The thought brought her a sudden wave of pain.
I don’t want to be parted with him. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever.
She would not think of parting. Not now. Not tonight.
“Tell me about your home, Lord Dorian.” She settled herself more comfortably within the hard circle of his arm, his shoulder hard beneath her cheek. “What is it like?”
“Morninghall Abbey?” His voice was reflective. “It’s been many years since I’ve seen it. It’s up in the Cotswolds, built of beautiful honey-yellow stone and guarded by gates with wolves on them. A grand old pile, rather too grand for my tastes, really.” He reached up to stroke the back of her hand where it lay against his damp shirt and she trembled a little, liking it. “I was born there, as was my twin brother. He made his entrance first, and only by a few minutes, so he is the marquess and I’m just the second son. Suits me just fine, though. He has obligations to produce an heir, so he’s already married to a young daughter of a countess who drinks too much and makes no effort to control her temper. Can’t stand the woman, myself. Just glad I’m under no such obligations to the title that I have to pick out a wife like one would a broodmare.” He settled himself more comfortably against the wall. “No, when I marry—if I marry—it will be because I love the woman, and nothing more or less than that.”
Mercy was quiet for a long moment. She’d only known this man for a day, but how her heart leapt at being so close to him, feeling his solid and reassuring strength protecting her, warming her, enfolding her and holding her close.
“I heard you telling Elias about how you came by the name, Sea Wolfe.”
He laughed. “God, I’ll never live that down, will I?”
“I have a pirate story, too.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, and perhaps some day I’ll tell you about it.”
“We may not have a ‘some day,’ Mercy. Tomorrow I’ll find a way to get you into Boston, into the safe care of your aunt, and then our time together will be but a memory.” He was quiet for a long moment. “And do you know something? Inexplicably, that saddens me.”
“The idea of parting?”
“Yes.” He turned to look at her in the darkness, and she felt the gentle brush of his fingers against her cheek. “I have grown quite fond of you in a very short time. My mind ... it goes in places that are really quite fanciful, as we’ve only just met. We know little about each other. Too little. But—forgive me, Mercy, but it is quite difficult for me to sit here with you, sharing your warmth, and not think of kissing you.”
She swallowed, hard. “You weren’t just flirting with me back at the house, then?”
“Of course I was. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t serious about what it was that I desired. I desperately wanted to kiss you. Still do.”
Her pulse began to pound, and a thrill warmed her blood. She fingered a fold of his shirt, feeling his heart beating just beneath. It was a long moment before she spoke.
“I haven’t stopped thinking of that kiss you gave me when Hart was outside. The one you used to shut me up.”
“I haven’t either.” His deep voice was close, so close that she felt it against her skin more than she heard it. “But of course, I can’t repeat that kiss. The circumstances are different.”
“Better, actually.”
“And unlike my piratical ancestor, I can’t just take what I want. It would be dishonorable, especially in the case of a pretty young woman like yourself.”
“Unless, of course, the young woman wanted it as well.”
Mercy shifted her weight, her face very close to his now.
“And does she?”
“What do you think?”
“I think that if I take the kiss that this pretty young woman is offering, than I am no better than my ancestor, and I do an injustice to the good and honorable name that I’ve spent a career seeking to restore.”
Their breaths mingled, his fingers grazing her check, whispering over her jawbone, feeling the shape of her face.
“Perhaps you need to carve out your own legacy, and not worry so much about making up for the notoriety of someone who lived so long ago,” she whispered, sighing as his thumb brushed her lower lip and desire flared inside of her. “We have this one night. Only God knows what tomorrow will bring—and if either of us will be alive by the time the day is over.”
“So what are we going to do about it?”
She leaned into him so that her mouth was against his jaw, now rough with a day’s growth of stubble, prickling against her chin, her cheek, her lips. How good he smelled, of wind and rain and strength and promise. Her body warmed to him. Her breath now mingled with his. He drew her closer, his other hand coming up to thumb the point of her jawbone, to brush her ear, to cup the back of her head.
“Kiss me, Mercy Payne.”
He didn’t have to ask twice.
She turned within his embrace and suddenly his mouth was against hers in the gloom, hard and demanding, tender and warm and wonderful. She wanted to melt against and into it. She wanted to lose herself in the sensation, to absolutely drown in it. His breath came a little quicker and she splayed her fingers against his chest, feeling his heart pounding beneath the damp shirt, her own body responding with a sudden flow of dampness between her legs.
His fingers slipped beneath her jaw, tilting it up. The rough sensation of his fingertips against her skin ... the feel of his tongue tracing the seam of her lips, gently prompting her to open for him ... the feel of his breath, hot and growing heavy against her cheek....
She moaned, and he drew back, breaking the kiss, breathing hard.
Mercy’s heart was pounding, and she was suddenly too warm in her damp clothing, hot and uncomfortable and craving a coupling with this man she barely knew. She leaned her forehead against his chest, feeling his heart thumping against her skin.
“You tasted as good as I knew you would,” he murmured hoarsely.
