The Rake's Inherited Courtesan (16 page)

Christopher wasn’t looking at her, he was looking behind her at the horses at the manger. ‘My God. You brought both horses.’

Jeannie’s face broke into a grin. ‘That, too. Alphonse isna’ going to be happy. It will sure slow him down.’

Christopher slid his blade back into its sheath. ‘Well done, Jeannie. Come on, then, we best make haste for Calais.’

‘Aye,’ Jeannie said. ‘We’ll need to hurry. Yon Irishman is due back at the house this morn, and he’s nae gonna be pleased, I think. An’ he’ll soon realise ye didna’ take the Paris road. Now there’s a man I dinna want to face when he’s fashed.’

The thought of an angry Rafter sent a shudder down Sylvia’s spine.

Jeannie’s fingers dug into Sylvia’s waist as Alphonse’s ancient nag ambled along the road. Christopher dropped back to her side. ‘Can you go any faster?’

Sylvia glanced over her shoulder at Jeannie’s terrified face. ‘No. We are doing our best.’

‘We will miss the last packet to Dover if we don’t hurry. I don’t want to be in Calais when Rafter arrives.’

Nor did she, but they’d been forced to take a circuitous route to the coast, not daring to risk the main highway. How long would it be before Rafter realised he’d been sent on a wild goose chase? Probably not long enough.

‘Leave me, Miss Sylvia,’ Jeannie croaked.

Sylvia shook her head. She had lost too many people in her life. She would lose Christopher when they returned to England, but she would not lose Jeannie.

Hours later, they clattered into the town, their horses’ hooves echoing off the silent, cobbled streets. She recognised the inn she’d slept in a few days ago. They were almost safe.

A stable-boy dawdled from somewhere at the back to retrieve their horses. Christopher’s weariness showed in his slumped shoulders as he dismounted, but his hands were strong and firm around her waist when he lifted her down, before he assisted Jeannie out of the saddle.

Poor Jeannie looked as if she had been out in a violent storm. Thin strands of grey hair hung around her face and she’d lost her cap. Sylvia put a hand to her own stringy hair. She probably looked worse after her romp in the hay.

In low tones, Christopher arranged for the stabling of the horses. Though his posture indicated confidence, Sylvia saw the concern in his eyes as he spoke to the groom.

He strode back to her and Jeannie at the stable door. ‘We’ve missed the last boat tonight. I’m going to see if I can find a local fisherman to take us across. If you ladies wouldn’t mind waiting in the parlour, I will return as soon as may be.’

Sylvia caught his arm. ‘Is it safe to stay here? What if Rafter should come?’

Christopher frowned. ‘I’ll rent a private room for you and Jeannie. Stay in it and stay out of sight. That’s all I can do.’

He put a hand to his pocket. ‘Blast. I haven’t a penny to my name.’

‘Perhaps we should take shelter in the barn?’ She sent him a saucy smile.

‘God, no. My credit is good enough and, if not, there’s
always my watch.’ He caught her look and grinned. ‘Hussy. Wait here while I make the arrangements.’

He strode into the inn.

Sylvia rubbed her chilled hands together. ‘We won’t be long now, Jeannie.’

The hunted expression in Jeannie’s eyes cut her to the quick and she gave the old woman a hug. ‘Hold on. Everything will be well, I promise.’

A moment or two later Christopher returned with a thin little innkeeper trotting behind.

‘This way, ladies,’ the skinny man said with a bow low enough for the Queen, despite their dishevelled appearance. Clearly, Christopher had paved the way well. Sylvia inclined her head, hooked Jeannie’s arm in her own and followed the innkeeper.

The private parlour at the back of the inn welcomed them with a warm fire and bright candles.

‘What can I get for you,
mesdames
?’ the innkeeper asked.

Jeannie and Sylvia looked at each other. ‘A nice cup of tea,’ they chorused and laughed.

‘Ah,
les anglaises et le thé
,’ he murmured and bowed himself out.

When Christopher entered the empty taproom, his hopes of finding a ship’s captain plummeted.

‘No fishermen tonight?’ he asked the boy behind the bar washing glasses.

‘It is late,
monsieur
,’ the pot-boy said. ‘All the local men are all down at the waterfront where the women are.’ He winked lewdly. ‘We cater to a different clientele and they left on this afternoon’s packet. You are the only guests tonight.’

‘If I needed to find a man with a boat, where would I go?’

‘At the Sign of the Mermaid most likely,
monsieur
. Can I get you something to drink?’

The days were such a blur, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a tankard of ale. He swallowed the dust in his
throat. He didn’t have time. He had to get the women to safety before Rafter came up with them. ‘No, thank you. Just give me directions to the Mermaid.’

