Margo Maguire (11 page)

Chapter 11

C
hristina had never been so forward in her life. And it felt wonderful.

Now she had some understanding of what Edward had sought when he visited Mrs. Shilton. It was no wonder his heart had given out while in the throes of passion. She could almost believe her own would do the same.

Gavin showed no signs of collapsing, though. His body seemed utterly invincible.

She looked into his eyes as he reached his peak and saw a quick second of something raw and uninhibited before he closed them and held her while shuddering with pleasure.

Her body quaked as he withdrew, and he slipped down alongside her in the narrow bed, pulling her against him, her back to his chest. He draped his hand over her waist, pulling her close as he caressed the sensitive skin of her abdomen.

“I’ve never shared a bed with anyone,” she whispered.

His hand stilled and she realized he might take it as a request to leave. She clasped her hand over his in a silent plea for him to stay. She had not appreciated the intimacy that could be shared with a lover in the moments after joining. Edward had never cared to try it. He’d always made haste to leave her bed after their couplings. There’d been no real intimacy then, and now she realized he’d had no skill in the bedchamber, either.

Unlike Gavin Briggs.

He’d made their lovemaking special, taking care to rouse her until she climaxed before taking his own pleasure. She hadn’t known such fervor—or such tenderness—existed.

Perhaps she was better off without a husband, and just keep a paramour instead.

G
avin gathered Christina close and turned her in his arms in order to avoid having to look in her eyes. Clearly, what they’d done was unlike anything she’d experienced with her husband, and she might well misinterpret its significance.

It was sex. Nothing more.

The fire crackled and flickered, casting long shadows across the room. It was peaceful and quiet, and Gavin hoped Christina didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to examine their coupling. What it meant for the future.

He closed his eyes, then bent his knees and cupped Christina’s body against his own, keeping his hand at her waist, and not on her breast as he was wont to do.

She was relaxed, but not asleep, and he could almost hear her questions. As he predicted, she turned her head and spoke in a whisper.

“You were so . . . I’ve never seen anything to compare with what happened in the dining room tonight. Thank you for what you did.” Her voice was soft and slightly hoarse, her words unexpected.

She did not speak of the future or how he fit into hers . . . she did not mention how their bed play might have changed things between them.

“Anything to get you safely to London and back to Windermere.” His voice sounded gruff and colder than he intended. Or perhaps he
had
intended it. To remind them both what his motives were.

“Would you use that pistol if someone came in?”

“Aye.” It was on a table beside the bed, exactly where he’d put it.

“Have you ever shot anyone?”

“I was in the army.” He prevaricated, wondering how she’d wandered to this subject. “It’s what I was paid to do.”

She turned her entire body and faced him. A slight dip in her brow indicated some puzzlement. “I do not know how you can do it. Soldiers, I mean. When you look at the enemy and see that he’s . . . well, he’s just a man.”

Aye. That was one of the differences between them. He could kill, but she could not fathom it.

“The enemy might be just a man, but he would kill me first if he had a chance.”

Gavin didn’t want to speak of his disreputable past any longer, so he slipped his hand down to her smooth bottom and brought her hips close while pressing kisses to her neck. He felt fully sated, but that would not stop him from enjoying her again. His arousal grew slowly but steadily when he thought of her uninhibited response to his touch.

He heard her low hum of pleasure. “I did not know you had an interest in agriculture,” she said, and Gavin realized he would have to do more than nip at her neck.

“Are you not tired?” he said.

“No.” She yawned. “You were talking to Mr. Crocker about wheat and turnips. About land use. Will you live on your farm in Hampshire?”

“We have a long day ahead of us,” he said, putting a little space between them. “Best if we both try to get some sleep.”

She took the hint, skipping her fingers down his chest to find his nipples. Gavin’s breath caught. “Perhaps. But not yet, Captain Briggs.”