“I liked that, Lord Dorian.”
“Please, just Dorian. I prefer the familiarity of it over the distance that ‘Lord’ puts between us.”
“Then in that case, I ask that you use my given name. Mercy.”
“Mercy,” he said, his voice a rumble in the close darkness. “A woman whose name reflects one of her many virtues. A virtue that saved my life a few short hours ago.”
“Kiss me again, Dorian.”
She pressed close to him, feeling his face in the darkness, the rough scratch of his stubbled jaw against her fingers, the carved sculpt of his lips. He reached up then and caught her hand, kissing her fingers. “I respect you, Mercy.”
“It’s just a kiss, Dorian.”
“Indeed, but I crave more than just your lips. I want to savor the shape of your breasts in my hand, the flare of your hips, the softness of your skin. I want to make you mine. Right here. Right now.”
“Then—”
“But I am a man of honor, Mercy. I want you so badly that I can taste you. But you are too good a woman to set up as my mistress, and we barely know each other well enough to even consider the idea of marriage.” He paused. “Nevertheless ... I am prepared to offer it.”
“Marriage?!”
“Well, yes.”
“You’re saying that unless I agree to marry you—and you are correct in that we barely know each other—then this ends with a kiss, and nothing more?”
“I am an honorable man.”
She gave a little laugh. “I can’t believe this. You’re the Sea Wolfe, for heaven’s sake. A ‘very bad man,’ as Elias noted. And yet you offer marriage to me, a provincial girl of little means, with an aging mother and a little brother who craves a father.”
“I do.”
“You’re a better man than any of my neighbors, near or far, have given you credit for, Dorian de Wolfe.”
“A man of restraint, I should hope.” He reached up and cradled the side of her face in his hand, gently thumbing her cheek. “So will you have me, Mercy Payne?”
It was a long moment before she answered.
“No, Dorian.” She pulled back, her heart breaking in places that were new and foreign to her, filling her with a raw ache that threatened to spill over into tears of self-denial. “You are the son and brother of a marquess. I’m just a girl from Concord with nothing to bring to you save myself and two dependents. We are ill-suited. You’ll tire of me before the tide goes out.”
“Tire of you? A woman who is resolute and brave, who can sew up a man’s arm without flinching, who has not once given way to tears on this most horrible of days that has left grown men weeping for their mothers? Oh no, Mercy Payne. I would like to spend the rest of my life getting to know you, and even if I live to be a hundred, it still won’t be enough time.”
She shifted her weight and it was then that she felt the press of the velvet bag and its contents against her hip.
“There is another reason why I cannot marry you.”
Above, the rain beat against the roof, and wind whistled under the eaves. The man beside her stiffened somewhat.
“I can’t for the life of me, think of a good reason why you should refuse me.”
“It’s an issue of trust on my part. And it involves what was beneath the floorboard of our house. Something so valuable, and something so precious, that nobody on this earth knows about it except for Mother and me. I cannot marry you with this secret standing between us.”
“That secret was likely destroyed when your house was put to the torch.”
“No, Dorian. It was not. And while I admire you, like you, and want you to kiss me again, to touch and hold me close, I cannot trust you or anyone else with this secret. Because it’s not just my life that will be affected if something were to happen to it, but Mother’s. Elias’s. What was beneath that floorboard is our guarantee of survival, and it doesn’t just belong to me.”
The air between them cooled. He went quiet. Too quiet, and she sensed that she had wounded him terribly.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t mean to hurt you.”
“You don’t trust me.”
“I would like to trust you. But I don’t know you well enough to give you that trust, Dorian. Not when it could affect my family.”
He pulled away from her then, the hay rustling as he got to his feet and moved to the adjacent wall. Mercy was suddenly cold, and the fragile joy she’d felt in his arms, the excitement and comfort and bliss, dissipated and left her feeling like someone had taken a knife to her heart.
“Dorian? Dorian, I’m sorry—”
“Get some sleep, Miss Payne. Morning will be here before we know it.”
The rain outside fell harder and for Mercy, the deluge could have been her own tears.
Chapter 12
Trust.
Its absence was something unfamiliar to Dorian, whose life, whose career, whose understanding of the world around him was built around that very word.
At sea, one needed to trust in the chain of command and do what was ordered, no questions asked. At sea, one trusted the man next to you to pull his weight, to convey your orders, to watch your back in situations of danger just as you watched his. Without trust, one’s world fell apart, one’s ship might be lost, and one’s very life might end.
The idea that this young woman did not, could not, trust him was shattering. He could not wrap his mind around it, and it was an insult he wasn’t quite sure how to address. He stared into the darkness, keenly aware of her presence a few feet away. He had not asked what her secret was. Didn’t that count for anything?
She didn’t trust him. The thought rankled. And it hurt.
Dorian pushed his feet out into the hay, his body beginning to shiver once more. His arms ached with sudden emptiness and he felt cold and bereft and alone. Painfully alone. He would have liked nothing more than to make love to her and then fall asleep with her wrapped securely in his arms, holding her close and protecting her.
