Wild Lavender

by Lynne Connolly

  “Yes.”

  The general was certainly good at keeping his business to himself. “Then if you may contrive to leave a particular ship unattended at, say, midnight, I can achieve that for you.”

  “Why would you do this?” The general stamped his feet, even though the evening was not particularly chilly.

  Tom just stared at him.

  The military man shrugged. “Very well. Yes, if you tell me the name of the vessel.”

  Tom waited until two gaudily dressed ladies had walked past. The task took them some time, because they paused to ensure the gentlemen were not interested—absolutely, positively not interested. Until the general swore at them and threatened to escort them personally to Bow Street, which was not far away at all they showed every inclination to linger.

  “The ship is the Timor. One of mine.” Tom had a few other errands he could accomplish at the same time. He would hardly get paid for transporting the prince, so he needed to make the journey pay. A few barrels of brandy would do the trick. If the ship was impounded, Tom would know not to trust the general again. In the usual way of things, Tom did not allow his ships to engage in smuggling contraband. Considering who he was, the risk was too great. But not tonight. He had tacit permission to go ahead.

  He walked away without thanking the man. He would thank him in good French spirits and ensure a cask of brandy found its way to his door.

  Chapter 5

  Tom was waiting for her when she came to the house. She was on time, which surprised and delighted him. He let her open the door and come in before he snatched her close. After an initial gasp, she chuckled into his chest.

  Drawing away enough to see her face, he raised a brow. “And what, madam, is so amusing?”

  “You are. You did what I wanted to, but I would never have done it if you hadn’t led the way.” She glanced around. “This is a small house.”

  “It is. And a family of six plus servants all led a comfortable existence here before they left for pastures new.” He followed her gaze to a row of prints depicting the king and his ministers. He grimaced. “I had no time to redecorate.”

  “They left everything?”

  “Not quite everything. They took their personal belongings. I gave them a good price for the rest.” They had taken rather more than they were entitled to, but they’d left most of the furniture. The house was stripped of ornaments, paintings, rugs, and all but the most basic china and kitchen utensils. Not that Tom cared. The prince had disdained to stay here, but Tom had a use for it. “This is our house now.”

  The notion thrilled him. On a day when all he wanted to do was hold her and soothe his exhausted spirit, he was surprised at how easily his body responded to her. “Should we retire to the parlor and discuss politics over tea, like civilized people?”

  “No.” She bit her lip, so he kissed it, persuading her not to abuse that lovely morsel. “I want—”

  “What do you want, sweetheart?”

  “Madness. I want madness.” She lowered her face, and he let her, knowing shyness swamped her. “I want to touch you. I wanted it before, in the pavilion, and at the ball. We have only met twice. I should not want this.”

  “Plenty of time for lust to take hold.” He’d had women within an hour of meeting them, and he rarely had to pay. “But I will not dishonor you. Don’t ask it of me.” He knew how far he would take her. His Helena was all fire and spirit, and he would have a hard time keeping to his resolve.

  “It depends what you call dishonor. Is there a bed in this house?”

  Holding her so tightly, he could not miss the increased beat of her heart. It pounded in her chest like a bird fighting to leave a cage. “Sweetheart, you cannot mean it.” He had anticipated private conversation and kisses, no more.

  “I do. Who knows how long we’ll have? Today, I have two hours. Madame is at this moment discussing the possibility of altering some of my existing gowns with me. Madame plied my maid with so much good wine she has fallen asleep. She snores, my maid. I want this, Tom. So much I can hardly think for it.”

  She had described his situation exactly, although half an hour ago he was prepared to kiss her and then call a hackney to take her back to the mantua-makers’. “You should not tease me so. A man can take only so much.”

  “I want to feel your skin against mine.” Roughly, she pulled at her delicate kid gloves. She’d tear them into shreds if she carried on that way.

  He stilled her hands by clamping them together and then enclosing them with his. She looked up.

  “I want the same. But I meant what I said. I will not dishonor you, or take what is not mine.” He would keep to that resolve if it killed him.

  The trusting expression in her eyes killed him already. He would not let her down, he would not take her honor, even if she offered it. The exhaustion of staying up all night melted away as if it had never existed.

  Taking her hand, he led her up the first flight of narrow stairs, the worn wooden treads creaking under their feet, to the floor that held the main receptions rooms, and stopped. He turned to her and took her hands. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded, her cheeks flushed, her mouth full.

  Tom groaned. “You’ll be the death of me.” They ascended another flight of stairs to the next floor. Opening the nearest door, he led her into the bedroom.

  Gauzy drapes at the window shielded them from view but gave enough light. Heavy velvet curtains were held back by faded worn cords. The bed was modest by their standards, but it filled most of the room, an old-fashioned four-poster with green silk hangings shredding with age and use. But the sheets were new, crisp and clean, and the bed cover was new too, a dark green that he considered, when he’d bought it, would be adequate for royalty.

  It would never see royalty. “Let’s pretend we’ve just come from church,” he said. “We married at nine, and we have come back from a modest celebration at a nearby inn with our closest friends and colleagues. We’re Mr. and Mrs. Fisher, moderately well-off silk merchants, and we are in love.”