I
t was a few minutes before dawn when Christina awoke. Gavin had slipped out of bed quite soundlessly and was crouched near the fireplace, building up the fire in the chilly room. Then he quietly pulled on his trews. Still shirtless, he sat down and pulled on his boots. Then he slid his fingers through his hair, and Christina’s breath caught at the sight of the powerful muscles in his chest and sides.

She would never have been so bold if he hadn’t kissed her in his room. His touch, his kiss, had awakened something in her, something intense and forbidden—something she could not ignore.

He stood and pulled on his shirt, then picked up his waistcoat, jacket, and pistol. Then he came to her, and crouched beside the bed. “You need to get up and lock the door behind me,” he said quietly.

Christina sat up, holding the linen sheet to her breasts. Not that there was any part of her body he had not seen, touched, or kissed . . . But morning brought trepidations. “I will.”

He stayed for a moment, looking at her without speaking, without touching her . . . then he turned and left the room. Christina followed him to the door and locked it, then returned to the bed for a little more sleep. She had not had much of it during the night.

He’d been quite considerate in building up the fire for her, and staying as quiet as possible as he dressed. He’d had no choice but to wake her to lock the door, else Christina believed he would have slipped silently out of the room, allowing her to rest a while longer.

She should have expected such thoughtfulness from him, after the gentle consideration he’d demonstrated throughout the night. In the past few days, he’d shown her in a hundred different ways that he was a hard man, yet she’d bent him to her will. He could have resisted her advances the night before, but he’d allowed her to seduce him.

She was frightfully glad he had.

Before meeting Gavin Briggs, it had not occurred to her to take a lover; only to consider taking another husband when her mourning period was done. Now that she realized exactly how Edward had deprived her, she was going to be a great deal more selective when suitors came to call. She did not want another one like Edward.

She lay back in the bed and pictured Gavin in her mind. He and Edward were both the sons of viscounts, but they seemed a different breed altogether.

Christina could not imagine Edward doing anything to thwart the criminals who’d come into the dining room, not even if their leader had dragged her away to commit some unspeakable evil against her. Gavin had known how to overpower the three men. He’d protected her.

She owed him her life. And she could not help but feel she was being a little unfair for coercing him into accompanying her to London for her own purpose. She did not know why he hadn’t simply overpowered her at Sweethope Cottage and taken her to Windermere. Clearly, he had the prowess to accomplish any feat, but here he was, at an out-of-the-way inn where they might have been seriously harmed . . . or worse. And now she demanded that he assist her at All Hallows Church.

The thought of dealing with her blackmailer brought Christina back to reality. Of course, she would do whatever she could to help Lang. He must be in some serious trouble, else he would certainly have contacted someone in the family. But since he could not, she would do whatever she could for him, even if it caused a delay in her journey to Windermere.

Besides, she was not quite sure about going there. She didn’t care anything for the grandfather who’d abandoned her and her sister, and their mother before them. What did it matter if the old man was dying and regretted what he’d done all those years ago? He
ought
to regret it. No one—not even a duke—should be able to interfere with or penalize two people who cared so deeply for each other that they defied all to be together.

She curled up under the soft down blanket and realized that both sets of her parents had shared something special. Sarah and her barrister had defied her father to marry, and had not looked back. Sarah had remained estranged from her father even after her death.

Lord and Lady Sunderland remained true to one another all through the years of their marriage, even before Felton’s birth, when it seemed Rowena was barren. The earl had not tried to discard her for a more fertile wife. He’d loved and cared for her in spite of their lack of heirs.

Christina tried to recall something of her life before the Sunderlands took her in, but could not, her earliest memories beginning when Felton was born. She could not even remember Lily, her twin. And yet she felt that Lily had always been there, somehow. In the back of her mind.

Christina could feel her there, and wondered if Lily felt the same.

She wanted to meet her sister, but it was not necessary to travel all the way to Windermere to do so. If Lily was now Lady Ashby, it should not be too difficult to find her. Christina could go directly to her home after London . . . after she found Lang.