Because that’s what a de Wolfe did.
Protect the ones he loved.
He listened to the rain drumming against the roof. Time passed. It might have been ten minutes, it might have been an hour or more. He didn’t know. He didn’t care. He thought of the young woman in the nearby darkness. He wondered if she felt as cold and empty as he did, or if she had cast him off without further thought and found the sleep that evaded him. He wondered if George Lloyd had managed to reach the safety of Boston with his charges. He wondered how he could bear to part with this woman who had proven that love at first sight was not just a myth, but a reality.
He rested his head against the rough boards behind him, the scent of hay in his nostrils and the sound of the rain in his ears and must have fallen asleep for the next thing he knew, a cock was crowing and a murky gray light was pushing through the small window above his head.
The girl was asleep, her back to him, her head pillowed on her arms and her skirts twisted about her legs. The faint light rimmed her body, showing the dipping curve of shoulder to waist to hip beneath her short-jacket and petticoats. Dorian’s mouth went dry at the sight—and then he remembered what she had said in the darkness of the night before.
That she could not trust him.
His heart fell. There could be nothing between them without trust.
“Mercy.”
He reached out and touched her back, his fingers aching to trace the sweet curve of her neck, the rise of her shoulder. She had taken off her cap, presumably to dry her hair, and that hair lay loose atop the hay, thick and lustrous and rippling with good health. It was as long as he’d imagined it would be. It was shining and full and beautiful. His throat tightened and his heart squeezed in his chest. How he ached to run his fingers through it.
“Miss Payne,” he said again, gently shaking her shoulder. She jerked awake and sat up, confused for a moment before she realized where she was. She looked up at him then away, unable to meet his gaze.
“What time is it?”
“Dawn. We need to leave. That youth who let us stay here last night might be having second thoughts about us now that it’s morning, and I’d feel more comfortable if we were well away from here.”
She nodded and got to her feet. He saw then that she’d been huddled around his coat, warming it with her body, hugging it against herself. She shook it out. Bits of hay fell from it and she handed it to him, being careful not to let their fingers touch.
“Here,” she murmured, and looked away.
“Mercy—”
“I’m sorry, Lord Dorian. I should have returned this to you last night. I hope you weren’t cold.”
I was indeed cold, he thought. Cold because you were over here and I was over there and you don’t trust me.
She took care not to look at him as she hurriedly plaited her hair, pinned it up, and tied the mob cap back over it. He went outside and relieved himself, noting wood smoke curling from the chimney of the house to which this barn seemed to belong, and his sense of urgency grew pressing. He went back into the barn, hastily tacked up Sally, and turned to find Mercy just coming down the wooden ladder.
“Up you go,” he said, ignoring the pain in his wounded arm as he hoisted her into the saddle. He wished he could ignore the sorrow in his heart. But at least his ankle was a good deal better today, accepting his weight with little complaint. He led the mare out of the barn, let her drink from the trough, and swung up behind the girl, his arms once again enclosing hers as he took the reins, the back of her head fitting neatly beneath his chin.
Don’t think about her.
Don’t think about what might have been. What could have been.
Just get to Boston and forget these past two wretched days ever happened.
* * *
They traveled steadily east, encountering plenty of armed men on both foot and horseback splashing along the muddy, rutted road on their way to Boston, all of them full of bravado both false and real. Nobody questioned them, thinking they were part of the human tide rushing to the port town t
o keep the Regulars contained.
Mercy sat miserably within the circle of Dorian’s arms as Sally plodded dutifully beneath them. She had slept fitfully if at all the night before, her dreams filled with the man behind her. They were dreams of carnality and pleasure, dreams that left her feeling irritable and unsatisfied and above all, depressed.
Tell him. Just tell him and get it over with.
But what if she did? What if she told him about the velvet bag and what it contained, what if she told him that it was in her pocket, and what if he turned on her, confiscating it and its precious contents for himself? For England? Riches did strange things to even the most known and predictable of people, and she neither truly knew, nor could predict, Lord Dorian de Wolfe.
He had retreated to polite formality, and their talk was stiff and small and awkward. The clearing weather. The mud. The number of armed men all heading east and the whereabouts of George Lloyd, the twittering girl and Mercy’s family. As they grew nearer to Boston, the road became clogged with militia, amassed and still arriving. The town was surrounded on three sides, they were told. There was no way into Boston and no way anyone there was coming out.
Tents had been set up, and campfires threw out the scent of roasting meat and burnt coffee. A fife and drum floated melancholy notes out into the gray morning. The air crackled with anger and excitement, tension and resolve and calls for vengeance for what Gage’s troops had done, and still men were arriving, from Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island and from places even farther away.
They made their way through the encampments along the harbor front, drawing little attention though some looked openly at Mercy with undisguised interest—interest that was quickly transferred elsewhere at the hard look on the face of the large and powerful man who rode behind her.
World of de Wolfe Pack: Heart Of The Sea Wolfe (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Heroes Of The Sea Book 8) Page 8
