by Henke, Shirl
She was burning up. Her hand reached out to him and he took it, bringing it to his lips, biting softly on the tips of her fingers. The rasp of his teeth over the pad of her thumb made her cry aloud. He leaned over her and silenced her with his mouth. His hands grew more urgent now, matching her own desperation as he began to unbutton the waistband of her petticoat. She sat forward, helping him by pulling off the long sleeves of the uniform and shoving the whole mass down so he could wrest it away.
As he threw the dress and petticoat on the floor his eyes swept over her. “You are the most beautiful woman ever born,” he whispered in awe.
Sabrina could not believe her own boldness, here in a fully lit room, allowing her gaze to move down his body while her fingertips glided from his chest, following the narrowing pattern of his body hair over his navel down to the jutting proof of his desire. He arched his hips and his staff prodded her thigh, scalding her with its heat. A sudden sense of power, generously fueled by whiskey, led her to wrap her hand around his sex.
Quickly his hand covered hers, moving it up and down, stroking as he bucked. Josh felt his control slipping and knew he had to do something quickly. He unpeeled her hand, murmuring, “You're too good at this, darlin’.”
She had enjoyed the feeling of velvet over steel, the heat of him in her hand, and felt bereft when he pulled free, but when he reached out to her, she went into his arms, melting as her bare flesh pressed tightly against his. They knelt on the carpet in front of the settee, kissing and caressing. She was oblivions to everything but the need to sink into his skin, to own, even for a little while, every inch of him, body and soul.
When he lifted her buttocks and urged her to wrap her legs around him, she complied, opening herself for his penetration. Perspiration beaded his face as he slowly glided into her heat. She placed her arms around his neck and clung to him, helpless in the bliss of joining, greedily tightening her knees at his sides to hold him fast. Her tongue darted out, licking the salty sweat from his face and neck, biting and nipping as he'd taught her while they rocked together in ageless rhythm.
Sabrina could feel the crest coming so swiftly she could do nothing but surrender to it, letting her body clench and unclench in hard, panting spasms as he stiffened and shuddered his own completion deep inside her. When they tumbled to the floor, still joined together, he cushioned her with his body, letting her lie on top of him as he looked up into her eyes. His hands were filled with her breasts, suspended like small, perfect pears, ripe for his tasting.
She watched as he pulled one to his raised head and began to suckle it. “Yes, yes,” she whispered softly, shaking her loose hair around him like a curtain. Bracing her hands on either side of his head, she arched into his caresses, letting the fire rekindle. “Oh, Josh, please…” For what was she pleading? That he make love to her again? She knew he would, for his body was already hardening inside her.
That he love her? She knew he would not...could not...but for this golden moment suspended in time, it did not matter. She loved him enough for both of them. The heat, the giddy rush of pleasure radiating through her body, overtook her and she cried out her love, unaware of what she was saying as she neared the pinnacle once more.
Josh could hear her soft voice, hear the hot, desperate longing that he, too, felt, the need to possess, to melt into one perfect whole with her, the hunger that seemed only to grow the more times he loved her. Loved her. Yes, he loved her—was in love with her, and in spite of his vow not to fall into the trap, he knew it was too late.
His Sabbie had already caught him.
After the shattering climax, they simply lay in each other's arms, panting and soaked with perspiration, murmuring indistinct love words, awash in contentment that transcended speech. Finally he untangled them and scooped her into his arms, carrying her to the bed. He felt the silk of her hair slide over his chest as he inhaled the faint scent of wildflowers and satiated female. Tonight he would get a good night's sleep after all, he thought with a peaceful sigh.
* * * *
Sabrina awakened feeling suddenly cool and looked across the bed. Josh had just slipped from beneath the covers and was stretching, arms raised over his head. She studied his long, lean body, broad shoulders and back, his tight buttocks and long legs pale in the dim morning light. His black hair was spiky from sleep...and other activities that had mussed it during the night. Just thinking of that brought new heat coursing through her. What a splendid sight her Texan was! She allowed herself the luxury of the dream in the half-wakefulness of the early hour.
