Judith Ivory (6 page)

She looked down. “Oh, don’t do this.”

“I want to make love to you.”

She stared back up at him. “I wouldn’t allow it.”

His eyes were watching her so intently. She felt that he might look right through her, that something she wished not known might be on the edge of his perception.

“I think you might,” he murmured.

She felt the blood rise in her face. She turned her head away as far as she could. “What incredible cheek—”

He exhaled a dubious breath at this, amused. “You
tremble when I touch you,” he said. “Your face flushes easily. And you watch me. I hardly enter a room that you don’t. Or from a window.” He let this sink in. “I’m seldom wrong about such things.”

“Yes, I can see you’d be expert on ladies’ flushed faces. With this sort of conversation.” She turned away. “I should go.”

A boot came across the narrow corridor of plants—she collided against his leg. And, at the same time, collided directly with the first tremors of genuine alarm. He had braced his leg on the rim of a citrus pot, blocking her exit. Her hands fell lightly on his thigh—lightly on the strong, solid muscle that, unabashed, could hold her where he wanted her….

“Don’t play games,” he murmured. “I know part of you is interested. My God, you can’t conceive. You’re not a virgin. You’re not married.”

“And I’m not a trollop.”

He sniffed at that. “I was suggesting something rather exclusive and private, not the Royal Navy.”

She made an uncomfortable laugh. “I can’t believe you’re so frank in asking—I don’t know what to do in the face of such presumption.”

“Give in.”

Again she laughed nervously. But the only response that would come was to shake her head
no.
She stared down at her own hands resting on his leg—then watched as his fingers closed over hers. He tugged her around.

Christina found herself standing directly between his legs.

Emotion surged. Apprehension. Anxiety. Something more…She felt trapped by the workbench, a wall of plants, and an aura—a spell cast by the most charming, most forward man she had ever met. While he stood so close…Then closer. He leaned a forearm on the elevated thigh, his face a breath away.

Christina glanced down at the barricading leg. Something about this must have amused him. He laughed.

“Do you see yourself struggling on the floor,” he teased, “against my improper advances?”

“No,” she said, too quickly.

“Good.” There was a pause. “I would hate for you to struggle.”

Her eyes grew wide. “But I assure you I would, if—” She couldn’t finish. Again she couldn’t look at him. A tension in her stomach knotted into something she couldn’t quite define. God, he was so bloody attractive. So damned close.

An arm smoothed down her back, tried to pull her to him. She put out her hand. “Don’t—” she said. “I can’t—Not here.” Recognizing what she’d said, “Not anywhere.”

“Anywhere you like. Lie with me.”

“You’re mad.”

His head tilted; his look for an instant was vaguely mean. She could imagine him angry. It gave her a sudden insight into something that Evangeline had said; that all his charm had a mark of tyranny running through it. He wanted his way, damn anyone else; never mind that he was pleasant about it. What she hadn’t understood though—a misjudgment that had put her where she was now, clearly in over her head—was that these words,
tyranny, too-charming, a menace,
had nothing to do with the cad proceeding against protest. They meant rather something much smoother; a gentleman—articulate, soft-spoken—proceeding to induce complicity.

Her mouth trembled as he leaned to kiss her. But she didn’t turn away. She let him take her mouth. Dimly, timidly, she knew she wanted to feel this, sense this, taste this again.

But this kiss became different. His mouth accepted her submission, then twisted and took a kiss from her
in a way she couldn’t believe existed. His arms lifted her hard against him, the flat of his palm pressing her to him by the small of her back. Then, as his tongue came fully into her mouth, his palm rubbed downward over her buttocks—a slow slide of pressure. She could feel the whole length of his body against hers as he pushed her into him. And his body pushed back; a slow, deliberate movement.

Christina had never known a less innocent kiss. She tried to be appalled. Through the bulky layers of clothes—her petticoats and skirts, his breeches, a flap of coat—she could feel him. Male, tumid, hard; his blatant intentions were outlined solidly against her own fluttering stomach. Yet, try as she might, she couldn’t be offended by the way he kissed her or the way he felt. Rather, she found herself impossibly attracted. Without realizing, without consciously willing it so, her mouth opened up to his. His tongue penetrated deeply. While every female sense in her body responded to his sharp masculinity. Her arms wrapped around him. She rose up on her toes, letting his arm bring her up to help equalize their heights. Her legs parted slightly as he pulled her, tight, against his hips; he pressed himself against the rise of her bone. Christina’s mind lost all coherent thought. His arms felt strong…. The muscles of his chest and shoulders were hard, contoured…. His legs had a muscular length…. And his hips, as they conveyed their small, suggestive pressure, were the devil’s own…. Then a stray, outrageous observation: For all its grace, his body would be heavy; his weight would feel sublime.

