Too Sinful to Deny (26 page)

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Authors: Erica Ridley

Tags: #Man-Woman Relationships, #Historical Fiction, #Smuggling, #Smugglers, #General, #Romance, #Historical, #Secrecy, #Fiction, #Love Stories

BOOK: Too Sinful to Deny
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Chapter 19
Susan launched herself into Mr. Bothwick’s arms. They were warm, strong, safe. Attached to a living, breathing man. She wrapped her arms about his neck and held on as tight as she could. He returned the embrace, pressing his lips to her forehead.
“It’s going to be all right,” he whispered.
She shook her head. It would never be all right.
“Yes, it will, sweetling.” He held her close. “I don’t know how, but I’ll make it stop. I promise.”
She clung to her knight errant. How could he stop anything? Pirates were here. The body count was already up to three. And—oh. Susan closed her eyes.
Mr. Bothwick had no idea any of those things were happening. He probably thought her distress was about Lady Emeline, whom he’d just met. While Susan was still frantic to do whatever she could to help her poor cousin, she’d just been handed a completely new nightmare. Her brain felt as sluggish as her limbs. She held on to him tighter, breathed in his scent.
She should correct his misconception. And she would. She needed somebody on her side. But right now she didn’t want to discuss the dead investigator whose blood now stained the pale sand. Or the girlish note that had summoned the doomed man to the sea. Or the even greater dangers afoot.
Right now, she wanted to forget. Just for a few moments. She wanted . . .
release
from all this anxiety, all this horror, all this fear. Mr. Bothwick could provide her at least that much.
“Kiss me,” she whispered, and pressed her lips to his before he could say no.
He kissed her back, sweetly, tenderly. She was having none of that.
She bit his lip, hard. Swept her tongue inside when his mouth parted in surprise. Forced him to taste her, to feel her desperation, her passion.
His hands tightened on her hips, but not to set her down. He pulled her closer.
“Don’t go back there,” he whispered. “Stay here. With me.”
Susan didn’t want to think about Moonseed Manor, about the dead Runner, about the giant’s threats. She pressed closer to Mr. Bothwick’s warm body. She felt his hard length trapped between them and remembered what it looked like, swollen with desire. She wished for the chance to touch him as he’d touched her. She’d dreamt of closing her hand around him, stroking him, watching his face contort with pleasure. This time, perhaps they could bring release to each other.
He lifted her in his arms. She let him. Until he passed the staircase.
“Where are we going?” she asked against the side of his neck.
“Receiving room?” he guessed.
“No.” She shook her head, looking him in the eyes. “Bedchamber.”
He stopped, hesitated. His gaze sparked with the war between obeying what she said now, and complying with what she’d told him only last night.
“Are you certain?” he asked softly.
She kissed him, thrusting her breasts against his chest. “
Bedchamber.
”
He gave no argument.
With his mouth on hers and his arms wrapped tight around her, he turned and somehow made it up the stairs. The room he entered was awash in blues and greens. Colors of the sea. How very like him. The presence of pine furniture only augmented the feel of the ocean, by bringing in touches of brown and beige the color of sand, both wet and dry.
He laid her in the center of a large, night-blue bed and cupped her face to kiss her. His were not the soft hands of an idle
ton
lordling with nothing more taxing to do than play deuces and bet on ponies. His were the rough hands of a man who toiled at hard labor, who’d done so recently, and with pleasure. He was not the Society gentleman she’d been waiting for, but she couldn’t make herself care. For now, she was his. And would make him hers. If only for this moment.
She licked at his lips. “Touch me.”
At last, he slid one of his palms from her cheek to her neck, to her collarbone, to her breast. He cupped her as best he could through all the layers separating them, pinched the budding nipple. The sensation was heavenly . . . but it wasn’t enough. She arched into him, lifting her back from the mattress.
“Unbutton me.”
He paused. “Miss Stanton . . .”
“I believe I’m Susan, at this point,” she corrected, unsure whether she felt like laughing or crying. She kissed him so he wouldn’t detect either emotion. She needed to feel real, to feel
alive
. “Unbutton me.”
He paused only for a second. “Turn around.”
She tried to kiss him. He gripped her shoulders, turning her himself. Yes. That was what she wanted. She didn’t wish to think. She only wished to feel. He kissed along her neck as his fingers traced her spine. Perfect.
After he made deft work of the buttons, the ties, the hooks-and-eyes, and everything else that had caged her in layer upon layer of cotton, he seemed to hesitate.
