With This Kiss: Part Two (4 page)

Seven

L
ady Grace Ryburn wasn’t a virgin anymore.

Not that the man who did the deed seemed aware of that fact. Colin was lying flat on his back on the opposite seat, one arm over his bandaged eyes, the other hanging free so that his fingers curled against the coach floor. He was dressed, but the front of his breeches gaped open.

And his member…

That was not a very attractive look, to Grace’s mind. She had quite liked how he looked, before. In fact, she had almost reached out to touch him.

She had absolutely no wish to touch him now, but obviously, someone was going to have to button his placket before the coach stopped.

Then she looked down at herself, slowly recovering from the shock of it. Her gown was torn. Her chemise was hanging off her shoulder. Thank goodness, she never wore a corset while traveling, because presumably he would have bitten off the whalebone stays with his teeth.

Worse, there was a smear of blood on her leg. And she hurt. In fact, she hurt quite a bit.

Tears pressed the back of her throat, but she made herself think it through. She’d enjoyed it, until the actual possession, so to speak—which she found most unenjoyable. It was rather surprising to find out how much she disliked that part of the marital act, since her mother had always led her to believe that it was great fun from beginning to end.

Colin
had had fun all the way through. But then she felt a flash of guilt. Lord knew whom he thought he was making love to. He hadn’t chosen her. The thought of Lily skittered across her mind and she shoved it away. No, he was surely thinking of a mistress, some woman he’d made love to before. Not Lily. That woman, whoever she was… she was
his.
He had said so, in a hoarse, possessive way that thrilled her to her toes.

The jealousy she felt was blinding, and entirely unwelcome.

Frankly, Colin had been like an animal, mad with desire. She shivered at the thought of how he had lost himself inside her, and then found herself shivering again with a delicious pulse of heat.

The wonder of it was that she had somehow managed to seduce him, even though she could hardly congratulate herself on her effort. He had simply taken matters into his own skillful hands.

Slowly, she sat up, wincing, and pulled off the remnants of her gown. Her mother had trained her long ago to be prepared for an emergency such as the luggage carriage going astray, so her traveling bag was in her carriage, and contained another gown.

It took a few minutes to wiggle into it, and she didn’t have a spare chemise. But even her mother’s exquisite planning couldn’t cover all eventualities—such as the one where Grace had to hook up the back of her gown after being ravished in a coach.

Since she couldn’t fasten her gown, she wrapped her cloak tightly enough around her to cover her bare back. Her maid would realize, of course. Looking at her discarded chemise and the gown, and particularly the blood staining her chemise, there would be no disguising anything from her maid. She bundled them back into the traveling bag, trying to think how she would explain it.

She would simply have to hold her head high.

Finally, she got up and went over to Colin. He was unexpectedly vulnerable, lying there with his eyes covered. Yet when she touched him, he stirred, and somewhat to her horror, his tool began to thicken and straighten, right before her eyes. She bundled him hastily into his breeches and did up the button placket, her own private parts sending her a twinge of dismay at the mere thought of how he had employed that—that
thing
of his.

When they reached the posting inn where the Duke of Ashbrook stabled his horses, she assumed the haughtiness of a duchess and swept through the door before the servants’ coach had even entered into the yard. The innkeeper instantly escorted her to his largest bedchamber.

“My husband, Captain Barry, will require a room of his own,” she told him. “And I should like a bath.”

The innkeeper bowed. “Of course, Mrs. Barry.”

Grace flinched at the title she didn’t deserve, but kept speaking. “He has suffered an injury and, unless he has woken, he must be carried from the coach. He is temporarily blind.”

The innkeeper’s face twitched. “I’m so sorry to hear that, Mrs. Barry. We will take the best possible care of your husband.”

She nodded and he left.

Grace sank into a chair, and then started straight back onto her feet. It hurt. Her most tender part felt… well…
hurt
. How did women put up with this sort of thing?

