Sweetest Little Sin (35 page)

WITHOUT a word, Louisa rose from the table to collect their bowls.

As she reached for Jardine’s his fingers gripped her wrist. “Leave it.”

“I was just going to—”

“Leave it, I said. You’re not a damned footman.”

She took a pointed look around her. “Well, I don’t see anyone else here to do it, do you?”

She tried to pull herself free from his grip. He snatched the bowl she held and hurled it across the room. It shattered in the empty fireplace.

Louisa let out a breath in an outraged hiss. She didn’t know why she was so furious. It wasn’t because of the bowl or the mess he’d made.

A sudden, ungovernable rage rushed up inside her. She picked up his wine glass and dashed its contents over him. In awe-filled horror, she watched the ruby liquid arc out of the glass and drench his face.

He recoiled, swearing viciously, but he didn’t loose his grip on her wrist. His clasp tightened as he dashed the liquid from his eyes.

Panting, she watched wine drip down his pale skin like blood from a wound, bemused at her behavior.

There was a taut, fulminating silence. Then his mouth crashed down on hers. She gave a muffled gasp, but whether it was a protest or a cry of satisfaction, she didn’t know and he didn’t pay attention.

He tasted of the wine and a hint of the rosemary she’d used to flavor the soup. His firm lips crushed hers as his tongue dominated her mouth.

A sweep of his hand sent the tablecloth and everything upon it sliding off the table with a clatter and crash. Her bottom pressed against the table edge as he slowly bent her back over his arm.

Jardine feasted on her mouth with a greater appetite than he’d shown over their meal, and his hands were everywhere, ripping at her clothes, as if desperate to feel her.

The wound in her cheek throbbed in protest. It might even have been bleeding, but she wanted this so badly—his dark, unfettered passion, his physicality—that she didn’t care.

His mouth left hers to travel lower, and the sensations he orchestrated in her body with his hands and lips and tongue soon overwhelmed the sharp beat of pain.

He picked her up and deposited her on the table, his hand rucking up her skirts until he found the hot, moist place between her legs. He touched her there, his fingers swift and urgent, pressing, rubbing, bringing her quickly to a peak.

As she began to climax, he freed his member from his trousers and thrust into her, sinking his teeth into the sensitive side of her neck. He kept that wolfish hold on her while he stroked, and her climax erupted again, coursing like a hot, pulsing current through her body.

She gripped the hair at his nape, threw her head back, and cried out.

“Oh God. Louisa.” He gave an agonized groan as he emptied himself into her.

He laid his forehead against her neck as he shuddered, and his warm breath flowed over her skin.

Tenderness swept over her, and in its wake flowed aching regret. For all the years they’d wasted, for the black chasm of loneliness that yawned before her.
France, for God’s sake!

Despite her frustration and anger, she let her hand drift upward to stroke his silky black hair.

And knew that this heated coupling had solved nothing at all.

JARDINE trailed his hand slowly down Louisa’s side and let it rest on her warm, lithe flank. She lay in his arms in a proper bed this time. They’d made love as if the world was ending. In every way that mattered, it was.

Could he ever get enough of her? Despite the pressing need to send her away, he couldn’t resist stealing as much time with her as possible before the daylight faded.

He thought of Smith and another operation that would proceed tonight. He’d no doubt Smith would act quickly, decisively, to free his brother from his prison. He wouldn’t want to take the chance that Jardine might alert the guard or have Elias moved.

Jardine’s inability to stop it gnawed at him, but he couldn’t be in two places at once. Ives hadn’t turned up, nor had Faulkner. In any case, Jardine didn’t trust anyone else to guard Louisa while he was off foiling Smith’s rescue.

Desperate as he was to get his hands on Smith, Louisa’s safety must come first. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

“I’m not going to France, Jardine.” Those fiery blue eyes blazed into his.

The hand that had been stroking along her flank stilled. She only made it harder by protesting, didn’t she know that? But she would go, whether she wanted to or not.

She seemed to read his thoughts. “And if you force me to go, I’ll find a way to come back.”

He let his thick black eyelashes come down to shutter his eyes and concentrated on her body. He said nothing, simply resumed his caresses, giving the languid movements all his attention.

“We need to finish Smith, once and for all,” Louisa persisted. “You’ll never have a better chance than now to do it. By the time you pack me off to France, he’ll have gone to ground and taken his disgusting brother with him.”

Anger shook him at the thought. But he’d made his peace with that, hadn’t he? He’d risked Louisa’s safety on that last roll of the dice and she’d narrowly escaped torture and death. It was time to cut his losses.

He might never have her, but she would be safe. There’d be some comfort in knowing she was alive and well.

He slid his hand up to cup her shoulder. “I can’t pursue him tonight. I can’t leave you here, without protection, where he might find you before I find him. I can’t take the risk.”

