“More?” she echoed breathlessly, her heart beating wildly in anticipation not only of his confidence, but with what she knew would surely follow. This was such a dangerous game for her to play, with every sensible impulse to grab the tray and flee back to the kitchen overwhelmed by having George stand so close.
She’d come here only intending to bring him his breakfast, and to offer to pay for the damage she’d caused. But the more time she spent in his company, the more she had to admit that the real damage hadn’t been caused by her pistol. As soon as the duke had said George was besotted with her, she’d realized the foolish word applied to her as well.
Besotted, and befuddled, and bewildered, that was her, she thought miserably. No matter how futile and ruinous such an attachment was bound to be—the housekeeper and the lordly officer!—all her heart remembered was the joy she felt each time George smiled at her, or touched her, or, most blissful of all, when he’d kissed her.
Oh, yes, she was besotted, and worse, more than halfway to being in love.
“More,” he repeated, oddly echoing her thoughts as he reached for her. “Now instead of dying gloriously for my country, I find I’d rather selfishly prefer to live to a ripe old age, and die peacefully in my bed. This bed, in fact, here at Feversham, if I’ve any choice in the matter.”
“Now how can that be selfish?” she asked, her laugh suddenly nervous as he mentioned the bed, still so invitingly unmade and perilously convenient. “What is the use in being a dead hero, when a live one would serve just as well?”
“Blasphemy,” he said mildly. He slipped his arm around her waist to draw her closer, and made her completely forget the chocolate pot and the tray and the safe haven of the kitchen and instead focus all the more on that enormous tumbled bed. “The Admiralty would have your head for such talk, and then take mine, too, for inciting such unspeakable mischief.”
“They wouldn’t dare,” she scoffed, looking down at his chest to avoid his gaze. Lightly her fingers played along the front of his shirt, feeling the warmth of his skin and hard muscles through the linen. One kiss, she bargained with herself as her heart raced in anticipation: there’d be no sin in a single kiss, and the memory would be one she could treasure the rest of her days.
“You’re a good, brave, fine gentleman, Captain Lord Claremont,” she whispered fiercely. “If I could tell that to His Grace last night, I’d hardly be afraid to speak the same to a fleet of old admirals.”
His dark brows arched with surprise. “You defended me to Brant?”
“I did,” she declared proudly, “and he believed it, just as you should, too.”
His chuckle slid into a groan as she slipped her arms around the back of his neck and arched against him, her breasts pressing heavily against his chest. He settled his hands on either side of her waist, his fingers spread, and gently slid them up along her sides, letting his thumbs tease the curve of her breasts through her stays. Her body was tightening until it ached with longing, and he hadn’t even kissed her yet. “You would test my powers of belief that sorely, sweetheart?”
“I believe it, George,” she said, her voice fading into a whisper breathless with excitement. One kiss, one kiss and no more. “I wouldn’t say such things about you if I didn’t believe them.”
“You cannot believe in kismet, but you do believe in me,” he marveled as she turned her face up towards his like a spring flower towards the sun. “Ah, Fan, what have I done in this life to deserve you?”
She closed her eyes just as his mouth came down upon hers, making her gasp with surprise and pleasure. Eagerly she parted her lips for him as he slid his hands lower, possessively holding her closer against him. Here again was the delight she remembered from their first kiss in the barn, the fascinating male taste and texture of him that was so unlike anything else she’d ever experienced.
But this time was different, too: this time there was an urgency to his kiss that her body seemed to know how to answer even as her conscience balked with uneasiness. She was infinitely more aware of how much bigger and stronger he was, yet how she still held the power to make him groan with desire—desire she found she was just as ready to explore, hungrily deepening the kiss he’d begun.
