With effort, Beth lifted her gaze from the bed and examined the room. Draperies over the windows, a built-in desk, built-in drawers, and a wardrobe for clothing. A table fixed to the floor with a silver wine cooler set in the middle, the tip of a dark green bottle wrapped in white linen peeking out. The two oil lanterns hung from ceiling hooks, gently swaying with the eddying river current. Everything about the cabin, from the quality of the draperies and bedcover to the rich gleaming polish of the mahogany furnishings spoke of wealth, luxury, indulgence. An elegant room, yet cozy. A rich man’s plaything.
“How long have you had this?” Beth inquired, more sharply than she’d intended.
“Four days,” Terence replied, knowing exactly why she’d asked. “And, no, I’ve never brought another woman here. That does not, however, mean it’s never been used by others, but I am guiltless, I assure you.”
“In other words, a floating brothel.”
“For a wealthy man,” Terence agreed blandly.
“Who did not enjoy this room and this bed with Rochelle Dessaint?”
“Who definitely did not enjoy this room with anyone. Before tonight.”
“Ah.”
Love was an insidious torture, Beth decided, making people insane. How could they possibly make use of this room when so much still stood between them? They had talked and talked this past year, reestablishing—improving on—the closeness they once had. Rochelle Dessaint? Terence had only needed a Gallic shrug to reveal their relationship. And after one look at the exotic beauty while shopping on Bond Street, Beth had needed nothing more to confirm her conclusions. Terence would have had to be dead . . .!
No matter how her heart ached, she had no complaint. She had Rodney, Terence had Rochelle. For better or worse, they had each made choices, his no more foolish than hers. Less so, in fact, for he had not married the slut.
So what could possibly stand in their way? She was here because it was the right thing for this moment in time. Terence had done his best to make the occasion romantic. Why then did guilt continue to haunt her?
Not guilty, not guilty, not guilty!
Yes, guilty! Guilty of youth, girlish foolishness . . . and blind obedience.
And now . . .
She had told Terence, in cold blood, to make these arrangements. She had calmly informed him that an affair of a few weeks’ or months’ duration was a remedy, like a doctor’s nostrum, to rid them of the ancient yearning which was destroying their lives. How could she have been so . . . so Brockman about it?
Terence had done everything he could to provide a romantic adventure, and she was standing here like a lump wondering if this was the point where she was supposed to take off her clothes, like a well-paid courtesan, and climb into bed. She had not cried since those long-ago days on Dartmoor. She would not do so now, but her soul quivered with the enormity of it.
Terence had killed for her. Survived months of tumult, accusation, and struggle to keep the business together while keeping her so sheltered she had scarce endured anything more than an occasional trail of a whisper, a glance of pity, or an occasional barb of speculation. This was her adored friend—her lover—standing before her, looking suddenly awkward and out of place. As if the man who constantly made decisions affecting hundreds of lives was unsure what to do or say next.
Beth strode past him, to sit on the edge of the bed. Tossing her cap onto the coverlet, she began to unpin her hair, carefully placing each hairpin into the hollow of her upturned cap. Most deliberately, she did not look at her audience of one. When, at last, she shook out her curls and smoothed them into place, she continued to keep her eyes on her lap, afraid to see the expression on Terence’s face. Had he arranged all this merely because she asked? Was she another of his games, his maneuverings on the vast chessboard of Tobias Brockman & Company? Was he, like Rodney, more interested in the advantages of what an alliance with the Merchant Princess could bring?
Or did he truly love her, as she had always—almost always—been sure he did? Did he make secret visits to her office because he truly cared? Was he here tonight because he wanted to be here more than he wanted to be anywhere else in the whole wide world?
What would she see when she raised her eyes?
More a coward than a newly independent woman cared to admit, Beth kept her eyes down, finally saying, softly and with sad resignation, “I’ve made a mull of it, haven’t I? I’ve ruined it for you.”
“It’s not possible to ruin this night. I’ve waited for it my whole life.”