Downstairs she could barely make out the chiming of a clock, striking six times. Why was he rising so early? To leave her before she could ask embarrassing questions or importune him about his intentions? What had she revealed during their long night of making love and sleeping together? Good heavens, did she talk in her sleep? The thought brought her into full wakefulness; but she feigned sleep as he moved silently across the floor, gathering up their scattered clothes, placing hers in a neat pile by her side of the bed.
Sparing her from servants' gossip, no doubt.
And sparing himself from any danger of being trapped into a debt of honor to marry her? No, that was not true. If he worried about that, the night after he'd been shot should have laid his fears to rest. She could have made her presence known to Benton, but instead she'd slipped silently back into the adjoining bedroom. As she would do now, as soon as he left.
Are you afraid to face him in the morning light? The question taunted her. When she had brought him the letters last night, she had known the risks to her heart. It would have been prudent to wait until this morning. Yet she had come anyway, knowing on some unconscious level that she would spend one more night in his arms. But soon this would have to end.
After she'd found out he was using her to trap Eddy, she should have refused to speak to him ever again. Of course she had not done so. All he had to do was smile that lopsided way and fix those dark green eyes on her and she was beyond all reason. Sabrina knew she would have to pay the price. She'd already paid it.
Her heart was his.
“You can stop playing possum now,” he drawled in a softly amused voice. “I know you're awake.”
She blinked. “How could you tell?”
“Your eyelashes are too long. They flutter. And you're not breathing regular,” he said as he finished buttoning his jeans and sat down on the edge of the bed beside her.
“How can I when you're looming over me like this?” she asked with no particular alarm in her voice. In fact, it sounded rather dreamy.
“Like this?” he echoed, leaning down to kiss her quite thoroughly. When her arms came up about his neck, he climbed back onto the bed. “How the hell am I going to meet with Michael if you keep leading me into temptation?”
He didn't sound particularly alarmed either as he bared her breasts and watched the cool morning air pucker the little nipples into nubs. His appreciation of the lovely sight was interrupted by a rap on the door. “You asked that I awaken you, m’lord,” Benton's voice intoned from the other side of the door.
“Lordy, that man's like a social disease. Can't get rid of him,” he whispered to her, planting a quick kiss on her nose before he called out, “All right, Benton. Go fetch me some coffee, if you please,” he added quickly, not remembering whether he'd bothered to lock the door last night. The pesky valet was learning not to barge in and start dressing him as if he were some department-store mannequin, but Josh didn't want to take any chances.
“You have a meeting with Mr. Jamison?” Sabrina asked.
“Yep. We're taking turns watching the goings-on at the Metropole. I'm pals with a couple of the Russians now, which makes it easier for me than for him, since all he can do is stand outside in the bushes.”
“You're going to discuss the trap Eddy lured them into, aren't you?” she asked.
“We have to make plans. And I have to get those love notes to a safe place,”
‘‘Won't you give
them to your uncle?” she asked innocently.
Josh hesitated. “If we keep them here, whoever's working for the Russians could steal them back once Zarenko finds out they're gone.”
She sensed some evasion in that answer but decided to say nothing. “As long as they aren't used to embarrass His Majesty's government,” she said. “Might it be best to just burn them?”
“I'll ask Uncle Ab,” he replied as he pulled back the covers, exposing her naked body to the chill. She gasped and started to leap from the bed, grasping for her undergarments. Josh gave her derriere a light swat, chuckling as he said, “Better get into your room next door before Benton comes back.”
“But I'm not staying there anymore,” she protested.
“Uncle Ab left it ready for you. You came back last night because it wasn't safe at your place after you found these,” he said, holding up the packet of letters. “There are clean towels and all sorts of female falderal the maids put there for you. Just rumple the bed, then freshen up and mosey downstairs for breakfast. Edmund will be down whenever he wakes up.”