Christina tore her mouth away from his, scrambling, trying to pull away from this thought. “Please—My God—” She turned her head away. She had never had such a strong reaction to just a kiss and the simple presence, through a dozen layers of clothes, of a man’s body.

This time, however, he didn’t release her. He let her pull her face away, but he kissed her throat. He held her to him firmly, his lips traveling into the soft, sensitive place behind her ear where her jaw met her neck. Christina groaned. What began as protests on her lips somehow muddled into soft exclamations of pleasure. It made no sense to allow this, but sensation by sensation, she found herself delaying, promising herself she would stop him in a moment. In a moment….

He found her mouth again, and, again, she didn’t refuse him. He was so tender, with such an incredible touch…. His hand went to her face, his thumb stroking her cheek as his fingers went around into her hairline. Then, slowly, the hand began to travel down her spine.

A second later, a warm draft brushed across her shoulder blades. It felt beautiful. Then alarming. My God, she was coming literally undone: The hand, his fingers descending toward her waist, knew unerringly the pattern, the hooks and fastenings of a lady’s dress.

The thought roused Christina. Yet, her responses were sluggish. “No—” She managed to get her hands around.

He stopped readily. But the damage continued to accumulate. The bodice felt no longer snug. Her breasts lay loosely against the opened neckline. And he eased the neckline down a little, just off her shoulders, and bent his head. He kissed her throat and neck and shoulder. Then his hand, through the fabric of her dress, pressed her breast. He pushed it high over the edge of the loosened neckline to where his mouth could find it.

“Oh, God,” she murmured. She wet her lips. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

His lips and tongue felt moist against her skin. They left a hot, heavenly trail that ran along the neckline of her dress, then dipped down between her breasts. While his hands went into the dress at the shoulders, sliding it downward. She caught her dress just as it fell to her el
bows. Bare shoulders. Open down the back. Only her crossed arms saved any modesty.

She clutched these layers of fabric, her last defense. But this left her with no means—no hands—to stop him otherwise. His palms smoothed freely down her naked back, opening the dress further. She heard his breathing rasp, catch. He shifted. He had to brace himself against a low potting table; he was in no better shape than she. Christina began to stir restlessly in his arms. While Adrien’s fingers reached into her hair.

Hairpins hit her shoulders, tickled as they brushed her bare skin on their way to the ground. The mass of copper-gold hair followed heavily to her shoulders, then down her back. Adrien buried his face at the curve of her neck as he spoke a litany of soft phrases, none of them intelligible. None of them, in fact, in English. Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he drew her arms down. The dress fell.

Bare breasts. High. Round. Faintly trembling from the rise and fall of her breathing. “
Mon Dieu, Christine
—” he murmured.

He said something more—soft, foreign—as he cupped his palm under a naked breast. His hand lifted, felt the weight of the exposed breast. Christina’s body arched.

“Ay—” She called out as his fingers gently enclosed this soft curve of her body, possessing it, squeezing, tugging at the nipple….

Halfheartedly, she raised her hand to his, thinking to pull it away. Yet, somehow, this seemed an impossible effort. His mouth began to plant wet kisses along her collarbone…. She moaned in frustration. If she could have quieted his movements for just a moment…But his dark head bent further. The smell of his hair, clean, warm, filled her senses. And he took the pink tip of her breast into his mouth.

She let out a half-sob and reached for him, taking his
face into her hands. My God, she had to stop him from such indecent, unearthly pleasure…. But he took her hands and kissed their palms. Heat shot up her wrists like jolts of lightning. And he slipped the last of the dress from her wrists and shifted her around. The low table—full of pots he cleared off with one sweeping clatter—hit her in the backs of the thighs. He bent her backwards. She caught herself on her arms, fell to her elbows. And he pressed forward.

