A Fine Passion (21 page)

“Ah, yes.” Clarice dismissed the maid with a wave. “We’ll be down in a moment.”

Puzzled, Jack closed the door. He watched as Clarice crossed to her open trunk; bending over it, she rummaged beneath the layers, then rose, a jewelry box in her hands. Placing it on the dressing table, she opened it. He drew near, blinking at the blaze of jewels revealed. He frowned as she sorted swiftly through the pieces. “This is an inn.”

“Indeed.” She nodded. “An inn where we’re supposed to be man and wife. Ah—there it is.”

She picked out a simple gold ring supporting three small emeralds. Holding up her hand, she slid the ring onto the ring finger of her left hand. Turning the emeralds to her palm, she flexed her fingers. She examined the ring, now masquerading as a wedding band. “That should do.”

Shutting the jewelry box, she replaced it in the trunk. Straightening, she fixed him with a superior look. “If one is going to carry off a charade convincingly, one has to think of such little things.”

He raised a brow, then offered his arm. She took it. He led her to the door, opened it, and murmured as she passed him, “I’ll remember that the next time we play at man and wife.”

Dinner was a relaxed affair, the food excellent, the wine more than passable. Comfortable and secure in the small private parlor, Clarice directed the conversation, determined to give Jack no further opening to discompose her. The next time they played at man and wife, indeed!

They filled the time discussing the various points they’d uncovered while combing through the sheets of information James had supplied. They’d spent the better part of the journey comparing one list to another, connecting time, place, and people James had spoken with. It was tempting to speculate on exactly what facts the allegations against James hinged upon.

“There’s really no way to tell, not until we see the details presented to the bishop.”

She wrinkled her nose but had to admit Jack was right. Still, it was hard simply to wait and not plan.

“You’ll just have to possess your soul in patience.”

She glanced across the table, met his amused but understanding gaze, and humphed.

The maid entered to clear the dishes, followed by the innkeeper with a bottle of port. Clarice seized the moment to beat a strategic retreat; pushing back her chair, she nodded to the innkeeper. “Please convey my compliments to your wife. The meal was excellent.” Rising, she looked at Jack, who tensed to stand, then recalled they were supposedly married. She smiled lightly. “I’ll leave you to your port.”

To her surprise, he changed his mind, uncoiled his long legs, and rose. He waved her to the door. “I’ll take a glass in the tap.”

The innkeeper beamed and bustled away. She headed for the door; Jack followed.

He paused just outside, briefly scanning the hall and the stairs. “I’ll be up shortly.” His eyes returned to hers. “Don’t lock the door.”

One of the little things one had to remember. She read the message in his eyes. Elevating her nose, she turned to the stairs, and for one of the few times in her life, swept away with no pithy parting shot.

Discretion was sometimes the wiser course.

Especially given he stood in the hall and watched her until the upper gallery hid her from his view. Although she could no longer see him, she would have wagered her pearls that he stood listening until she shut the door to their room. Then and only then would he have stirred and headed for the tap.

She suspected he intended to learn who else was passing the evening at the inn, whether there was anyone whose notice they needed to avoid when they left in the morning.

It was what she, in his place, would have done; as she stood before the dressing table and unpinned her long hair, the notion that she trusted him in the same vein she would herself floated through her mind.

Definitely strange. Definitely not something that had happened with anyone else.

Oddly, that only made her more determined to be undressed and in bed before he came up. Nonsensical to feel shy given all that had passed between them in the folly, yet there was something quite different about undressing before him in a fully lighted room.

Illogical, of course. She considered that while she quickly brushed out her hair. She was rarely illogical; why now, over this?

The answer popped into her mind as she laid her gown neatly over her trunk, then reached for the hem of her chemise. It was the implied domesticity that struck her as unwise, as belonging to those scenarios they’d agreed didn’t apply to them.

Pondering that, she drew off the chemise, dropped it on her gown, reached for her nightgown—and heard his voice in her head. No point.

And, perhaps, one domestic touch she didn’t need to make.

Turning, she crossed naked to the bed.