She was so lost in the rush of sensation that she didn’t realize he was easing her backwards until she felt the edge of the table behind her. Without breaking the kiss, he easily lifted her up and onto the table, and now as he pressed closer, her knees parted for him, her skirts sliding up her legs past her garters and bare knees. This morning he’d find no hidden pistol in her petticoats, but it was her turn now to discover the hard, hot length of him inside his breeches as he pushed against her. Her poor lost conscience struggled to remind her that only a few layers of linen and wool were keeping her from complete ruin, but the rest of her wanted only the man in her arms.
“Ah, George, George,” she murmured as he broke their kiss to trail his mouth along her jaw to find the pulse on the side of her throat. She buried her face in the dark silk of his hair, just as he untucked the modest kerchief from her neckline and pushed her bodice lower and the shift beneath it as well. Deftly he freed her breasts, spilling them out over the top of her stays, her nipples already taut and waiting for his mouth. She gasped as he teased her with his tongue, then cried out as he drew the tender flesh into his mouth, scarcely noticing how his hand was stroking delicious little circles on the inside of her thigh, and oh, this was all so much more than the single kiss she’d promised herself and yet she could not stop, not George, not herself, not—
“Ah, my dears, forgive me, pray,” said a voice that, to her horror, Fan recognized as the duke’s. “I seem to be intruding at a most inopportune time, don’t I?”
Shocked and shamed, Fan gasped as she flew apart from George, her hands fluttering to cover her wickedly bared breasts, swollen and red-tipped from George’s kisses. She felt trapped, ambushed, not so much by the duke as by her own wantonness.
But as fast as she scrambled away, George moved faster still, stepping forward to shield her from his brother and giving her the privacy to pull her bodice and kerchief back into place.
“‘Inopportune’, hell,” he thundered, his hands knotted into fists at his sides, his legs widespread as if he stood on his own quarterdeck, ready for battle. “What in blazes are you doing here, Brant?”
But the duke only smiled, and instead of leaving, he sauntered into the room and dropped into the other armchair, crossing his legs neatly at the knee. He was in half undress for day, with a long silk dressing gown patterned with fighting silver dragons over his breeches and shirt.
“I have come for breakfast, brother dear,” he said, making a little tent with his fingers. “And at your invitation, too, if you can but recall. How was I to guess that we weren’t to be en famille?”
“Forgive me, Your Grace,” said Fan, her eyes downcast and her cheeks flushed as she ducked around George, intent only on reaching the door. “I am leaving, Your Grace.”
“No, Fan, you’re not,” ordered George curtly, catching her arm to hold her back. “You’re staying.”
She gasped with wounded surprise at his tone, and at once he released her arm. He gestured towards the armchair, offering her the seat as if she were a lady, instead of a housekeeper to be ordered to stay.
“Please,” he said belatedly, his gaze now filled with remorse as he struggled to control his temper and frustration and a score of other emotions, all warring together on his face. “Please stay.”
For his sake, she slowly sat, but only on the very edge of the chair, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. The tensions between the three of them were far too charged to do anything else.
“Shall you order me to leave now, George?” asked Brant wryly. “Is it my turn to go, or to sit?”
But George couldn’t share his brother’s amusement. “Blast you, Brant,” he said, wheeling around to face him. “Consider if I’d done this same low bastard’s trick on you!”
The duke�
��s mouth curled into a bemused smile. “You mean if you’d blundered in upon me with a woman in such a situation? Why, being brothers, I would have asked you if you’d wished to share her favors, of course, and—”
“Enough!” roared George, lunging towards the duke.
But this time it was Fan who jumped up to grab his arm with both her hands, pulling him back and to an off-balance stop.
“No, George, don’t, not on my account!” she cried, horrified by the hostility that had escalated so rapidly. As flattering as at might be to have George as her champion, she didn’t want it at such a cost. “I won’t have two brothers fighting with me in the middle!”
“But you heard what he said about you, Fan!” said George furiously, though instead of trying to pull away from her grasp, he covered her hand with his, reassuring her. “Didn’t you understand what he meant?”