Distantly, Christina remembered she was trying to stop him, but the reason for her resistance had blurred into a glazed heat behind her eyes. He bent over her, taking her other breast into his mouth. Pleasure spun out on pleasure, darkened. Nothing existed but the feel of his tongue and mouth making their gentle pressure on her bare flesh.

A soft breeze blew through the greenhouse. It cooled the wetness left behind on the abandoned breast, contrasting this—a mild irritation—with the warm sensations that enveloped the other breast as he covered it with his mouth. A kind of maddening feeling took hold; wanting him to be everywhere, to make her feel warm, liquid in every curve and crevice of her body. She arched slightly, offering her breasts, her nakedness to him.

He took it. His knee came onto the table, claiming a place between her legs. The weight of his hips came onto her. Christina let her arms slip out. She lay back on the table. She felt herself sinking…melting…. Let him, she thought. My God in heaven, let him. Whatever he wants….

Then, suddenly, nothing. Nothing at all.

With an abruptness that left Christina floundering, the man above her became still. The moment stretched out, quiet, vacant. Vaguely, Christina became aware of the wind chimes by the terrace, far off. They clattered beyond the bushes and flowers and trees. While there, in the greenhouse, time itself seemed to have halted.

Adrien remained bent over her, half on top of her. She could feel his abdomen, alive like a warm animal against her, moving with the rapid rhythm of his heart, his breath. But his chest remained raised. He had turned to look over his shoulder.

She made a soft moan, “What’s wrong—?”

He put his hand over her mouth. “Shhh.”

“What?” She was in a fog of longing, a sea of confusion. What in the world was he doing now?

“We have company,” he whispered. He took her by the arms, trying to gather her up. But she was limp as a doll. His mouth brushed her ear. “Tonight,” he murmured. He folded up the front of her dress to cover her; a caress, a shiver….

And this time, Christina heard it too. Evangeline’s laughter. It carried on the wind. It blended into the sound of the odd bits of metal and piping that hung, tinkling, by the terrace steps.

“Thank you, then,” Evangeline’s voice said, “I’m sure I can find her now.” Then a light little tune. She was singing. Evangeline was humming and da-da-da-ing her way down the path that led to the greenhouse.

Evangeline’s voice closed in on them. “Christina,” she called, “Christina!”

But a voice close to Christina said her name differently. “Christina, stand up,” Adrien whispered. “I can’t get to the back of your dress.” He was lifting her to her feet.

It was like coming up out of a drugged stupor. The air on Christina’s face—on her bare shoulders and bosom—felt cold. Reality washed over her. And suddenly, she couldn’t look at the man in front of her.

“Come on. Turn around,” he whispered.

She did so, clutching the top of her dress.

He lifted her hair and draped it over her shoulder. His hands nimbly took hold of the back of her dress. The fastenings began to close, a precise movement at her waist moving upward. “Tonight,” he spoke near her ear as he worked. “I have to speak to the doctor about Miss Chiswell’s arm, then I have to get her home. But she doesn’t live far. I’ll be back by nine—”

“No—” The word was physically difficult to get out;
as if she had lost the power to express her own will. “No,” Christina reaffirmed. “I—I think we’d best leave things where they are—”

“I won’t be late—”

“No.” She turned, letting her dress remain incompletely fastened. She needed to stop the delicate touch of his hands, needed to move him away from her. She took his fingers in hers and pushed him back. In the distance, Evangeline could be heard, splashing in the fountain, calling in the wrong direction. Christina wanted to get through this as quickly as she could. “I’ve done a horrible thing, I know, letting you believe—”

“You’re done nothing horrible—”

“I’ve let you believe I would”—she could think of no nice way to say it—“that I would be”—a pause—“available to you.” God, what an awful way to put it. She bowed her head.

But his fingers took her jaw and brought her face up to look at him squarely. She glimpsed the angry tilt of his head, the querying brow that was trying to imagine any other explanation. “Available?” he asked.

“Don’t make me explain. I don’t understand it myself. But you mustn’t touch me—”

His frown deepened. “Why?”

She became aware of a ring on his finger, the hardness of gold and stones pressing into the bone of her chin. She lowered her eyes. “Because there is a woman upstairs with a broken arm.”

“I didn’t break it.”

“Not her arm.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“And there was a woman before that.”

“You want to be the only one?”