J
ack climbed the stairs congratulating himself on having chosen the Maiden & Sword. Not only was the inn comfortable, but situated as it was just on the London side of the major posting town of Reading, it was generally overlooked by tonnish society. There were no members of the aristocracy or the upper echelons of the ton staying that night. A few well-to-do merchants, businessmen, and their wives, a clientele that no doubt accounted for the inn’s quality, but no one who would place either Clarice or him.

He opened their door to a room steeped in darkness. He glanced around; Clarice had doused all the candles and left the curtains over the windows drawn. All he could see of her was a mound under the covers on the window side of the bed. She’d loosened the bed-curtains but hadn’t drawn them tight. Closing the door, cutting off what little light had come from the corridor, he crossed soft-footed to the window and drew the curtains wide.

Pale moonlight spilled in, enough so he could see. He sat in the armchair and eased off his boots, then unhurriedly undressed, hanging his coat in the wardrobe, draping shirt and waistcoat over the straight-backed chair.

Eventually naked, he went to the bed, lifted the covers, and slid under them. The instant his weight settled into the mattress, Clarice rolled into him.

He’d expected that; she hadn’t.

She valiantly smothered a shriek; he wisely smothered a chuckle as he caught her, then expertly juggled her until they were face-to-face, nose to nose.

She looked into his eyes. In the same instant, he registered that she was as naked as he. She was all warm silken limbs and lush curves.

Her gaze lowered to his lips. He looked at hers.

She reached for him as he closed his arms about her. Who kissed whom first was moot.

What followed was their usual tussle for sensual supremacy. In the kiss, she ultimately gave way, let him plunder her mouth as he wished, as he wanted. But even while she accommodated him there, with her hands on his shoulders, she pressed him back.

Distracted, he obliged, rolling onto his back.

Lying back, he watched her rise over him in the moon-drenched dark, watched her straighten, watched her arch as she slowly, smoothly, with total control impaled herself on him, as she sheathed him in her body’s lush heat.

Then she rode him, slowly, deliberately driving both him and herself inexorably on, harder, faster, until the peak of fulfillment beckoned.

He caught her hips and rolled, tipping her, then trapping her beneath him. Settling between her thighs, he spread them wider, urging her long legs over his. Pinning her deep in the cushioning mattress, he thrust deep. Home.

Bending his head, he found her lips and filled her mouth as his body joined with hers, plundering to the same primitively erotic beat.

Clarice couldn’t think, could only respond and embrace the moment. Drink in the sensations, the familiar, comforting, freeing dimness, the heat pouring through them, a delicious flame, the powerful flexing of his body as he covered her, possessed her, as they danced within the cocoon of the apple blossom covers, enclosed in a world of passion and desire.

Hot passion, wild desire.

At his urging, she wrapped her legs about his hips, felt his hand spread beneath her bottom, tipping her hips to his. Gasped as he drove deeper into her willing body, into her heat, into the furnace that built and built as he stoked, stroked, until nothing else mattered but the raging flames, the drive for release, the need for completion.

The shattering desperation that it should claim them both.

It came in a rush, and did.

For one long moment, they clung to the peak, trapped in and consumed by the glory, then they tumbled and fell, into blessed oblivion.

He collapsed upon her. Limbs like jelly, she held him, slowly stroked the long muscles of his back. Listened to his heart thunder, then slow. Felt his heartbeat within her, felt her own in her skin, in her fingertips, easing.

Eventually, he stirred enough to lift from her. Slumping onto the bed, he slid an arm beneath her and drew her to him, settled her against him.

Boneless, she let him; laying her head on his chest, she murmured, “That was
not
how it was supposed to be.”

She’d intended to stay in control, to use her body to overwhelm him, to watch as she sated him. She was still curious over, fascinated by, the fact that she could.

He relaxed, sinking deeper into the bed. “You won’t always get what you want.”

Her lids were too heavy to lift, to stare, to react to his tone, one that suggested he’d understood her intent but hadn’t been of a mind to indulge her.

If she’d had the strength, she would have taken issue with such arrogance, but pleasure lay too heavy in her veins. Some other time.

