The Deepest Sin

by Caroline Richards

  Lady Meredith Woolcott was nothing like he’d imagined. Truth be told, she was something of a temptress and he blushed at the thought of her vibrant hair and that full mouth spouting ideas that were absolutely brazen coming from a woman. Her lecture at Burlington House was outstanding and, if she were a man, she would definitely take her place beside scholars at Cambridge or Oxford. She was a woman totally outside his ken, so different from Cressida Pettigrew that she might be another species entirely. He burrowed under the covers, cursing himself for having the weakness that had caused him to hurt two innocent women who, he had to admit, had a hold on his conscience and his plummeting self-regard.

  The gambling curse. It was the only reason he finally clambered out of bed, his head swimming. He would wager his last one hundred pounds for coffee and a piece of dry toast to still the rumbling in his stomach. He dissolved back into the thin pillows, draped an arm over his thigh and imagined the scent of coffee wafting into the room.

  His leg throbbed, a reminder of his humbling weakness, a devouring beast that demanded to be fed. Unbelievable that he, shy and retiring Hector Hamilton, son of a rector, was willing to risk life and limb, not to mention self-regard and pride, in order to feed the beast. He covered his head with a pillow when he heard a knock that seemed to make the whole room shake. Head pounding, he removed the pillow just as he heard the doorknob turn.

  “What in hell’s damnation went wrong last night?”

  “Wrong?” Hamilton sat bolt upright. The pain in his leg was staggering. The man standing at the foot of his bed was almost as startling.

  “You damn fool.”

  Dear God, no. Crompton, short, wide and aggressive, stared down at him. “Meredith Woolcott was the one who should have incurred injury. Not you.” Crompton’s dark eyes narrowed with irritation under his low brow.

  Hamilton clenched his teeth and counted the brass buttons on Crompton’s coat. He was a henchman made to order, delighting in carrying out his directives to the letter, despite his unsuccessful attempt at adopting the affectations of a gentleman. Hamilton tried to straighten, aware of the pitiful figure he must make in his nightshirt.

  He attempted to explain. “When I received the message to rendezvous at Charles Street with Lady Woolcott, I had no idea that you were planning to do her physical harm. You had arranged our first meeting on Rotten Row and I expected more of the same. Merely a scare, not—”

  Crompton scratched his scalp, visible through his closely cropped gray hair. “What did you think, Hamilton, that we were inclined to meet you both for tea?” Crompton sputtered to an end, unable to find words excoriating enough to make his point. A vein popped out on his forehead.

  Hamilton pressed his lips together to keep both his nausea and outrage in check.

  Crompton was just gathering a head of steam. “There is nothing I can do to make your marching orders any clearer, but I see that I must,” he said, addressing Hamilton like a dog called to heel. “Yours is not to wonder why, Hamilton. But if you must know, your throwing yourself in front of the Woolcott woman only served to get yourself in the way of a knife.”

  “You never intended to injure Lady Woolcott?”

  “Don’t get softer on me than you already are.” Crompton’s gaze was contemptuous. “The idea was to frighten her and have you come to the rescue. Instead, and truly, it comes as no surprise, she saved your lamentable hide. The woman has more bollocks than you.”

  “The end result is the same,” Hamilton persisted weakly. “She is now indebted to me.”

  “Right. You took a knife wound to your person on her behalf.” Crompton sneered. “The reason for my visit, if you haven’t determined it already, was to help you see your way out of this tangle. I trust that she is still eager to visit with you in Cambridge. And that your injury does not keep you from returning to the university, sooner rather than later.”

  But to what purpose? The pain in his leg seemed to sharpen his mind. “Lady Woolcott has expressed an interest in journeying to Cambridge, but given the circumstances, and our short acquaintance, we require more time to solidify our relations.”

  “For a scholar, you can be terribly thick.” Crompton’s eyes shot daggers. “We do not have time at our disposal. At this point, the woman probably pities you, so I should suggest you find a way to work that to your advantage. You appear as though you require a nursemaid at your side.”