“No—” she stammered. Is that what she wanted? “No.”

Evangeline had at last found the right path. Leaves rustled. Footsteps tapped along the stones in their di
rection. While the two of them stood there facing each other.

He let her lower her face. “What do you expect from me, Christina? Love? I don’t know you well enough to love you. I only know what I feel at the moment. I’m fascinated by you.”

“Like a cat in heat.”

He let out a breath. “Christina, you knew what I was when you came back here with me. In fact, I think that was part of the attraction—”

“All right,” she snapped. “I was curious. It was wrong of me, but I was. I’m very sorry—”

“I want to sleep with you.”

Her eyes flashed up at him. “Well, we don’t all get what we want.”

His jaw tightened. He drew himself up. And Christina experienced a moment of regret. She tried to mitigate the brutality of her remark.

“Honestly,” she offered, “I would have no idea how to go about having an affair with a man like you. I would make a mess of it, saying, wanting all the wrong things—”

But his eyes had frosted completely.

And the next moment, there was a tap at one of the windows.

“Am I disturbing something?” Evangeline was coming around to the door.

She opened it, stepped in. She smiled a quizzical, almost mischievous smile. “There you are, Christina. I’m so sorry. John-John threw up this morning and there was no getting away from the house until he was quieted down—oh dear—” She looked from one to the other, Christina to Adrien. Then very sweetly, softly, she said, “I
have
interrupted something, haven’t I?”

Evangeline smoothed a wrinkle from the shoulder of Christina’s dress. She picked out a leaf from the ends
of her hair. “Well, you
are
a dark horse. How long has this been going on?”

“It’s not how you think, Evie. I have just offended him horribly.”

Evangeline laughed. “By the looks of you, it’s the sort of offense he’s quite used to.”

“No—”

“Well, never mind. He recovers quite quickly—and is not put off nearly so easily as you might imagine. If he fancies you, Christina…” Evangeline let her words trail off. She seemed to be looking at Christina in a new light. Then she shrugged and turned. She leaned against the door of the greenhouse. “He can be very persuasive, you know.”

“Have you slept with him?” It wasn’t a very polite question. But a whole number of rather impolite things were suddenly running through Christina’s mind.

Evangeline paused, picked at the spines of a pineapple. “There’s hardly a woman in fifty miles who hasn’t.”

“Then you have?”

Evangeline’s face came up. Again, the full contemplation. “Then I have. Several years ago.” More genially, she held out her hands—” Don’t be an idiot, Christina. He won’t be true love, he won’t marry you, but he’s lovely; I can tell you that much.” She cocked her head. “What do you want, for God’s sake? You’ve already tried Prince Charming and he didn’t turn out to be very grand. Maybe what you need is a nice, pleasant Prince of Darkness who’ll stroke your thigh for a time.”

“Evangeline!”

“If I were less a friend, I wouldn’t say it. And”—she paused—“if I were less a friend I wouldn’t warn you: There’s half a dozen women in these parts half in love with him. Don’t give him a foothold there. I’ve seen what he can do, the kind of damage he can wreak. He’s a nasty customer, Christina. I hope you understand
what I’m saying. He’s attractive, sweet, lovable, but absolutely selfish and self-centered. The only way you can deal with him is to be absolutely as perfectly full of self-interest as he is.”

Christina had never heard Evangeline—any woman—speak like this. The philosophy seemed vaguely wrong, but she couldn’t say where. It seemed also to have a bit of right to it.

“Evie. Another thing.”

“Yes?”

“In French.” She embarrassed herself, yet she wanted to ask this. “Am I losing my mind or does he make love in French?”

Evangeline gave a brief, wondering smile. “Why, yes. I think he does.”

“Why—how?—would an English lord do such a thing?”

“His mother was French. He was raised there. He didn’t come to England to live until he was sixteen or seventeen.” She paused. “I think he’s developed an English accent over it now. But he was, at one time, quite fluent.” Then Evangeline laughed lightly. “Why? Has he said something filthy?”

“I don’t know. I don’t understand him most of the time.”

Evangeline gave a wicked grin. “Well, I know
all
the dirty words. You must let me help you.”

“Have you got a grammar? A lesson book?”

“Probably. Somewhere?” Evangeline looked puzzled. “But you’re not likely to find what he has to say in textbooks.”

