Rake Beyond Redemption (25 page)

Vile. Abominable. Tarnishing the name of the Free Traders who did no more than circumvent the paying of duty on brandy and tea.

‘What had he done?’ Marie-Claude broke into his unpalatable thoughts.

‘You don’t need to know. It doesn’t make pretty telling. How could I be a party to that, allowing such obscenities to continue and flourish? How could I have my name linked to such foul deeds even though I was present at none of them, had no part in them? It was time to end it.’ His mouth softened, curved a little. ‘And perhaps I saw a need to turn my life in a different direction. More is due to the Ellerdine name than a man who does nothing but thwart the law of the land. It was time to make a change.’

He tossed back the brandy, replaced the glass gently.

‘So I decided it was time to make a stand. I would bring D’Acre to justice—and bow out with a fanfare. I set the trap and lured D’Acre into it. Rodmell would be here to take them in the act and the Fly-By-Nights wouldn’t see the outside of gaol for a good number of years. D’Acre’s rule would be over. I did not intend that he should die, though many would say he deserved it. It was enough that he face the weight of the law. But when he would have taken you…’

When he cupped her cheek in his palm, Marie-Claude held it there and turned her head to kiss his bandaged wrist. ‘Why did you let yourself be accused without standing up for yourself?’

‘I was guilty of so much. Why not add one more sin?
I couldn’t prove my innocence, so why torture myself trying to argue out of an impossible corner? I tried to stop Harriette’s marriage—that was true. It was my bullet that wounded her. True, I aimed at Venmore—but only to frighten him off. It’s difficult to exonerate myself from those acts. So one more stain on my soul didn’t seem to matter too much.’

‘Did you love her?’ Marie-Claude asked, surprised by the sudden bite of jealousy.

‘No.’ Zan laughed softly. ‘Did she tell you I offered her marriage? Well, no, she wouldn’t. She never spoke of me, did she? But, no…I had an affection for her. My offer of marriage was hardly altruistic. I wanted to keep Harriette as Captain Harry—and the Pride as a base for smuggling—and so I tried to stop her wedding Venmore.’

‘That was not well done.’

‘No. It wasn’t. In my own defence I thought it was a marriage of convenience. It was to start with, so I had no guilt over what I did. I tried to drive a wedge between her and Venmore. I’m not proud of it and it didn’t work out as I hoped. They were in love, you see. I should have known—I like to think I would never have done it if I had known. Although perhaps I would. I think I had fewer scruples in those days…As for attempting to shoot Venmore—if I had meant to, I would have done it. How they could believe I was so bad a shot even on a moonless beach? He was an easy enough target against the light off the sea. But things went awry and Harriette was hit. That’s the one true burden on my conscience. I could have killed her…’

‘So you accepted the accusations.’

‘It was difficult not to when guilt ran like fire through my blood. All that evidence stacked against me and I
was not innocent. That’s the man you see before you, Marie. Not a wrecker. Not a murderer. Not a traitor to his class and birth. But I’m not spotless.’

‘No. You were young and headstrong and misguided—and I’d say you did the wrong things for the right reasons.’

‘You are more generous than I deserve,’ he acknowledged with a sigh.

Marie-Claude let her gaze travel over the smooth skin of Zan’s shoulders and chest, the glimmer of candlelight enhancing the sleek definition despite the bruising, his scars hidden from her view.

‘What now?’ she asked. ‘What road does your life take now?’

‘The end of smuggling for me. And I need to put things right with those who matter to me. With Harriette, of course. And to make my peace with Venmore if I can. I’m tired of playing the villain.’

‘What about me?’ Her heart throbbed as she waited for his answer.

‘I love you,’ he said simply. ‘I’ve loved you since you frowned at me and complained of losing your parasol, as if it were my fault, when I’d just saved your life. But there’s no future for us, Marie. Your family would never support you. They would make it impossible for you. Would you truly want to be with me if it meant that you were shunned by Harriette and Venmore?’

‘I can’t believe that Harriette would shun me. Not if she knew the truth.’

‘You have more faith in human nature than I. It’s still my word only, and that stands for nothing.’

‘So you’ll turn your back on me,’ she stated more calmly than she felt.