She went straight back to her first reaction to the act. She had been enjoying it until a certain point. She frowned, realizing what must be the truth. That first part was for her. And the second part was for him. Presumably the second part wouldn’t hurt as much next time, though obviously it would never be as much fun as the preliminaries. She could probably live with that.

She took a pillow from the bed, put it on the chair, and then eased herself down while she waited for her bath to arrive. She would have to think about how often she would agree to have marital relations. Once a week at the outside. Perhaps once a fortnight.

No wonder young girls weren’t informed about the details of such intimacies. They’d probably run off to Spain and join nunneries.

She looked up, caught a glimpse of herself in the glass, and actually gave a little shriek. Lord knew what that innkeeper had thought of her. Her hair was tumbled over her shoulders, and her lips looked swollen. There was—she turned down her collar to examine it more closely—yes, there was a bruise on her neck. As if he’d
marked
her. Like a savage.

Yes, it was no wonder that married women kept all these details to themselves.

Eight

C
olin woke with an aching head. He rolled on his back and his elbow struck a wall; for a moment he thought he was on the ship again.

Then he froze. Where in the hell was he? This wasn’t the townhouse of the most elegant woman in England.

There was a smell of roast beef in the air. He seemed to be lying on top of a bed, fully clothed. The pillow under his head was lumpy, and of a quality that the duchess would never allow on a guest’s bed, and probably not even in the servants’ quarters.

He sat up, bracing himself against the wall. What in the hell had happened to him? He had an indistinct memory of another laudanum dream. He couldn’t remember all the details, but he knew it had ended satisfactorily, and that it was far more acceptable than those dreams that left him unmanned.

In fact, barring the headache, he felt better than he had in weeks. Since before the cannonball exploded just off the ship rail. Thinking of how he woke to total darkness, he reached up and patted the bandage around his head. It was still firmly tied.

The door opened and Ackerley entered. In the six weeks since he lost his sight, Colin had gained an extraordinary ability to judge people by how they walked: literally by how their feet struck the ground. Ackerley ambled. You could tell him there was a fire in the privy, and he would amble over to look. Hell, you could tell him that his own coattails were on fire, and he would think about it before he turned to peer at his arse.

“Where the devil am I?” Colin demanded, with no preliminaries.

“The Cow and Tulip, Captain, on the Bath Road.”

He was half way to Arbor House, then. That made sense. But somehow, he had lost a day or two, because he had no memory of getting in the carriage. In fact, the last thing he remembered was telling a doctor that he didn’t want laudanum…

Laudanum.

The old sod must have given him a dose anyway. Well, he could hardly curse the doctor for giving him the best dream of his life. The memory shot a little pulse of fever through his blood.

“How did I get here?”

“In the carriage,” Ackerley said, without a trace of irony in his voice. “Would you like me to order your bath?”

“Yes.”

Colin brooded while Ackerley banged about the room. How the hell did he end up in a carriage? He must have had some sort of waking dream, because he managed to get out of the duchess’s townhouse.

Ackerley removed his clothing and steered him into the large tin bathtub. “Your hair, Captain Barry?”

He hated this. He hated having to be bathed with every inch of his soul, but there was nothing to be done about it. “Yes,” he said shortly. He closed his eyes as Ackerley pulled off the bandage and poured liquid soap on his head.

A moment later the man tied the bandage back around his wet head and handed him a toothbrush.

Colin used it and handed it back. “Put the towels and my clothing on the bed. You may leave.” He was at the limit of his tolerance; he would not allow another man to wash his body.

Only once he was certain the door was shut did Colin reach out, finding the edges of the bathtub, searching for the small bottle of liquid soap.

He caught the bottle just as it toppled off the side, pouring some into his left hand and rubbing his right arm. There was an odd little purr of well-being in his body, something he hadn’t felt in months.

Washing his other arm, he realized that he might not have felt this good in a year. Even his headache had disappeared. It was that dream, of course.

