One Night of Surrender: The Brothers Mortmain

by Evie North

  She was arranging flowers, all her attention taken by her task. Her dark blonde hair was drawn back into a chignon at her nape, and her profile was as pure as any he’d ever seen. She was beautiful, and although he’d known many beautiful women there was something about this one that made him stare like a beardless boy. He still remembered the flowers in her hands because they were the same as some that grew in his mother’s garden—white roses and mauve iris and golden calendulas—and the way she lifted them to her face, glorying in their scent and beauty.

  Edward had stopped speaking.

  He was frowning at Gervais and there was a dark crimson stain rising in his cheeks. Gervais was aware Edward had a temper but he had never seen him like this. His voice came as a soft, menacing growl. “I would appreciate you not ogling my wife, Hawley.”

  His wife!

  Gervais knew for a fact Edward was not married. He was lying. This must be the woman he had taken as his mistress against his family’s wishes and kept hidden away in their rooms. Gervais had listened to him talk of her endlessly on the heath, about her sweetness and beauty, and how she belonged to him and only him. He’d grown bored with the conversations, as they lay in wait for their chosen coach, and sometimes pretended to doze.

  Who would have thought Edward was telling the absolute truth? That this paragon was his?

  He might have asked questions, but Edward was in no mood for chatting, his eyes shooting sparks. Gervais couldn’t help himself though—ever the risky venture for him. He glanced at the woman again and made a ribald comment; he might even have said he would like to try his luck with her if Edward would introduce them. Then he laughed recklessly at the fury on Edward’s face. Clapping him on the shoulder, Gervais said it was a joke, and after gaining a muttered promise from Edward of where and when they would meet, he’d gone on his way.

  Alone and waiting for the coach on Hounslow Heath, he remembered those moments and the look on Edward’s face, and suddenly he felt very uncomfortable. But there was no time to make any sort of decision for the coach was now approaching. It was only as he rode out to intercept it that he saw the Bow Street boys coming out of the woods opposite, where they had been lying in wait for him. Someone had given him up.

  Edward Prime had given him up.

  After his arrest he’d sent his lawyer to the inn to find Edward, but by then he’d flown. The mistress wasn’t there either, he was told. Edward’s family had accused her of running up debts or stealing or some such thing, and rid themselves of her. Gervais didn’t think Edward would like that. Perhaps he would come back for her? But even if he did, by then it would be too late for Gervais. He knew what the penalty was for highway robbery.

  And now the time had come. Tomorrow he would be hanged, and the crowds would gather to see the gentleman highwayman dancing on the stars.

  There was an irony in it, too, because his time in Newgate had changed Gervais. Having to live amongst the dregs of humanity and those whose only crime was poverty or ill fortune, he’d had much to ponder about his own life and the mistakes he had made. He’d brought much trouble on his long-suffering father, and seeing his face when he’d come to visit, the despair in his eyes, had almost broken Gervais’s heart. He’d been selfish and now it was too late to change his ways. Too late to do anything but act as a salient warning to others.

  He supposed if he was really a changed man he would help Katherine without any strings attached. Perhaps there was still a core of recklessness inside him, because although he sought to free her he wanted something in return. At first it had been revenge upon Edward Prime, and he supposed he’d had that. Edward would be furious when he heard that Gervais had spent his last night with Katherine. He also wanted an appealing memory to take with him into the hereafter. He’d had that too.

  As he drifted off to sleep at last, the scent of the woman beside him sweetening his dreams, Gervais was smiling.

  Katherine awoke, startled at first, and then she smiled, remembering the feel of Gervais inside her, the unimaginable things they’d done together and the bliss this man had shown her. Her body tingled with the memories as she watched him sleep. She didn’t quite dare to touch him, despite yearning to do so. The line of his jaw, the curve of his manly cheek, were very tempting, but then so was the devil.

