The Stanhope Challenge - Regency Quartet - Four Regency Romances (38 page)

Mark rejoiced in her admission, He curled his lip at the thought of her married to de Ros. In a transparent clinging gown. In de Ros’s bed.

Sniffing, she tipped her nose higher. “I had to pay the modiste, lest my father learn and suspect how I planned to escape.”

His gaze ran over her. She was disheveled , dirty and she smelled as badly of neglect as he did of alcohol. No matter her state, she stood proud, regal and heart-breakingly lovely. Alive. He sat taller, fought to become sober and logical. “Why not come to me and ask for help?”

She drew herself up to a greater hauteur. Even so deeply in his cups, he praised her for her fortitude—and her luscious beauty as she did so. “Because you would have refused me. You chose not to respond to me fully those weeks in London. You did not wish to show others that you cared for me.”

His hands flexed. His heart lurched. His desire swelled. “Nothing could come of that.”

Her eyes beseeched him for more succor. “Attraction knows no rules.”

He nodded, distraught at the remembrance of how he had yearned to be kinder to her and show her his desire for her. “Your truth is hard to bear.”

Her brilliant eyes flooded with tears. “Your honor was harder to bear.”

“Do not assume I would have stopped touching you if once I did.”

Her lips thinned. “The day you left, I could assume nothing else.”

Her despair flayed him, coward that he had been, noble that he wished to be. “How do you think this can save you?” He waved a hand about the cabin to illustrate her escape from her fate in London.

She stiffened her spine. “They will never know where I am, how I am.”

His head ached, splitting with her logic and the folly of her hope. “They will learn.”

“No. We are too far out to sea.” She took two steps toward him, her jewel-like eyes pleading with him for mercy, her face pale with fear. “You will not turn back. Please, do not.”

Weary with the scotch and the surprise and the joy of her here and very much alive, he cupped her face. Her skin was soft as eider down, cool from her days and nights in his hold. “Darling Sirena, your father must know you are alive and well. He fears you are dead.”

Shocked, she jerked from his reach. “Let him.”

“That would be needlessly cruel.” He told her quickly about the drowned girl. “They assume it is you, Sirena. She wears your clothes. Your father identified them as yours.”

Her brilliant eyes fired with sorrow even as she dug her nails into his forearms. “Oh, no. The dead girl looks like me?”

“She does.”

“Dear god.” Tears filled her eyes. “Jean is dead?”

“Jean?”

“She is a scullery maid who helped me escape the house. I gave her a gown and coat of mine to wear to lead them to think she was me. For her service, I also gave her a pearl brooch to pawn as payment. Oh, Mark, this is truly awful.” She ran her hands through her hair. “How could she die?”

He could think of only one conclusion. “Perhaps she was set upon by thieves.”

Sirena clamped a hand to her mouth and caught back sobs. “She died because of me.”

He took her in his arms, and the world suddenly felt warm, welcoming and right. His fingers sank into her hair. His lips buried in the silken wealth. His arm around her waist drew her sweet, lush body closer. “Darling, we do not know that.”

She pulled back, her eyes filled with horror. “I gave her a bit of money but I left her alone in the city.”

His finger traced the rise of her cheek, the curve of her jaw. “You can make amends to her family.”

“She has none.” Sirena squeezed here eyes shut and yanked away. “There is no reason to go home.”

“Sirena—”

“No!” She fisted her hands at her sides. “If you turn around, if you take me to London, I shall only run away again.”

“You cannot live without your family, darling.”

“You can! Why can’t I? Because I am a woman?”

“That’s not what I mean.” He hated arguing with her. She rattled his senses. “I want you safe!”

“Can you honestly say you think I am safe with de Ros?” she taunted him.

She had him there.

“Make no mistake, Mark Stanhope. You can tie me up and drag me back, deliver me, but one day I will escape them. My father. De Ros. I will be free. Even if you do not want me.”

He considered her, sweet woman that she was. He could want her. But such desire led to pain. He might be politely greeted in London by his father’s set. He might be accepted by his half brothers and their wives. But such acceptance did not buy him into Sirena’s world. Nor did he want that life. The two of them were not made for each other. And yet, he could applaud her courage…and be infatuated by her. “Who says I don’t want you?”