She did not.
She shrugged her gown off of her shoulders, wriggled it over her hips, kicked the heavy mass off the bed. The knife in her pocket thunked when it hit the floor. Her stays were the next to go—bloody busk made it impossible to do half the things she’d dreamed of doing. Now all that covered her trembling body were her gartered stockings and her thin shift.
She lifted her gaze to the fully clothed man watching her. His hazel eyes darkened with passion, but he made no move to disrobe. Very well. She would do it for him. She sat on her heels and considered him. This was a good task. Something positive to concentrate on. She would empty her mind of everything but the man lounging next to her on the mattress.
She began with his coat. Why was he wearing a coat? Had he intended to go out-of-doors? No matter. She was here now. The gold buttons easily slipped free of the dark blue fabric. He sat up a little when she pulled at the sleeves, helping her work his arms free. She pushed the coat to the floor. It landed with a soft whoosh against the thick carpet.
Mr. Bothwick looked just as handsome unencumbered by a jacket. If anything, it was easier to see that the width of his shoulders had not been exaggerated by padding, that the muscular arms still encased by billowing lawn were as hard and strong as they’d always seemed. If twice as warm. Still on her knees before him, she ran her fingertips down the front of his waistcoat. His entire body radiated heat.
She drew in a deep breath and focused on his cravat. It was perfectly white, perfectly starched, perfectly styled. In a house of this size, he certainly had a few servants. But where had he found a man able to tie a cravat as beautifully as this? Had he done so himself?
The fleeting thought returned that Mr. Bothwick would not look out of place in a ballroom. He was striking, even without his smartly tailored coat. She reached for him. He obligingly leaned forward. A few careful tugs loosened the knot at his throat. She crumpled the cravat and tossed it aside. There. Now he didn’t look like a gentleman. Now he looked rakish. Dangerous.
She shivered in anticipation, and decided it had been too long between kisses. Shameful, really, because with him propped up on his elbows and her perched on her heels, all she had to do was swoop down and kiss him.
So she did.
What was meant to be a simple kiss quickly turned raw, then hungry, then carnal. She fed the flames, let them burn. She needed it to be this way. Needed him to be as desperate to be lost in her as she was to be lost in him. They could forget the outside world together.
Mouth still locked with his, she fumbled with the buttons of his waistcoat. Too many. Far too many. But at last, the final button popped free. He broke the kiss in order to shuck the irritating garment. She took the opportunity to hike the hem of her shift high enough to allow her legs to straddle him. Mmm. This was a much better position from which to remove his shirt. In seconds, the fine lawn had joined the growing pile of abandoned vestments on the carpet.
The soft buckskin of his breeches was now the only fabric remaining between them. She smiled. With her thighs spread atop his, her lips were no longer in line with his.
Her breasts were.
He took one in his mouth. The nipple hardened and reached for him through the damp fabric. He suckled. She latched onto his hair. Her back arched as she pressed his face into her breasts. The movement caused her to slide deliciously against the hard shaft pulsing between her legs. His fingers dug into her hips. Was he trying to make her stop? He gave her bottom an impatient slap. No. He was telling her to do it again.
Gripping his shoulders, she began to rock against him. Slowly. Tentatively. Then again with more pressure, more confidence, more
need
as the whirlpool of desire began to swirl between her legs.
He reached between them and unbuttoned his fall, releasing the hard proof of his arousal. This time, she wasn’t staring from across the room. This time she was stroking that hot naked flesh with her own wet heat. Could he—could she—like this? Simply by rubbing herself against him? His teeth closed gently on her nipple, laved, then nibbled again. Her eyes fluttered in pleasure. Yes, yes, she could. Just like this. Was about to, in fact.
His hand slid up her thigh, squeezed, then dipped between them. Now she was riding the edge of his hand as well as his shaft. She gasped as he slid a finger inside of her. The pad of his thumb caressed her, stroked her, until the threads of her self-control began to unravel.
“M-Mr. Bothwick . . .”
“Evan,” he corrected, the syllables muffled by her aching breast. His thumb continued its lazy assault, his finger its delicious in-and-out movement.
“Evan,” she repeated blindly, her own words breathless and ragged. “I’m going to . . . You’re going to make me . . .”
And then she did, her entire body jerking as her muscles contracted around his finger. She fell forward, panting into his hair. His finger disappeared. He shifted her hips. Something else was pressing against her, something longer, something harder, something infinitely bigger.