  He must have had many women. He was the sort of man women flocked to, even in Newgate. But he had chosen her for this last night and the knowledge made her proud. And sad. For come cock crow he would die while she would be set free.

  She hadn’t thought about what she would do with the rest of her life. She couldn’t imagine it. She knew she couldn’t go back to the inn, and her father was dead. There was no one to take shelter with. Her father had given her a good education. She was well fitted as a governess, but how could she seek employment when she had no references? What family would welcome her into their home to teach their children when she’d lived as some man’s mistress and then been in prison? Her past would ruin her future.

  Later, she told herself feverishly, she would think of it later.

  “Flowers.”

  The sound of his voice drew her gaze back to his face, thinking he was awake, but he was still asleep. “Roses and iris and calendulas,” he muttered, as if he was seeing some garden scene in his dreams. “Beautiful, so beautiful...”

  His words made her smile. So strange to think of a highwayman dreaming of flowers, or even knowing their names.

  “Rosemary is for remembrance,” she quoted softly, and then lifted her hand to cover her mouth when she realised she’d awoken him. His dark eyes opened, still sleepy, and he looked up at her.

  “Will you remember me?” he asked, reaching up to brush her cheek with his fingertips. The caress was tender, the sort a lover might give to the one he loved, and she held her breath. He let his gaze caress her too.

  But a moment later his expression hardened and he sat up, putting some distance between them. He stretched his arms above his head. “No, don’t remember,” he said.

  Gervais didn’t want her to mourn him, that wasn’t the object of the lesson. Tonight was about pleasure and if he began to mire himself in something deeper then he was a fool.

  But despite his inner warning, his eyes returned again to Katherine. She had wrapped herself in one of the coverings from the divan, a length of purple and pink-patterned silk from India or some other exotic place. She looked stunning, the shape of her breasts clearly outlined through the thin cloth, her hair falling about her shoulders, her pale and beautiful face contemplative. She might have been a study for a Madonna, except that she was so obviously made for the earthly pleasures.

  “Did you ever sit with Edward like this?” he asked, and then could have bitten out his tongue. Why had he said such a thing? Was he jealous of her former lover? He needed no reassurance that he was the better man.

  She stared at him in shocked surprise. “Never. It wasn’t like this, nothing like this.”

  Gervais had himself in hand now. Even if her words had soothed the ripple of jealousy in his chest he wouldn’t admit it.

  Her silken covering had slipped and he feasted on the rounded curve of her breast, and immediately he was aroused. There had been women before, many of them, though none recently. Even before he was captured on the heath his bohemian lifestyle had begun to pale. Could he have begun to grow up? At last?

  Too late.

  He reached to brush her skin with a fingertip, the silk sliding before his touch, down, down, until it caught on the aroused bud. He made a sound in his throat, and rolled the hard little nub of flesh between his thumb and forefinger, watching it grow even harder. Katherine gasped, arching her back so that her breast jutted even more brazenly toward him.

  He cupped his hand beneath the heavy swell of flesh, lifting her nipple toward him, and then he bent his head and covered it with his mouth. She whimpered, her hands clenching on the bedcovers.

  “Edward never did this?” he murmured, his voice deep and low, even a
s he despised himself for asking.

  She shook her head wildly. “Never.”

  Gervais grunted his approval and bent again to his work. When he felt he’d spent enough time worshipping one breast he turned to the other and lavished attention on it. By now Katherine had given up trying to keep her desire in check, and was grasping his head, her fingers tugging almost painfully in his hair as she kept him in place.

  He sucked, hard, and she let her head fall back with a moan.

  He kissed the long curve of throat, licking her, taking little pretend bites of her flesh. She was more than ready and so was he. He reached down and planted his hands about her waist, firm, steady, and then he lifted her to straddle his lap.

  Katherine clung to him a moment, unsteady, wondering what he was going to do. Her face was so close to his, and for a moment they gazed at each other, as if discovering each other for the first time. Her blue eyes were as endless as the sky and he wanted to fall into them, to escape what he knew awaited him on the morrow.