‘I’m not worthy of you. Let it go, Marie.’ He tunnelled his fingers through his hair, wishing he hadn’t when the wound throbbed. ‘I’m too tired to argue with you. You too must be so very tired and need to sleep.’ Fleetingly he touched his hand to hers, his expression raw and wretched as he begged for her understanding.

But Marie-Claude tightened her fingers around his. ‘I’ll not let you go.’

‘Marie, I can’t—’

‘One night.’ Despair that he would still leave her made her bold. ‘Just one more night together, if you can’t promise me anything more. Stay with me.’ Releasing his hand, she opened her arms to him. ‘Even if we just sleep in each other’s arms and I can give your hurts some comfort. But don’t leave me.’

How could he turn his back on her? His heart thudded slow and hard as she offered herself. There was her embrace, inviting, alluring, waiting for him to step into it.

‘You can’t reject me now, Zan,’ she said.

‘No, I can’t,’ he admitted. ‘I should, but I can’t.’

Zan took her offered hands, did not resist when she pushed him to sit on the edge of the bed, helping him, ignoring his curses of frustration, to remove breeches and boots. When she stepped back to remove her gown, and bent to roll down her stockings, the bright memory slammed into him and made him laugh softly.

‘What?’ Still rolling the fragile silk, she looked up. Her eyes shone. She knew what he was thinking.

‘Once I removed your stockings. When I was able to bend with some degree of success.’

‘So you did. Now I’ll remove them for you.’

She dropped them to the floor, followed by her shift, to stand before him with a shy smile.

‘Look at me, Zan,’ she invited.

‘How can I not? Marie-Claude, my love. You fill all my vision.’ He was trapped, he acknowledged, held fast for ever in her eyes. Then she was close, so close that she seemed to melt against him and they sank back together on to the old linen. If he had feared that pain and exhaustion would drag him under, he could not have been more wrong. His body responded immediately when Marie-Claude stretched along his side, all supple curves of breast and thigh against him, her lips drifting over his shoulder, his chest, only to return to stroke against his mouth. Her taste, her perfume was in his head, his heart, his mouth. Inside him. He could no more have rejected her than he could have stopped breathing.

She was every breath he took, every beat of his heart.

He wanted her. Marie-Claude’s blood raced, her skin heated. In spite of the damage inflicted by D’Acre, his desire was strong, and it took her breath. How amazing that she could make so vital a man’s control stretch to snapping point. With victory sparkling through her veins she proceeded to stretch it even further with a soft assault.

Pain retreated as his breath quickened, thickened. Need began to race and Zan felt his body respond. Within a heartbeat he was hard and ready.

‘I want you,’ he whispered into her hair. ‘But agility is another matter. I’ll apologise for my poor efforts before I have to.’

‘No need. I can be agile for both of us.’

Her hands took over control, gentle but competent, strikingly confident. Lips and tongue moved and dipped, tasted, soothed and at the same time demanded, a steadily encroaching greed that took him over like fire on dry heathland. Any final thought of sleep or exhaustion
vanished as his body and mind became drenched with desire.

He struggled to push himself up, to lift her.

‘Don’t move!’ Marie-Claude admonished, shocked by her own audacity, but undeterred.

She must be careful. His wrists and ribs, his jaw and cheekbone. All sources of intense agony if she allowed the madness that seemed to have invaded her mind to make her clumsy. He wanted her and so she would overcome her shyness and lavish all the love of which she was capable on his abused body. Heat bloomed between her thighs, obliterating any diffidence, urging her into a heart-stopping voyage of discovery. The hollow below his collarbone where his pulse rioted against her tongue, the flat nipples that grew hard beneath her fingertips, the shiver of flesh as she drew the tip of her tongue down to his flat belly, blowing softly on the swirls of dark hair. It was impossible not to wonder at the extravagant beauty of his body, and when he quivered and drew in a breath, and not from pain, she could not but revel in his helplessness under her touch.

And so she blew out the candle. Before bracing herself, then rising swiftly, elegantly, to straddle him with her thighs.

‘Is this a cherishing?’ he asked breathlessly, mindlessly, saturated with sensation as she leaned down to brush his lips with hers, her hair falling softly against his cheeks. His mind wallowed, engulfed by the pleasure from her exploring hands.

