“What about this?” he bit out, still not glancing at her.
“I think…” She paused, and he felt her take the garment from his hands. “I think if I’m not to shock the servants, I might need something a little more substantial.”
He sucked in a deep breath and blinked to clear the haze from his eyes. Carefully he turned. She stood watching him with a complex mixture of hunger and trepidation. The boot had toppled over and lay on the floor near the trunk. She clutched a filmy chemise in front of her.
God give him strength. He refused to picture that sheer scrap of cream silk clinging to Sarah’s lissome body. He straight-out refused.
Gideon gritted his teeth until his jaw ached and tried to quash the bawdy images filling his mind. His face itched as hot color rose in an unstoppable tide. He was acting like a damned fool.
Her voice had been light, amused. Perhaps she hadn’t noticed his turmoil. Then he looked into her eyes and read secret knowledge in the hazel depths. She sensed he responded to her as a man responded to a woman. It frightened her—fear lurked in her gaze too—but not enough to send her fleeing back downstairs.
“Your pardon.” His voice sounded rusty. “I meant to give you this.”
Clumsily, he handed her the muslin. She ventured closer to drop the chemise back into the trunk, then she studied the dress.
“What do you think?” She held it up for his consideration.
Good Lord, she couldn’t torment him deliberately, could she? She looked so utterly innocent and unconcerned. Which, now his brain returned to something approximating working order, struck him as cursed suspicious.
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” he said in a clipped tone. “Will it fit you?”
“It looks like it might. The shoes didn’t. Your mother had much daintier feet than I.” She lifted her skirt a few inches and circled her bare foot in demonstration.
The witch! She tortured him for her own amusement. If he could bear to touch her, he’d bloody well strangle her.
If he could bear to touch her, he wouldn’t strangle her. He’d ravish her within an inch of her life.
It suddenly struck him, as it should have struck him long before, that being up here alone with Sarah was a very bad idea indeed. He’d thought to find her a couple of things to wear and escape with no consequences. That now seemed an absurdly optimistic plan.
Hell, he had to get out of here. Now.
The attics had appeared so spacious when he first set foot in them. Now they felt oppressive, crowded, closing in on him.
When all the time he knew what closed in on him was insatiable desire.
He stumbled to his feet with clumsy haste. Tension formed a painful line across his shoulders. “Everything you need is in this trunk. I’ll get the servants to bring it to your room.”
She flinched at his tone, then leaned near to replace the items they’d removed. Near enough for her skirts to brush his legs with a subtle sensual whisper. Sarah’s warm, womanly scent momentarily submerged his mother’s rose perfume.
In spite of his best intentions, he closed his eyes and inhaled. It was the fragrance of paradise. And he, poor sinner, was locked in perpetual agony outside the gates.
He shouldn’t have hesitated. He should have made a run for it while he could. Blast her, he shouldn’t have come up here in the first place. Mrs. Pollett could just as easily have shown her the trunks.
When he opened his eyes, she stood before him, her face uplifted, her lips parted, her arms outstretched. Her face was stark with need and vulnerability and a desperate, hard-won courage.
He couldn’t mistake what she wanted.
Even that recognition didn’t shift him. Every limb was heavy as lead. Denial jammed in his throat and emerged as a groan. He staggered back, but she’d already begun her forward momentum.
He twisted awkwardly to evade her but she grabbed his arms. Her fingers curled into his flesh in inescapable talons. Blind horror held him paralyzed.
“Gideon, please,” she said in a broken voice that made his gut cramp with guilt and sinful longing.
Her slim, tender body slammed into his. Her slender arms, surprisingly strong, wrapped around his neck. Her heady scent rocked his brain, scattering rational thought.
Shaking, he clutched her waist, crazy with the need to push her off him. But his will failed at the final moment.
She tensed as she stretched up. The damp, seeking heat of her mouth pressed against his.
He stood motionless under her clumsy, passionate assault. Fiery pleasure streaked through him like summer lightning. Automatically his hands tightened around her waist, and he tugged her closer.
For one blazing second, he lost himself in the sizzling kiss. Darkness. Pleasure. Sweetness. Heat.