  But it was too late for escape.

  Though not too late for pleasure.

  His reached down to slide his fingers into the warm opening between her thighs, enjoying seeing the sensations he was creating reflected in her expression.

  He began to kiss her mouth, sliding his tongue inside, mimicking what his hand was doing below.

  Fingers delving deep into her sheath, his tongue driving into her warm, wet mouth, entangling his tongue with hers. She began to move against him, and it was time to withdraw his fingers and instead set his cock against the place it most wanted to be. He pressed and she was rocking against him, trying to force him deeper, and deeper.

  He reached to grasp her bottom, pulling her toward him in one smooth movement that lodged him fully inside her. She cried out softly, her head against his shoulder, her mouth kissing, sucking his skin. She seemed to be acting purely on instinct now, all conscious thought gone, her body responding to its own need.

  Katherine could feel the hard length of him inside her, filling her. Each little movement he made brushed against the hard pearl down there, the place he had sucked and licked that first time in front of the fire, making her body respond in a way she’d never thought possible. Now he was using his cock, causing her pleasure to grow and build, until she almost couldn’t bear it. She was so close to that special moment—what had he called it? Her climax. And then he would stop, watching her, teasing her.

  She wouldn’t beg, she wouldn’t...

  He moved again, quicker now, bringing her right to the brink and then stopping. He bent to suckle her breasts, slowly, as if he had all the time in the world.

  Her body was thrumming with a desperate need. She tried to move against him herself, wriggling to adjust herself to just the right angle...

  He caught her hips and held her still, hearing her gasp, reading the frustration in her face.

  “Please,” the word spilled out of her as she was forced to beg at last.

  “The pleasure is better if we wait,” he said, and teased her again by thrusting slowly, shallowly, before drawing fully out again.

  “I can’t wait,” she whimpered.

  He smiled that smile that seemed to go deep into her heart, even as his cock went deep into her. “Yes you can.”

  She held herself still, biting her lip to stop herself from begging again, and was rewarded. He began to move, this time increasing his rhythm, driving deep into her sheath, and then just when she thought he could not go deeper, he did. Now the pleasure was so intense it was almost pain, and she cried out in a strange high voice that did not sound like her own. Cried out again and again as the pleasure racked her, cried out as he did, thrusting hard and fast into her, making them both shake and tremble. Finally they fell back onto the bed in each other’s arms, completely spent.

  After a moment she felt him kiss her temple, tenderly, almost like a lover.

  He spoke quietly in her ear. “When this night is over...” he began. When she tried to look at him he held her tighter so she could not. “You should find a man who values you and who wants to give you pleasure as you give him pleasure. Choose your next lover wisely, Katherine.”

  But the idea of choosing anyone after this man seemed so bleak and impossible that she decided it was best to say nothing.

  7

  Turnkey Martin brought fresh food and drink to set upon the table, clearing away the old. Katherine hid beneath the bedclothes and behind the curtains in the shadows. Even though he was her friend she did not want to meet his knowing look, or perhaps see his pity. She refused to consider why what he might see mattered to her.

  It was as if she and Gervais were in a secret world of their own and she didn’t want it revealed lest it evaporate before dawn.

  Alone again, they swathed themselves in the coverings from the bed and sat at the table, sharing the food, holding the glasses to each other’s lips to drink, laughing when it spilled.

  He was an entertaining companion.

  And if Katherine wondered how she could have changed in such a short time from the trembling, anxious girl she had been when she entered this room, to the smiling, languorous creature she was now, then she knew in her heart it was Gervais who had changed her. Being with him had transformed her.

  She kept her eyes away from the barred window, fearful of the first hint of day, but every now and again the thought would sneak into her head like a gust of cold rain, threatening to make her mouth droop or bring the sting of tears to her eyes. But she could not weep for him while he was still alive.

  “Why did you become a-a highwayman?” she stammered, anything to stop her own dark thoughts.

