by Laura Landon
“Then why?”
They were just two small words, but he’d said them in such a way he’d made their meaning monumental. She started to answer, then closed her mouth. A gentle breeze whipped the ribbons of her bonnet around her face but she didn’t move to hold them down. Nor did she make an attempt to answer his question.
“Why me? I know I wasn’t the first man to have you, but I would wager St. Stephen’s and the land where I intend to put the cattle that I was the second.”
She looked down at his hands gripped tightly around the reins. Those were the hands that had held her and touched her and made all the ugly, painful abuses she’d suffered from another man’s hands vanish.
She slowly lifted her gaze to his face. She wanted to reach out and erase the deep furrows across his forehead. She wanted to whisper gentle shushing sounds to ease his anger and ask him, who else but you? There would never be anyone else.
“Would you at least tell me why?”
She swallowed hard, then lifted her chin and took the biggest chance of her life. She offered him an explanation that exposed every weakness she possessed. “Because I knew I could trust you. I knew you would never hurt me.”
He sucked in a breath so harsh it was as if she’d struck him.
She knew she owed him an explanation but it was so hard to say the words. She’d never said them to anyone. Not even to Lady Clythebrook.
“You’re right. You weren’t the first. The man who took my virginity, took it by force.” She paused. “I never thought I’d ever want to give myself to anyone again. Then you came.”
Josie dropped back against the cushion and clasped her hands in her lap. “If only Lady Clythebrook hadn’t stipulated the time we had to spend together. If only I could have battled you on even terms.”
“What terms would those have been?”
“The children. The orphanage.” She turned toward him. “Charlie. It was easy to keep you at arm’s length as long as I felt I needed to protect Charlie from you. If only you would have remained the villain.”
But I fell in love with you and everything changed.
Josie lifted her gaze and followed a small wren that flew past her and darted to a small copse of trees where it sat on one of the branches. “Everyone knew Carrie Gardner had been your mistress. When Charlie was born a few months after she’d arrived, we knew he was yours. Which made you exactly like the man who’d gotten my mother with child then abandoned her.” She pulled at a string on her worn cloak. “Until I discovered you never knew about Charlie. And that you wanted to be a father to him.”
She followed the wren as it flew from the trees to the roof of Granny’s cottage, then she turned and looked into his eyes. A hooded expression masked whatever he might be thinking.
“And still you tried to keep Charlie from me.”
She nodded. “You were everything I feared. Even your reputation warned me against you.”
“But he was my son.”
She paused as she looked deeper into his eyes. “I couldn’t let that matter. I’m all they have. If I fail them, they have no one else. Can you understand that?”
He took a deep breath and nodded his head as if he understood something that had been a mystery before. “Yes, I can. When did you change your mind about me?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps the first time I saw you with Charlie. Perhaps even before that. When I introduced you to the children and realized you didn’t treat them like I expected you to. Perhaps at Lady Clythebrook’s dinner when you looked into Squire Pearson’s eyes and told him how sorry you were his nephew had died in the war. And you meant it.”
“That’s what made you decide that I would be the one you gave yourself to?”
Josie turned her head away from his penetrating gaze. “No. That just happened.”
“Was there any emotion involved in what you did?”
She turned back. “Emotion? Such as what? Affection? Of course.”
She forced herself not to lower her gaze. “But don’t expect me to say I love you. I learned very little at my mother’s knee, but I did learn one very important lesson. Loving a member of the nobility leads to nothing but disaster and heartache.”
“I see,” he said, sitting taller in the seat. “Never love.”
She saw the stunned expression on his face and knew admitting that she cared for him would be the biggest mistake of her life. “Don’t tell me that’s what you expected from me? Have all the women you’ve met been so enamored of you that they fall at your feet in blind adoration?”
“No, not all. Not even some of those who shared my bed professed to love me. But I always thought I knew the difference.”
Josie watched him lean toward her. Her heart thundered in her ears. She knew he intended to kiss her. He cupped his hand to her cheek and brought his mouth down on hers.
Josie knew it would do no good to deny him. This was a test to which he needed an answer. He wanted to prove to her that what they’d shared had meant more than she would admit. He wanted to prove that what they’d shared had been far more than affection. But she already knew it had.
She just couldn’t allow him to know it.
She remained limp beneath his grasp, her hands lifeless in her lap and her lips unmoving beneath his. Surely he would give up soon and release her? Surely if she didn’t participate she would convince him his kisses meant nothing to her? But he didn’t give up.
His fingers loosened the ribbons that tied her bonnet, then pulled it from her head and dropped it to the carriage floor. When his hand was empty, he skimmed his palm up her arm and over her shoulder, then wrapped his long, capable fingers around her nape and pulled her closer. For a few long, agonizing seconds she held her resolve, even when he held her head so close to him she shared her breaths with him. Her head spun, her heart thundered in her breast. Then it was too late.
