The Pursuit of Pleasure (31 page)

“Then what is it?” When he didn’t immediately answer she pressed. “Shall I tell you what it looks like? It looks like you faked your death to be rid of me, so you and your navy mates could play house in my garden, Jamie. I hate to break up your ‘cozy moment,’ but you’re trespassing.” She gestured back towards the door with the muzzle of the gun. “Get off my estate.”

“It’s not yours.”

“Oh, yes it is. You’re dead! You’ll have to go to Chancery Court to take it back.”

“Lizzie.” He reached out his hand towards her and then let it drop. He was tense with stillness. “I won’t have to go to the Court of Chancery. I made sure of all the legalities before I undertook this.”

It felt as though he had slapped her. The pain of the phantom blow ricocheted through her, rocking her on her feet. “How flattering,” she said, as breathlessness made her voice too soft, “to know you considered all the ‘legalities’ as you were planning to use and defraud me.”

He colored, two spots high on his cheekbones as he realized just what he’d said.

“I haven’t defrauded you, Lizzie. I have done more than enough other harm to you, however inadvertently. And I have apologized for that. But I have not defrauded you. I invited you to take a chance. And that’s what you did. And so did I. I gave you control of all that money. And you still have it. I haven’t interfered.”

“I did not take a chance on being thrown in gaol and being potentially hanged. But to be fair, I do still have the money. And you haven’t interfered. Which leaves me to wonder why?” When he made no answer, she continued. “Is it because you can’t? Hmm. For whatever reason it is you won’t tell me, you can’t. How interesting.”

“Lizzie.” His voice was sore with regret. “I know you’re hurt and angry. You have every right to be. I’m sorry.”

He had no right to feel such anguish. He had caused it.

“I’m not hurt.” Nothing so paltry as hurt could describe what he had done to her and how he had made her feel. Still made her feel. She spat her anger and pain at him. “I’m livid.”

More angry than when they’d hauled her off to the gaol. At least then she’d thought there’d been some mistake. She had been so sure there had been a mistake. Now, she knew there had been one. Her own. She had trusted him.

Never again.

The bitterness and bottomless anger still roiled endlessly in her belly. She couldn’t keep it in. “You left me there to die, or be killed!” The tears she refused to shed ate at her throat like acid.

“Stop, Lizzie, please.” He reached for her. “I couldn’t. I didn’t. I sent help.”

She batted his hand away. “What help? The only reason I got out of that hell was because my mother braved my father’s disapproval and found a decent solicitor and barrister.”

He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “I know. She was a wonder, your mother. Lord deHavilland was magnificent. But Lady Theodora did not act alone. You were never alone.”

“I have never been so alone in all my life. And I intend to keep it that way. So you and your sodding, traitorous smugglers should clear out of my house while you have the chance.”

“My God,” he pinched the bridge of his nose, “your language. Remind me to throttle Maguire.”

“You’d do better to sit down at his knee and take some advice. Maguire knows more about the business along the south coast than either of you two greenhorns can ever hope to figure out.”

He moved an involuntary step closer. “What do you know, Lizzie?”

She took a step forward herself. “What do
you
know, Jamie?”

His eyes, always the indicator of his scruples, slid away. Whatever it was he knew, he wasn’t going to tell her. Or trust her.

Bastard.

But she would find out all of Glass Cottage’s secrets anyway. Tomorrow, when she and Maguire would follow the cave and trace its likely connection back to the house.

Icy hot silence stretched between them until Jamie broke it with an exasperated expulsion of breath.

“I know that look in your eye, Lizzie. For the love of God, please, stay out of this. Let me handle this.”

“Handle what? The smugglers? This estate? You can’t. You’re dead.”

“Listen to me!” he ground out, moving closer. She could see the tension, feel it coming off his body in heated waves. “We are determined,
I
am determined to prevail here. Do you understand me? For your own good, put your gun away and do as you are asked. Everything depends upon it.”

Jamie took a long moment to look at her face. A long, searching moment, with those pale, piercing eyes moving slowly across her like a touch. Lizzie looked away. Damn him. She would not weaken. She would not give in to those damned eyes of his.