Right now, the principal issue claiming her mind was how to prolong their liaison in London. That’s what she’d been thinking about while she’d waited in the dark for him to join her. Somewhat contrary to her expectations, she was in no hurry to terminate their affair, not yet. There was a lot she’d yet to learn, and a great deal he could teach her. Arrogant lord though he might be, he definitely had his uses.

Stirring, she leaned back against his arm, lifting her head so she could look up at his face. A heavy lock of his hair, a medley of light browns shot with blond, had fallen across his forehead. Reaching up, she brushed it aside just as he turned his head to look at her. The side of her hand connected awkwardly with his temple.

Even in the poor light, she saw him wince. Felt the spike of pain that raked him.

“What is it?” She heard alarm in her voice, realized it was because she saw him as invincible, yet knew he wasn’t. He was only flesh and blood, and flesh and blood could so easily die.

She half expected him to say “Nothing,” but after a moment’s hesitation, he relaxed back on the pillows. “A recent injury.”

“Recent?” She struggled to sit the better to examine him; his arm tightened and held her down. She frowned at him. “How recent?”

“A few weeks.”

She blinked. “So
that’s
the injury…”

When she didn’t go on, he raised his brows. And waited.

“When I first came to the manor to see Anthony, you and Connimore were talking of some lingering injury.”

He was silent for a minute; from the look on his face, he was replaying his words to Connimore. “I see.” He refocused on her face, studied it. “What sort of injury did you think I had?”

His tone was curious, wondering, and suspicious. She was tempted to declare she hadn’t thought about the matter at all; the expression in his eyes warned he wouldn’t be fooled, more, that he was starting to suspect just what she had thought. She lifted one shoulder. “I have three older brothers. And then you summoned Percy…”

She broke off as his face split in a grin. His chest, beneath her, started to shake. She narrowed her eyes at him. “And
then
you declared you wouldn’t have children. What the devil do you imagine I thought?”

He threw back his head and laughed, trying vainly not to make too much noise.

She waited with quite terrible patience.

He noticed; hilarity reducing to a chuckle, he grinned at her. “Wouldn’t, not couldn’t.” Beneath the covers he nudged her hip. “I would have thought that distinction would by now have occurred to you.”

“I daresay it would have
if
I’d given the matter any recent thought.” Despite her haughty tone, that was indeed the truth; he was so transparently virile and vigorous, she’d forgotten he was supposedly carrying an injury.

Yet he was. If a frown could change in tone, hers did. “How is it? What exactly is it? Does it hurt much?”

He grimaced. She read in his eyes the usual male reaction to female fussing. “It hurts sometimes, but lately not as much. It was just a bad knock on the head.”

A knock on the head that still hurt weeks later? “What on earth were you doing to get such a clout?”

He studied her eyes, then resettled her against him, and somewhat to her surprise, told her. She listened, alternately intrigued, shocked, and amazed. She made no comment when he described how he’d been taken in and then coshed by the spy he been left to guard against. Although he clearly considered that a failure, one that still rankled, he’d acknowledged it and set it behind him; he neither dwelled on the mistake nor tried to excuse it. She had experience enough of life’s vicissitudes to appreciate the maturity in that.

When he ended his tale, she frowned. “So you’re retired from the services, yet still at the beck and call of the government?”

He shook his head. “It’s more that we’ll oblige in pursuit of a good cause. Those of us who’ve served in our particular capacity are better equipped, better trained to respond to certain situations. And in this latest instance, we were assisting a friend, an ex-comrade-in-arms so to speak.”

“So am I right in assuming that those contacts you intend to speak with in London will be your ex-comrades, along with your ex-commander?”

“Indeed.” Stifling a yawn, he sank lower in the bed. “I’ll speak with those of the crew still in town.” His voice had grown sleepy. “And yes, they will help us.”

His tiredness was catching; her lids felt increasingly heavy. She snuggled down on his chest. His hand rose to stroke her head, his fingers gently tangling in, then smoothing out strands of her hair.