Sabrina nodded, realizing that was all she could do. There was no way she could slip from this house filled with servants without someone seeing her, and the attempt would cause far worse gossip than following his advice. Lord Hambleton had insisted she remain as his guest while she was supposedly giving Joshua instruction in behaving as an English gentleman.
Rather more like he's been giving me instruction in...behaving in other ways, she thought to herself as he walked out the door, whistling. The bounder.
Then she remembered Eddy. He was here, and he'd be afraid of what was going to happen if the trap he'd instigated did not work. That worried her a great deal as well. Perhaps she'd go and quiz him about what had transpired with Zarenko. Just remembering her brush with that brutal man made her shiver. She hoped she'd bashed in his brains.
Such bloodthirsty thoughts! Josh was beginning to rub off on her in more ways than one. Repressing that disquieting thought, she quickly dressed and went in search of Eddy to find out just what had happened the night before.
* * * *
Hambleton worked diligently at the small lock for several moments, kneeling on the hard wooden floor behind his desk. He stopped for a moment and shifted his considerable weight, trying to favor the left knee where the worst of the pain was. He should have laid a rug here before getting down, he thought sourly. “Getting too old for so many things,” he muttered almost wistfully to himself.
After a few more turns with the tiny brush, he pulled it out, then inserted the key. When he removed it, a grimly satisfied smile curled his mustache but did not reach his eyes. This was the final test. “Tonight I'll know whether you pass or fail,” he said as he pulled himself up into the large chair behind the desk.
He sat rubbing his aching knees, deep in contemplation of what his next move would be.
Chapter Eighteen
It took several raps to rouse her cousin from a sound sleep. He came to the door appearing rumpled and dazed, rather the way he had always seemed to look as a small boy. He was wearing a brocade robe of such good quality, and such ample size, that she judged it must have been lent to him by the earl. It hung in folds sufficient for him to double it around his thin body as he fumbled with the belt.
“Good morning, Eddy,” she said, briskly, stepping into his room.
“Wha-what are you doing here, Sabrina?” he asked, combing his fingers through baby-fine wisps of hair that nevertheless contained a stubborn cowlick.
“I’m here to discuss your mission last night,” she said, pulling the bell rope to summon a maid. “I see we'll need some good strong tea to wake you up, first.” A footman appeared immediately at the door, inquiring what she needed. Sabrina told him and he quickly went to do her bidding, leaving a second man still loitering in the hall. She was worried.
“Crikey, it's barely dawn out there,” Edmund moaned, peering out the window at the hazy orange ball rising over the horizon.
“Well past time to be up and about. You are still in the earl's employ, are you not?”
He shrugged disconsolately. “Your guess is as good as mine. After the Texas viscount fetched me back here, his lordship put me under house arrest last night. Guards at the door and all.”
“So I noted, although they're discreet about it,” she replied, biting her lip. He was a prisoner, not an employee. “That isn't likely to change unless Jo—the viscount,” she quickly corrected herself, “and his associates foil the Russian plot and capture Nikolai Zarenko.”
Edmund was too disgruntled and sleepy to take note of her slip. Just then a knock on the door brought a morning tray with tea and biscuits. Thanking the maid, Sabrina served up a cup of the strong, fragrant tea heavy with cream, just the way he'd liked it since he was a lad back in the Berkshires. “Now drink,” she commanded, offering him the biscuit plate and marmalade, then allowed him time to refresh himself and finish waking up. As a boy Eddy had always been the last one ready for school or church.
She sipped a cup of tea, gathering her thoughts as she waited, then spoke. “Tell me everything about your meeting with Zarenko.”
He popped the last half of a biscuit slathered with marmalade in his mouth and chewed, then dabbed with a napkin as he swallowed. “Not much to it, really. I did a crack-up job of acting, Coz. Everyone said so.”