  Crompton raged on. Hamilton let the tirade wash over him, his vision blurring. Arguing was pointless as the man at the foot of his bed was accustomed to having his own way. Better to allow him to wear himself out, if such a thing were possible.

  “Tell her it’s a country weekend, at Warthaven Park, your uncle’s residence.”

  “Uncle’s residence?” Hamilton blinked. Clearly, he’d missed something.

  “Don’t you recall? George Crompton, your uncle, at your service.” Hamilton’s mouth slackened in disbelief. “You cannot expect to entertain the lady in your humble rooms at your college. I trust that you will make a proper show of courting her, acquaint her with your work at the Fitzwilliam Museum, a sure way to a bluestocking’s heart.” Crompton grunted an afterthought. “The Book of the Dead and all, what with her interest in Egyptian hieroglyphics. Make sure of it.”

  Chapter 9

  After several hours of deep sleep, the lanyards awakened Meredith. When she opened her eyes, she was alone in the bed, only the soft fur rug for company. The tendrils of the nightmare still troubled her, but she closed off the memory, another kind of panic filling her. She needed Archer, sensed that he was not far away, and she needed to remind herself that the past was dead and gone. Slipping out of the bed, she picked up a crisp shirt that lay at the foot and pulled it on. Walking from the alcove on bare feet, she looked into the open galley where Archer glanced up from his seat before the brazier. His expression was neutral, as she stood dumbly just inside the room. He closed the book in his hands with deliberate precision. As he stood, the daylight slanting through the portholes cast his profile in shadow. She jolted, coming to her toes, when he touched her. Sandalwood flooded her senses, making her long to bury her nose in his shoulder. His hands slid over her, arms wrapping around her waist, locking her against him. As though he knew.

  This time she didn’t have to ask. His mouth came down on hers, his lips like coming home. He pulled her to him, palms sliding around her, down her back, around her ribs. Her whole body was shaking, with need, with desire, with fear that he didn’t want this as badly as she did. He moved her back until she came to rest against the teak wainscoting. Archer leaned in to her and allowed his palms to part the neckline of the hastily commandeered shirt. Her eyes stared up into his, her gaze locked upon him as clearly as the proof of his desire pressed against her hips. He watched her warily, head slanted back and away from her.

  This time, she knew that she must take the lead. Her hands went to the front of his trousers and loosened the belt, pushing the fabric down his narrow hips and muscled legs to pool at his feet. He was suddenly naked in the harsh light of day, hers to do with as she wished. Meredith slid her arms around his strong neck, and drew him to her. Hands slid into the thickness of his hair and dragged his mouth to hers. She played with his lips, and then her mouth roamed down his neck, hot and wet. Without letting go of her, he danced them back to the bed, sprawling them both onto the decadence of the fur rug.

  She kissed him hungrily, tongue playing with his. One leg crossing her hips to hold her in place, he slid one hand underneath her shirt. He rolled off her slightly, leaned back on one elbow, and efficiently undid the buttons. Pushing the garment open, he was distracted by the pull of her lips, the slow dance of her tongue, sending jolts through his body and lengthening his erection. She was hungry for this and suddenly wanted nothing more than to have the last layer between them gone. Her nipples peaked and the cleft at the apex of her thighs ached. Never taking his eyes from hers, he ran his long, strong fingers from her collarbone to the valley between her breasts,
ending with the slight indentation at her belly. He pulled the shirt from her body, his eyes darkening as he took in her form, naked beside him. He straddled her then, making sure she could see the raging state of his erection, undeniable evidence of his need for her. Leaning down to kiss her again, he pressed himself into her belly. As a reward, her hands slid across his shoulders and circled to the small of his back.

  Responding to her hitched breaths, his hands traced her curves as he roamed, mouth following his palms, down her neck, along the pulse at her collarbone, across her chest to her breasts, where he lingered to suckle and nip. He paid homage to her belly, the elegant slope of her hips, licking the secret place behind her knee before working his way up her thigh. She groaned as he parted her thighs and lightly kissed the inside of her leg.

