Nobody's Angel (38 page)

"If you're planning to call a halt to this, you'd better do it fast," he said, sounding as if he was having trouble getting the words out. "Because you've got me hotter than a firecracker."

"No," she whispered.

"You want me to stop?" From the sound of it, even asking the question pained him.

"No." Susannah quivered and ached and burned with wanting him. Her arms tightened about his neck. Her thighs pressed his, and she—wriggled.

"No." It was a groan of satisfaction. His hand on her bottom pulled her up close against him, and his mouth slanted over hers. His tongue repaid her for the torture she had caused him, and his fingers delved into the cleft between her cheeks, stroking and exploring, and squeezing her behind. When he lifted his head to kiss her throat, Susannah was gasping and clinging to him like Spanish moss to an oak.

"I want you naked." He was unbuttoning her shirt, trailing kisses in the wake of his hands. When the last button slipped its mooring, he parted the front, and his mouth slid from halfway down her belly to the valley between her breasts and then, trailing fire, over a soft peak. As his lips closed over her nipple, Susannah cried out and arched her back.

"Easy," he whispered, tugging the shirt down her shoulders. "This is going to take a long time."

Feeling as if she were going to die if it took much longer, Susannah helped him take off her shirt. Then, and it was shameless, and she knew it was shameless but she didn't care, she slid her hands up the back of his head and pressed her breasts closer into his face. He suckled her harder, his mouth sliding from one taut nipple to the other, while his hands stroked and teased her bottom until she was gasping and writhing against him in mindless need.

"That's it," he said as her thighs parted restlessly in response to his butterfly forays. "Now lift your leg up around my waist."

Susannah did, under the guidance of his hands. They were lying on their sides, she with one leg around his body, he with his head bent to her breasts and one hand spread over her buttocks, pressing her close. He reached up, caught one of the hands that were entwined in his hair, and pulled it down between their bodies.

"You put me in," he said.

For a moment Susannah had no idea what he meant. Then, as he reached his destination and folded her fingers around his throbbing shaft, she knew. He was burning hot, and velvety soft over a turgid strength, and her first impulse was to recoil. But he brought her fingers back to him, and this time she took hold of him without having to be urged.

"If you want me, put me in."

If she wanted him. Susannah was on fire with wanting him. She was mindless with it, soulless with it, a quivering, flaming body with a will all its own. She grasped him, and guided him, and then he was inside her, filling her, thrusting urgently while she writhed and clung.

"I love you, love you, love you," she cried in the final glorious moment, when rapture burst like flaming rockets inside her. It was only later, what seemed a long time later but could not, in reality, have been more than minutes, that she realized what she had said.

Lying cradled against him, her head pillowed on a strong arm stretched out to provide what comfort it could, Susannah went cold. And her coldness had nothing to do with the drafts blowing about the floor.

He had said nothing, as he found his own release, or after, nothing, as she lay beside him on the floor. Perhaps he had been so wrapped up in the driving ecstasy that had possessed them both that he had not heard, or understood, what she had said.

Another moment passed, and then he pressed a quick, hard kiss to her mouth before sitting up. Seconds later he was on his feet, leaving her scrambling about on the floor for the discarded shirt. She knew, without knowing quite how she knew, what he meant to do.

The snap of a spark being struck confirmed her guess. The lantern wick caught and flared to life. As a warm golden glow stretched over the small cabin, Ian replaced the globe and turned to look at her, fists on hips, eyes narrowed. If his nakedness disturbed him so much as a whisker—and she did not think it did—then it was not apparent from his stance. Susannah, still on the floor although seated now with her legs tucked up beneath her, pulled the edges of the shirt together, lifted her chin, and met that searching gaze.

"Well, now," he said. "That's very interesting. Did you mean it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Though she did, of course. His mouth smiling at her told her that he knew it as well as she did.

"You said you love me. Did you mean it?" He was watching her like a bird might a particularly juicy worm. Susannah had to fight not to lower her eyes.

