Jo Goodman (41 page)

Some sound she couldn't identify turned her toward the doorway. Grey stood on the threshold, his figure backlit by the bedroom lamp. His frame and features existed entirely in shadow. The sound she had heard was his single strangled breath.

Berkeley wondered if she should be embarrassed that he had been watching her. She straightened, easing the cloth out from under her shift, and let her foot fall from the stool. She stood there uncertainly while droplets of water beat a tattoo against the floor.

Grey stepped into the room and took the cloth from her hand. He wrung it out, wet it again, and squeezed a little more water from it. Without a word he raised her shift and completed her ablutions. His hand lingered between her thighs just once before he withdrew. Her silky skin was cool and damp. His thumb skimmed her inner thigh as he dragged the cloth along her leg. Grey dropped the cloth into the basin and cupped her face. Her shift fell back in place, the hem brushing against her ankles.

He kissed her, his lips rubbing hers. She leaned into him. Her breasts were pressed to his naked chest. "I want you," he said against her mouth. "I woke up wanting you." He backed her against the wall and heard her gasp as his hips ground hers. "Is it too much?" he asked. "Too soon?" He would stop, he told himself. If it was what she wanted, he would stop. But it wasn't the answer she gave him. "It's not enough," she said. "Not yet."

There was a rending of material as the linen shift was torn at her shoulder. Berkeley felt the fabric whisper against her skin all the way to the floor. She stood on tiptoe, her lean muscles stretching to fit herself to the length of him, then she was lifted and held to the wall by Grey's hands and the hard, violent thrust of his body.

Her fingernails pressed into his shoulders. Her throat was arched. She felt his mouth on her skin and knew he would leave a mark there, a brand of sorts. The entire time he possessed her she never once felt like his possession. What was done to her was also done with her.

Grey's breathing came harshly. He thrust into her again and again, rocking her back. Her mouth opened, but her cry was nearly soundless. She was nearly weightless in his arms. He pushed into her harder, grinding his hips against hers. Her bottom rose in his hands, her fingers curled whitely against his shoulders, then her slender frame shattered under him and she was still. He spent himself inside her and held her until she had taken all of him.

Berkeley felt herself sliding down the wall. She clutched Grey as he eased himself out of her and lowered her to the floor. They sat there a full minute, slightly dazed and fully sated, neither of them inclined to speak. Finally Grey picked up Berkeley's shift and handed it to her. "I think I tore this."

"I'm quite certain you did." She found the rent shoulder seam with her fingers. "I can repair it."

He didn't give a damn about the shift, he thought. It was a bloody stupid conversation to be having with her. God, he could still feel her all around him. He could feel himself pounding into her, forcing her roughly back against the wall. Other than the whimper he trapped at the back of her throat, she hadn't made a sound. "Did I hurt you?" he asked. "When I came in here... I didn't expect... I didn't think—"

"You didn't hurt me. You've never hurt me."

"That's not true," he said. "The first time there was pain... and blood. You left me. You took the sheets and disappeared. I know I hurt you then."

She found his face and cupped his cheek. Leaning toward him, Berkeley kissed him lightly. "You gave me pleasure. Every other thing is of no account." She raised herself to her knees and lifted the nightshift modestly in front of her. Faint lamplight from the adjoining bedroom limned her shoulder. "Will you excuse me? I'll join you in a moment." Berkeley watched him rise in an athletic, fluid motion. Indeed, it would have been difficult for her to look anywhere else. His body unfolded with grace and power, his muscles sleek and taut. Her eyes followed his progress to the door. "Leave it open just a bit."

His inclination had been to leave it open all the way, but he knew why she wanted it otherwise. Grey was flattered Berkeley thought he could still act on a sexual impulse when it required most of his strength to walk to the bed. Grinning to himself, he tumbled on it and drew the covers over him. A few minutes later she joined him, smelling faintly of soap and lavender. She was not wearing or carrying her shift. She slipped in beside him wearing nothing but her fragrance.

"Was our wedding quite all right?" she asked. "I mean, did I say everything properly? I didn't embarrass myself, did I?"

He turned his head. His flinty eyes grazed her face. "It was perfect," he said.
"You
were perfect. Don't you remember any of it?"

"You're not in any position to take me to task for faults in my memory. And no, I don't remember a thing after you took my hand. Not of what was going on. I remember what I was feeling quite clearly, but nothing of what I was doing."

"You said all the proper words. I can find a number of witnesses who will swear to it, and you signed your name to our license."

Berkeley saw he was grinning at her, but his eyes looked vaguely disturbed by the direction of her conversation. "What name did you sign?" she asked.

His grin faded. "Mine. Grey Janeway. That's who I am here. It doesn't matter who I was anywhere else or in any other time."

"Doesn't it?" She raised herself on one elbow and looked down on him. "Haven't you ever wondered about the name you chose? I know you took it from the clipper, but you could have taken it from anywhere, chosen anything."

"What of it?"

"Didn't it strike you as even remotely familiar?" she asked.

Grey's hand went immediately to the back of his neck. He remembered the violent headache that had visited him the first time he announced his name on board the
Lady Jane Grey.
He had no difficulty bringing it to mind now. It was returning with the same vengeance.