“I heard,” she said miserably, slipping her hand free, “and I understood the rest. But I won’t be caught between you and His Grace, not over such foolishness as this. I told you before, George, and I meant it. If you try to treat me as if I’ve no mind or will of my own, so help me, I will leave, not just this room, but Feversham as well.”
The words had scarcely left her mouth before she wished them unsaid. She had never believed in idle, empty threats, any more than she believed in making promises not in her power to keep, and to her shock she realized she hadn’t changed now. Before this, leaving Feversham and the Company had always been next to impossible, but in this instant she suddenly understood that, to save her heart and herself from George Claremont, the impossible had now become very possible indeed. She had money enough to start over, and both the wit and abilities to make a new life all her own in a place where no one knew her: Brighton, London, or even America.
George shook his head, clearly not wanting to believe her. “You would not leave Feversham.”
Or me: he left the last two words unsaid on account of his brother, but Fan understood just the same, and the longing and sorrow in his blue eyes were nearly enough to make her relent. Already she loved him too much, cared too deeply.
You would not leave me, Fan, would you?
“I would,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “If you test me, I will.”
He shook his head again, desperation stealing the edge from his anger. “But I cannot let my brother speak of you with such blatant disrespect, Fan.”
“Yet I never did speak of Miss Winslow in such a manner, not by name or person,” said the duke mildly. “I was referring to the slatterns and harlots, both low-bred and high, that constitute my regular company. You asked what I would do if caught in flagrante, George, and I replied as to my own circumstances. I intended this most honorable lady no disrespect, and apologize if I caused her any.”
He rose from the chair to bow elegantly to Fan, enough to make her blush all over again as she thought of what he’d witnessed earlier and how much of her he’d seen. She didn’t want this apology any more than she’d wanted George’s, and if she’d any spirit, she should be on her knees to the duke, thanking him for interrupting them when he had.
George took a deep breath, then another, and Fan could feel him laboring to calm himself. “Damnation, Brant,” he said finally. “You should not provoke me like that.”
“It’s nothing new, brother dear,” said the duke as he poured himself a dish of chocolate. “You possess precisely the same fraternal gift for provoking me, and always have. The only difference is that now, I believe, you’ve found something worth a true fight.”
He smiled at Fan as he bit into a triangle of toast, just in case she’d somehow missed his meaning, and in her confusion she looked down, away from both men.
“If you please, Your Grace, Captain Lord Claremont,” she said, the ring of keys at her waist jingling softly as she dipped a curtsey. She’d always been proud of those keys, the symbol of her position in the household, but now their weight seemed as heavy as a prisoner’s manacles, trapping her mercilessly in a rank and station so far below George’s. “Pray excuse me, for my duties wait for me below stairs.”
She left then, her back straight and her eyes brimming with tears. The duke could say all the pretty things he wished about George being willing to fight for her, and George had already proved that he would.
But no matter how he defended her or how wonderfully, perilously close they’d come to being lovers, she couldn’t afford false hopes about her lasting place in his life. She was a passing amusement, no more. She knew that. When he’d told her his hopes for the future, he’d been sure to include Feversham, but not her, unless he meant to include her among the furnishings. Not that she’d any right to more. She was only a country-born servant, bound to serve all her life in the same house where she’d been born. What else could she hope for?
Yet tomorrow Captain Lord George Claremont could sail from her life as blithely as he’d sailed into it, and the world would not fault him if he left a score of broken hearts in his wake. In fact the world would wink and chuckle and praise him for being all the more gallant with the ladies.
And she would be the only one who’d truly suffer, because the broken heart would be hers.
“Go after her,” said Brant as he and George watched her go. “You’re a damned idiot if you don’t.”
“No.” Deliberately George made himself lift his cup to his lips. The chocolate was cold, worse than cold, but he’d so little interest in it that the chill scarcely mattered. He’d revealed enough to his brother, and he’d no intention of making himself any more vulnerable where Fan was concerned. And as for Fan herself—ah, he’d blundered into such a wretched mess with her this morning that he doubted she’d ever speak to him again. “I’m sure she would prefer time apart from me.”