He looked as pleased as he'd been when he was selected by his instructors to play Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream. “I imagine the Foreign Office saw to it that you had authentic-looking information,” she ventured. Eddy still was not taking this seriously enough.
“The documents the earl gave me looked like the real thing. That Zarenko chap thought so.” He gave a visible shudder. “Odd duck, that one. Crikey, he made me nervous. When I met him before, he never said much, just took the papers and paid me, but this time...”
“What did he say?” she asked apprehensively.
The euphoria of last night's success began to wear off under Sabrina's acute questioning. Edmund started to sweat. “Well, he asked me a lot about how I'd located him. That seemed to bother him. But I said just what the earl and the viscount told me to say—that I knew the Russians mostly stayed at the Metropole and I was hoping to find him before I had to breeze out of town.”
“He must have believed that, else why would he have paid for the information?” she mused as she paced the floor. Something about the whole encounter did not feel right to her. It had been too easy. A man as experienced and vicious as Zarenko surely would not leap at a second trap after narrowly escaping the first one. She wondered if Josh and Lord Hambleton felt the same way. And what about that spy, Michael Jamison?
“Oh, Zarenko paid me all right, but he warned me not to leave the city.” He snorted in disgust. “As if I could, cooped up here. I'd be in high clover if they let me go to Epsom to pay Frankie Bentham.”
Sabrina turned. “Why would he care if you left? What exactly did he say regarding that?” she asked.
“Well, I dunno, Coz.” He scratched his head as if rubbing his cowlick into a new configuration would help jar his memory. “Something about another source who'd know about the meeting. He didn't exactly say it to me, come to think on it, just jotted a note on the margin of the documents in some funny scripty writing—Russian, you know—and muttered it to himself in English.”
“Did you tell the others this last night?”
He paused. “No, I didn't think of it and nobody asked.”
Were all men idiots? “He's going to verify your information with someone who knows when the Foreign Secretary will really meet with the Japanese minister. The mysterious man who gave you the papers before!”
“Then they'll know it's a trap...”
“And not fall into it,” she said, drumming her fingers nervously on the tabletop as her mind whirled.
“I'm still in trouble, am I not, Coz?” It was a rhetorical question.
* * * *
When Sabrina
came downstairs, the earl had gone to a meeting with some associates from the House of Lords and Josh was off with Jamison. Thoroughly vexed, she decided to leave a note for the earl on his desk, explaining what she suspected, then take action on her own. It had been Josh's assignment to coax information out of Natasha Samsonov, but the two of them had had some sort of contretemps and she would no longer see him. He and Michael were concentrating on her brother instead.
But Sabrina was certain that Josh's hard-drinking “toe dancer” was the Russians' source for double-checking the information Eddy had sold them. It was only logical. She had been the one who'd seduced Albany's foolish son. Perhaps George was still privy to what was going on. Or perhaps the lethal lady had found another man who'd sell his soul for her favors.
Sabrina hired a hackney and headed to the Metropole to wait. There was probably no cause to rush, since the prima donna seldom rose before noon. In this case, Sabrina devoutly wished she would. The trap was set for tonight, and time was running out. She had to find the secret agent working for the Russians before the earl and Josh concluded that Eddy had betrayed them.
Taking a page from the disguise Jamison had given her cousin, she had selected an old black silk day dress and purchased a new hat her budget could ill afford. But the expense was essential, since the hat had a heavy veil that would conceal her face. Otherwise, Zarenko might catch sight of her. He would remember her none too fondly from last night. Just thinking of his wrath made her stomach clench. Then again, if she was fortunate, he would still be abed nursing a terrible headache.
* * * *
If Josh or Michael Jamison were anywhere about, she could not spot them as she sat in the lounge of the Metropole, watching the grand staircase for La Samsonov's appearance while pretending to sip from a cold cup of tea. She hoped that to anyone observing she was a guest in mourning, waiting for a male family member to escort her outdoors.