This
was what he felt like. Slick with her desire, his shaft stretched her, filled her. She moaned, clutched him to her.
His left hand splayed against the curve of her bottom, coaxing her to continue rocking against him as his shaft pulsed and slid within her. His right hand slipped between them, his knuckles rubbing against her sensitized flesh in the most delicious of patterns.
Her nails dug into his shoulders, but not because she wished for him to stop. She would die if he stopped. She wanted to keep him there, hold him to her, deep inside of her, forever. His thighs flexed beneath her as his shaft filled her again and again. Her legs clenched around his hips as the intoxicating pressure began to build once more. He suckled her. Squeezed her. Stroked her.
She cried out as his thumb’s inexorable caresses coalesced with the heady fusion of their bodies. Her muscles spasmed. Joyfully, desperately. He didn’t stop rubbing with his thumb or driving his shaft into her until the last of the contractions.
He rolled them over as one, their bodies still locked together. She twined her arms about his neck, wrapped her legs around his hips. He captured her mouth with his. His body tensed and flexed as he slid in and out, faster, harder.
Susan’s body thrummed.
This
was life. This was love.
Her hips rose and fell in rhythm with his. She hugged him with her arms. Clutched him with her legs. He never stopped kissing her, never stopped the delicious thrusting that was even now building the tension in her womb. His breathing came faster, as if he sensed she was about to crest again. As if the knowledge brought him to the edge of the same precipice.
Her head fell backward as her body contracted around him. He waited until the last of her contractions, then jerked to the side, dousing her hip with hot liquid. He collapsed half on top of her and pressed a kiss to her cheek. His eyes fluttered shut. He cuddled her a little closer.
Despite his weight, she smiled to herself as she hugged him to her. He felt good. Warm. Strong. A little sticky.
She frowned. Why had he—and then it hit her. Of course. He’d withdrawn at the last second so as not to fill her with his seed. To make sure no bastard children would result from their illicit liaison.
Bloody hell, she’d just had an illicit liaison.
Chapter 20
To say Miss Stanton didn’t take the aftermath well would be an understatement.
Susan, rather. Or not. She’d bade him address her by her first name in the heat of passion, but if the horrified expression draining the blue from her eyes was any indication, Evan was about to have that privilege revoked.
“What have I done?” she said, her voice nearly wheezing with horror.
He rolled aside to let her breathe.
Lovemaking
didn’t seem the response she was looking for, so he tried for a bit of levity. “Some call it the featherbed jig.”
She disemboweled him with her glare.
Not in a humorous mood, then. Fair enough.
“I didn’t force you to do anything you didn’t wish to do,” he said, as much for his benefit as for hers. Truly, he hadn’t even left the house. She’d come to his door, attacked him with kisses, issued commands like
Bedchamber.
He could’ve sworn they both wanted the same thing.
To his relief, she answered simply, “I know.”
And looked nauseous.
“You seemed to . . . enjoy it?” he tried again, starting to worry he was completely misreading the source of her displeasure.
She slammed her head backward into the pillow. “I
know.
”
“At the risk of starting a conversation I almost certainly have no wish to partake in . . . May I ask what’s wrong?”
“I won’t marry you.”
Right. They’d covered this ground. And, as before, this statement simultaneously relieved and offended. Playing the part of temporary lover should not have bothered him. Yet, this time, it did. Was he nothing but a guttersnipe workhorse, meant to satisfy her baser longings while she searched for the titled fop who would satisfy her High Society standards?
“Technically, I still haven’t asked,” he replied crossly. He propped himself up on one elbow and tried not to show his wounded pride.
She closed her eyes as if in pain.
Perhaps she was. She
had
been a virgin. Evan was immediately contrite. He’d tried not to be rough. Her body had seemed more than ready to accommodate him. But what did he know about such things? He’d never tumbled a virgin. Until today.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked softly, brushing her cheek with his knuckle.
She jerked away from his touch. “It’s not you. It’s me. What seemed like a good idea turned out to be a very, very bad one.” She scrambled off the bed and stared down at the pile of crumpled clothing. “Damn and triple damn.”
Evan sat up straight, his bare skin suddenly ice cold. “What did you just say?”
“I said it’s my fault.” She kicked at her wrinkled gown. “Don’t worry. Don’t marry me. Things will be fine.”