He washed his chest, thinking about it. No wonder men became addicts who wasted into scarecrows in back alleys. The dream had offered him everything he wanted: Grace.

When he had walked into the duchess’s townhouse, he had known instantly that Grace was in the entryway. He had
smelled
her; she favored soap that smelled like lemon verbena, and the scent hung on the air.

But just as he was about to greet her, there had been a shuffle of feet, and McIngle had stepped forward with his damnably pleasant voice. His words had been like a dose of ice water, but also a salutary reminder. Grace was betrothed to McIngle. She was going to marry the man.

So he hadn’t thrown himself at her like a ravening beast. He had been polite and cool, even though he felt a tearing pain in his chest. It made him realize that in some dark corner of his soul he had been hoping that Lily was wrong, and Grace wasn’t betrothed to McIngle.

But she was, and why shouldn’t she be? He had asked for Lily’s hand in marriage.

His hand slid farther down his stomach to his crotch—and froze. He was no mere stripling. He knew what his tool felt like when it had been in use.

Impossible.

But he couldn’t deny the feeling. He must have spent his seed in the carriage in the midst of that dream, which was a bloody embarrassing idea. He must be losing his mind. He couldn’t remember ordering the carriage, getting into it, opening his placket, buttoning it back up, never mind doing himself a service in the grip of that dream…

Thank God Ackerley wasn’t in the carriage. Or was he? A searing pulse of humiliation went through Colin.

He had put up with a great deal since the ship doctor ordered a bandage over his eyes. The man had said he would stay blind if even the slightest ray of light struck his eyes during the following six weeks. Hell, he might end up sightless anyway.

Ackerley had steered him to the water closet, taken his clothes off, handed him a toothbrush… This particular situation made those humiliations seem petty. Bloody hell, he hoped he hadn’t made an utter fool of himself.

Then he thought about Ackerley’s tone when he summoned the bath. The man wasn’t the brightest, but if he had witnessed his employer thrusting away at the air, there would be signs of strain in his voice.

Ackerley had been as placid and uninterested as ever. So Colin must have been alone in the carriage. In fact, he’d bet the duchess had sent along a second carriage for Ackerley and his trunk. That would be like her.

He briskly finished washing, his body responding with a wave of good feeling that made him think he had done himself a disservice by staying away from women for months. Nor had he enabled himself in a private way.

But now he was almost happy.

He carefully climbed out of the tub, and groped his way to the length of towel Ackerley had left for him.

Five minutes later, he was clean and dressed. Ackerley hadn’t returned, but he realized with a surge of energy that he didn’t want to remain cooped up in the room. It must be the English air. He felt like venturing outside, and be damned if he lurched about like a drunken cow.

Perhaps he could find someone to take him to the stables. As a boy, he’d dreamed of impressing his adopted father with an illustrious career at sea, and never paid any attention to horseflesh. But in the last few years, he’d spent a surprising amount of his shore leave in the stables.

There was something in a horse’s whiskery kiss, the peaceful way they cropped grass, and the comforting musky smell of a stable that helped put the terrible memories in their place.

In the past.

Nine

C
olin descended the narrow wooden stairs of the inn with one hand on the wall and the other on the rail. Once at the bottom, he had a sense of empty space before him, perhaps a longish corridor leading outside, since a touch of wind came to his face. He heard a burst of noise, along with a potent smell of hops and ale. That must be the public room.

He was about to head toward the outside, when he heard a heavyset man enter the corridor. The feet paused and then bustled toward him, their owner smelling of horseradish and, faintly, of roast beef. “Captain Barry, welcome to my inn. I am Topper. You must be fair hungry.”

“Good evening, Mr. Topper,” Colin said. “Can you inform my man that I am up? As you can see, I have some trouble negotiating in my current state.”