His blood pumped, his skin burned. His mouth moved in cautious answer to her furious, unpracticed ardor. He couldn’t mistake her inexperience, or her passion. He guessed she had no idea what she invited when she launched herself at him.
If he’d been a normal man.
Although right now, he damn well felt like a normal man. He felt like a man overcome with lust. A man who kissed the woman he wanted more than his life.
Clamoring questions exploded in his mind. Had a miracle occurred? Had incendiary desire at last vanquished the ghosts of Rangapindhi?
His starved senses filled with the glory of her. The clinging pressure of her grip around his neck. Her soft breasts crushed to his chest. The carnation scent. The taste of her mouth. Fresh like the sea. Hot like fire.
The warmth was delicious. Astonishing.
He moved his lips in a more purposeful response. A shudder of excitement rippled through her, and she pressed closer. He surrendered to overwhelming pleasure.
It was too late.
Savage, rending wraiths clawed to the surface. The firm youthful flesh under his palms turned cold and slimy. The lush mouth pressed against his stretched into a rictus grin. The sweet scents of flowers and the sea drowned in stinking decay.
Frantically, he fought the suffocating blackness. Don’t let this happen now. Dear God, not now. Not when he had her in his arms at last.
His muscles spasmed into pain. The nightmare images stole awareness. He wrenched his mouth from hers. He shook like a rabid dog. “Let me go,” he choked out.
She didn’t seem to hear. Instead, she moved closer.
He couldn’t endure this. He had to stop it.
“Damn it, I said let me go,” he snarled. With unsteady hands, he ruthlessly dragged her arms from around his neck.
She resisted, though it must hurt her. “No. Please, Gideon, no.”
His voice broke with desperation. “For God’s sake, Sarah, leave me be!”
Through the devils screeching in his head, he felt her sudden stillness. She pulled back far enough for him to catch the bright agony in her eyes. And the gradually dawning realization that he was in earnest.
Still, she didn’t release him.
With sudden roughness, he heaved her out of his way and headed for the stairs. He needed air. He needed solitude. His gut heaved with acrid nausea. His hands shook so badly, he couldn’t trust himself to pick up the candles.
“Wait.”
He tried to ignore her ragged plea. Every particle of his being craved escape.
“Please don’t go like this.” Through the buzzing in his ears, he heard her rush after him. Against his will he stopped, hunching his shoulders against her.
“Never do that again.” His voice was hoarse and raw. His fists opened and closed in an idiot rhythm at his sides.
“I don’t understand.”
The bewildered despair in her words harrowed his heart. He wounded her and he regretted it to the base of his soul.
Oh, Sarah, Sarah, what have you done with your recklessness?
“I know you don’t.” He still couldn’t bear to look at her. He could hardly bear to breathe the same air. “I don’t either, not really.”
He ached all over
as if he had a fever. Only the last remnants of stubborn Trevithick pride kept him upright. At least now she didn’t touch him, he gained some control over his nausea. It would be the ultimate defeat if he lost his breakfast in front of her.
“Is it me?” Her voice shook with anguish. “You keep saying it’s not.”
He wished to heaven she were another woman, one who would blush and scuttle away to hide her humiliation. But another woman wouldn’t set herself so impulsively after what she wanted.
However misguided that wanting was.
“No,” he forced out. His blood pounded like heavy surf after a wild storm, blocking out everything else.
Except Sarah.
He was agonizingly conscious of her standing behind him. Of every jagged breath she drew. Of how close she was to tears.
“I don’t believe you. I disgust you.”
“No!” Turning his head in her direction was harder than turning back the tide.
For the first time, he saw her clearly. She was haggard, and silent tears ran down her white cheeks. The trails shimmered in the uncertain gold light.
He wanted to say so much, tell her everything. Explain, excuse, soothe, comfort.
None of it would do any good. None of it would change him into a man worthy to call her his.
So he said again the only thing he could. “No.”
“Then why…” She made a helpless gesture with one trembling hand.
“Sarah…”
The thunder in his ears became louder. He closed his eyes and prayed he’d dredge up the right words. Though he knew there were no right words to be found.
Then he realized the thunder wasn’t entirely in his imagination. Someone clattered up the stairs to the attic. Someone heavy and wearing boots.
“Sir Gideon!”
