In the Arms of a Marquess (27 page)

But as dusk deepened into a purple-blue haze, her nerves twisted tighter, her stomach knotting in a continuous loop. She worried for herself. For Marcus and the girl who should not have to suffer even if they did not entirely deserve her help. And most of all for Ben. She could not make herself believe that he would not return her message if he were well. She simply could not have been that mistaken again.

She must see him, and she was finished with waiting for him to come to her. Seven years past finished with it. This time she had pressing business that could not wait.

Chapter 21

BINDING-STRAKES. Two strakes of oak in the deck. The design of them is to strengthen and bind the deck so well together, as to prevent its drawing.

—Falconer’s
Dictionary of the Marine

B
en went to Crispin’s rooms. A bulky fellow with weathered skin stood on the street corner, leaning against a coal bin. One of Sully’s men. He tugged his cap to Ben and shook his head. Crispin still had not returned home.

He went to Brooks’s club, but none of Crispin’s acquaintances had seen him, and Ben did not know why he bothered. For years he had expected his employees to take care of tasks without his intervention. And they always did. But the anger in his blood fueled by frustrated hopelessness and an urgency to bring it all to an end propelled him through London.

At Styles’s house the butler shook his head apologetically. “His lordship left for the countryside this morning.”

“When do you expect him to return?”

“He did not say, my lord. But his man said he took only a few items in his bag and did not require assistance for the journey.”

Ben rode Kali to India House without entirely knowing where he guided her. At the door to the library, Lord Gosworth hailed him.

“How do you do, Doreé. Just the man I was hoping to find, actually.”

Ben bowed. He hadn’t the time or attention for discussing business. But he hadn’t the clarity of mind for anything else. The only moments he’d had of true sanity since returning from Kent were those in which he held Octavia in his arms. But he would not allow himself that again until the rest was settled. He could not. He would not offer her a man who did not yet know himself.

“Nathans called upon me yesterday.” The earl stepped close as a pair of gentlemen passed by. “Said Marcus Crispin’s not been in touch with him for days now. Fellow was in a real taking. Recently sank a load of blunt in a vessel called the
Sea Bird
just about ready to sail. She’s an impressive boat sitting at the export docks now, in fact.”

“What is Lord Nathans’s concern?”

“Says the goods haven’t arrived from up north yet.” He lowered his voice. “But Crispin signed the lading papers today. Ship is set to sail with an empty hold, and Nathans is in a pother over it. Wanted my confidential advice on how to handle a renegade partner.” Gosworth’s eyes narrowed. “I told him to ask you. Thought you might know something about it.”

“With all due respect, you were mistaken, sir. I haven’t an idea of the business. And never having had a partner myself, I am the least likely to be able to offer advice.” Sheeble was probably holding the
Sea Bird
’s cargo—the girls—somewhere else in London. Possibly near the docks, at a brothel or several. But if he were taking them from the hells again, Lil would have known. This time Styles must be finding them elsewhere, perhaps in the country . . . where he had just gone to check up on his cargo?

Country-bred girls. Farm girls who could read and write. To become prostitutes in the Indies? It made no sense.

Gosworth’s face sobered. “Doreé?”

“Sir?”

“I’m sure you’re well able to assist Nathans and Crispin if you wish, of course,” the older gentleman said. “But I’ve been meaning to say a word to you for some time now.”

Ben waited.

“Your father was as fine a person as I’ve ever known.” Gosworth clasped his arm. “You are his son, lad, through and through.”

Throat dry, Ben returned his steady regard.

“Thank you.”

He released Ben and bowed. “Good day, my lord.”

“Good day, sir.”

Ben called for Kali and rode home.

“My lord,” Samuel said as he entered his house and pulled off his greatcoat, “a message arrived for you several hours ago.”

“Sully?”

“No, sir.”

Ben accepted the pile of correspondence from the footman and went to his study. Dropping the post onto his desk, he crossed to the sideboard and took up a carafe of brandy and filled a glass to the rim. One palm braced upon the sideboard, he drank the contents. But it did not serve to still the chaos in him.