“I was coming to tell you myself,” the innkeeper said, his voice taking on a solemn tone. “Not more than twenty minutes ago, your wife’s maid fell and broke her wrist. I had to send Mr. Ackerley along with the poor lass in a coach to Dr. Strickner in Andover; he’s the only bonesetter in these parts. But it’s a good distance and they’ll have to stay the night there.”

“My wife,” Colin repeated.

“Your wife’s maid,” the innkeeper corrected. “Lawks-a-mercy, Captain Barry, if it had been your lady wife that had tripped, I would have told you immediately. No, it was your wife’s maid, and as I said, I sent the two of them off together as I don’t have a man to spare at the moment. Mrs. Topper can act as your wife’s lady’s maid this evening, and I’ll do as much for you, Captain. Our own son is serving his country on the seas, and I’d be right honored to help a member of the Royal Navy.” He stopped, seemingly out of breath after this flow of conversation.

Colin had a dizzy sensation, as if he were trapped in a laudanum dream that never ended. It was impossible.

He’d never heard of such a thing.

It was one thing to lose a day or two, to have no memory of giving orders regarding a remove to Arbor House. Hell, he meant to do that anyway. Perhaps he never woke, and the duchess, knowing his plans, bundled him in a carriage.

No, she would never do that. He must have been awake enough to extract himself from her care and demand his carriage.

But to find himself married was another question.

Who in the hell had he married?

“Did you say
my wife
?” he asked.

There was an infinitesimal pause, and the innkeeper’s voice changed, taking on a dollop of sympathy. “I’m guessing that you suffered a fearsome blow to the head, Captain Barry, and you’re experiencing some loss of your memory. That is entirely normal, I assure you. Why, after my neighbor’s boy fell from the ridge top, he plumb forgot that he was left-handed and started using his right, like any Christian!”

“I assure you that I have not overlooked a wife,” Colin said, barely stopping himself from reaching out and throttling the man’s neck.

“Good, good!” Topper chuckled. “I think we can admit amongst ourselves that our better halves don’t take well to being forgotten.”

Colin ground his teeth. “I was not aware that my wife accompanied me.”

That made the man much happier. “Of course, of course! You were deep asleep when you arrived and I had the men carry you up the stairs. Your lovely lady did come with you, Captain. She did indeed. She waits for you in my best private parlor. We’ll have a meal served to the two of you within the quarter hour.”

“No,” Colin said. “I should like some time alone with my… wife.”

He could hear the innkeeper rubbing his hands together. “Of course you do, of course you do!” he all but shouted. “Young lovers separated by war are eager to be alone.” Then he leaned closer, breathing roast beef onto Colin’s cheek. “If you’ll excuse the presumption, Captain, I could see from your wife’s face when she entered the door that she’d given you a hero’s welcome back to England!”

Colin hand shot out and unerringly caught the innkeeper around his fat neck. “If you ever speak of my wife in such an impudent fashion again, I shall knock you into the next county.”

The innkeeper coughed and gabbled, “I’m sure I didn’t mean the slightest presumption, sir, not in the slightest.”

Colin let him go. “Lead me to the private parlor.” The innkeeper took his arm and he suffered it, cursing Ackerley silently. What the devil was the man doing, trotting off with some maid to a bonesetter?

That would be the maid belonging to a wife he didn’t remember. It made sense that he couldn’t remember the maid, either.

And there was a woman waiting for him.

The innkeeper trundled down the corridor and turned left through an open door. Colin waited until the door closed behind Topper. Then he stood, back to the door, waiting.

He was greeted by silence.

This must be some sort of elaborate hoax, though to what end, he didn’t know. There was a trace of roses in the air, the scent of the woman who walked into the chamber before him.

Roses? His heart plummeted into his boots. Could he have married Lily? Could the duke and duchess have remembered his long-ago request and paired him with Lily in an excess of patriotic zeal? Would he have gone through a marriage ceremony in a laudanum daze? Was that even possible?

There wasn’t a sound in the room. Whoever she was, she was sitting still as a mouse. That didn’t seem like Lily. She fluttered like a butterfly here and there, unable to sit quietly, as far as he remembered.

