Jo Goodman (48 page)

Falconer.

It mattered so little. Even now it surprised her how unimportant it was that Decker Thorne was the man known as Falconer. She had come to admire him apart from that secret self, just as he had hoped she would. His patience is truly remarkable, Jonna thought. She would not have been half so restrained.

Explanations had come in fits and starts throughout the night. She had wanted to hear what he had to say, but she had wanted to love him more. In the end her curiosities, both intellectual and carnal, were satisfied.

Jonna's eyes opened as she heard Decker stir in the other room. She waited, wondering if he would call out for her. When he didn't, she realized he had merely turned over in his sleep. She smiled to herself, the shape of her mouth a trifle smug. It was a rather heady notion that she might have exhausted him.

Sitting up, Jonna reached for the bar of scented soap. Water dripped from her hand onto the washcloth. As she picked it up, it attached itself to some papers that were lying under it. The papers loosened almost immediately, and Jonna had to react quickly to keep them from falling into her bath. She let the soap and cloth drop, making a grab for the papers instead. Two sheets fluttered to the floor but several others clung to her damp fingers.

More annoyed than curious, Jonna placed them back on the chair. Hadn't Rachael seen them when she'd set the soap and washcloth down? But then the girl had been almost asleep on her feet, Jonna reminded herself. Rachael shouldn't have been sent to prepare the bath in the first place, not after night duty with their injured guest. Her eagerness to please should not be taken advantage of, Jonna thought, and she made a mental note to speak to Mrs. Davis about lightening the young woman's duties.

Sighing, Jonna leaned over the tub and picked up the sheets on the floor. She was on the point of putting them on the chair with the others when the heading of one caught her eye. Sheridan Shipping. She frowned. How on earth had this come to be here?

Jonna glanced over it quickly, then the one under it. Neither was a particularly important piece of information. One was a schedule, the other a correspondence to a Charleston supplier. She set them down, took up the others, and skimmed the contents.

* * *

Grant Sheridan rose from his bed. Slipping on his dressing gown, he walked to the window and drew back the drapes. Sunlight bathed his hard features as he looked out onto the street. There was no chance that he would see Rachael there. She would have left hours ago, under cover of night, fleeing his home as quietly as she had come upon it. Still, he knew it was why he stood there.

She had been exceptionally accommodating last night. The memory of her in his bed stirred his body. If he had heard her get up to leave he would have stopped her and taken her again. Perhaps she had known that given the chance he would have proved he wasn't finished with her. It would account, in part, for her quiet exit from his bed.

As willing as she had been to make herself available to him in any manner he chose, Grant had never been less certain of her, or of his hold over her. It was not so easy to define the change in Rachael, but he felt it, not in what she gave him, but in what she held back. Perhaps it was some newfound confidence that he detected. She had learned to read, after all, and that was not something he could take away from her.

He cursed softly and shrugged his powerfully built shoulders. He let the drapes drop back into place and rang for his manservant. The measure of anger that he felt was not directed at Rachael, but at Jonna. If Rachael was really possessed of a new confidence, then Jonna Remington was at the root of it. His mouth curved in a derisive smile. He would not think of her as Jonna Thorne. The name would never suit, and he would not accustom himself to it. Why should he? he wondered, when Jonna was going to be Mrs. Sheridan. It only required Decker's removal. Because of Rachael's timely help, he was one step closer to that end.

Grant went to the fireplace to retrieve the papers Rachael had carried with her. Had she understood what she held in her hands, or had she merely delivered them to show good faith? Or, as he had begun to suspect last night, had she brought them as an excuse to be with him? It was a pleasant irony, Grant thought, that he could reward Rachael's loyalty by keeping her as his mistress while punishing Jonna.

Surveying the mantel, Grant's small, satisfied smile faded. His brows drew together. The papers were no longer where he had placed them. He looked over his shoulder at the table in the sitting area and then at the table at his bedside. Both were bare of the documents. Turning on his heel, he knelt on the floor and looked under the chairs. He poked at the fireplace for some evidence that they had been swept inside by a draft. It would have been a consolation to know they were destroyed by the fire. That outcome was better than having them returned to Decker Thorne's hands, or worse, to Jonna's.

It was on that point that Grant had questioned Rachael several times. Did she know if Jonna had seen the documents? How could she be certain her employer hadn't? Had she overheard Decker discussing them with Jonna?

Grant had been satisfied by Rachael's answers. Although there were no guarantees, it was likely that she had removed them from Decker's room before even he had had a chance to study them. Much harder for Grant to accept was the fact that Decker had them in the first place. There had been only one opportunity for the man to place his hands on them—the occasion of his visit to Grant's office.

It was of little satisfaction to Grant that he had been suspicious of Decker's offer to acquaint him with Falconer. Obviously it had been a sham to gain entry to his office. Grant remembered being called out briefly. It was hard to believe Decker had made such a thorough job of rifling the contents of his files.

Not that everything he had taken was important. Quite the opposite was true. The fact that the documents were so diverse, and in the majority without consequence, supplied Grant with the clearest indication that Decker's search was not for a single specific item. The looting was random, done by a thief who lifted valuables indiscriminately and hoped he would find one or two priceless gems among the glass beads.

The gems were there, Grant thought. He had seen them for himself last night. He had been careful not to make too much of the documents when Rachael gave them over, but later, when he questioned her, he realized he might have aroused her suspicions. Or perhaps she knew more than she let on from the very beginning. She could read now, he reminded himself. If she had read the headings, then she may have read the content. Was that it? he wondered. Did she understand what she had seen?

Grant slowly sat down in one of the large armchairs. Rachael had returned the documents to him, but it seemed that she had also taken them back. Had it been her purpose all along? He stared at the glowing embers in the fireplace, his dark eyes vaguely unfocused as his thoughts tumbled and collided.