The pot-boy did so and, intent on getting there before everyone was too drunk to sail, he hurried to the door. A pair of broad shoulders clad in black blocked his path.

‘Kit. Finally I run you to earth.’

Christopher reeled back. ‘Garth. Bloody hell. What the devil are you doing here?’

Garth’s dark eyebrow flicked up. ‘Nice greeting, I must say. I’m looking for you, of course. I thought I’d better make sure you were all right.’ He frowned. ‘Except when I got here, it was as if you had disappeared into thin air.’ His usual devil-may-care expression turned grave. ‘You are all right, aren’t you? You look a bit pale.’

For Garth to notice that kind of detail meant he looked a perfect scarecrow. ‘I’m passable.’

Garth stared at him. ‘You’ve been involved in some sort of scrape without me to get you out of trouble. Devil a bit.’

Christopher gave a shout of laughter. ‘Doing it a bit too brown, brother. It’s usually the other way around. I’ll tell you all about it later. Right now, I have to get Sylvia and her maid back to England.’ A thought occurred to him. ‘You didn’t by any chance sail over in the
Witch
did you?’

Garth grinned. ‘I did. Thought you might need her and knew you’d never think of taking her yourself.’

Christopher stiffened. ‘Why would I? She belongs to you now.’

Garth clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You know how I feel about that. We always shared her when Father was alive. You’re just too damned stiff-necked to accept anything from me.’

Christopher raised a hand. It was an old argument and the wrong occasion. ‘The thing is, she’s here. Can we get off tonight?’

‘I’ll have to ask Porter.’

‘If anyone can do it, he can,’ Christopher said.

‘Right,’ Garth replied with a nod and a big grin. ‘Let’s ask him.’

L
uxurious indeed. Glowing from her sponge bath, Sylvia wandered around the
Sea Witch
’s well-appointed stateroom. So well appointed she’d found a nightgown to fit her in the sea chest, and, best of all, a sailor had brought jugs of hot water for bathing. Over Jeannie’s protests that she ought to help, Sylvia had sent the poor old woman to bed. This luxury she needed no help to enjoy.

Absent-mindedly, she pulled a comb through her wet hair as she investigated the room. The polished mahogany fittings with brass hinges and handles gleamed in the swinging lamplight. An ivory-backed hairbrush rested in a cunning rack on the dressing table fixed to the wall. She picked it up and turned it over. Everything had a place and everything was small and neat, like a doll’s house. Except the bed.

The blatant, opulent monstrosity had a midnight-blue canopy and pale blue satin sheets embroidered in gold with the Stanford crest. ‘I’ll join you in a while,’ Christopher had said before he left her to bathe. Expectation blazed in his eyes and her heart had quickened.

After she had bedded him willingly, he assumed she was his. Sadly, she was. Her body was his, but had she given him her heart? She wasn’t sure. But she would not become his
plaything, to be discarded at will. The thought of waiting for that dreadful day tore a hole in her chest. Better to get it over with before she became too attached.

She set the hairbrush back in its place and continued her roaming. This was Lord Stanford’s room, she guessed. Or rather the room where he entertained his ladies. Fleetingly, she wondered where he would sleep tonight.

A cosy armchair behind the door looked inviting. Tucking her bare feet up under the hem of her gown, she curled up in it. She glanced at the bed again. Whatever would she would say to Christopher when he returned?

Anticipation simmered in her blood like water over hot coals. She wanted him. Just once more, she promised herself. Back in England, back to reality, she would insist they go their separate ways. Tonight would be their last together.

She turned her head at the sound of the opening door and smiled as Christopher entered. He had also bathed and was wearing a short blue-silk dressing gown. His or Lord Stanford’s. Not that it mattered. His attention focused on the bed and she caught his disappointed expression in the dressing-table mirror when he saw it was vacant.

She laughed and opened her arms to him. ‘I was waiting for you.’

In three short strides, he reached her and knelt at her side. ‘You look beautiful,’ he whispered. For a moment his large, warm hands cupped her cheeks and he brushed his lips against her mouth, a seductive invitation. She parted her lips.

‘Ah, not yet,’ he murmured against her mouth, his breath moist against her skin. ‘This time we use the bed.’ He picked up a strand of her hair and ran it across his palm. ‘I love your hair down. Like spun gold, yet soft as silk.’

She ran her fingertips across his jaw. ‘You shaved.’

‘Mmm. Garth lent me his gear.’

‘You talked to your brother about us?’

‘A little.’

‘And?’

‘Garth doesn’t judge.’

Sylvia’s gaze wandered to the bed. Of course Garth didn’t judge.

‘Come, sweet.’ Christopher’s soft tone turned husky. She’d never heard him sound so intense. He caught her up in his arms.

Spicy cologne filled her nostrils. ‘Mmm,’ she hummed against his neck. His indrawn hiss of breath in response set up a drumming in her pulse.