“That’s all right. I want to brush up anyway. It will be something to do.”

Christina sighed and ran a hand back over her hair. She had forgotten. Her hair was a disaster, pins and pieces dangling. She groaned. “For all the damage, I half wish I’d sinned a little more thoroughly. There’s not
going to be a soul to believe I’ve been attacked by yet a second band of thieves.”

“You mean you haven’t?” Evangeline was coming to her rescue, picking up strands of hair, smoothing in pins. “‘Sinned thoroughly,’ I mean.” Evangeline threw her head back and laughed. “You are in a state, aren’t you?” She was picking leaves off the back of Christina’s dress as well. “But, my darling coz, I wouldn’t give you a tuppence for your chances of staying clear of him in that case. Not if you got this messed up and still didn’t finish the deed.” Her laughter became uproarious. “Well. We are all about to see some very heavy courting. The mating dance of Adrien Hunt. It’s been so long since anyone has bothered to make him go through it. Bravo for you, old girl.” She patted her back. “Bravo for you!”

Almost immediately as he entered the house, Adrien was waylaid by Thomas Lillings, Sam Rolfeman, and Charles Sloane. Thomas and Sam had helped bring Cybil Chiswell back to the house. Charles, Evangeline’s husband, had just arrived.

“Where have you been?” Thomas asked. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”

“I went to the stables to see how Miss Chiswell’s horse was faring. I sent a stable boy for the veterinarian. Has Dr. Willis arrived yet?”

“He’s upstairs with her now. Adrien—”

“Yes?”

Thomas’s anxious look seemed to accuse for a second. “I can’t find Christina either.”

“I just saw her out in the garden.”

Sam broke in. “Mrs. Pinn isn’t our main problem, you know. What’s become of the woman we mistook her for? Have you heard anything more from the Frenchwoman we were supposed to meet that afternoon?”

All three—Thomas, Sam, and Charles—were in
league with Adrien to rescue French aristocrats destined for the guillotine.

“Not a word,” Adrien answered.

“Has she gone back home, then? Do the French know?”

“I don’t know what’s become of the Frenchwoman. But the French don’t seem to know anything. Our friend in Paris has tested every likely vein in which the information would flow. No one at La Force, or anywhere else for that matter, seems any the wiser.”

Sam was puzzled. “I don’t understand it. Why would a woman come over here, spend seven weeks tracking us down to your very doorstep, then leave without contacting us or turning us in?”

“I have no idea.”

“So, what do we do now?”

“Start up again, I suppose. Very cautiously.”

“Then you still want to go the night after next?”

“It’s either start again or be intimidated by this into ceasing entirely. Do you want to quit?”

Sam frowned. “No,” he said quickly.

“Thomas? Charles?”

“I’m sure no one wants to quit,” Thomas said.

“Good. You can ask the others. Unless I hear differently, I’ll assume we’re leaving Friday night, as planned. Meanwhile, I’ll try to get hold of Edward Claybourne. He’s the one who suggested that this woman was a spy working for the French. I’ll see if he knows anything more.”

“Oh—” It was Charles. “I’d forgotten. As I came up, a messenger brought this.” He produced a note.

Adrien took it. It was from Claybourne himself, the English Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was demanding a meeting. Immediately. The note included directions to a not-too-distant house.

“So.” Adrien sighed. “Claybourne must know—he must have realized the ‘interloper’ he was speaking to
me about last week was, in fact, standing right there in front of him. I suppose, now, I’m to be called on the carpet.” Only the week before, Claybourne had expressed a strong antagonism toward anyone ‘meddlesome enough’ to take French prisoners out of French prisons. He never liked anyone to cause the French more trouble than he did, having built an entire career on the age-old enmity between England and France. Adrien folded the note. “And I suppose I have to go. If I’m to pump any information out of him.”

Reluctantly, Adrien went toward the stairs.

Halfway up though, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Evangeline and Christina Pinn come in the far terrace doors. He stopped. Christina Pinn looked flushed. Her red-gold hair was a halo of tendrils and wisps—she had not gotten it up again too neatly. Her eyes were bright. Her skin glowed. She had never looked more ravishing, he thought. Adrien smiled to himself as he climbed the remaining stairs. Being gently fondled on a hothouse potting table seemed to agree with the woman.