Peace enveloped them, warm, still, undemanding. They hadn’t shared a bed before, yet the closeness felt right; she felt unexpectedly secure.

His certainty that his friends would help, would rally to James’s cause, reassured some part of her that was still in shock at the very thought of James being accused of traitorous dealings. But more intriguing had been the view of him his tale had revealed—how his friends viewed him, that he was a member of such a group of gentlemen, loyal defenders even in peace upon whom those charged with the defence of the realm did not hesitate to call.

Her original vision of him as a dissolute wastrel floated into her brain. Her lips curved; how very wrong she’d been.

The more she learned of him the more she approved, the more she appreciated. Heaven knew she was halfway to thinking him admirable. There were few other men she’d admitted to such status; indeed, as sleep slowly fogged her brain, she couldn’t think of one.

She felt the last of his wakeful tension fade, sensed him slide into sleep. Listened to his slow, steady breathing. His heart beat beneath her cheek, a muffled, solid thud, regular and reliable; his arms held her, not tightly but securely. Not restraining but comforting, a protection, not a restriction.

Sleep beckoned, and she let herself go, let herself relax in his arms.

Warm, comfortable, sated, and secure. Playing man and wife with him wasn’t bad at all.

The errant thought jerked her from that comfortable slide into slumber, made her inwardly blink, but then she smiled, let the thought drift away, and fell asleep.

For the first time in his life, Jack woke at dawn with a woman in his arms.

He’d slept with countless women, but he’d never before shared a bed with one through the night.

But this one, his warrior-queen, was different in such a multitude of ways. Waking to the feel of her warm, soft, quintessentially female limbs draped over him, her curves pressed provocatively against his side, seemed the ultimate warrior’s reward.

He wasn’t even thinking when he lifted his hand and ran it lightly over her arm, over the swell of her breast. Down over the swell of her hip to the long sweep of her thigh.

It required no thought to appreciate, to worship. To gently arouse her, to bring her body awake, responsive and instinctively ardent. She unfurled like a flower to his touch, her mind still drifting in the realms of sleep, soft sighs falling from her lips as he stirred her to an awakening of a different sort.

To power of a different sort.

Sensual, covetous, yet reverent, it seemed to flow from his fingers, from his hands as he caressed her.

When he lifted over her and settled between her thighs, her lids fluttered, then rose a little way.

Rose fully as he filled her; she looked up into his eyes, hers widening, then he thrust home. Her lips formed a soft O, then relaxed, curving. Her lids fell again, veiling dark eyes now glowing with passion.

Passion he’d evoked.

He bent his head, covered her lips with his, and gently rode her as dawn painted the sky and sent soft golden light reaching across the chamber to where they rocked in the bed, surrounded by clouds of dimity apple blossom.

No rush. A slow traverse across a landscape they now knew well, pausing, breaths tight, strangled, as they savored here, then there. As they let their senses expand and together absorbed the passionate beauty of each stage, each step in the progression to fulfillment.

A fulfillment neither doubted would come, that was implicit in the shift of their bodies, in the repetitive movement that held them both engaged, absorbed, aware of little beyond the heated dampness of their skins, their ragged breathing, their desires and needs.

A true communion of bodies, of minds. Ultimately, as they crested the peak and together surrendered and fell, a communion of souls.

Later, they lay twined in each other’s arms. Neither spoke. Each recognized the power growing between them, knew the other would sense it, too, but it was too new for either to name, to describe.

Shifting his head, he dropped a soft kiss on her shoulder. Felt, an instant later, her hand stroke his head, gently riffling his hair.

And was content. For now.

Yet his ultimate goal, the goal he wanted, needed, and would fight for, was now not just clear but defined. He wanted to wake up in this way, just like this, every morning for the rest of his life.

They rocked into London in the early afternoon. As Clarice would keep the carriage with her, Jack gave the coachman directions to Montrose Place.

Focused on their campaign to exonerate James, Clarice had paid scant attention to the sights they’d passed. But when the carriage pulled up outside Number 12, Montrose Place, she ceased her recitation of the facts they already knew to peer out at the house. “This is your club?”