“I’m weak, selfish, heedless. Two years ago, I was nearly as dazzled by the ton and a title as Papa. But I wasn’t woman enough to handle the reality of what life brought. I asked for your help, and after you gave it, I hid myself away—”
“You didn’t—”
“Yes. I did. Oh, we’ve seen each other often enough, but I put up a wall, you know I did. I shut you out along with everyone else. I thought I was being independent, and all I was doing was curling up in a tight ball, armoring myself against the world. A Brockman to the core, I tended to business, but cut myself off from love.” Idly, Beth picked up a tall hairpin, flexed it between her fingers. “Cut myself off from the person who filled my soul,” she added on a whisper.
Until now, Terence had not realized how stiffly he’d been standing. He’d disciplined himself for so long against even thinking about the possibility of this moment that he’d frozen, mind and body immobilized at the crucial moment. He was in terror of hurting her, of discovering her experiences would make her draw back, look at him from huge amber eyes filled with fear. His body had been aroused since he’d donned his evening clothes long hours ago, when just the thought of his assignation with Beth had brought him semi-erect. And now, as her words drifted through his mind like some ghostly voice from the other side, he was so engorged he had dire visions of going off like a beardless boy while simply standing there looking at the enticing feminine bulges in the boy’s clothing, which brought back such bitter memories of the most disastrous decision of his life.
What was she saying? An apology? Bloody hell, for what? Wasn’t that the job he’d been given when she was a mere six months old? Love and protect. ’Til death do them part. If she’d been eager to jump from her husband’s bed into his, she’d have been no better than a Rochelle Dessaint. Most surely, not his darling Beth.
Why didn’t he say something? Beth wondered, her eyes once again fixed on the bedcovering. Offer her wine? Tell her he remembered that night after the opera? She raised her eyes, stifled a gasp. She had her answer. No longer an innocent, she had no trouble interpreting the distinct bulge in Terence’s tight-fitting knit pantaloons. With a sudden mischievous smile, she broke off her catalog of regrets, her assumptions of guilt. Nothing was important but the here and now.
Dare she?
Oh, yes. She owed him. She loved him. To make this moment right for Terence, she could be a new woman, dare anything, even playing the courtesan. No matter what the future held, tonight was theirs.
She reached for him.
“God, no!” Terence groaned, leaping away from the bed.
Beth stood, pursuing her quarry, eyes dancing, lips tilted in a taunting smile. “I thought that’s why we were here.”
“I’m not here to disgrace myself!”
She buried her face in his chest. He smelled so good, as if he’d spent as long soaking in a bath as she had before venturing to this rendezvous. He also smelled of the sweat of desire and the magnificently warming scent that was Terence O’Rourke, protector, friend, and lover.
Her hands moved up to his carefully arranged cravat. “Then we’d best begin,” she murmured as her hands tweaked, then tore at the elaborate folds of white.
He’d planned the long slow seduction due a virgin bride. Due a woman who had ample reason to shun sex like a plague. He’d promised himself. Vowed . . .
Beth licked him under the chin. Terence’s groin clenched. Her lips trailed up his cheek until, standing on tipto
e, she blew in his ear. Terence groaned. Little witch!
Hands shaking, he tore off her boy’s jacket. Their arms tangled as she tugged off his, bodies twisting in a sensual dance over the cabin floor as Terence’s vest joined his jacket on the deck. He nearly took off an ear as he ripped his shirt over his head, before tearing at Beth’s clothing with shaking hands . . .
Mouth agape, he stared. She wore nothing beneath her shirt. Not one bloody thing. Terence closed his eyes, swaying to the tide. If he looked, he was going to go off like a rocket . . .
He looked.
She was standing, panting, wearing nothing but knit pantaloons that left nothing to the imagination. Slowly, her gaze lowered from the dark curly hair on his chest, past his belly button, to the bulge which had become a tent ridge. She smoothed one hand over the taut fabric, then squeezed. Terence sucked in a sharp breath. “Damn it, woman!” he exploded. Picking her up, he dropped her on the bed, wiggling off her pantaloons while he ran ship inventories through his head. Anything to keep his sanity long enough . . .
