Midnight Mistress (14 page)

“And what about you?” he asked quietly. “Do you think I’m the man for the job?”

“I … will do whatever is necessary to save the Marquis Line.”

Slowly, Connor turned back to her. With his hat pulled down over his brow she could not see his eyes, but it hardly mattered. His smile turned her blood to ice. “Of course. I should have recalled what kind of
man
you think I am. But no matter. I am not interested.”

“But it is a good position. You must—”

“Must?”
he seethed. “Lady, your days of ordering me around like your trained dog are over. If I were destitute, if I were starving, if I were washed up on the shore and rotting like a piece of driftwood, I would
still
not work for you. Never. There is nothing you have that I want.”

The words cut deep, but she thrust aside the pain. She sandwiched her slim form between him and the door. “Do you not want a thousand pounds?”

“A thousand … God’s teeth, woman, how do you expect to turn a profit if you offer every employee that kind of sum?”

“I am not offering it to every employee. Just to you. And I will be paying only half of it. My father left the rest to you in his will. I know you cannot claim it outright without revealing
your identity. But I can arrange it so that the money can be paid to you discreetly, with no one save my solicitor knowing the details of the transaction. For a few months’ work you will be a thousand pounds richer. Now in truth, can you afford to turn down such an offer?”

In truth?
Connor thought. In truth, he would have cut off his left hand before he took a farthing of her father’s money and cut off his right before he took a farthing of hers. In truth, he was torn between admiring her courage in making this outrageous offer and throttling her for putting herself in a compromising position with a man of his reputation.

In truth, he’d have given just about anything to be her hero one more time.

He gazed down into her green eyes, wishing like hell that he was still the good and honorable man she’d once known. But that man had died nearly four years ago, in the stink and squalor of a prison ship. With a talent he’d learned during the months of abuse and starvation, he schooled his features into a mask of indifference. “For the last time, I am not the man you need. Now, be so kind as to step aside. I have an appointment with a lady—an appointment I would most particularly hate to miss, as her husband will be returning to London on the morrow.”

He watched the truth fall into her green eyes. He watched as a part of her shattered. He told himself it didn’t matter. In a moment she would step aside and he’d be out of this office, and out of her life forever.

She did not step aside.

“You
are
the man I need. I cannot save my father’s company without you. If a thousand pounds is not enough, I shall make it two thousand. Or three. Name your price and I will pay it.”

God, she was glorious. With her chin high and her eyes defiant she looked exactly as she had as a child when she’d climbed up to the crow’s nest and stood with her face to the wind. When Connor had climbed up after her and brought
her down, her father had given her a hiding that had kept her standing for days, but she’d never showed an ounce of regret. Like her father, Connor had been mad as hell at her for risking her life—and just as proud of her courage. As a child, Juliana had always gone where angels feared to tread. As a woman, she was just as brave and foolhardy.

And she was sorely in need of another hiding.

Connor put his hand against the door and leaned closer. “I am not cheap, but I can be bought. I do not need your money. But there is something you can trade for my services, if you’re up for the barter.” His gaze skimmed down and lingered wickedly on her lush, ripe lips. “A kiss.”

“A k-kiss? But that is
preposterous
.”

Connor’s wolf’s smile widened. “Why? Have you no experience with kissing?”

“Of course I have,” Juliana stated. Then, with somewhat less veracity, she added, “I have been kissed dozens of times.”

“Good. Then one more will be of no consequence.”

Her gaze flittered to his lips—sensual lips that promised wicked pleasures. Long ago those lips had barely brushed hers. The memory still rocked her soul. “I c-cannot kiss you.”

Connor shrugged. “Then I shall kiss you.”

He lowered his mouth toward hers, but she slipped out of his embrace and hurried to the other side of the room. She stood stiffly, with her back securely against the commodore’s desk. It took barely five steps, but her heart hammered as if she had just run a mile. Nevertheless, she faced him squarely. “I cannot kiss you. I reserve my embraces for those I have a
tendre
for.”

This also was not entirely true. She had allowed Toby Bascomb to kiss her though she was only toying with the idea of returning his affections. His wandering hands and slobbering kisses were more than enough to make up her mind, and the fact that Toby became engaged not a week later showed that his heart was far from broken. Young Fitzroy Pompadour was someone she actually fancied herself in love with—until she’d discovered that kissing him was like kissing a potato. Her final adventure, with the notorious Baronet Blakeney, was the worst by far. Though she’d had no regard for him whatsoever, she’d allowed him to lure her behind a box hedge in Vauxhall garden to see if his kisses were all the “fast” ladies of the
ton
insinuated they were. But Blakeney had been so concerned that her embrace was crushing his elaborately tied French linen cravat that she’d left in disgust.

And then, of course, there had been Connor’s kiss.

“I cannot kiss you,” she repeated firmly “ ’Twould not be proper.”

Connor arched a knowing brow. “And meeting a man in a deserted office is?”

“That is different. It was necessary to—oh bother, you have me flummoxed.”

“Do I?” he asked softly as he took a step closer.

Lord, what was it about his voice that made her feel as if she were running on ice? She crossed her arms resolutely in front of her. “I shall not kiss you.”

Connor shrugged. “Suit yourself. But that is my price for taking your job. No kiss, no job.” He waited a heartbeat before adding. “I believe you said that you would do whatever was necessary to save the Marquis Line.”

Blast! She
would
do anything to save the line, and the scoundrel knew it. She worried her lip as she tried to figure a way out of the situation. “Oh, very well. One kiss.”

With her arms still crossed in front of her she stuck out her chin, pursed her lips into a tight O, and shut her eyes.

