Swept Away (34 page)

“Anna--” he stood and crossed the two steps to the bed, jostling the mattress as he sat beside her. “You have no idea how sorry I am for having put you through all this. I know the toll it has taken and it is all my fault. All of it. If I had a quarter of the skill I am credited with, I should have just ridden away from Widdicombe House and taken my chances with the patrols and the searches. I should never have turned back, never followed Barrimore’s coach, never approached you on the boardwalk--though you have no idea how long I stood there watching you in the sunlight, and how close I came to murdering that young buck with the spyglass for just speaking to you.”

She did not lift her head or return his smile and he sighed again. “It was an unconscionable and selfish act, not to mention a wild and stupid scheme to use you as a diversion. I should have walked away. I should have run, dammit, and just kept running. And I never, never should have touched you. Not that first afternoon on the cliffs, not that night in your room, not later at the inn.”

That did make her tilt her head higher. “Then you regret everything that has happened between us?”

“No,” he said, and ran a hand up the smoothness of her arm. “
No
, I do not regret one single moment, not since I wakened and thought you an angel. I just...never should have touched you, dammit, because it only makes it harder to let you go. And I know I must let you go. I must leave you here. It is the only way I can be sure you are safe.”

This last came out as a whisper--a whisper accompanied by a grinding of his teeth, for he wanted to touch her again, but he dared not. Not when he knew she was bare and soft and warm beneath the layer of quilting and he was already struggling with the urge to just drop a bolt across the door and stay in her arms forever.

Anna did not make it easier when she raised her hand and rested it gently on the rock hard ridge of his jaw.

“I feel safe with you. And the blame for this is not all yours to take. If you had not touched me, I surely would have had to touch you or die from the wanting. If you would call yourself selfish and unconscionable, then I must be the same, for I want nothing more than for you to touch me now; to kiss me and hold me and...and make me believe that perhaps you love me even a tenth as much as I love you.”

The admission, blurted without thought or conscious effort caused her voice to catch in her throat, and her skin to flush under the sudden, tense scrutiny of his eyes.

“I do,” she said again, her voice stronger, firmer. “I do love you, Emory Althorpe. And when I am with you, I am not afraid of anything.”

He looked all but dumbfounded. “Anna--”

“Do you not care for me at all? Not even a little?”

“How the devil can you even ask that? I should think a lack of caring on my part would be more obvious if I let you go ahead and put your neck on the block.”

“It is my neck. My choice. Was that not what you told me back on the cliffs? That everyone has the right to make their own choices in life?”

“Not if those choices might get them killed. And this is not the time to be throwing my own words in my face,” he said with a husky warning. “If soldiers broke through the door right now, it could still be argued to excellent effect that you were being held against your will. No one would anyone dare suggest otherwise, not with Barrimore and your brother standing behind you. And they
would
stand behind you, regardless if they believed you were kidnapped or not.

“But if you were caught helping me of your own free will, you would be dragged away in iron shackles and tossed into Newgate like a common thief. You would be charged with treason, put on trial, and found to be just as guilty as me, notwithstanding any defence of youthful indiscretion your family could offer. As a mere accomplice, you might avoid the executioner’s axe, but you would surely be condemned to the transport ships. Ten years of planting turnips in Australia would be the best you could hope for, assuming you survived the three month voyage.”

Anna paled visibly but did not look away. “Is that a round about way of saying you
do
care for me?”

He frowned and released an exasperated little sigh. “This is hardly the time or--”

“This is the
very
time and the
very
place, for if you say no, I will have no
choice
but to believe you. I will have no
choice
but to dress and walk out the door and you will never have to see me or bathe me or fetch me rose water again.” She paused and tried not to look desperate when she gave a little shrug. “I most definitely could not go home, however, despite your confidence in my brother’s sense of honor. For that matter, the mere thought of seeing Mother’s face each morning at the breakfast table would make the transport ships look like a holiday. On the other hand, Aunt Florence is convinced Barrimore is quite blind in love with me; perhaps if I prostrate myself at his feet and beg his protection he would take me back in some capacity--as his mistress, or...or his doxy, or some such thing.”

Emory’s frown grew even more ominous, if that was possible. He knew what she was doing and why she was doing it, but jealousy was an effective weapon, for it brought forth an immediate image of her naked body in front of the fire, her skin gleaming wet, her hair spilling over her shoulders like dark gold. Only it was not him standing with her, dying slowly of sweet agony as her lips explored his body. It was Barrimore.

“Eventually, I am sure I could convince him of my contrition. Perhaps if he put me with child he would lessen the beatings and--”

Emory made a sound, low in his throat, and raised his hands again, stopping a breath short of touching her. After a minute, when he had gained control of the heat flowing through his veins, he was even able to open his eyes and meet the wide, guileless blue ones waiting for him.

“--and he would see how docile and obedient I had become,” she concluded softly.

“Docile
and
obedient?” He scowled. “Which hour of which day of which week would you set aside for such a momentous event?”

“I was fully prepared to accept it as my lot before I met you, sir.”

He snorted. “You would never have married Barrimore. He would have stifled you, smothered you, and you would have spent half your life staring out a window, wondering what lay beyond the next valley.”