"Perhaps. At the time." Did he look faintly disappointed?

"Only at the time?"

He was not going to let the matter go, it was clear. Susannah would have stood up and turned away, but his shirt, while a perfectly adequate cover for her person from her thighs up, left a great deal of bare leg available for his inspection. It was silly to worry about letting him see her legs, of course, when he stood before her naked as a babe and she had made shattering love with him not five minutes before, but still she couldn't help it. So she faced the matter head on.

"Does it really matter?" she asked. His lips pursed.

"Yes, it does. To me. It's a simple enough question: do you love me?"

Looking up at him, trying to think of an answer that was not quite a lie and yet almost longing to say it at last, Susannah felt her throat go dry. She was setting herself up for heartbreak again, she knew, and the pain would be worse this time than before.

"Oh, if you must have it, then yes," she said, and with the best will in the world she could not keep her eyes from dropping to the floor. She sensed rather than saw him move, and suddenly he was crouching before her, his hand lifting her chin.

"Yes, what?" He was smiling, yet not quite smiling, as he met her eyes. His hair had come loose from its confining ribbon some time during the wild night and hung loose to frame his face. His mouth curved sensuously at her, and his eyes were warm and yet oddly intent.

Just looking at him made her heart swell.

"Yes, I love you, Ian," she whispered, because she couldn't keep it secret anymore.

He smiled then, a real smile, and pinched her chin.

"Now that is interesting," he said almost casually. "Because, you see, I love you, too."

As her eyes widened and her lips parted, he suddenly wasn't in the least casual as he took her in his arms.

38

No wedding trip was ever any more blissful than the remaining three weeks of that voyage. Having thrown her cap over the windmill, Susannah gave herself to Ian body and soul. She loved him, with a fierce abiding passion that she knew would last her her whole life long. If she did not quite trust him or his protestations of love for her, well, that was something to worry about later. For now, for however long it lasted, he belonged to her, and that was enough. She didn't even miss her family or remind Ian that he had promised to send her home again the moment they docked. Instead she penned them a letter detailing some if not all that had happened and promised to return to them as soon as she could. In her happiness with Ian, she was able, if not to put them from her mind, at least to shove them to the back.

England, when they landed, was not what she had expected. For one thing, it was, as Ian had promised, cool. To one who was used to living in a land of steamy, near- tropical heat, it was downright cold. Gray fog drifted over the capital like a blanket the day they arrived in London, shrouding her view of most of that city's narrow thoroughfares. To compound the difficulty, what seemed to be thousands of chimney pots spewed thick, sooty plumes of smoke into the already lowering sky. Small black flakes of soot floated like snow through the air. What she did see was not impressive—tightly packed brick-fronted buildings, row upon row of them, with scarcely a blade of grass or a tree anywhere; crowds of people hurrying hither and yon, breaking into shrill altercations at what seemed the least cause; vendors hawking their wares in strident voices that Susannah could scarcely understand. Carriages of all sizes and descriptions filled the streets, travelling in both directions at shocking speeds with scant regard for safety. In one street, Ian called it Piccadilly, a black phaeton with a coat of arms picked out in gold leaf on the door came so close that its wheels almost brushed that of their hired carriage, so close that Susannah jumped back, away from the window to which her nose had been pressed.

"What's the matter?" inquired Ian lazily. An indulgent smile played around his mouth as he watched her wide- eyed wonder at her first glimpse of London. Susannah saw that smile and knew that she was the source of his amusement, but beyond sticking her tongue out at him saucily she made no objection. She was enjoying herself far too thoroughly to take umbrage at him.

"That carriage—it nearly hit us!"

He glanced around her, out the window, then settled back into his former position—long legs stretched out in front of him, booted feet crossed at the ankles, head resting back against the worn velvet squab, arms raised and hands locked behind his head. He looked so handsome in that posture that Susannah almost leaned forward to drop a kiss on his mouth. But she knew if she did she faced the very real prospect of being pulled into his arms and treated to a session of heated lovemaking right there in the carriage. Ian's appetite for carnal love was very keen and aroused by the least little touch or smile, as she had learned with a great deal of interest. She had no wish to arrive at their destination—a hotel, Ian said, until he could get a few matters of business squared away—with her hair and clothing in disorder, so she contented herself with smiling at him.