  Meredith gasped as Archer pressed his mouth to her, parting her with his lips and tongue. She arched against his lips, and her hands clutched at his head as he worked his way achingly slowly to her throbbing peak near the top of her cleft, laving the swollen flesh before taking it into his mouth. She seemed to stop breathing, writhing under his devilish incursion, her hands straining against the thickness of his hair.

  Unwilling to cede any ground, Archer brought an arm back around her body, palm across her abdomen as he flicked his tongue over her, pushing with his hands and mouth, a potent reminder of what was to come. The sensitive skin between her thighs burned from the roughness of his beard, but she welcomed the pain that seemed only to heighten the pleasure. Clenching one hand in his hair, she gripped the fur with the other, every ounce of her flesh concentrated on the spirals of sensation pushing her higher. She took a deep shuddering breath as her release swept over her, her cry echoing in the room, the light behind her closed lids bright.

  When she took another breath, it was to feel him slackening his grip, lazily retracing his steps with his lips, skimming her body from her thighs to her belly, to her sensitized breasts until she drew him up for a soft kiss. Meredith ran her hands down his back, reveling in the hard muscles, exulting in the pleasure/pain that nipped at her earlobe, as he teased her with his lips, teeth and tongue. She moved her hips against him, feeling his hard length between them. Languid and desperate to feel him inside her at the same time, she brought her knees up slightly so that he was pressed against her slick folds. She was wet and waiting.

  The inviting nudge of her hips and her low moan as he kissed her neck were all the encouragement he needed. With a skill that was nearly her undoing, he slid into her with one long, devastatingly hard thrust, stifling her gasp with a deeper kiss. Meredith extended her legs and locked her feet behind him.

  How did he know? How did he know exactly how to fill her, how to leave her gasping, how to thrust and withdraw until she was wracked with pleasure? He gave an extra push at the end of each thrust, grinding into her. And she wondered, bodily sensation taking over her traitorous mind, if she could simply stay in bed with him for the rest of her life, would the past be kept forever in abeyance?

  He whispered hotly into her ear, the words darkly passionate, urging her on. He angled his thrust and suddenly the world unhinged and she was crying out beneath him. She held him tightly against her, her legs wrapped around his hips, her heels pressing into his buttocks as a throbbing climax gripped them both. He pulled out and rolled away from her, leaving her with her arms thrown back and her legs flung wide in wordless fulfillment.

  It was dusk when they awoke again. Meredith’s eyes snapped open and Archer could see the exact moment when she remembered where she was and what they had done. He’d been sleepless for hours, watching her in the afternoon light. He’d studied her as she slumbered, itemizing the faint freckles that dusted her nose and the high curve of her cheekbones. Asleep, she appeared soft, like a young girl, the fine lines around her eyes diminished, her features relaxed. What was she, really? He still needed to determine the answer to that question but, at the moment, some of the urgency left him, seeming less important than it had a day ago.

  Their coupling had been intense, explosive and yet he knew nothing more about her than the deepest intimacies of her body, which she had given up with the same lack of reservation she did everything else. Bold, courageous yet intensely private, Meredith had welcomed the sensual excesses of the night with a fervor that was alien to his wide breadth of experience. And that was a first, he thought.

  He glanced beyond the alcove. He had removed the copper cylinder from the table hours ago. The last thing he wanted to do now was to disturb the fragile détente between them. She gave him a small frown. “It’s not morning is it?” Placing her palms over her eyes, she grimaced. “More like late afternoon.” She seemed unaware of the sinuous scars on the inside of her arms, as much a part of her as the creaminess of her skin.

  “Time for some food, in any case,” he said abruptly. Pulling the blankets and fur aside, he stood and ran his hands through his tousled hair, arms upraised, looking at her in an assessing way. “You must be hungry,” he said softly.

  “You are forever trying to feed me, it seems.” There was a translucent pallor to her cheeks, evidence of a vulnerable, deeply private woman whose sleep was filled with nightmares. “I sense that you’ve done this sort of thing before,” she said dryly, very deliberately putting distance between them. This was a woman who had single-handedly kept her wards safe from the hands of a madman, killed an assailant in cold blood and now was intent on displaying the kind of sangfroid more typical of courtesans and rogues.