But that would mean betraying Gavin.

G
avin saw Charles Crocker standing in the inn’s entryway when he went downstairs. Together, they went to the back kitchen and saw that Palmer the innkeeper was already starting to work. Christina’s two menservants came out of their room and glanced toward the pantry door. “Should we open it, Captain?”

“The magistrate will be here soon,” Palmer said, looking over his shoulder.

Gavin decided to let each of the felons out separately to use the privy, so Christina’s men unlocked the door and allowed one man out at a time.

To avoid any untoward actions from the prisoners, Gavin and Hancock kept their firearms trained on the ones who remained inside. None of them appeared half as threatening as they had the night before, but Gavin would not trust them, not even if they looked like kindly old grandfathers. He was quite clear on what they were capable of.

Standing guard as each man came out of the pantry and outside to the privy was a cumbersome process, but it kept Gavin from thinking too much about the night he’d spent in Christina’s bed. It had been a long time since he’d enjoyed a woman’s touch, and he told himself last night was merely a few hours’ diversion with a willing woman. A beautiful, willing woman who had been insatiable.

But she was not some nameless serving wench who shared her favors in exchange for a few centimes.

Gavin did not think it had happened just because she was a widow, missing her conjugal relations with her husband. There’d been too much wonder in her eyes, too much surprise in her face for that. He suspected her husband had not been exactly attentive to her needs. Not when the bastard was so busy pleasing his mistress.

Once the three prisoners were back in their temporary gaol, Gavin and some of the other men performed a thorough search of the area surrounding the inn. They found no sign of any other interlopers, which meant it had been wholly unnecessary for him to have spent the night in Christina’s room . . . in her bed.

He could not say he’d taken leave of his senses, for each of his senses had been all too acute. He’d felt every caress, and heard every sigh. He’d tasted and smelled her womanly scent, and seen the passion in her eyes. Every kiss had done more than arouse his body.

He muttered a vague curse at such an absurd notion and went outside with Bob Palmer to meet the magistrate and his men when they pulled up in front of the inn. They’d brought a cart in which to carry the criminals back to town, and were grateful to have them finally apprehended. Apparently, the rogues had been plaguing the district for weeks, and never been caught.

Gavin was relieved the villains had not been sent by Chetwood. Any man who’d been commissioned by a member of the Hellfire Club would be quick, professional, and vicious. He would never have taken the chances the robbers had attempted the night before.

The men Chetwood would send would be like the two rogues he’d used before to find and kill Lily. They might attack in a dark, narrow street, or some deserted alleyway in a town where Christina’s party stopped for the night. The kind of men working for Chetwood would think nothing of striking them on the open road.

He could not believe he’d overlooked the possibility that Chetwood might still be after Christina. He would not be so lax again.

Gavin quickly finished with the magistrate, and went to join Christina’s driver and footman, who’d already hitched the horses to the carriage and were leading it out of the stable.

“After last night, we’ll all need to be doubly watchful,” he told them. “We don’t know if there are any other brigands about, so be ready for trouble.”

“Aye, Captain.” Hancock touched the rifle at his side, demonstrating that he was prepared.

“If highwaymen approach us, they’ll come on fast,” Gavin continued as Christina and her maid came out of the inn. He did not know how she managed to look so alluring in her dull black gown. Her glossy black curls teased his eyes, and the thick, dark spikes of her lashes framed her gorgeous eyes. They’d sparked so vividly with passion . . .

He forced his attention toward her men. Bedding Christina had not been the most prudent decision he’d ever made, not that he’d had any control over their mad coupling. He’d wanted her intensely.

“If anyone suspicious comes for us, I’ll want you to race the horses, Hancock. Drive as fast as you can, and I’ll draw off the villains by riding in another direction.”

The driver nodded.

“If they overtake you, do what you can to stall them until I can get back, but if push comes to shove, give them whatever they ask for.”