  Her expression relaxed. “Yes. I’d love to be Mrs. Fisher.”

  They could say no more, but he wanted to tell her so much. Three days? Three years, thirty years, it didn’t matter. He would not change his mind. Every time he met her the certainty hammered itself home. And now they were here at last, in the bedroom they would share as Mr. and Mrs. Fisher.

  There might be a way they could do this.

  His heart in his throat, he turned to her and curved his hands around her upper arms. She was so delicate, and yet great strength lived in her. She would not bow to pressure. “Are you sure? We could wait.”

  “What for?”

  Not yet. He couldn’t tell her yet. She might bolt. He longed for this taste of her, to make her his as much as possible. No, that was wrong. His mind churned with possibilities and the one clear fact that would not move. Nor did he want it to. “Do you know how lovely you are?”

  Lifting his hand, he gently loosed the first of her hairpins. She’d worn her glorious hair in a light style today, topped by a pretty confection of lace which the fashionable laughingly called a cap. She might have dressed plainly, but she had not dressed cheaply.

  “What are you smiling at?”

  “You’re going to cost me a fortune in lace, Mrs. Fisher.”

  “I will do my best to economize, sir,” she replied in the prim tone of a good wife.

  He laughed, surprising himself. He’d been deeply unhappy when he arrived here, but she had changed all that. He continued to work on her hair, carefully laying the lace and pins on the small dressing table that stood by the window. “You probably have a much larger one in your room at home. But this will suffice, will it not?”

  She gave the piece of furniture a glance before she turned her smiling face back to his. “Indeed. And I have a great deal more pots and powders, which I rarely use and my mother frequently replenishes. The night of the ball, her maid tric
ked me out like a doll, but I scrubbed it off.”

  “I’m glad you did, but if you think that would have deterred me, you are mightily mistaken, madam.”

  Her laugh enchanted him, but then everything about her did that. He shrugged off his coat and tossed it over the chair by the narrow window. Outside, carts and carriages rattled past, and a church bell rang, a reminder of life going on, but here, the sound was hushed.

  When she put her hands to her bodice, he moved them away and laid them on his waistcoat. “I need your hands on me. Touch me, Helena.”

  He shuddered when she unfastened the first of the buttons, but roused enough to unhook her bodice. Six hooks and eyes led him to paradise. The gown fell apart, revealing her pretty stays, thin red-striped silk sewn into the myriad tucks and bones that a woman had to endure. Not for much longer, if he had anything to do with it.

  While he undressed her, he kept careful watch on her face. When she was down to stays and shift, he stopped. He had shed everything but his shirt and underwear, so that would suffice him. Disappointment edged his joy in having her to himself for two whole hours. “We don’t need to go any further, if you wish. Lie with me.”

  Her answer was to turn around. “I can’t lie down comfortably in my stays.”

  More practiced than he cared to admit at the moment, he unlaced the garment and eased it off her. She slipped the straps down and let it fall away. Her knee-length fine lawn shift hid little, and he took a moment to admire the sweet curve of her bottom and the glorious dip above. “You’re divine,” he murmured. “Come, sweetheart.”

  He guided her to the bed and turned the covers down for her. The view as she climbed in nearly undid him, as her flesh glowed through the fine white of her shift. Her garters peeked cheerfully at him as he joined her. When he held out his arms, she snuggled into them, and he could kiss her. Deeply and sweetly, reminding them both of the pleasure they found together.

  “You taste like no one else,” he murmured as he gently lifted his head away from her. He rose on one elbow, the better to look at her. The darker pink of her nipples marked the fine cloth, their peaks creating puckers of fabric.

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said, mouth pursed. “I don’t want you kissing anybody else.”

  “I will not. I swear.” That would not be difficult to fulfill.

  “Do you have a mistress?” Her look of anxiety nearly killed him.

  He kissed the fine lines between her brows. “No.”

  “Do I count?”

  “No. You are not my mistress, nor will you ever be. I shall never have another while I am with you.”

  “You promise?”

  She must be mad if she thought he’d want anyone else. Seeing her here, lying next to him, her shining hair spread over the pillow, he could not imagine anything more perfect.

  Well, perhaps one thing. She should have his ring on her finger.

  He pushed the thought away. Bending, he kissed her, keeping the caress gentle, loving the sensation of his body against hers. He leaned back and took her free hand, pressing their palms together and keeping his fingers straight. He kept her gaze while he spoke. “I swear that I will never use what we have here for any other purpose. I will tell nobody and I will not embarrass or constrain you outside these walls.”

  She gave a slight nod, but didn’t look away. “I swear to do the same.” Her mouth relaxed into a smile. “I don’t want to tell anyone. It might break the spell.”

  “I fear it’s a spell akin to madness,” he said, “but it’s our madness. There are any number of reasons why we should not be here, should not even consider what we do, and only one good reason for doing it.”

  “That overpowers everything else.” Her voice shivered in the quiet space. “Because we cannot stop. If we did, we would be committing the greatest of sins.”

  He folded his fingers, threading them between hers. “That is the reason.” He bent, but before he kissed her again, he murmured the word against her mouth. “Love.”