“And I say she wouldn’t.” Brant reached for another slice of toast, his appetite undeterred. “She’s a woman, and she’s your mistress, and as such—”
“She’s not my mistress,” said George sharply, then sucked in his breath, determined not to lose control again. He’d already done that once this morning with Fan, and then again with Brant. Considering how he’d always prided himself on being an officer able to master his emotions, twice was definitely two times too many. “We enjoy one another’s company, that is all.”
Brant snorted derisively. “Oh, yes, and the moon rises in the morning and the sun sets at the dawn. What kind of jackass do you take me for, George?”
“The meddlesome sort who sticks his nose into affairs that do not concern him.”
“But you are my brother,” said Brant, “and therefore your affairs most definitely do concern me. And I do believe I’ve the right to meddle in Miss Winslow’s affairs, too, even if you insist on pretending I don’t. She may have been born common as clay, George, but she deserves better from you.”
“I don’t need you to lecture me,” said George bitterly, all too aware of what he’d done, and not done, with Fan. “I know how rare Fan is, and I don’t need one more blasted word from you, mind?”
But Brant shook his head, undiscouraged. “If Miss Winslow isn’t your mistress, then she’s a damned close approximation, given exactly how you were enjoying her company earlier.”
“She’s not my mistress,” insisted George. Fan had absolutely nothing in common with the mistresses that Brant so happily indulged, spoiled, tawdry mercenaries in bed and out. Instead Fan was the most honorable woman he’d ever known, a rare, noble beauty who didn’t realize it, strong and brave and passionate, and not a minute passed when she wasn’t in his thoughts.
He wanted to be with her, to laugh with her, to listen to her dreams and sorrows and to share his own, and he wanted to protect her however she needed protecting, whether from gossip, loneliness, or the villainous smugglers along this coast. If he must go back to war, he wanted to know she was here safe, waiting and praying for his return. He even held a bewildering admiration for her independent streak, for the way she’d stood up to both him and Brant. He did
n’t understand it, true enough, but he could still admire it, just as he admired nearly everything else about her.
But that was only the beginning of what he felt for Fan. When he remembered how eagerly she’d responded to him this morning, her mouth open and yielding and impossibly sweet, her breasts full in his hands, the quivering skin along her inner thigh the softest thing he’d ever felt, her breathy little moans of delight and anticipation enough to make him hard again at the memory alone. No wonder he’d treated her with such shameful abandon, instead of the respectful distance he’d intended. There was something about her—about the two of them together—that turned his best resolutions to driest tinder.
“So, then, Captain Brother,” mused Brant softly. “The fair Miss Winslow is not your mistress, but she is also clearly far more than merely your housekeeper. It’s only a question of how much farther, isn’t it?”
A question, yes, and George, to both his sorrow and his joy, already knew the answer.
Chapter Ten
Fan paused on the steps to the apothecary’s shop, tucking the packet with her purchase deeper into her basket for safekeeping. Danny, the cook’s young mate, had been complaining of the toothache, and before he made the ominous trek to the surgeon in Brighton to have the tooth drawn, Fan had offered to make a poultice to ease his suffering with less dire consequences.
Besides, she welcomed the chance to trade Feversham for Tunford, if only for a few hours, and on this balmy afternoon, the sun warm on her back and the meadows beginning to turn green with spring, she could even forget the wretched morning in George’s bedchamber.
She glanced up at the sky, gauging the hour. She just had time to stop at another shop for a new pair of cotton stockings before she began the ride home to oversee the evening meal—a considerably more elaborate process with the duke in residence. She tightened the ribbons of her hat beneath her chin and turned towards the lane, and very nearly into the barrel-broad chest of Will Hood.
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