Without effort, he carried her to their own blue ocean of desire. Triumph gushed through her. For this brief moment he belonged to her.

Later, as she lay in his arms, sated, languid and content, she clung to the sense of belonging. If they could only stay here, rocked by the gentle motion of the waves, like innocent babes.

Her fingers traced the sculpted muscles of his arms and chest, circling its flat nipples and raking through the smattering of light brown curls.

‘Mmm,’ he murmured and she smiled and gave his shoulder a gentle nip.

She wanted to remember for ever the way he looked and tasted and felt beneath her hands. She placed her palm against the strong firm line of his jaw.

He turned his head and kissed the inside of her wrist. From beneath his lashes, he glanced down at her, emerald fire in forest green. He smiled. Open, frank and youthful. The rare smile he seemed to save exclusively for her and for Garth, his brother.

He petted her hair where it lay over her breast. ‘Pretty.’

‘Why did you come chasing after me?’ she asked. ‘I assumed you would be happy to see me gone.’ Her breath seemed to catch in her throat as she waited for the answer.

He looked puzzled. ‘It was my duty. My uncle charged me with the responsibility of making sure you were settled.’

The reply didn’t surprise her, but it sounded cold, unfeeling, and a chill ran over her skin as if a stray gust of sea breeze had found its way into their cosy nest.

She let go a little sigh, desperately trying not to mind. She could not expect him to feel as she did. While her parentage might be as noble as his, her bastardy put her beyond the pale.

His large warm hand closed around hers and she realised she had clutched at her locket. She glanced up and found him watching her.

‘What did I say?’ he asked.

‘Nothing. I was thinking how lucky I was that it was you who…’ Her face grew hot. Yet the time for blushes had long passed. She was a woman in truth. A well-bedded one. She chuckled. ‘That it was you who came first to Madame Gilbert’s. I just wish I remembered more about what happened.’

His shaft hardened against her thigh. Her own centre pulsed in reply. Interesting. Thoughts and words seemed just as sensual as touches. Something she had not learned as a child.

‘I would sooner forget,’ he growled.

She gasped. Hot prickles stabbed at the back of her nose and eyes; she sniffed to clear them away.

He tipped her chin with his clenched fist. ‘Tears, Sylvia?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Well, you might not remember all that happened, but it was torture for me. There you were, one of creation’s most beautiful creatures, laid out like a dream, and you had no inkling of who was in the room.’

Others had said she was beautiful. She’d heard it all her life, with admiration or with envy, but never had it touched a chord in her heart as it did now. She wanted to throw her arms
around him, bury her face in his neck, to ask him to keep her close for ever.

She couldn’t. She didn’t have the right to ask him to ruin his life, to bring his mother’s wrath down on his head, to be excluded from his world.

‘Why didn’t you also take your pleasure?’ She knew different words for the act of copulation, crude, disgusting words used by the whores. But what she and Christopher had done together was so much more. Blissful.

‘I could have been anyone,’ he said. ‘Even though you said my name. How could I take advantage of a woman suffering under the influence of drugs?’

‘Some men would have,’ she murmured.

‘They might,’ he replied. His voice sounded harsh, as if just thinking about it made him angry.

‘Then why not, when it was you I wanted?’

He drew in a deep breath and rolled on his side to face her, one heavy thigh splayed across hers. He picked up a lock of her hair and stroked the ends around the swell of her breast.

Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. A thrum started low in her belly. A tickle between her thighs made her squirm.

‘You are very responsive,’ he murmured, leaning over to lick the tightly furled bud at the peak, before swirling the lock of hair around the other breast.

She swallowed. ‘Why not, Christopher? I want to know.’

‘Single-minded female.’

She bashed his shoulder with her fist. Not hard. Enough so he would know she meant business.

He sighed. ‘Because it would have been wrong.’ He bent his head and kissed the tip of her nose. ‘To be honest, I almost succumbed. You were so ready, you did not give me time to get inside you before you came. But I was glad. I never would have forgiven myself for taking advantage of someone who could not say no.’

She traced his mouth with a fingertip, loving the fullness at the bottom and the fine sculpted upper lip. He caught her finger between his teeth, nibbled it, then sucked it into his hot mouth.

Desire jolted deep in her core. She rocked her hip against his thigh, felt the sweet promise of pleasure. ‘Are you always so dutiful, so noble?’

He grimaced and let her finger go. ‘You make it sound like a fault.’

‘Oh, no. Pardon me if I seemed rude. I am surprised, that is all, and pleased, naturally. Most men, men like your brother, Garth, for instance, never give a thought to what is right or good for a woman. I must thank you for that. After my experience as a child, I very much feared that I could never let a man get close, let alone touch me. I am grateful.’