She heard him approach. His tread was strong and sure even on the deep rug. She could smell the rain on his cloak, the lingering scent of shaving lather, and a faint, heady musk that stirred the chord of memory deep inside her. A moonlit conservatory. Strong hands enfolding her own. A beloved face bending so close to her own that his warm, musky scent filled her world.

A soft caress that exploded through her like fireworks.

Her eyes shot open. “I cannot kiss you. I can’t—”

But it was too late.

He intended to teach her a lesson. She needed to be reminded that he was no longer the callow young swain who’d been at her beck and call, but a man who was well practiced in the arts of seduction. He wanted—no, he
needed
—to prove that she no longer had any hold over him. With cold calculation, he determined to kiss her thoroughly, completely, and heartlessly, with all the skill he’d learned in a hundred brothels from here to Shanghai. He planned to ignite her senses until she begged for more, then walk away leaving her weak and wanting.

His plan went badly awry.

He covered her mouth, driven by a passion that came out of nowhere. She tasted sweet—God, he’d forgotten how sweet. He cupped her face in both hands and tilted her head to deepen the caress. With the innocence of an unfolding flower, she parted her lips, tantalizing him, intoxicating him. He delved into her softness and was rewarded by a tiny mew of pleasure from the back of her throat. Desire, heavy and urgent, tightened his body.

For years he’d lived on the pale memory of her kiss. He’d tried to forget it a hundred times, but it always came back to him in hopeless dreams and wishes. Even now he could hardly believe this was real.
In a minute I’ll wake up in a foreign port, alone in a cold bed, stiff as a pike
—

She reached up and wove her fingers through his hair, moaning his name. Joy knifed through him. This was no dream.

Somewhere in the back of his mind a thread of his all-but-forgotten decency made him start to pull back. That died as she locked her arms around his neck, pulling him into a deeper embrace. He savaged her mouth, suckling and spearing into her lush sweetness like a starving man at a feast. She answered him with an eager innocence. Her untutored pleasure seduced him more quickly than any courtesan’s tricks. He pulled her close, fitting her against him as if they were two halves of the same being. For years, dreams of her had been the only thing that had kept him sane. Now the reality drove him mad.

Blood thundered in his ears. It didn’t matter where they were, or who they were. It only mattered that she was in his arms at last. Without breaking their embrace, he bent her back across the desk and pressed into the V of her legs. She squirmed wantonly under him. Lust raged through him. He’d wanted this for as long as he could remember. Longer. He’d protected her, nurtured her, cherished her. He’d saved her life. She was his, dammit. He bunched up her skirt to reveal the bare skin of her thigh.
His
. With a feral growl, he stroked the silk glory of her flesh, and felt her shiver with a pleasure that matched his own—

“Oh, my heavens!”

Meg’s cry shattered the embrace. Connor pulled back and staggered against the desk like a bottle-witted man. He shook his head, struggling to regain his balance and his sanity.

Meg faced Connor with her hands on her hips, wearing an expression that made him glad she was not carrying a sword. “Sir, how dare you take such liberties? If I were a man, I would call you out.”

“My dear, don’t make such a fuss,” Juliana replied as she calmly arranged her skirt back over her legs. “The captain and I were engaging in a … business transaction.”

“B-business?” Meg sputtered.

“Yes. Captain Gabriel has agreed to be the new manager for the Marquis Line.” She lifted her gaze to meet Connor’s. “Is that not so?”

Connor stared back, dumbfounded. Except for her heightened color, there was nothing about her that showed that she’d just been thoroughly kissed—and nearly much more. She’d returned his caress with a virginal sweetness, and he’d been idiot enough to believe she was untouched. But her cool gaze showed that her innocence was an act.

Deep inside him, a hope that even the hell of the prison ship hadn’t managed to destroy cracked apart.
But I’ll be keelhauled before I’ll let her know it
. He met her eyes with a gaze every degree as cool as her own. “You fulfilled your part of our transaction, my lady. Rest assured that I shall fulfill mine.”

He strode to the door, pausing only to scoop up his hat. He left the room without a backward glance and took the marble stairs two at a time in his haste to exit the building. Outside, the wind had picked up and the light drizzle had changed to a biting sleet, but it hardly mattered.

The foul weather seemed like a spring day compared to the misery in his heart.

“I cannot
believe
that you kissed him,” Meg cried as she paced in Juliana’s sitting room. During the carriage ride home, she’d kept silent, reluctant to share recent events with Lucy and her own lady’s maid, Henrietta, who would doubtless take it straight to Mrs. Jolly. She’d bitten her tongue so hard that she was amazed it wasn’t cleft in two by the time they got home. Now that she was alone with Juliana, all her pent-up admonishments burst out. “Whatever possessed you to do such a thing?”

“I already told you. It was the captain’s price for becoming manager of the Marquis Line. Honestly, you are making too much of a little kiss.”

“Little kiss? He had his hand up your skirt! If I had not chanced to come in at that moment I don’t know what would have happened.”

Two spots of color bloomed on Juliana’s cheeks, but her demeanor remained untroubled. She pulled a length of royal blue embroidery thread from her basket and bent back to her needlework. “Meg, you are far too parochial. This is the nineteenth century, not the Middle Ages. Besides, he agreed to take the job. That is all that matters.”

“That is not all, and you know it.” Meg stopped her pacing and came over to the fire. She settled into the gold brocade wing chair opposite Juliana. “My dear, this man has a notorious reputation when it comes to women. How can you be sure he will not tell everyone that—”

“He will not. The captain is an opportunist—he will do whatever is most advantageous to him, and working for the Marquis Line is certain to increase his stature with the shipping community. His greed will keep him silent.”

Meg peered at Juliana over the rim of her spectacles. “If he is so greedy, why did he turn down your money?”