He deepened his kiss as if he were starving for the taste of her. His lips moved over hers while his hands caressed her with unbelievable tenderness. And she was lost to him. When his mouth opened atop hers, she followed his lead and accepted his intrusion.
His tongue met hers, touching, then mating in a ritual that sent rational thought spiraling into the wind. Common sense no longer existed within her, only a need that was desperate to be assuaged. Only the pulsing, aching desires he’d awakened the night she’d given herself to him.
His hand covered her breast and she arched into him. He was dangerously close to her and every promise she’d made to remain immune to his touch was suddenly null and void. His other hand held her closer still while he assaulted her with one mind-altering kiss after another.
If making love with him had been the biggest mistake of her life, then giving him her heart had been far worse. But it was too late to change the course she’d taken. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. When she skimmed her fingers over his shoulders, the muscles across his back rippled beneath her fingers and with a moan that matched hers he deepened his kisses.
“I need you,” he said, burying his head in the crook of her neck.
She tried to pretend she didn’t understand what he meant but she did. She knew only too well. Granny’s cottage was only a short distance away and before she could utter a word of protest, the reins were in his hands and the horses were trotting across the meadow.
He stopped the pair in front of the door and jumped to the ground. His hands trembled slightly when he reached out for her. If she were going to stop him, now was the time. All she had to do was stay in the carriage and refuse to go inside. Instead, she stepped into his arms and walked through Granny’s door with him.
The curtains were drawn together and the cottage was shrouded in shadows but he didn’t light a candle. He closed the door behind them and pulled her into his arms. A voice inside her head echoed that she still had time to run from him but the warnings were forgotten the second his mouth came down on hers.
Between kisses they undressed each other, then lay down on the bed
. He kissed her cheeks and her neck, then moved lower to her breasts. His hands caressed her flesh with loving tenderness, burning her skin as he blazed a hundred paths across every inch of her. When he came over her she opened her arms and welcomed him into her body.
They both rode the wild waves of passion and desire and made unfathomable discoveries. With her arms clasped tight around him and her body arched, she shattered into a million pieces. She told herself the tears streaming down her cheeks weren’t tears of sorrow, but tears of joy. Except she knew she’d lost a piece of her heart and she would never be whole again.
“Josie,” he said, rolling off her and bracing himself on one elbow. He stared down at her and brushed one finger over her damp cheek where the tear had made a path.
She turned away from him but he brought her head back with a finger against her jaw.
“Look at me.”
Josie lifted her gaze.
“No regrets. Not ever. Not with what is happening between us.”
More tears swam in her eyes, his face a watery outline that had no form.
“You were right the first time you gave yourself to me. You can always trust me not to hurt you. Just as you can trust me to protect you.”
She wanted to look at him but couldn’t. She focused on a spot beyond his shoulder instead.
“Did Lindville strike you?”
She made a move to slide away from him but he wouldn’t let her.
“Look at me.”
She didn’t want to meet his gaze but the tone of his voice gave her little choice. Even through the softness there was a low rumble that resembled an angry growl.
“What possible reason could he have had to strike you?”
His eyes were intense as they looked at her, then blackened with fury as if a thought just occurred to him.
“Did it have something to do with the land? Did he threaten you to stop me from going forward with the plan to bring in cattle?”
She knew the moment he realized that’s what had happened. The shocked expression on his face was openly hostile. She wasn’t going to say anything but couldn’t keep from voicing her accusation. “Did you just realize that someone other than yourself could be affected by what you intended to do?”
His scowl darkened. “Stay away from him, Josie. He’s connected with the smuggling. I can’t prove it yet, but when I can, he’ll pay for his crime at the end of a rope. And so will everyone else who’s involved.”
She couldn’t breathe. She had to make sure the man lying next to her never found out she’d been one of the band of smugglers.
She took several slow breaths, having already decided what she had to do. She knew with unerring certainty that there would never be another shipment of smuggled goods. Just as she knew this would be the last time she gave herself to him.
She turned her head and met his gaze squarely. “What happened to me is not important. Even what we just shared is of little consequence in the grand scheme of things.”
“How can you say that?”
“Easily. You are still the Marquess of Rainforth and I am my mother’s daughter. Nothing will ever change that.”
“And if who you are doesn’t matter to me?”
“Then you are lying to yourself.”
Neither of them said anything for quite a while, she, because any other words would only prove how much she wanted such an admission to be wrong. He, because her answer had closed the door with such finality there was no room to maneuver closer.
He would always be the Marquess of Rainforth.
…
The bastard had hit her.
In all the scenarios Ross had let play out in his mind, not once had he thought anyone else might be in danger because of his plan to bring in cattle. The mark on Josephine Foley’s face told him how wrong he’d been.
Was this why she’d been so opposed to his plan from the start? Had she been threatened from the beginning, and if she had, what leverage had been used? Lady Clythebrook’s safety? The children’s?