“But now that I know, now that I have been shot at and chased and forced to ride in public conveyances with fat, sour men who reek of garlic and rotten teeth...I should consider myself lucky to be so smothered and stifled. Lucky to have a man like Winston Perry willing to forgive me my sins.”

“To make you his doxy?”

“If need be, yes.”

Seeing the stubborn set to her chin, Emory’s lips parted around another soft oath. “Do you even
know
what being doxy entails?”

A hesitation betrayed her, for it was one of Anthony’s words, used liberally but never precisely defined. “I am sure my lord Barrimore would instruct me.”

“An appealing prospect, I assure you but...” He stopped and stared as Anna laid slowly back against the pillows. She did not take the cover with her, but left it draped over her knees, and when she moved, it slipped off her breasts, baring them to the glow of the lamplight.

“But?” she prompted him.

“But...” The word came out a murmur and was followed by an oath as he bowed his head and drove all ten fingers through his hair in frustration.

She waited a moment, then ran the merest tip of her tongue across her lips to moisten them. Leaning forward again, she pressed a soft kiss onto the back of his hands where they were still locked in his hair, then angled her head down until their brows touched.

“I am sorry to be so much trouble,” she whispered.

“No you’re not. I believe you are thriving on it.”

“I believe I
could
thrive, my lord, and become equally as headstrong, obstinate, and willful as you...under your expert tutelage of course.”

He grunted. “And now you mock me. A foolish and pitiable creature who cannot even muster the strength to chase you out the door.”

“Only tell me who to thank for this dreadful flaw in your character and I will do so gladly,” she whispered, kissing him again on the temple, the cheek, the ridge of his brow.

She folded her knees beneath her and rose enough that she was able to cradle his head against her breast. A moment later, she felt the warmth of the sigh he expelled against her skin as his hands surrendered to the soft lure of her flesh.

“Remind me,” he murmured, “to thank Barrimore the next time I see him.”

“Thank him for what?”

“For being a fool and a prig. For being too damned blind to see what he was throwing away because of his starched manners and unbending presumptions. He is a handsome enough fellow,” he said grudgingly. “He likely could have swept you away with a little respect and a lot of good kissing.”

She pressed both a smile and a kiss into the soft thickness of his hair. “But I could not even begin to imagine him risking life and limb to fetch me rosewater for my bath.”

“It was a trifling thing. I merely had to wrap my head in that ridiculous bandage again and scour half the shops along the waterfront. Fysh thought I was mad, of course, and Seamus, well..”

Anna ran her hands along the slope of his shoulders, marvelling in the latent power she felt beneath her fingertips. “He probably understood perfectly.”

Emory’s mouth twitched at the corner as he lifted his head. “He asked me outright if I knew what a damned asinine thing I was doing. That I was in danger of throwing away my hard-won freedom for a pretty mouth and a luscious body.”

His eyes were inky black, gleaming with a combination of admiration and respect and...something else. It was the something else that flooded her body with heat and made her realize that everything she was, everything she could be was mirrored in the depths of those eyes.

“What better use?” he asked in a murmur.

Anna smiled through a deep, thrilling breath and sank slowly back down onto the bed. Her breasts were white as ivory, smooth and firm, with the slightest hint of a pink blush at the tips and she saw the hunger blaze to life on his face as she trailed a long, slender finger from the peak of one ruched nipple to the satiny plane of her belly.

“Take off those wretched breeches,” she whispered, “and I will gladly show you.”

CHAPTER 20

I fetched the rosewater, did I not?

Anna let the words play over and over in her mind as, for the second time that night, she watched Emory sleep. She was fully aware, then and now, that he had not used the word love, yet for all his steely nerve, his ability to mock and measure at a glance, to read her own thoughts with a thoroughness that rendered her naked in more ways than the one, he had not been able to lie to her either. And so it was enough for now. He cared enough to fetch her rosewater and that was more than enough.

He was lying on his back, quite splendidly naked beneath the coverlet, and she let her gaze idle a moment over the hillock at the junction of his thighs before continuing on down to where his feet created tents in the bedding.

The effects of his lovemaking had left her all warm and slippery inside, but try as she might she could not sleep or even close her eyes. Despite the fact there were plans to be made and plots to be foiled, in truth all she could think about was the sensation of his flesh pressing against her, breast to breast, belly to belly. Even the act of kissing--something she had regarded as being such an innocent thing before --she now knew could be as physical and intimate as the actual act of joining.

She snuggled closer against the curve of his body and let her fingers idle in the dark hair on his chest.

“I refuse to think you have the energy to embark upon any more lessons,” he murmured, keeping his eyes firmly shut.

“You have only yourself to blame,” she said, kissing his breast. “You are a very good teacher. In truth, though, I was thinking about the regent’s ball. We will need costumes, masks...”

“Fysh has already solved that for us.”

Her eyebrow arched delicately. “Fysh?”

“He buys his ale from the same stillman who supplies half the theatres in London. They have costumes a plenty in all sizes and selections.”

“But it is not the theatre season.”

He offered up a sigh of forbearance. “I suspect the seasons may differ somewhat along the waterfront than they do in Mayfair and Park Lane.”