Still… Who else could he have married? He didn’t want to have married Lily, with every ounce of being in his soul.

“Lily,” he said, flatly. His life was over. He would have to sit opposite Grace at a hundred family dinners, watching her smile, watching her eyes light up at McIngle’s jests, while he was paired with her silly sister.

There was a rustle of cloth across the room and a little gasp. Another drift of perfume reached him.

“Exactly when did we wed?” he asked. He might as well begin this marriage with honesty. “I have no memory of it.” He would have walked forward, but he didn’t want his wife to see him stumbling about like a fool.

Wife?

Impossible.

Suddenly rage flowed up his spine. He hadn’t planned to marry, but damn it, if he chose to do so, he wanted the happiness of his parents, or of the duke and duchess. He had hoped for that soul-deep connection.

“Madam,” he said, hearing nothing but quick breathing. “I must confess that I find this marriage not only unexpected, but questionable.”

He heard a faint creak as she rose from her seat, and then the whisper of slippers against the carpet as she walked toward him. She was clearly young and lithe. Surely it was Lily, rather than an utter stranger. He crossed his arms over his chest, knowing that his face held the arrogant rage of a shipboard captain, but helpless to soften it.

He could not imagine the duchess party to such a wedding. He must have been married to a complete stranger, likely by the same lying bastard of a leech who drugged him. Her Grace would never be party to criminality.

Then memory of his discovery in the bath shot into his mind: the fraudulent marriage was consummated. He’d been taken, as neatly as any innocent maiden kidnapped by a rogue. The thought made him blind with rage—an oxymoron, in his situation.

“C-Colin,” he heard, the voice just audible over the drumming of blood in his ears.

He located the woman by that whisper, took one step and caught her arm in a fierce grip. “Who are you?” His mind darted through possibilities. He’d been kidnapped, drugged, and married for his money… for his connections… “
Who are you?
” It came out in a bellow.

“Grace,” came a faint voice, followed by a hiccup and another sob. “I’m Grace, Colin. Not Lily. I’m—I’m so sorry.”

His mind reeled. “Grace? What in the hell are you—” He dropped her arm, fell back a step, and jumped to the obvious conclusion. “
You
were in my carriage. I—we—that was
you
.”

There was another sob, and he surged forward again, gathering her into his arms. She folded against him, her body as fragile as that of a bird. He was holding Grace, just as he’d dreamed of doing. Every male instinct he had roared with triumph.

But her shoulders were shaking as she wept.

Slowly, it dawned on him. He hadn’t been taken: he
had taken
. He’d ruined her. Worse, she likely hadn’t even consented. Perhaps he lunged at her like a beast. Laudanum was no excuse if he had
raped
her. He had committed an evil for which he himself had cashiered sailors.

“I gather the duchess asked you to accompany me to the country,” he said, swallowing hard. “Where’s McIngle?”

“In London,” she said against his waistcoat.

“We are not married, are we?”

“No.” Her voice was a thread of sound.

He followed that truth to its logical conclusion. “You told the innkeeper that we were married because I took advantage of you in the carriage.” He felt as if he had woken to find himself a stranger. “I was in the grip of a dream, Grace; I didn’t know what I was doing. I would never have done such a thing if I had been in my right mind. I am deeply,
deeply
sorry.”

It was a cry wrung from his heart. “It must have been terrible for you.” His arms tightened around her. “Bloody hell,” he whispered when she didn’t respond, just cried harder. How could he have done such a thing, even in a dream?

“How—how awful was it?” he asked, needing to know, his conscience burning like glowing coals in his gut. “Grace, please. Tell me.”

She said something against his waistcoat.

To hell with his eyesight. Whether he lost it or not, he had to see her eyes. He released her and raised his arms to his bandage.

“No!” She shrieked it, small hands grabbing his wrists with surprising strength. “What are you doing?”