Chapter 12

Berkeley saw that Grey's headache was returning. It was difficult to watch pain dulling the color of his eyes and not do something to help him. She forced herself to hold back when all she wanted to do was go to his rescue. "Please, Grey," she whispered. "You must listen to me. You deserve to know that Graham Denison was a good and decent man."

Grey massaged the back of his neck. "I suppose the Thornes were your source on that count."

"Decker and Jonna," she said. "Colin Thorne and his wife never met Mr. Denison, but Decker seems to have thought of Graham as someone more than a business acquaintance. I believe there was a friendship there. Certainly mutual respect."

Grey closed his eyes. Lamplight pressed against his lids and slipped under his lashes. He couldn't contain the soft groan that had rested for a while at the back of his throat.

Berkeley reached across him to turn back the lamp on his side of the bed and then she did the same on her own. "Is that better?"

He couldn't nod. His mouth formed around the word "yes," but there was no sound. Grey found Berkeley's hand and squeezed it.

It was more than she could stand. Pushing herself upright, Berkeley once again drew Grey's head onto her lap. She pressed her fingers to his temples and scalp and began a gentle massage. More than a minute passed before she felt any softening in the rigid set of his shoulders and the corded muscles of his neck.

"Go on." Grey's voice was deep, guttural. Even to his own ears, the words were almost indistinguishable from a low cry of pain. He forced himself to say more. "Tell me what you know."

Berkeley's fingers stilled. She couldn't absorb any more of his hurt, and she couldn't make herself say anything that would give rise to it.

Grey gripped her wrist. The tension in his arm and fingers made his hold painfully strong. He heard her wince, but she didn't ask to be released. "You started this," he said. "Finish it now."

"Graham Denison was also known as Falconer," she whispered. "He was a conductor on the Underground Railroad that brings fugitive slaves north, sometimes as far north as Canada."

"I've heard of the Railroad," he said. He let his silence speak to the fact that he knew nothing about Falconer.

"I believe Decker and Jonna Thorne were involved with the Underground and that it was through their work that they met Mr. Denison. I have no proof. They denied any involvement before it was raised as a question. Their wanting to find him had nothing to do with the Underground, but it hobbled their ability to search for him. They respected what appeared to be his desire to disappear from public view. He became rather notorious after his identity was revealed. You can imagine that as a member of the plantation aristocracy he was something of a peculiarity to everyone. Southern papers reviled him, while the abolitionists made him their hero. He was sought after for lectures and asked to write a book. The Thornes indicated they understood Mr. Denison wanted to put it behind him. They helped him by arranging his passage on one of their clippers."

"Then they found the earring he left behind."

"Yes. And he disappeared. They considered that he could have taken up the cause of the abolitionists again. That mandated the Thornes be discreet in their inquiries. They didn't want to be the cause of his capture if he was operating in the South. Their search came to nothing."

"So they sought you out."

"In a manner of speaking. I've told you before that Anderson had a way of finding people who needed us. Jonna Thorne was desperate to help her husband, desperate enough to believe that she initiated the contact, not that it was the other way around. By the time she met us she was no longer thinking about how she had first come to learn about us. She'd made a careful study of our references, but Anderson always anticipated that. Jonna and Mercedes Thorne were prepared to be convinced that I could help them."

"Decker and Colin?"

"Skeptical," she said. "More than that. Fearful. Afraid they would be disappointed again. Graham Denison is their only link to the earring and, therefore, to their brother. It's you they need to talk to, Grey. You're Graham Denison."

Grey's fingers eased open around Berkeley's wrist. "It's no good, Berkeley. I don't remember. I
can't
remember."

"Tell me about those scars on your back," she said. "The three stripes." Berkeley doubted she was the first woman who had asked about them. Anyone who had run their fingers along the length of his back would have felt the distinguishing marks. "What did you tell the others?"

It was too much effort to make a denial. The truth served him better. "I told them it happened at sea. They were satisfied with that."

"But it didn't, did it?"

"No. I went to sea with them."

"Were they part of the beating you took?"

"No. They're old wounds. I don't know how I came by them."

"They're cane marks. I've seen those same stripes on my mother's back. You didn't get them from a whip. Did you know that?"

"Yes."

"It's a harsh discipline. You angered someone terribly."

Tension knotted Grey's neck again. "I've thought of that."

Berkeley felt the rigidity in his muscles. She repositioned herself to cradle him better. Her palms stroked his shoulders. "What about that pistol wound?" she asked.

Grey touched the puckered scar at his side. "I don't know how I came by it. I seem to be disposed to making people want to kill me."

Berkeley didn't smile at his black humor. "I think we need to discover who the men were that approached Nat," she said. "We need to know if Decker Thorne is really here with his brother, or if Anderson spoke to someone about the earring before he was killed."

"It's the Ducks," Grey said. "You know it."

"I want to be certain. If that's true, then I need to write Captain Thorne and tell him that I've found you. It doesn't matter that you may never be able to help him. I think he was your friend. He has a right to know that you're alive."

Grey opened his eyes and looked up at her. "What if he wasn't my friend? And you still don't know that I'm Gray Denison."

"What did you say?" She didn't give him time to repeat himself. "You called him Gray, not Graham."

"Wasn't that your point earlier?" he asked. "The names are similar. Gray is an acceptable way to shorten Graham."