Gosworth was a good man. And the men who worked for Ben—Singh, Creighton, Sully, Samuel—gave him their loyalty and discretion without fail. He paid them well for it, but there was more. More to Lil’s trust. More to Abha’s iron-fisted faithfulness.

Yet the two people Ben had most cared about for years, most trusted like a brother and sister, were lying to him.

Styles’s deception dug deep. Knowing more about it now only tore wider the wound of betrayal. But Constance’s evasions were nearly as painful to bear. They had never been truly honest with each other, both hiding far too many secrets. But something distressed her greatly now, yet she did not trust him with it.

His gaze slewed to the desk. A modest ivory envelope topped the stack of letters. A lady’s writing paper.

He poured another dram of liquor and carried it across the study. The fire remained unlit, lamps dark. Only bluish evening light filtering through the window illuminated his name on the envelope.

Not Constance’s hand.

Octavia’s.

He swallowed around the ache in his throat, set his glass on the desk, and took up the letter.

“You needn’t read it. I am here now, so I can just as easily tell you.”

She stood in the doorway, the dim light from the corridor casting her in silhouette. Samuel hovered behind, as though she had gotten in front of him unawares. Astounding. But Octavia Pierce had never been anything but.

“You are here,” he said as though in a dream. But he did not trust dreams. He trusted in very little any longer. Except, perhaps, this woman.

She drew the door shut in Samuel’s face and pressed her back against it.

“I realize this constitutes intruding upon you at home again.” She spoke quickly. “But given everything, I thought perhaps that prohibition might be relaxed, although frankly it probably should not be for the sake of my reputation, especially at this late hour. I did come in a hackney, though.”

“Octavia—”

“This must be tiresome for you.”

He shook his head and barely managed the word, “Tiresome?”

“Well, I always seem to be coming to you in order to share some awful news and ask your help f—” She faltered. “—for another man.”

“Is that why you are here now?”

“Yes. No. Yes. Perhaps. I don’t know.” Her eyes swam with the same distress as that night at Fellsbourne before the rain.

“I will help you if I can.” He would, whether she still wanted Crispin or not. He simply could not prevent himself from doing so. “I will help.”

She pushed away from the door and moved swiftly across the chamber. She halted a stride from him, seeming to balance upon the balls of her feet. Her gaze sought.

“Is this all right?” she whispered. “That I am here?”

“You must know it is.”

She threw herself against his chest and he grabbed her up and wrapped his arms around her.

“I am miserable.” Her words came muffled into his coat. “I want to laugh again. Please make me laugh. It used to be you always could.”

“I did so to see you smile. But forgive me,
shalabha
, at present you do not seem in a jesting mood.”

A half laugh, half sob stumbled from her throat. She grasped his waistcoat and pressed her body close.

“Then make me sigh. Make me weep with pleasure as you did in the country when I forgot about everything else. Now, Ben, please. I need you.”

His hands rounded her back to fit her against him, his throat thick.

“Making you weep seems to be my specialty.”

She groaned softly, a sound at once of unhappiness and release.

“No. Not in the manner you mean.” Her face lifted. “Others did, occasionally. Perhaps even I did. But not you.” She rose onto her toes and touched her lips to his chin, the sweetest caress that ran through his body like silvered water. “Except that once, of course, for about six months.” Her eyes closed, her lips making a seductive exploration of his jaw, her hands stroking across his chest. Ben felt her, and his body followed his heart’s aching.

“Six months.”
He barely breathed.

“Until I returned from Calcutta with my aunt and uncle and learned you had gone. I stopped weeping then. Tears, you know, are born of despair, but also of hope.”

He kissed her open mouth, threading his fingers through her hair and holding her close. But she wanted more. Her hands sought, her tongue hot and her sublimely curved body restless against him. She kissed his neck, unwinding his cravat and unbuttoning his waistcoat with quick fingers.

“Will you again make me ask you to take me to your bed?”