“I need to see you,” he said hoarsely. “I have to see in your eyes the pain I caused you.”

She pulled, hard, so he allowed his arms to descend. “You didn’t,” she said, so quietly he could hardly hear it. Her hands slid down to hold his.

“What?” His heart beat in his throat, hard. The feeling of her hands in his… it made him crave more of her, all of her. “I didn’t—in the carriage?” He thought back to the bath. “I know we did.”

“This is so embarrassing.”

But Colin was feeling a faint hope. Perhaps it wasn’t quite as bad as he’d thought. “Did we make love, Grace, or did I take you forcibly?”

He heard her take a huge breath, and then she said, “We made love but… but you were making love to Lily and I was making love to you!” Then she burst into tears again.

He scooped her up into his arms, holding her against his chest. She weighed nothing, this girl who had captured his heart. He waited until she sniffed, rather inelegantly, and then said, “Grace, I can’t see which way to walk.”

“Do let me down. This is silly.” She began to struggle, so he tightened his arms.

“Which direction shall I walk?”

A little shudder went through her body. “There’s a chair ahead of you,” she replied, her voice thick with tears. “Just walk a few steps and I’ll tell you when you can put me down.”

Put her down? He walked forward until she said, “The chair is directly in front of you.” He tested the distance with his knee, then turned about, and sat down.

“You could have fallen!” she gasped.

“I’ve been practicing for almost six weeks.”

She moved again, as if to struggle free, but he didn’t relax his arms. “Grace.”

“Let me go,” she whispered.

“No.” A great, weary sense of peace was coming over him. He’d done something very wrong, and he would spend his entire life trying to make up for it. He’d taken Grace away from McIngle in the worst possible fashion. He’d ruined her, in the old-fashioned meaning of the word. But he hadn’t broken his own sense of honor, and apparently, he hadn’t raped her.

He didn’t even like thinking about the word. Ravished her, perhaps, but not raped.

And she was
his
now. It satisfied a deeply primal side of him, which frankly didn’t give a damn about McIngle. All he truly cared about was the fact that he had hurt Grace. He had made her cry.

He dropped a kiss on her hair, an entirely inadequate apology. “We’ll have to be married as soon as we can.”

She sniffled again. “I can’t marry you, Colin.”

“Yes, you can. And you will.” There was no question in his mind about that.

“I cannot.”

“Because of McIngle?” A hint of steel dropped into his voice. He should be sorry for the fellow. But in truth he wasn’t sorry for him. He wanted to kill him for having the pretension to ask Grace for her hand.

“No.”

His body relaxed. “Why, then?” His mind supplied a hundred reasons, and he added quickly, “I know you are probably deeply shocked by what happened in the carriage, Grace. We needn’t… I’m so sorry.”

She started crying again.

“We don’t have to do it again,” he added, feeling rather desperate. “Not until you feel differently about me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice cracking. “I thought… I hoped you knew who I was.”

Colin frowned, trying to figure out what she meant.

“In the carriage, I mean. If I’d known you thought I was Lily, I would
never
have allowed you to touch me.”

He had forgotten that she had said something about Lily. He adjusted Grace’s curves into the crook of his arm, struggling to ignore the fact that her soft bottom had ignited an unruly and impolite passion in his loins. “I did not think you were Lily.”

“But when you entered the room, you expected Lily.”

“I was confused by your perfume.”

“I’m not wearing perfume.” He realized that now, of course. She smelled like lemon verbena and tears.

It was confession time.

“Are you in love with McIngle?” he asked instead.

She leaned her head against his chest. “If you’re hoping that he might still marry me, you are wrong.”

“You insult me. I would never allow another man to marry a woman whom I…” Loved? “Deflowered,” he finished.

Grace sighed. “I apologize; I didn’t mean that as it sounded. I was not in love with John. He deserved more from his wife, so I broke off our betrothal. It is not my feelings which will prevent this marriage, but yours. For—for Lily.”