  “Never. You’re the first,” he said in a partial lie. He had never before brought a woman aboard The Brigand.

  His reply clearly startled her. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you,” she said tartly, sliding to a seated position, carefully tucking the fur around her shoulders. He watched the rapid pulse beat under the fine skin of her throat, remembering how it felt to kiss the pale flesh. Turning away abruptly, he pulled on the trousers that lay discarded on the floor and shrugged on his shirt. He picked up her clothes and flung them toward the bed. Meredith snatched them from the air with her instinctive grace and Archer couldn’t help take in the supple play of her body as she turned her back to him before bending to pull on her stockings. “There is a pitcher of water in the wardrobe,” he said, and then deliberately looked away.

  He made quick work of assembling a breakfast of bread, butter and cheese, the small stove quickly providing an urn of strong coffee. The brazier warmed the small interior despite the traces of frost on the portholes. The housekeeper at his estate kept the larder stocked for all contingencies as it wasn’t unusual for Lord Archer to make surprise visits to his yacht with little notice. He wondered absently when was the last time he’d visited the seventeenth-century pile just up the hill beyond the mooring.

  Meredith sat down at the table after a quick glance to determine that the kaleidoscope had disappeared. Despite her determined air, a residue of stark pain remained in the depths of her gray eyes. Completely dressed, every looped button seen to, she smoothed the wool of her skirts with her palms.

  He pulled out a chair across from her. “I suppose that you don’t wish to talk about it.” The nightmare that had sucked the air from her lungs.

  “No.”

  “The dream must have been disturbing to leave you in such a state.”

  She tested the hastily configured chignon with a steady hand, assuming a neutral expression. “It was nothing, truly.” Archer heard the beginning of resignation in her tone.

  “Nothing you wish to disclose in any case.” Impatience, never far beneath the surface when he was dealing with Lady Woolcott, warred with compassion.

  Meredith straightened. “We are all entitled to our privacy. Just because we ...” She hesitated briefly before resuming, “Just because we ...” And stopped again.

  Archer knew very well what she was trying to say. “Just because we spent hours together in that bed, you mean?” he asked quietly with only the gentle lap of waves disturbing the stillness.


  Meredith cupped her hands around the mug of coffee, inhaling the pungent steam gratefully. “It was a moment’s weakness, as I’m sure you’re aware,” she said. “A moment’s respite.”

  With a tinge of his customary mockery in his eyes, he said, “I’ve never been described quite like that before. A moment’s respite.” Smiling at her in perfect comprehension, he added, “No need to apologize. My pride shall recover.”

  “Your pride has nothing to worry about,” she said bluntly. “You are a stupendous lover. As you well know.” They had shared a bed but she would not hide behind hypocrisy. The pragmatic voice of reason prevailed. “However, it would demonstrate your chivalrous nature should you allow a discussion of more pedestrian subjects. Please leave me a modicum of self-respect.”

  He raised a brow. “Self-respect? That sounds somewhat dire. I thought you might be rather more broad-minded, given all your diverse and unorthodox interests, Meredith.”

  She waved his comments away with a small laugh. “For once would you indulge me, Lord Archer?”

  “If I recall correctly, that’s what we were doing.”

  “You are incorrigible.”

  He took a sip of his own coffee. “All right then. What would you like to talk about, Lady Woolcott?”

  She raised her eyes to him over the lip of her mug, gaze appraising. “Let us turn the tables for a change and instead of mining the life of Lady Meredith Woolcot, let’s discuss the life and times of Sir Richard Buckingham Archer. At this point, I only have the bare bones of a story that you are prepared to reveal.”

  He shrugged and allowed a flicker of boredom to tinge his words. “A woefully dull life until this point.”

  She shook her head impatiently. “So you say. Although entirely discreet, Rushford led me to believe otherwise. What with your peripatetic ways and taste for adventure. You’ve traveled all five continents, so I understand.”