for him, for his hand and mouth and body—

The images compelled him. The desire owned him. He kissed down her chest to the top edge of her dress, then lower still to her breast. Her hand went to his head, to stop or encourage, he did not know. He kissed the hard tip pressing against the thin fabric and she cried in surprise into the breeze. He rose up and smoothed his palm over her breast and watched abandon claim her until her eyes glistened, unseeing.

He slid his hand beneath her, and felt for the tapes on her dress. Her eyes opened wider when it loosened. Her gaze sought the world. Sanity tried to emerge. He kissed her gently, then hard, while he lowered the garments from her shoulders and uncovered her breasts. Round and pretty, their hard, dark tips beckoned. He lowered his head and used his tongue to madden her.

 

 

S
hock crashed into pleasure and pleasure into shock and neither could win in the confusion. She watched, horrified and fascinated, and aching with a frightening urge as his dark head lowered and his breaths titillated her breasts.

His bared teeth closed gently and a sharp arrow of pleasure shot down deeply. His tongue flicked and she thought she would die. She closed her eyes. This was wicked. Scandalous. Someone might even see them out here. She should stop this, end it, push him away. His mouth and hand made feelings cascade in her, however, that were too delicious to end.

He rose on one arm, and watched his caresses. He deliberately teased her, not unkindly, and saw the reactions that she did not know how to hide. “You like this,” he said. It was not a question. “And this.” His head lowered again and his tongue flicked at her other breast even as his hand kept devastating her. The sensations piled on one another, making her crazed and impatient.