"Rachael," he murmured softly. "What dangerous game is this?"

* * *

Jonna stood framed in the doorway of the dressing room. She was wrapped in a towel that had been hastily drawn across her middle. The corner tucked between her breasts was already starting to slip its mooring. Her shoulders were damp, and water ran in thin rivulets down her arms and legs. Droplets fell on the hardwood floor with no apparent rhythm. Her hair was haphazardly secured with two tortoiseshell combs. Curling tendrils fanned her forehead and the curve of her neck.

She looked quite delicious.

Decker's sleepy-eyed gaze grew a little sharper. He noticed the deeply disapproving dimple at the corner of her mouth at the same time he became aware that she was holding something in her hands.

Jonna held up the papers so he could see them more clearly. The Sheridan Shipping letterhead was a bold, black beacon. "Are these the papers you were looking for last night?"

Decker sat up. Dragging a sheet around his hips, he hitched it carelessly and skirted the corner of the bed. "Where did you find them?"

Jonna pulled them back when he reached for them. "I was going to ask you the same thing."

He ignored her retort. There was marginally more impatience in his tone when he had to repeat his question. "Where did you find them?"

She blinked, struck by his irritation. "I found them in the dressing room. They were lying on a chair in there, no doubt precisely where you left them."

"That's not where I put them." He was certain of that.

"Then perhaps Rachael moved them when she was tidying up. Does it matter? It begs the question of how they came to be in your possession."

"I took them from Sheridan's office."

"Did Grant give them to you?"

"No." He said it without hesitation and saw the last bit of hope in Jonna's eyes disappear. "I took them without his permission."

"Then you stole them."

"Yes."

Jonna wondered that she wasn't more disappointed in him. Did she love him so much she was willing to excuse behavior that was outside the law? She stared at his extended hand. Perhaps, she thought, it was that she loved him enough to entertain an explanation. After a moment she placed the papers in his open palm. "To what purpose?" she asked. "What did you hope to find?"

"I'm not sure."

She looked at him oddly, and her voice softened. "You're not sure? That doesn't sound like you at all."

He shrugged. "I thought there might be something...." Decker glanced at the papers briefly then back at her. "I'd hoped there'd be something I could use to keep him away from you."

Jonna's brows shot up. "To keep him away... You intended to blackmail him?"

He shook his head. "I want him out of your life."

"He
is
out of my life."

"That's not what I witnessed the first night we were back here," Decker said. His expression dared her to contradict him. "I know what I saw, Jonna. Sheridan was pressuring you to accept his embrace. You had your own reasons for not admitting it then, but that doesn't change the fact of it. He still wants you. Our marriage makes no difference to him."

"You can't know that," she whispered.

Decker's eyes held hers. "I know it better than anyone," he said. "In his place I would feel the same."

Jonna shook her head slowly. "No," she said gently. "You wouldn't. You would still love me. That's no part of what Grant feels or what he's ever felt for me. It's the right of ownership that moves him, nothing else. You wouldn't know anything about that. What have you ever wanted that you couldn't carry?"

The center of Decker's eyes darkened as he stared at her. The look of quiet amusement was absent from his own expression. Without warning, still holding the papers, he lifted her.
"Huntress
aside?" he asked.

Jonna's arms circled his neck. Her heart skipped a beat, and her violet eyes gleamed. The ship had been for Falconer's work, not for Decker's pleasure or gain.
"Huntress
aside," she whispered. "Has there ever been anything else?"

"Not a damn thing." He took her to bed. Sheridan's stolen documents were discarded and forgotten as passion flared.

Jonna was water slick and warm from her bath. Her body moved against his without resistance. The towel opened and her legs parted. She took him inside her almost immediately, and she was damp and warm there as well. Experiencing little in the way of conscious thought, Jonna was not embarrassed by her eagerness any more than Decker was ashamed by his arousal.

She stretched under him, arching her back. Her taut breasts were lifted. His lips closed over one nipple, and the gentle tug of his teeth tore a cry from her throat.

There was no part of her that wasn't sensitive to his touch. He was joined to her deeply, fully. Her fingers threaded through his hair. Her thighs gripped him as he rocked her back. She contracted around him as he began to withdraw, and then he thrust forward again, harder this time so that she felt his penetration at the tip of her womb.

"Yes," she said. "Like that... just... like... that."

His hands pinned her wrists. She reveled in the rough embrace, in the surging hunger that drove him more furiously into her and against her. His lips crushed hers and she parted her mouth under his. Her teeth caught his lower lip and she tugged. A moment later her tongue licked the same spot.

He raised his head. The muscles in his arms and back bunched. She was watching him. Her violet eyes were luminous and her mouth was parted damply. She simply stared at him and slowly, deliberately, tightened the wet walls that secured him to her. It was his undoing.

Jonna felt the warm liquid rush of his seed spilling into her. He stretched over her, taut, and pressed into her again, the thrust more shallow this time as the contraction of pleasure controlled him. His hands slipped off her wrists and her arms closed around him. She held him that way until his body was still.

Decker eased out of her, but he did not move away. His eyes grazed her features. He thought it was the suggestion of a smile that touched her mouth, but he couldn't be sure. He had never known such a driving need to be joined to her. His voice was hushed and husky. "Did I hurt you?"

Jonna shook her head. "I'm not so very delicate."

Yes, she was. But he didn't tell her so. He remembered how sweet, how very small she felt under him. He drew a finger across the fragile line of her collarbone. The light scent of lavender teased his senses. His hands had swallowed the fine bones of her wrists, and her slender body had been rocked by his unyielding strength.