  He looked up from his roasted chicken leg, dark eyes watchful. She had seen that look before. It was as if he was shutting her out. He seemed open and amusing and without a care in the world, but Katherine suspected it was all an act he’d perfected. Gervais had his secrets.

  He took another bite of meat with his strong white teeth, chewing, swallowing, taking a gulp of his wine. He was biding his time, she decided. Finding the words that would not give away too much of himself. Oh yes, he had secrets. She was right about that. Gervais Hawley was a man cloaked in secrets.

  And quite suddenly Katherine wanted to know them all. She wanted to be more than just a woman to spend his last night with. She wanted to be the woman.

  “I didn’t wake up one morning and think: I want to be a highwayman,” he mocked, and she smiled as he’d meant her to.

  “What then?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “I come from a family of adventurers. My two brothers are like me, always seeking out some new madness. Always getting into scrapes of one kind or another. At least, they were...” He set down his food and wiped his hands. “My elder brother had an accident. He was blinded. No more adventure for him, unfortunately, and that has made him a bitter man.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Was he a highwayman too?”

  Gervais shook his head. He seemed disinclined to discuss it further.

  “Being a highwayman is rather more than getting into a scrape,” she reminded him, mildly scolding.

  He looked up in surprise, then smiled, as if he enjoyed being scolded by her.

  Gervais hadn’t meant to tell her his life story; it wasn’t something he told everyone, but she seemed to be waiting and perhaps she had earned it. Even so it was a shortened version and not the whole truth, but Katherine would never know that. For some foolish reason he didn’t want her to think ill of him.

  “My father was with the East India Company, away for most of our boyhood. There was no one to show us the right and proper way to behave, certainly not our gentle invalid mother, who died when I was quite young.” He shrugged. “We fell into bad company, the three of us. Excitement, danger, becomes a necessity. You find you can’t live without it.”

  “I can understand that,” she said. Beautiful Katherine, who he was sure had never done a wicked thing in her life.

  “
When my father came home he threatened to disinherit me. I may be the youngest son but I am still worth a fortune.” He chuckled to see the expression in her eyes. “I’m not boasting, it is the truth. Look about you,” and he gestured at their luxurious surroundings. “Only the former Governor of Trinidad inhabits better quarters, and he has relations in higher places than I.”

  “And your brothers?”

  He looked away, feeling the weight of the despair his family must be feeling. They were due at Newgate tomorrow and he dreaded their last goodbyes. He’d have preferred them to stay away but he knew they wouldn’t.

  Didn’t he deserve to feel their pain and torment and regret? He should feel it.

  “My elder brother is the heir and my father saves his deepest disappointment for him. He was sent abroad the last time he strayed but I don’t think he saw that as a punishment. Now he is blind he stays at home, drinking mostly, sunk in gloom. My second brother has a pact with his friends to deflower as many virgins as he possibly can before he dies.”

  Katherine’s smooth brow wrinkled with disgust. He wished the words back but she had asked, and besides he’d only told her the abridged versions. But once again she surprised him.

  “Do the virgins enjoy being deflowered?”

  Gervais coughed to hide his laughter. “I-I don’t know. I’ve never asked them.”

  “I ask because I didn’t enjoy it at all,” she said glumly. “It hurt and the act itself only lasted a moment and then Edward turned over and went to sleep.”

  Gervais reached for her hand, twining his fingers with hers. He found himself staring at their linked hands and liking the way they fit together.

  “Do you like what we’ve done together this night?” he found himself asking.

  She glanced up at him under her eyelashes and gave a secretive little smile. “Yes,” she said. “I like it very much.”

  “Then make sure you do as I said and find a man who wants to please you.”

  Katherine composed herself, carefully removing her hand from his and folding both of them in her lap. With her loose hair about her and the flush in her cheeks she looked more delicious than ever, but when he moved to take her in his arms she gave him a cool stare.