"That was just Cambert. He likes to think he can drive to an inch, but in reality he is the most cow-handed clunch imaginable. You were quite right to fear that he would hit us, because he has such accidents frequently."

"Cambert?" Ian sounded as if the careless driver was well-known to him. But the carriage had obviously been horrendously expensive, and the bracket-faced driver had been clad in clothes that looked as if they had cost the earth. Certainly Susannah had never seen even the finest of the Beaufort gentlemen turned out in such style. For a man who had counted shillings and pence every step of the way on their journey to claim acquaintance with such an obviously wealthy London gentleman seemed farfetched. And yet—fool though she probably was—the silver-tongued devil almost had her convinced that he really was a marquis. Certainly she wanted to believe that—and everything else he said.

"John Bolton, Earl of Cambert. He is a little older than I am, but I have been acquainted with him anytime these dozen years."

Her eyes must have revealed her lingering doubt, because he sat up suddenly and grinned at her.

"You still don't believe me, do you?" Letting down his window, he yelled something at the driver. Moments later the carriage swung over into another lane of traffic and turned left.

"What are you doing?" Something about his air of smug satisfaction alarmed her.

"Taking you to see my man of business. I was going to be a gentleman and drop you off at the hotel first so that you could rest while I dealt with the hard, cold realities of life, like procuring funds so that we could eat, but I've changed my mind. Prepare to dine on crow, my darling."

Susannah frowned. "It is not that I don't believe you, precisely, but . . ."

"Oh, yes, it is. Precisely. I can't tell you how your lack of faith has wounded me, either. I'll have you know that I have never told a lie in my life."

"Pooh!"

Ian cast his eyes heavenward. "See? She doesn't believe me!" he said plaintively, as if to a higher power. Susannah had to laugh.

"Well, if you are really a marquis . . ."

"I am."

". . . and rich as Croesus . . ."

"I am that, too. Or, rather, I was. The situation is complicated here, but I am hoping that my mother, who has a great dislike of scandal and an even greater regard for her own skin, has left my money intact. She was after the title, after all, for my brother. I rather suspect that, until she has conclusive proof of my death, she will move rather slowly against my possessions and—other things."

"That is the thing I find hardest of all to believe—that your own mother, and brother, could wish you dead, and even connive at your death."

The humor vanished from his face, to be replaced by something implacably bleak and hard. "I told you, my mother is as different from you as night is from day. She has never cared for me. Nor has my brother. She has quite poisoned Edward against me."

"What of your father?"

If anything, Ian's face grew more shuttered. "My father suffered a hunting accident when I was nine. More properly, half his skull was blown away by a misfired shotgun. But he survives. At least, his body survives. He has not been in his right mind for these twenty-two years."

"How dreadful!" Susannah's heart wept for him and, with a rustle of skirts—her best black poplin, now rather the worse for wear—she moved to sit beside him and slide her arms around his neck.

"Never mind, my dear," she whispered, kissing the side of his jaw. "There is truth to the saying that those who have a trying childhood progress to a particularly satisfying old age."

"I hope so," Ian said, a touch of humor returning to his voice. One hand came up to cup the back of her head, and his lips found her mouth.

The carriage rocked to a halt.

"Damn!" Ian muttered. "Though it's just as well, I suspect. You would not like to call on Mr. Dumboldt looking as if you'd just arisen from a toss in the hay—or, in this case, the carriage."

"No," Susannah said, brushing her hand across the back of her mouth to wipe away the last traces of his kiss and lifting a hand to her hair. "I should not. Ian, perhaps you had best take me to the hotel after all."

He grinned at her, perfectly restored to himself now. "Not a chance, my darling. I want to get this straight between us once and for all."