“No.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed. He leaned forward, gripping his knees so as not to throttle her. “You said, ‘Damn and triple damn.’”
“I—” Her mouth remained open, but no further sound escaped. Something flickered in her eyes. Wariness. Guilt.
“Where did you hear that phrase?” he demanded. He knew he sounded like a wild man. He felt like one. When she shook her head mutely, he grabbed her shoulders through her thin shift. “
Where?
”
“If you know, then why ask me?” she burst out.
He yanked his hands from his shoulders before he did end up shaking her.
“Where,” he asked, pronouncing each word carefully and distinctly, “did you meet Timothy?”
“Here in Bournemouth.”
“Liar.”
Lips pressed tightly together, she lifted her chin and said nothing.
Evan crossed his arms over his chest and tried to think over the blood rushing in his ears. “Timothy was dead before you arrived.”
She raised a slender brow, but did not otherwise respond.
Cursed woman. What the devil did she mean to say? That she’d met him beforehand? Impossible. Timothy hadn’t stepped foot out of Bournemouth in years, except for when he traveled by sea. Evan was willing to bet this was Miss Stanton’s first visit to their charming beachside home. There was something else, too. Something he’d meant to discuss further.
“Red had also gone missing before you arrived,” he said slowly.
She glanced away. It was quick, but he saw it. She was hiding something. Well, obviously she was hiding something; he didn’t need shifty eye movement to tell him that.
But there was a connection here that he wasn’t making. A connection she feared he
might
make, solely given what little evidence he had.
Think logically, Bothwick.
Miss Stanton knew Red well enough to know his given name. She knew Timothy well enough to cop one of his pet phrases as her own. Both men had presumably been killed before her arrival. Which meant . . .
“You never met either of them, and you’ve just been playacting?”
She let out a frustrated breath. “I met them after they
died.
”
“You what?” he asked incredulously, not for a moment believing her words. He had no better hypothesis, but her explanation was absurd. What kind of fool did she take him for?
Her eyes widened with the same two emotions as before. Wariness. And guilt.
“Nothing. Forget it.”
Uneasiness coated his stomach. “How would that be possible?”
“I don’t know,” she snapped. “I didn’t plan it.”
Evan laughed. He couldn’t help it. “You expect me to believe you can see
spirits?
”
“Apparently not all of them,” she muttered.
Not all of them? He leaned back and looked her in the eyes. She truly believed he’d swallow this cockamamie tale. He’d play along, try to gauge whether she believed it herself. “Which ghost are you missing?”
Mute again. Defiant. Frightened.
“You met Timothy,” he started over, careful to keep the skepticism from his voice, “after he was dead.”
She hesitated, then nodded once.
Liar. Evan shook with repressed rage. At her, for dragging his brother into her Banbury tales. At poor misguided Timothy, for being such a lackluster jack-tar that he’d been killed by a rogue pirate. At said soulless blackguard for being cowardly enough to shoot an unarmed seaman. At whoever had stolen Timothy’s body, robbing him of both a proper burial and the chance for his loved ones to say good-bye.
What he wouldn’t give to speak to Timothy himself, to apologize for not being there, to tell his brother how much he missed him. But he would never have that chance. Evan didn’t believe in spirits. Much less that his brother would return home as one, and then choose to have tea with Miss Stanton.
And yet, uneasiness continued to congeal in his belly.
“What did Timothy say?” That look again. Guilt. Mistrust. “God damn it, Susan, if you expect me to believe—”
“He asked me not to tell anyone. Including you.”
Evan stared at the woman before him, still damp and flushed from his lovemaking, and couldn’t believe his ears. “Your loyalty is greater to my
dead brother
than to me?”
Again with the deafening silence.
His couldn’t keep the sarcasm from his voice. “Is he here right now, watching us?”
She blushed. Then shook her head rapidly.
That was a plus, at least. He didn’t want Timothy witnessing the brother he’d always considered an indomitable lothario being utterly destroyed by a debutante in her shift and stockings. Wait. Evan rubbed his face, frowning. Was he starting to believe this rot? If Miss Stanton saw spirits, that would mean there
were
spirits. And that Timothy had chosen to reveal himself to a complete stranger rather than his own brother.
Unless . . . he’d had no choice.
Evan did his best to keep his voice calm, reasonable. “Have you always spoken to dead people?”
She shook her head. “Just since I died.”
Thunderclouds gathered in Evan’s head. “For the love of all that’s holy, woman, if you don’t start making sense, I can’t be responsible for my actions.”