She held her ground. “Not to me. Your plans, the plans you were willing to sacrifice me, and my freedom, for, can go to hell. The only thing that matters to me is whether you live or die, and I’m sure you can guess my preference.”

“God damn you, Lizzie.” With a suicidal disregard for the gun, he grabbed the barrel and pushed it away. “Why won’t you let me protect you? I may have been forced into my career by your overprotective father and his aristocratic notions of what was good enough, or more importantly
not
good enough, for his daughter, but it’s my bloody career, and I have never, never once forsworn my duty or failed to accomplish what Iset out to do! Everything I am, everything I value, is at stake here, including you. I won’t have it. I can’t.”

Lizzie gripped the edge of the potting table and held herself entirely still, to keep her body from swirling as precipitously as her thoughts. When she finally spoke, her whisper seemed to cleave the silence. “What did you say?”

“I said, everything I value—”

“No.
My
father forced you?” It made no sense. How could her father have had anything to do with Jamie’s chosen profession?

But he must have. She saw the truth of it in Jamie’s eyes, pale and cold as he stepped back, away from her. Bitter bile rose in her throat even as the bottom dropped out of her stomach.

“And you didn’t know? You expect me to believe that, you who knew everything that happened in Dartmouth? You who had your nose in every corner it didn’t belong?”

She had not known, because from the moment he was gone, she had ceased to care. There was nothing she wanted to know if she did not have him to share it with. Stupid, willful child. “How?”

“In the usual, time-honored method. Blackmail.”

“How could he force you?” The words were hot and raw, as if they were being torn in half at the back of her throat.

He stared at her silently for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was weary with bitterness. “He arranged it. Bought my midshipman’s berth with his influence and dangled it in front of my father, much like a noose. Either I took it and went away quietly or he’d ruin me, and ruin my father, too, no doubt, though he never said so in front of me. Nor did my father. It was just agreed upon between ‘gentlemen.’”

“And that’s when you left. That summer.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The answer was in his insistent eyes.

“You were only fourteen.” Even she could hear the useless regret in her voice.

“A good age for a midshipman.” His voice remained flat and emotionless. But she couldn’t imagine he’d felt so sanguine ten years ago. He had been only fourteen. She had been twelve. They had been children.

“And that’s why you just left?”

“Just left? I didn’t have a bloody choice, did I?”

“I thought… I thought I’d done something wrong.”

He stepped closer now, and she had to tip her head up to see his face. He was so close, she could feel the heat from his body. “Of course you had. You’d taken your bloody shirt off, hadn’t you? Showed me your… You were brazen as the day was long. Asking for it. But I’m the one who had to pay for it. Not you.”

“I was twelve. I don’t think I knew what I was asking for. And you took yours off, too.” But she felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. He was right—she ought to have known. She ought to have realized. “Christ. What a horrible mess this is.”

“I don’t know. It got us both what we wanted.”

“What we wanted?” She had wanted independence. And he? “Oh my God. I’ve been so blind, so stupid, haven’t I? You just wanted revenge. I’ve gone and given you your revenge.”

A brief flare of heat and triumph shone from his eyes before he masked it. “It wasn’t revenge. I didn’t plan for any of this to happen to you. I was …”

But he didn’t finish. He didn’t have an answer. He wouldn’t say it, but it was true. And it had worked. Beautifully. Everything she had worked for, everything she had loved, even the house, had been an illusion.

She, who always said what she thought and always thought she knew best, had been a complete and utter fool over this man. A complete, hopeless fool.

Lord, but it was wearying, all this anger.

“So you can just take it all back, whenever you’re ready?”

“Yes. When I’m ready.”

She didn’t want to know when that would be. Lizzie took a long breath. The cold night air stung her lungs and shocked her into awareness. “But in the meantime, I’ve still got control of it?”

“Yes, I’m not… vindictive. I don’t want you do have to do without. I won’t—”

“Good. I’ll spend it.”

He looked at her blankly.

“I
am
vindictive. Or rather, I plan to be. I’ll spend as much as possible. You’ve had your revenge and now I’ll have mine. I’ll bankrupt you.” She gave him a dazzling smile to accompany her defiance. “I’ll spend every last groat.”