Shoes, stockings, pantaloons went flying, Terence’s trousers and drawers hit the deck. Sprawled in an ungainly heap, they lay on the great bed, rocking gently on the tidal current.
“This isn’t the way I planned it,” Terence protested. “I wanted it slow and beautiful.”
“Shush,” Beth murmured, touching her fingers to his lips. “Next time will do.”
Next time. There wasn’t going to be a this time if he didn’t take her now. He was undone, completely at her mercy, years of discipline shattered in his darling girl’s wake. Chest heaving, biting his tongue against the urge to be inside her, he forced himself to look away from the V between her thighs, from the soft golden brown curls that guarded the precious portal . . .
Did he not deserve to enjoy mindless oneness with the girl he had loved so long? Did he really have to think?
He was Terence O’Rourke, and yes, he did. Even as his chest pulsed with desire and his engorged cock demanded action, he eyed the clothing scattered over the floor. The last vestiges of what they once had been—slaves to the customs and strictures of their world. Now cast aside as easily as their garments. Forever.
A tug on his hand. With a laugh, Terence pounced. Poised on the brink of her nest of feminine curls, he breathed, “Would you like me to kiss you first?”
“You are a devil, Terence,” Beth hissed. “A true devil.”
Not devil enough. His attempt to tease was his last gasp of independence.
Terence, not so far gone he had lost his fear of hurting her, inched inside her. Beth’s hands stretched down, pressing against his buttocks, urging him on. Farther . . . farther. Like himself, she was so wet and ready not even long months of celibacy closed her passage to him. Fully inside at last, tight against her womb, he rested only a moment before the world’s most powerful urge drove him on. Beth responded slowly, tentatively, as if afraid their precious moment might shatter into nightmare.
Damnation! This couldn’t go wrong. Not after waiting so long.
But suddenly her hands were around his back, hugging him tight, urging him on. Driving toward warmth and light, breaths quickening, mingling, growing harsh. Terence hung on, determined to take her with him.
Beth gloried in the solid feel of his body on her and in her, the sweet, tantalizing words whispered against her ear, the pounding, driving cadence of sex. The burgeoning sensation, unlike anything else, sweeping them away, taking them out of themselves as nothing ever had before.
She dissolved in a brilliant shower of sparks, convulsions sweeping from her toes to her head, leaving her shaken to her core, so numb with the glory of it, she scarcely heard Terence’s shout—part wonder, part joy, part overwhelming relief—as he emptied himself into her. Tears ran down both sets of cheeks as they clung tightly together, their sweat mingling and sliding slowly toward the sheets.
Beth recovered first. “And to think we have hours yet before dawn,” she breathed.
A chuckle started low in Terence’s belly and moved upward, bursting into genuine laughter. “I’m an old man, me darling, didn’t you notice?”
“No excuses. You’re not yet thirty.”
“I might be good for another time or two,” Terence conceded, nuzzling a rosy nipple. “Sure and you’re not thinking of setting any records, are you, my girl?”
“Why not?” Beth teased. “We are Tobias Brockman & Company, are we not? We must live up to our sterling reputation for excellence, for besting all comers.” She ran her hand through his waves of black hair, traced an index finger along an errant tear, then slowly over lips still partially open, gulping in air.
“A good point,” Terence managed in something close to his boardroom voice. “And if you’ll just place your hand . . . there”—he demonstrated—“we’ll try for long and slow and delicious this time.”
“Wasn’t it delicious—”
“It was wild, abandoned, turbulent, tempestuous, and too bloody close to rough. This time . . . this time we’ll savor delicious.”
Her smile of contentment was clearly visible in the warm glow of the oil lanterns. Beth closed her hand over his cock, only to discover his flesh needed no encouragement. The night was young and so were they.