He touched her hair, where it tangled around her ear, close to the slash on her face. It was a featherlight touch, painfully careful of her wound. His hand trembled.

A harsh breath that sounded shamefully close to a sob escaped him. “Your face . . .”

She gripped his wrist. The blue eyes hurled lightning bolts. “Don’t you
dare
pity me, Jardine.”

That fierce warrior woman leaped in her eyes. “I have felt more alive in the past few days than I have in eight years and I’ve no intention of losing you now. Go after Smith. I’ll come with you. I promise I’ll stay out of your way. Give me a shotgun and I’ll hide somewhere nearby. At the least, I can even the numbers.”

No. He couldn’t possibly allow it.

In a rasping voice, he said, “Louisa, I have lost everyone who was ever close to me.” She blinked at the change of subject, but he went on. “My parents were loving and gentle and kind. They died of typhus fever while I was away at school.”

“It must have been dreadful for you.”

“They were my world,” he said simply. “I had no siblings, or at least none that survived infancy. It was just the three of us. And suddenly, there was only me. I was brought up by schools and servants, and then as a young man I ran wild. I was good at finding trouble and even better at getting out of it. Faulkner discovered me, trained me, and I thought I’d found direction. For a while, it was exciting and I believed passionately in what I did. But that life isolated me even more than before.”

He looked into her eyes. “And then I met you. It was as if I’d been adrift all those years, rudderless, sailing through an endless night. You, Louisa. You were the sun on the horizon, lighting the way home.” He gripped her dear, determined chin. “I cannot lose you. If I lose you, then I am lost, too.”

“There are more ways than one to lose someone.” She said it quietly, but he detected the tremor in her voice. “If you send me away now, it must be over between us, Jardine. When this threat is past, there’ll be another, and another. There’ll be more excuses for you to avoid risking your heart.”

The accusation stunned him. “You think I’m a coward?”

“Yes, I think you are. You don’t want to see me hurt, I know that. But I’ve lived with that same fear for you. I’ve lived for eight years with the knowledge that I might hear news of your death at any moment, or worse, that I might never hear at all. What do you think that has been like? I’ve been a prisoner to your fear, like a princess in a tower. You’ve made me alone, just as you are.”

She sat up, hugging her knees. “That’s no way to live, Jardine. I’m not going to live like that anymore.”

A drum of desperation beat in his brain. She’d leave him. She’d find someone else. After all she’d been through. After all he’d done in her name.

He gritted his teeth. “All right, I’ll go. You stay here with the shotgun. I’ll tell the old woman to look out for you.”

She shook her head. “I’m coming with you.”

JARDINE’S eyes snapped. Flatly, he said, “The hell you are.”

Louisa made what was possibly the most momentous decision of her life, next to marrying him. “If you go without me, Jardine, I won’t be here when you get back.”

She lifted her chin, her heart beating hard in her chest. She was afraid. The memory of their recent incarceration, of Radleigh’s blade slicing into her flesh, was all too vivid in her mind. With iron will, she repressed a shudder, gripped her hands together so they wouldn’t tremble.

He tilted his head, considering, and she swiftly forestalled him. “If you are thinking how you might tie me up and put me in a cupboard until you get back—”

“The thought crossed my mind,” he muttered.

“—Then think what will happen if Smith has sent another of his cutthroats after me. Or if you do not come back . . .”

The place behind her eyes stung and grew hot. She would
not
cry. She despised women who used tears to get what they wanted.

His features were so taut with anger, she thought the pale mask of his face might crack. “You will be safer here than in the cross fire.”

But she wouldn’t back down now. She’d leave him no choice. “If you go without me, I shall return to London and go to work for Faulkner. If I’m going to live my life in fear, without you, then I’ll turn it to good account. I won’t die waiting for you, Jardine.”

Hours might have ticked past as they stared at each other. He was white to the lips, his eyes fiery and dark as hot coals.

Finally, he launched from the bed and reached for his shirt. “If you’re coming with me, you’ll damned well do as I say.”

THE ride was a long one, and by the time they arrived at their destination, her mare was almost blown. Silently, Jardine dismounted, then reached up for her.

The warmth of his hands spanning her waist was a small comfort. She wished she could stop shaking. She would go through with this. She must.

Jardine checked the shotgun he’d brought and handed it to her. Then he motioned her to the edge of the stand of trees.

Below them, in a dell overrun with shrubs and weeds, stood a small stone cottage. The house had bars on the windows and a sturdy-looking door. An odd place to hold a dangerous criminal.

Two guards played cards at a crude wooden table under the eave, tankards at their elbows and rifles propped against the benches on which they sat. A large lantern swung gently from a beam overhead, casting its glow over the two men.