“And leave yourself destitute in the process? Really, Lizzie. Don’t be spiteful. It doesn’t suit you. You’re no gamester, and you clearly don’t run up dressmaker’s bills.” He waved his hand at her old, plain cotton work dress. “But somehow you look lovely anyway, although you ought to sleep more. And eat more.”

She wouldn’t listen to the almost wistful concern in his voice. He had used her. Not only since he had left her in gaol, but from the beginning, from the very first time he had seen her, he had been planning his revenge.

“No. You’re right, but I thank you for the excellent suggestions. Mother is always after me to dress more fashionably. And I suddenly feel a great ambition to become a great patroness. Of the arts. Yes, musicians, artists, poets, and painters are always looking for someone to finance their genius. To buy them well-made instruments. I’ll fill the house with them. Bound to be terribly expensive to keep, artists. Bottles and bottles of champagne, for inspiration you know. I’ll have Mrs. Tupper order some laid in. Yes, and they’ll all be suitably grateful, won’t they? Bound to want to do me all sorts of kindnesses.”

She felt a savage burst of satisfaction at the look on his face. It was murderous. Good. Now he knew how she felt.

“Don’t interfere with this mission, Lizzie.” He didn’t bother to veil the threat in his low tone.

“Or what? You’ll have me thrown in gaol? Again?” She tossed her scorn at him like an old shoe.

“Damn your eyes,” he growled. “I told you, I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that? I’m supposed to believe you? When everything out of your mouth has been a lie? You expect
this
pathetic ruse to work? Look at yourself. Creeping about in the dark dressed like the roughest sort of fisherman. Do you honestly think you’re going to fool people into thinking you’re my groundsman? You can’t even pot a tulip.”

“No, I don’t expect people to believe I’m your groundsman. I expect them to believe I’m a free trader, with a ship at my command, and that I’m masquerading as your groundsman because of your charming little cove.”

She caught the filthy, suggestive intonation of the last. “You bastard.”

“I have been a bastard, my dear, but I’m still your husband.” He stepped forward and snatched the gun out of her hand so hard and so fast she flinched. And then he had her, hauled up tight against his chest, his heat and his power surrounding her, making her feel helpless. And wanting.

C
HAPTER 19

T
hat was bloody besides enough.

Marlowe had taken more than enough of Lizzie’s spleen and now his patience was at a bitter end. He had tried to explain, he had apologized, he had taken every bit of her well-deserved anger when all he wanted to do, from the moment he saw her in the lane, was take her into his arms and hold her. Keep her. Safe. Show her with the protection of his body what he never could manage to put into words.

Her sinewy little body wriggled furiously, and futilely, against his. He forced himself to disregard the fact that she felt too light: fragile, almost crushable. He wouldn’t notice his rough hands could span her tiny waist. He wouldn’t feel any tenderness. Tenderness wouldn’t scare her. And she needed to be scared. Scared so badly she’d finally listen to what he needed to tell her about his mission. So badly she’d pack up and leave Glass Cottage and Redlap and Dartmouth directly. And be safe.

What he couldn’t disregard was how impossibly good it felt to have her in his arms again, after what had seemed a tedious eternity of watching and keeping his distance. He couldn’t disregard the jagged jolt of arousal at holding her pressed against him with nothing more than a few thin layers of fabric between them.

A moment ago, he had thought he felt nothing but disappointment and frustration, but now, all he felt was the febrile heat flowing from her body and the aching want flooding his skin. His need was like the roaring of the sea in his ears, drowning out all other senses. He couldn’t sustain disappointment when she was in his arms.

God, he wanted her.

He’d been consumed by need the moment he had turned to see her standing in the lane with her gun, so provoking, so defiant. So fragile, held together by nothing more than grit and willpower. He’d wanted to take her and hold her tight within the protective circle of his arms and never, ever let her go again. He needed to feel the fragile strength of her body against his. He’d been wanting and waiting to hold her, to take her, to possess her, for weeks. Forever. Always.

She might never trust him again, but she might be seduced into listening to him long enough to explain fully and honestly what he had to do. And God knew he wanted to seduce her.