“No. But Octavia, the servants—”

“Are like the king’s Yeoman of the Guard. I have noticed this. And well they should be. But even if they were not I wouldn’t care. I want to live as myself again, Ben. I want to feel happiness, and the last time I felt that I was naked and in your arms.”

He picked her up and carried her to the stairs, taking them three at a time and pausing to kiss her at the top of the flight. She twined her arms about his neck, her breaths heavy.

“Go. Go quickly,” she uttered with the same urgency pressing at him.

In his bedchamber the door slammed shut and their mouths locked, hands tearing at clothing until she wore only a thin shift. He pulled her to the bed, unfastening his trousers and dragging her down onto his lap. She straddled him and twisted to tug the chemise over her head, revealing her lissome beauty in a sensuous stretch that mounted the pounding in Ben’s blood. His hands circled her waist, her butter-soft skin hot and flushed beneath his mouth as he kissed her belly, along each rib, caressing the undersides of her breasts with impatient fingers then sweeping his thumbs over their velvet centers. They rose to his touch. With his mouth he covered a tight pink peak, teased her arousal with his tongue, and she arched to bring him closer.

She was beautiful everywhere, the hearth light illuminating her skin to gilded ivory, her half-lidded eyes rich and sparkling with flame. He slipped his hand between her thighs and stroked her. She moaned, damp and taut to his touch, and pressed into him, impatience in the sensuous thrust of her hips.

“Ben.” Her voice was thin. “I—” Her palms slipped to his face, turning him up to meet her fevered gaze. Tumbling from its pins, her hair like molten fire cascaded before her eyes now wide with passion but another urgency too. “I never accepted Marcus until you told me to. He offered, but I said I needed time to consider. He announced the betrothal at Fellsbourne without my consent.”

Ben’s heart racketed beneath his ribs. “Is this true?”

“Of course it is true. I cannot lie any longer.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

Her brows twisted. “Misplaced loyalty. And I believed it did not matter to you one way or the other.”

“It mattered. It matters.” He pulled her down and embedded himself deep in her, a groan breaking from his chest as she whimpered her body’s acceptance. He held her to him, unmoving, breathing in her scent of roses and perfect woman and whispered, “It matters.”

She trembled, shifting her hips, then sighing as she drew him out then into her again, her fingertips pressing into his shoulders.

“Oh,” she sighed, “this is what I want. This.”

He grasped her soft buttocks and guided her need, too hard and hot and surrounded by her not to take her harder with each stroke, to satisfy the desperate craving to have her in every way, beyond flesh. To make her his. But she needed no encouragement. She rode him faster, throwing back her shoulders and arching her neck. He spread his palm between her breasts and slid it to her throat, the vibrations of her moans a gift beneath his hand, then her tripping laughter.

“Thank you, Benjirou. Thank you for rescuing me again,” she whispered upon a sigh like rippling tide, eyes closed, her smiling lips wide, and Ben lost his soul, finally, irrevocably. He sought her, heart spilling, body surging. Her brow knit and she bore down upon him, moaning as he pulled her tight, her laughter transformed into cries of pleasure, then astonishment, then ecstasy. With each fluid shudder she branded him, and he submitted. He buried his face in her hair, crushed her sweet, supple body to his chest, and came hard and complete inside her.

She broke his hold, her shimmering eyes flying wide. “What about caution?”

“I have never been cautious with you, Octavia Pierce. Never.” He caught her hand and pressed his mouth to her palm. “I simply cannot be.”

She said nothing, her lips parted as her breathing slowed, firelight dancing across her smooth cheeks and pert freckled nose. She drew her gaze away and dipped her head to his shoulder, her hands curving around his ribs. He encircled her slight body with one arm and stroked along the length of her tumbled hair.

Finally she slipped off his lap and pulled up a corner of the bed linens to wrap around her. She looked small and vulnerable in his bed, and he wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, this time more tightly so that she would not leave. But lines of tension creased her brow, and she remained withdrawn, as though uncertain.