“You do! You’d take me back!”

He shook her, her thighs molded to his through the thin trousers, chafing his willpower, rubbing him raw with his passion to taste her, take her, make her his own. Yes, he could be a right fool to return her to a father who locked her up. Where would his sense of justice be then? Had he not lived his life proud of his independence and self-sufficiency? How could he deny her the one chance to claim her own? “Hush. I won’t take you back.” I’ll keep you. “I’ll take you wherever you wish to go.”

“Baltimore?”

He stepped back, defeated by her determination and by his own craving to show her how he admired her. She had not declared she came here to be with him. She was here because she knew he was leaving England, she knew his ship was here in Dover and she bet odds he’d not find her aboard. His heart was sore, but his mind was clear on her purpose. “I’ll give you the freedom you seek. Every man and woman deserves that. It will be up to you to make the most of it.”

She clutched his shirt, twisting it as she moved against him in an assault on his reason. “What if I want simpler things?”

This close, though she was dressed in plain colorless cloth and lacked the fragrance of camellias to adorn her, she was the most desirable creature he’d ever seen. “Such as?”

“You. Now. Here.”

He gripped her arms, crushed her close, her luscious body strong, svelte and dear. His own body was too damn primed to take her, here now and prove to her how he valued her. What could he do to stop this madness and keep her safe, even from himself?

The loud banging at the door saved him from answering.

“Simpson?”

“Aye, Captain! Your bath and dinner.”

“Come in, man.” Mark tamped down his urge to kiss her. From the corner of his eye, he saw his steward place the hip bath, then lug in the copper kettles and finally, place on the table a silver pot, two tin cups, spoons and two bowls of steaming stew.

“I brought you a pot of coffee, Captain. Knew you’d need it. The miss, too, if she’s a mind. Soap, toweling. Toothpowder. Lemons, too, for both of you because, to be honest, you stink.”

Mark noticed how her eyes flared at Simpson’s last word. She looked shocked at his steward’s boldness, but nodded, knowing how true it was. Mark himself toyed with a grin. “The lady will enjoy your wares, Simpson.”

Her gaze met Mark’s with satisfaction.

He glanced at his steward who hurried to finish his tasks. “When she’s done, Simpson, I’ll put her clothes outside the door for you to carry away.” Mark spun away from her, aware what challenges could await him if he took up her offer and gave her everything she wanted from him. “Burn them.”

“Aye, Captain. Anything else, sir?”

“What of our course? The sea seems rough.”

“Mister Morris says we are due south by a hundred nautical miles, sir. A big storm last night drove us south, south east.”

“Toward the Spanish coast?”

“Aye, sir.”

Mark frowned. His navigator Morris had eight years in the merchant fleets, and a better man could not be found in Baltimore to plot a course. “So the rough seas of last night were not my imagination?”

“Aye, Captain. Not the benefits from your whisky, no.”

“Tell Morris I will talk with him after I am more myself.” Mark thanked his crewman and sent him on his way. He tore a sheet from his buck and threw it over a rafter. Not the best curtain, but it would suffice to give her some privacy. He turned to Sirena and pointed at the tub. “Get in there. The storage room for two days has done you no good.”

She sniffed, peeved at his tone and the truth.

“Use a lemon in the water if you like. Meanwhile, I,” he said and pointed to the chair and the pot of coffee, “will amuse myself.”

“Insufferable man,” she mumbled and grabbed the sheet to arrange it taut between them.

But when he sat back in his wooden chair, poured a cup of the potent brew and looked at the big white sheet hanging like a veil between them, he knew he’d have no peace. The light from the porthole shown behind her as she stripped. In silhouette, his siren was a mythical beauty come to life.

She untied the sash around her waist and wiggled to let the trousers slide to the planks. Mark narrowed his eyes, the translucent sheet too thick to give him a clear view of her creamy skin, too thin to save him from the knowledge that her body was lean. Her waist was small, her hips flared. Her thighs—

He suppressed a groan. Grunting, he picked up his tin cup and took a swallow of the coffee. Agh. Bitter damn stuff. He felt the rush of the hot liquid run through his bloodstream, and he closed his eyes at the demand of his cock to twist up deep inside her. His eyes, of their own accord, opened to view the sylph-like creature before him. Her arms went up in the air as she bent to pull off the shirt. Graceful as a swan, she tugged at the fabric. Her ribs lean. Her breasts were…. Christ. Had she bound herself? Was she mad?