Perhaps the world offered hope, after all.
“My dear,” Tildy declared two weeks later, “I have not seen you so remarkably cheerful in . . . my goodness, in years, I should say. You are positively blooming.”
Beth was unable to hide a blush. It was true, of course. Each time she went to London she and Terence engaged in word games and breathless kisses in her office. Nearly every night they met in their love nest on the river. She knew she was living in a dream but saw no reason for it to turn to nightmare. At this pace they were bound to tire of each other. Surely. In a few months they could go ahead, live their separate lives. She would have these precious moments to warm her into eternity.
Somehow her reasoning, which had once seemed perfectly rational, no longer gleamed with sterling brightness. Yet she was barren . . . and Terence wanted a family. Had to have a family to carry on the business. She had no right . . .
Perhaps Tildy?
Sadly, no. Beth applauded the unlikely romance she saw blooming between her papa and her companion, but Tildy must be closer to fifty than forty. There would be no new additions to the Brockman family.
Nell? Again, no. Beth had harbored illusions of a resurrection of her papa’s romance with Nell for less than twenty-four hours. If there were ever two people less suited to each other, she could not imagine it. Yet she knew Tobias’s interest in Rosamund Rolande had never gone beyond sex. Nell would continue to be herself, the diva who was as famous for her lovers as for her the bravura of her coloratura. Beth would always love her mama for exactly what she was, never trying to mold her into some impossible vision of domestic bliss.
Which left naught but two bastards to carry on the line. One barren, one not of Tobias’s blood.
Once again, she was failing her papa.
How could she be so blissfully happy when the Sword of Damocles hung over their heads?
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but counting the hours until she slipped out through the gardens for stolen moments in Terence’s arms, the bed rocking at a far faster pace than the waves lapping against the hull of their haven from a censorious world.
Chapter Twenty-six
On the River, August 1818
Beth clasped Terence’s hands tight, hung on as if he were her only grip on life itself. Head back, lips parted in exaltation, she searched for the perfect fit, the precise rhythmic pulse to give him as much pleasure as their love-making gave her. How many men, she wondered, allowed their lovers to mount them, to be in charge? And how many suspected their wives would lock them out if they so much as suggested it?
Beth loved it. How careful of her battered feelings Terence must have been to wait six weeks for this particular aspect of love. Or perhaps it had simply been too diffi
cult for the Merchant Prince to relinquish control? To grant his Beth the upper hand. Upper–ah–everything.
Eyes alight with mischief, she ceased her experimental movements, peering down at the beloved face on the pillow. Brilliant blue eyes gleamed, one black brow lifted. “Am I doing it right?” Beth purred.
Terence’s lower lip quirked into a pout as he gave the question serious thought. “Sure and you’re off to a good start,” he conceded, “but you need a good deal of practice to get it right.”
Slipping her fingers from his, Beth leaned forward, laying her palms flat against his chest, her lips hovering over his. “Ah . . . that’s why men do it so often, is it? They’re practicing.”
“Kindly recall that your sweet little bottom is tilted up most invitingly,” Terence warned. “If you don’t continue your practice, I may be tempted to show you a few things you’ll like considerably less.”
Laughing at his narrowed eyes and fierce expression, she brushed her lips against his, licked his lower lip, nipped it lightly before settling back and—
Oh dear God, not now! Great revelations weren’t meant for moments like this. Not right in the midst of—
Horrified, Beth shut her eyes, struggling to ignore a truth so profound it could overwhelm lust.
Her efforts failed.
Whatever made her think an affair of a few weeks could banish a lifetime of love? She adored Terence, required his presence in her life right along with the sun and the moon and the air she breathed. There could never be anyone who could take his place. Terence was her life, she could never let him go. If there were no children of their own, they would find some, as Tobias has found Terence so long ago.
Beth reached for his hands, once again fitting them to hers. Squeezing hard, she scowled at her darling. “Tell me you love me.”
“My God, woman,” he exploded, “how can you doubt it?”
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