  This time he deepened the kiss. Tutored by him, she opened her mouth slowly and accepted his tongue, sucking on it slightly. Freeing his hand from hers, he slid it around her waist. A rush of sensation forced his shaft into hard, aching need. He’d considered it primed and ready before, but now he was on the edge of pain. Her skin was soft, and as he slowly slid his hand up to her breasts, the heat of her body increased.

  She arched into his hand when he covered her breast, her nipple pressing into his palm, a sublime invitation to carry on. She curled her hand around his neck and tickled his nape in the way he had come to love, and he groaned into her mouth.

  The sheets rustled as he moved, rolling over her, careful not to give her his full weight, holding himself steady on knees and elbows.

  Helena shoved his shoulders. Immediately he broke the kiss and moved away, but she grasped his waist, holding him in place.

  When he quirked a brow, she said, “Naked. We should be naked.”

  “My dearest one, are you sure?” The suggestion sent him into a fever of imagining, but the control he would have to use—it would be worth it.

  She nodded.

  He rolled off her enough so they could he could tug the linen up her body. She sat up and held up her arms so he could draw it off and away. He let it fall where it would, never taking his eyes off the bounty before him.

  Her breasts were soft cushions of elegance tipped with deliciously uptilted rose-pink nipples. Her neat waist framed a gently rounded belly and hips designed for his hands, her thighs luscious invitations to sin. The hair covering her most intimate parts was silvery, with a little more gold in it than the hair on her head. Unusual and utterly enchanting. He covered it with his hand. “Mine,” he said, because he had to.

  She gasped. “Yours,” she agreed. Her glance clearly told him that it was his turn to disrobe.

  She pulled the knot of her garters undone while he unfastened the buttons at his cuff and the one at his neck so he could pull his shirt over his head and toss it aside. Then he rid himself of his drawers. Sitting back on his haunches, he let her look.

  Her lovely blue eyes went wide and she swallowed.

  “It’s still me,” he said helpfully.

  “It’s more of you, though,” she answered, her gaze roaming over him from his neck to his knees and everything in between. “All of you.”

  ”All of me,” he agreed, smiling. “And I see all of you.”

  She nodded and reached for him but then snatched her hands back.

  He caught them and drew her closer, pressing her hands on his chest. “Touch me,” he said. “Please.” He would die if she didn’t.

  Her smile returned. “Warm and hard and strong.” She ran her hands down his chest, as far as his navel, and stopped.

  “It’s all me. All yours.”

  “While we’re here.”

  “Forever,” he said, and meant it.

  But she only smiled, and continued her tactile exploration. To his disappointment she reversed direction, smoothing her hands up to his chest again and touching his nipples. “Why do men have nipples? They can’t feed babies.”

  Gasping, he managed, “So that women can touch them.”

  “It’s hard.” She wasn’t referring to his nipples. Her gaze was elsewhere.

  His shaft was straining to get to work, the end shiny, the tiny opening emitting a bead of clear liquid.

  “It is. It wants you.”

  “Then it must have what it wants.” Drawing closer, she made to straddle his thighs, but he stopped her, his hands on her waist.

  “No, not yet.” Not yet meant no, although she could not know that. If she did, she would make him do it. He knew her that well, at least. “Come here. I want your skin against mine. I’ve dreamed of this. The first time I saw you, I wanted to touch you, to have you touch me.”

  “Yes.”

  The need in her eyes was echoed in his body. He urged her back down agai
nst the sheets so she was lying on her back. He could control their lovemaking that way, make sure they didn’t pass what he’d deemed acceptable. But this he could take. He climbed over her, tucking his erection against her stomach, pressing into her soft flesh. He moved from side to side, groaning when her heat made his shaft as close to unbearable as he could ever remember. But the torture was so sweet. He never wanted it to end.

  He claimed a kiss. It felt like their first, but better, because he knew her taste and what she liked. Dotting small kisses around her lips, and then to her ear, he savored the different tastes and textures. Her skin was warm silk, her arms welcome bonds he never wanted release from.

  She watched as he kissed her throat, and then down to her breasts. He knew because he checked often, needing to be sure she was enjoying this—enjoying him.

  She wound her hands into his hair, what there was of it, for he kept it cropped short. “It’s almost black,” she said, “but there are glints of red in it.”

  “So there are.” That was right; she’d never seen him without the trappings of his rank, the wig, the fine clothes, the arrogant manner. He was naked, completely stripped, exposing himself to her. He would allow nothing to come between them. Nothing, he thought savagely as the memory of all that did lie between them hit him again. He shoved it aside. It didn’t matter here. Nothing but Helena and Tom and lovemaking.

  He was dark, his hair, the hair on his chest and at his groin. She was fair, an angel to his devil. But he would have her and he would keep her.

  She shivered when he kissed her nipple. “You taste wonderful,” he told her, and sucked. She cried out, but not in pain, even though he gave her a playful nip before he moved to the other peak of perfection. “I have never known anything so soft.” He had not imagined living tissue could be so silky, but with a firmness that invited him to taste even more.

  Farther down he encountered her navel. “I want to taste every part of you, learn how different you are.”