He downed another swig of the coffee. But he watched in open-mouthed satisfaction as she unwound a long stream of fabric from her chest. And her breasts…. He licked his lower lip. Her generous breasts spilled free, her nipples pointed like fine diamonds.

He shifted, his cock tight and swollen against his breeches. He’d not had a woman in so long. But he had never wanted this woman in a casual romp. He had imagined himself with her for hours, days in the sunlight exploring her body, stroking her skin, tasting her wet desire between her legs. He wanted her breasts in his hands, her nipples in his mouth and his cock buried tightly inside her sweetness.

“Jesus!” He slammed his cup on the table and saw her jump. “Get in the tub!”

“Lord, you are testy!” She threw down the binding and marched to the hip bath. She stuck her toe in—and yanked it out. Teetering, she wobbled on one foot. “Oh, my God! That’s hot as hell!”

He was around the sheet in two strides, his arms full of naked lush woman before he could think.

Oh, but he could feel. She was soft skin on the outside. Firm muscle beneath. Warm all over. And as she let him hold her, she grinned up at him and wrinkled her nose. “I think your steward is correct. We do stink.”

Harrumphing, he set her securely to her feet and marched away to resume his chair. “Bathe!”

“Aye, Captain,” she crooned as once more she inserted a toe into the water.

This time, she went so excruciatingly slowly Mark swore he wore his teeth away from the grinding he gave them. One hand to the rim of the hip bath, she bent so that her breasts swung and hung like two ripe fruits. He shut his eyes, but in his mind, he fondled their fullness and teased them with his lips, laving them, nipping them, shaping them to red hot points. As if she knew his torment, she paused, tipped her head to one side, her hair falling about her shoulders in giant swirls. She reached out, grasped one of the lemons and squeezed the juice into the tub.

His cock swelled at the sound of the tinkling juice and the knowledge that once she sank into the water, her skin—aye, her mouth and her cunt—would taste like lemons. He drew a finger across the seam of his lips, his eyes on fire now as he saw her face him and sink like Venus to the sea into the tiny tub. She reclined. The water swished. She lolled about, murmuring helpless noises of sensuous satisfaction.

“Wash!” he commanded.

“Ogre! A woman cannot enjoy her bath?”

“No!” he bellowed, knowing he sounded like a beast. And a fool.

“Ba!” She sank lower in the water, sloshing it about and sending him into a panic until he realized like a ninny that she was bending to wash her hair.

On a ripple of water, she lifted her head from the surface, settled back, then shot out a hand to grasp one of the towelings. She inhaled and sighed, her hand submerged in the water.

Mark was left to imagine all that she did with that towel. Her hand skimmed the elegant length of her arm. Did she caress the delicate spot inside her elbow? Her trim calf lifted in the air. Did she stroke the inside of her thigh? Did she wash her ankle and each toe? Did she linger at her throat? The hollow where his lips must taste. The spot where her shoulder joined her elegant neck. Did she caress the fullness of her breasts? Did she rub her nipples with the nubby cloth? Did she wash her intimate folds?

He winced, pulsing with the temptation to push the sheet aside and revel in the beauty so close at hand. But reason intruded. This woman had come here not so much for him as for her freedom from another man.

Remember that.

On a whoosh, she rose from the tub. She paused, staring straight ahead as if she could actually see his obsession through the cloth. What are you thinking, my pretty stowaway? Are you wondering if you can come tempt me now?

Wishful thinking, Stanhope.

On a little cry, she twisted to one side and grasped another towel from the edge of his bunk. Each brush of the rough Turkish cloth along her form whisked over his senses. He groped for his coffee. Gulped the rest down. Poured another cup and drank as if he were dying of thirst.

I am. For one sip of this woman. One night with her.

Absurd.

He shot to his feet. “Hurry! It’s my turn!”

From behind the curtain, she huffed and kicked her pile of clothes toward him. “For Simpson.”

“Yes.” He scooped them up into his arms. In two strides, he pulled open his door and threw her rags onto the planks. When he turned back, she stood before him, wrapped in one of the towels.