‘It is indeed.’ She smiled against his mouth, outlining his lips with her tongue, feeling his response. ‘How did you guess?’

Zan’s breath caught. Cherishing, yes, and outrageously
flirtatious. How sensuously soft her lips were, combining the tender with the seductive. How sleekly muscled her thighs that gripped him. ‘You are always a surprise to me, Madame Mermaid.’

‘Sometimes I surprise myself.’ She laughed softly. ‘I have little experience. Merely an intent…’

‘And what would that be?’

‘This.’ Her hand enclosed him, holding, stroking from root to tip. Slowly she lowered herself, with such grace, and took him in until he was surrounded by her, deep within her, her hips beginning to move gently, rhythmically. It drew him down into a deep, dark place where nothing existed but his craving for her. Stunned again by her generosity, he let her set the pace as she desired.

But then he had no choice but to respond to it.

‘My love.
Mon amour.
My dearest love,’ Marie-Claude murmured when he arched his body on an intake of breath to meet hers. And then again as she gave him no respite.

Zan could not speak. The intense, outrageous pleasure submerged him as he thrust to bury himself deep within her. Dark, silent, soft, a world within a world, one of pure sensation that he must accept. That he must endure as the fierce talons of desire gripped him. Any command over his own response to the slide of her fingers from groin to shoulder, and back again, a tortuous caress, any control at all vanished like a iridescent bubble below the waves.

‘Wait!’ he gasped, clinging to the final edge of a precipice.

‘No. Let go. I’ll give you this release.’

She leaned and took his mouth with hers as he held her firm, hands splayed on her hips, as the need built until he
could wait no longer. There was the edge approaching, sharp and dangerous, his body drenched and demanding.

‘Now,’ he growled, thrusting hard with her, all sense and thought overturned.

And he fell into the void.

In shattering delight, Marie-Claude fell too.

The room closed silently around them, silent except for their heightened breathing. Then, bonelessly, Marie-Claude slid down Zan’s body, releasing him with utmost care, to lie with her head on his breastbone.

‘Sleep now,’ she said.

As the thought came to him that she deserved more from him than he had been able to give, Zan fell under into blackness.

Thoroughly satisfied—how could she not be, having just brought a strong man to his knees?—Marie-Claude curled beside him as her heart settled and her blood cooled. She kissed his closed eyes, the corner of his mouth. What was he dreaming? It was nothing very pleasant, she decided as he moved restlessly against her. Some nightmare chasing him, dogging his steps even in sleep. Stroking his hair back from his forehead, she hummed a French lullaby as she might to her son when bad dreams made him wakeful. And eventually, with a sigh Zan settled, turning his face against her throat.

Sleep did not immediately come to her. She thought she had set herself a hard task to win Zan Ellerdine. But when had she ever given in before a superior force? She would beat the demons that tormented her lover. And she would beat down his resistance to her. Certain that he was now deeply asleep, Marie-Claude closed her eyes and let herself sink into oblivion.

Tomorrow would be soon enough to make decisions.

Zan woke again to broad daylight, sunshine streaming in, his muscles complaining, ribs tender to every movement, not helped by the fact that Marie-Claude’s head was pillowed on his chest, one arm thrown protectively over him. Hardly the most comfortable of positions for him, but he would not change it for the world. Except to fold his arms around her, enjoying her soft murmur of contentment. For a time he lay quietly with her locked tight, savouring the one clear conviction.

He loved her. She was his centre. Marie-Claude was simply
there.
He knew it and acknowledged it because he could do no other. She had written her name on his heart in letters of pure gold.

And even more indisputable, even more miraculous, he had laid out his past before her and still Marie-Claude loved him. Here she lay, her head in the hollow of his shoulder, trusting, loving, after all he had put her through by turning her home into a battleground.

In an ideal world he would ask her to marry him, to live with him, to make a life with him. So that he might wake every morning like this, with her in his arms.

He sensed the moment when she awoke and turned carefully on to his side. The pain was not as bad as he thought. Desire was far more urgent than discomfort. Lifting her thigh over his, he drew her against him, to slide smoothly into her. On a long sigh she turned her face against this throat.

‘I should ask you if you’re in pain.’