He stared at her. ‘How do you do that?’

‘I’m sorry, I do not understand what you mean?’

‘You unman me. These things you say, they choke me up inside.’

‘Is that bad?’

‘Yes. Just accept the fact that any man with honour would not have taken advantage of your situation.’

‘But, Christopher, you don’t understand. Because it was you, I would not have minded had you taken your ease.’

He rolled on his back. ‘Women,’ he muttered. ‘There’s no understanding them at all. If you were to tie my hands and take me whether I wished it or no, do you think I would like it?’

She gazed at his erection, proud and stiff, then peeped at his frowning face, with a hesitant smile. ‘I am not so sure you would not.’

‘Sylvia, this is serious. Honourable men do not do that sort of thing.’

‘I am sorry if I insulted your honour,’ she whispered. ‘It is just that I have never met anyone like you before.’

‘There,’ he said, his voice husky, ‘you are doing it again.’

Perhaps he was right. That only if they were equal partners would the loving be right. Yearning for the contact he’d broken, her hand wandered his magnificent body. As it slid down the flat plane of his stomach, she encountered his turgid hardness. He sucked in a short breath. His stomach ridged with hard muscle. She stilled. ‘Oh.’

‘Don’t stop,’ he said. There was agony in his tone.

With a tentative fingertip, she touched him. He took her hand in his. ‘Like this,’ he said, moving her grasping fingers in swift hard strokes. She glanced at his face and saw abandonment to pleasure.

She’d learned some things from listening to the
filles de joie
growing up. Perhaps now would be her only chance to try them. ‘How about this?’ She squeezed him and his breath hissed between clenched teeth.

‘Oh, yes.’

She bent her head and kissed the tip and found it silken and smooth, then raised her head to gauge his reaction.

‘Sweetheart, don’t stop now,’ he begged.

She opened her mouth and took all of him in. Hard, hot, male musk and salt on her tongue. He filled her mouth. She cupped him in her other hand. So soft.

‘Gently, girl,’ he groaned. ‘God, yes. That’s it.’

She licked his smooth hardness, turning her head to savour the length of him with her tongue. He grew thicker in her mouth. It was an instrument of pleasure. Her pleasure. It was now her joy to pleasure him, however he desired. She tightened her grip around his rigid length.

He groaned, and threw his head back, eyes squeezed shut in the agony of ecstasy. He looked so beautiful she wanted to cry. He raised his head and caught her smiling at him. He grasped her shoulders and rolled her on to her back.

‘I have to be inside you,’ he said. He hung above her, his
gaze fixed on hers. ‘This is what you want, isn’t it? Me inside you.’ The fierceness of his tone frightened her for a moment. Then she saw his need to please her.

‘Yes, Christopher. I want you. Just you and no one else. Not ever.’

‘My girl. My lovely Sylvia.’

He pressed his hard male member against her opening. His eyes never leaving her face, he drove his hips forward. Pleasure rippled through her in growing waves and his pleased expression told her he delighted in her arousal.

With each slow stroke in, she lifted her hips to meet him. The feel of his groin hard against her was sweet grinding torture after sliding pleasure. She lifted her legs around his waist and he probed deeper yet. He filled her, tightening the knot of need, stretching her nerves to breaking point. And yet she did not break. She soared and flew on a gale of pleasurable sensation.

She cried out. Begged for the final flight to the stars.

‘Yes, sweet. Soon,’ he gasped. ‘Hold on to me, stay with me, darling.’

He lowered his head to her breasts and laved each one with gentle strokes of his tongue that sent her mindless. Then he suckled. The cords that held her together were so tight, so fine, they thrummed in wild vibration. She shuddered.

His rhythm changed, harder, swifter, deeper. She could barely breathe, but still she matched him stroke for stroke.

The strands unravelled. Nerve endings shattered in a thousand points of light. She called his name. Somewhere inside her, she heard Christopher’s groan of male triumph and her body surrendered to a river of hot bliss melting her bones.

She lay beneath him, smelling him, salt and sweat and musky man, feeling him stroke her hair, kiss her breasts, her lips, and listening to his soft murmured praise until she fell asleep. He was hers.

‘Wake up, sleepy head.’ Christopher’s warm breath in her ear sent a shivery thrill to her core.

Stretching, full of contentment, she opened her eyes and smiled at a fully clothed Christopher.

A grin of pride beamed from Christopher’s beloved, stubble-hazed face. ‘We’re here.’

‘Here?’

‘Dover.’

The word had the ring of a death knell, the ending to their interlude.

He took her hand and pressed it to his warm lips. He turned it over and, starting with her palm, trailed tantalising kisses up the delicate inside of her arm to its crook.

Her limbs turned to melted butter. She sighed and wiggled with pleasure beneath the covers. ‘You are up early.’