The stark look on her face when he took her home flashed through his mind. The afternoon still had an hour or more before dusk came, but when he walked her to the door and watched her go inside, the darkness that consumed his soul made him feel as if the sun had already faded from the sky.
“Don’t expect me to say I love you… You are still the Marquess of Rainforth and I am my mother’s daughter.”
Her words pressed against him with the aching finality of a death knell.
Ross pushed the team toward home. What difference did it make if he were a marquess and she her mother’s daughter? He’d learned long ago that members of Society were the only ones to whom it mattered. He’d also found out how quickly and easily one could fall from their good graces and how difficult it was to make amends. If it were not for his son, he wouldn’t be making the effort now to redeem the Bennett name, and the Rainforth legacy. For himself he didn’t care. Whether or not Society approved of the woman he loved mattered even less.
Ross pulled the team to a halt in front of his home and jumped from the carriage more determined than ever of the need to convince Josie that her fears were unfounded. He handed the reins to a groomsman and covered the distance to the door in long anxious strides. The door opened before he reached for the knob and Benedict stood in the entryway, ready to take Ross’s hat and gloves.
“There’s a gentleman to see you, sir. He says it’s important. I showed him to the library.”
“Thank you, Benedict.”
Ross went down the hall to the library and opened the door. The man had been seated in a chair and stood when Ross entered.
“Lord Rainforth?”
Ross nodded.
“Lieutenant Joshua Honeywell, sir. Major Bennett sent me. I’m to give you this.”
The man held out an envelope and Ross took it. “Are you to wait for a reply?”
“No, sir. I’ll be returning to London right away.”
“You’ll eat something first,” Ross said, calling for Benedict to show the man to the kitchen.
When he was alone, Ross sat down at his desk and broke the seal. The letter was from Sam and identified by the crest he always used.
Ross tore open the envelope and scanned the writing. It was in the code Sam had created when they were young. The same code his father had used to sell military secrets to the Russians. Ross ignored the chill that shivered through him and took out a pen and paper to decipher the message. A few minutes later he put his pen down on the desk and read the message again. An unidentified source had informed them that a shipment of opium was due in London in three days’ time, which meant it would arrive here any day. Sam and McCormick would leave as soon as they could make the necessary arrangements and should be here sometime tomorrow, which was Wednesday. In the meantime, they wanted Ross to keep a close watch on the cove and report anything that seemed suspicious.
Ross locked the message away in a drawer in his desk and sat down before the blazing fire.
The time had finally come—his chance to make up for all his father had done. His chance to redeem his name so he and his son could walk amongst the nobility of London with their heads high.
And nothing would stop him.
Jaded Moon
by Laura Landon
Ransomed Jewels Series Book Two
CHAPTER 18
Josie stared at the message in her hands. It arrived as they all did—by special messenger. It was written on the same paper as usual—rough, inexpensive parchment, and penned in Captain Levy’s familiar hand—bold and difficult to decipher. The arrival of the letter had always filled her with a new sense of anticipation. An excitement at knowing that for a while longer the children would not go without.
This time reading the instructions made her stomach turn. This time she knew there wouldn’t just be supplies for the people of Clytheborough, but a shipment of opium that would leave here and go to London where the deadly drug would destroy more innocent lives. Her b
lood ran cold.
She’d thought of little else since Rainforth had told her someone was smuggling opium. The decision of what to do had been easy. How to accomplish it was another matter. She finally had the answer.
She read the message again. She’d been expecting the shipment, so the instructions weren’t a surprise. Only this time there’d been a change of plans. The shipment wouldn’t be arriving on a Thursday night as it usually did, but tomorrow night—Wednesday. The change would actually work to her advantage.
She sat down behind the desk and pulled out a clean sheet of paper. She needed to put her plan in motion. There was a certain amount of risk involved, but if everything went the way it should, this would be the last shipment to come in and no one would be the wiser.
She’d only met Captain Levy once, but she’d gathered from that first meeting that he wasn’t the kind of person to take unnecessary chances. Nor would he willingly risk his ship and his crew if he thought there was the possibility they would all be arrested and hanged. She was counting on that. If she was wrong, she would fail and she’d have to face a short future at the end of a rope.
Josie read the message from Captain Levy once more to make certain of the Wednesday delivery, then dipped her pen into the ink well and wrote a note she would send to Lindville in the morning. The message contained only two words, but he would know what they meant.
THURSDAY – MIDNIGHT
She folded Lindville’s message and tucked it into her skirt pocket, then threw the original message in the grate and watched it burn. She didn’t want there to be any evidence left behind to prove what she’d done. She stopped short at the knock on the door and stepped away from the tell-tale ashes. The door opened and Jenny peeked her head around the corner.
“Lord Rainforth is here. He says he’d like to see you.”
A slight hitch caught in her chest and she looked out the window. It was nearly dark outside. “Send him in, Jenny.”
“Will you want anything else, Miss Josie?”
“No. I’m almost ready to leave. I doubt Lord Rainforth will be here long.”