She thrust out a pale arm, palm up. A wicked scar zigzagged from just above her wrist to very nearly her elbow. She offered no explanation. Evan began to suspect this was because she was
barmy
and all indication to the contrary mere coincidence.
“Ghosts speak to you through your . . . magic scar?”
“No!” Her hands fisted and she tucked them beneath crossed arms. “I broke my arm when I fell into the Thames earlier this year. I drowned. Before that, I was an ordinary young lady. Afterward . . .” She bit at her lower lip for a moment. “At first I thought Moonseed Manor was haunted. Then I realized it was me.”
“Does Ollie suspect that you—”
Her small hand latched around his wrist like an iron manacle. “Don’t tell him.”
“I didn’t say I was going to.”
“Do not trust him, Evan. Whatever you do.”
He considered the seriousness of this directive. “Because of last night?”
“Because . . .” She took a deep breath, as if to rally courage. “He’s a pirate.”
Evan’s mouth fell open. “He’s a what?”
“You can’t breathe a word,” she said quickly, her hand still preventing blood flow to his fingers. “There’s already been at least one death because of it. Two, I suppose, counting your brother.”
Evan’s skin turned clammy. “Timothy told you Ollie was a pirate?”
She nodded. “He was investigating them.”
“Timothy was investigating . . . pirates?” He felt like a deuced fool repeating everything she said, but his brain was boiling in his skull.
She nodded again. “I imagine they’re all going to prison. Then they’re going to hang.” She looked particularly pleased by the thought of Ollie dangling from a noose.
Evan, however, was not as delighted by this news.
At what point had Timothy decided to go turncoat and ferret information to the law? He would’ve had to realize that although he might save his own neck from the morning drop, there would be no pardoning the rest, Evan included. The entire crew would hang. Some of the jacks were conscienceless knaves, yes, but . . . to pretend to be complicit, solely to ensure a trip to the gallows, when to do so would condemn your own brother to go down with the ship?
Oblivious to his inner turmoil, Miss Stanton began pulling on clothing. First her stays, then her gown. She turned and gave Evan her back. He did his best to button and lace her without snapping any strings. His hold on sanity seemed equally frayed.
She knew about Ollie. She even knew things about Timothy that Evan himself hadn’t known. Which meant it was all true. There truly were spirits. Who spoke to her. One of which was the late Timothy Bothwick.
Brother. Smuggler. Traitor.
The giant wasn’t the only pirate in Bournemouth.
Susan had turned her back toward Mr. Bothwick the moment his expression had changed from gobsmacked to furious. She’d left immediately after he’d slipped the last button into place and hadn’t looked back. She couldn’t face him without giving away what she’d seen darken his hazel eyes: betrayal. Incredible as her previous obtuseness now seemed, Mr. Bothwick was one of the soon-to-be-condemned pirates.
And she’d
lain
with him.
She pushed blindly through the trees, scarce able to keep her feet on the trail. Between the dark clouds and the thick branches converging overhead, it felt more like nightfall than late afternoon. A wet drop slipped through the sparse leaves and streaked across one of her lenses. The skies were about to open up, and she wasn’t 100 percent certain this was the footpath that led from Mr. Bothwick’s cliff back to Moonseed Manor.
But the trampled dirt was
a
path leading
somewhere.
With the cold rain falling faster by the second—and the house she’d just escaped from home to a bloody pirate—she would seek whatever shelter she could find.
She should continue to be safe from Mr. Bothwick as long as he didn’t realize she knew the truth. The giant should continue to spare her life because of her parents. The Stantons knew in whose company they’d entrusted their daughter and their connections were considerable. Crossing the baron and his wife would be begging to visit the gallows.
Nonetheless, the idea of immediately returning to Moonseed Manor held little pull.
Her hands were freezing. She longed for the relative warmth of gloves. Perhaps she should wear her soiled ones, despite the blood staining the once-white silk. She reached numb fingers into her pocket, pulled out the dark crumple, and gave it a good shake.
Now the cloth was brown and damp . . . and consisted of a single glove. Spectacular. Where had the other one flown off to? She hesitated, her clothes and hair and skin getting wetter by the moment, and debated just leaving the other glove where it lay. But no. She’d had sound reasons for not tossing them aside before, and those reasons still stood. With a sigh, she retraced her steps to the point where she thought she’d shaken out the wrinkled silk.

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