“Tulliver?” The intrusion came from another world.
The usually impassive Tulliver reached the top of the staircase and stood panting. “Strangers riding up the drive. The local magistrate is with them.”
Nine
What the devil happened to the men watching the road?” Gideon snapped.
Charis flinched at Gideon’s anger, then realized just what Tulliver said. Terror locked every muscle. Her stepbrothers had found her. Because who else would visit Penrhyn with an officer of the law? She braced herself to run. But where could she go?
Dear Lord, could this vile day get any worse? In her belly, fear, humiliation, and, to her disgust, frustrated desire stewed in a bilious mixture. Despair, heavy, draining, black and thick as tar, leaked into her soul.
“They came to warn us quick smart enough.” She knew Tulliver noted her tears but with his usual consideration, after the first glance, he kept his attention on Gideon. “But nobody could find you or the lass. We searched high and low to no avail.”
“Hell,” Gideon breathed. “I’m sorry, Tulliver. I should have told someone where I was. This disaster is my blasted fault.”
“What do you want to do?” Tulliver was back to sounding his imperturbable self.
Gideon straightened and sent his henchman a flashing grin that reminded Charis of Black Jack. Just thus must the reckless privateer have faced down the Spanish galleon that carried his destiny. The shaking, distraught man of seconds ago might never have existed.
Black Jack had prevailed. So would Gideon.
Courage leached back, stiffening her backbone. Gideon might reject her, but her faith in him remained unshaken. He was her Percival, her Galahad, her Lancelot. From the first moment she’d seen him, he’d been her bulwark. After all they’d been through, he wouldn’t let her fall into her stepbrothers’ hands.
“Why, I’ll greet them like the gentlemen they are.”
He turned to Charis, and she couldn’t mistake the searching inspection he gave her. As if checking whether her mettle was up to this.
She raised her chin and sent him a straight look. She was mortally afraid, but she refused to succumb to fear. “That means tossing them in the cesspit.”
Gideon gave a curiously lighthearted laugh. She could only interpret the spark in his dark eyes as admiration. “That’s my girl.”
He waited for her to put her shoe on, then blew out the candles and gestured her toward the steps. It cut her to the bone that he still couldn’t bear to lay a hand on her. After her antics today, he’d probably never touch her again.
Oh, Charis, you’ve got more important things to worry about right now than the fact you made a fool of yourself.
Gideon collected the lantern and followed her down to the gallery. He pressed an unremarkable plaster molding near the fireplace.
“Heavens,” Charis breathed, as a secret latch clicked and what looked like an innocent section of paneling turned out to be a door. “A priest’s hole.”
“A smuggler’s stash, more like. If you stay quietly here, nobody will find you.” His voice dropped. “I give you my word I’ll keep you safe. Trust me.”
She looked into his eyes. The pain and confusion and anger that had gripped him upstairs had vanished. Instead, he looked calm and determined and, most reassuring of all, completely confident.
“I trust you.” She meant it from the depths of her soul. Odd to think she trusted him more than she’d trusted anyone since her father’s death. Even after the way he’d recoiled from her kiss.
“Good.” He gave her the lantern and watched her step into the recess. Except it wasn’t a recess at all but a landing off steps leading downward.
The door closed behind her. For a moment, stark, illogical terror gripped her. What if something happened to Gideon and Tulliver and nobody knew she was here? What if she ended up trapped behind this wall forever?
A soft knock on the panel interrupted her flight into panic. “Are you all right?”
Just the sound of Gideon’s deep voice calmed her galloping heart. She was a hopeless case to be so in love with a man who couldn’t bear her merest touch. How she wished she could help what she felt, but she’d been utterly lost from the moment he’d rescued her in Winchester.
“Yes.”
“You can listen to what happens in the drawing room if you go down a level. If you want to get out, the passage leads to a cave on the beach.”
‘Thank you.” She didn’t mean just for his reassuring information.
“It’s nothing,” he said, dismissing her gratitude as he always did.
She heard his boots click on the parquetry floor as he retreated. Then a more ominous sound. The great iron knocker on the oak front door pounded once, twice.
“Shall I send the bastards on their way?” Tulliver cracked his knuckles.
Gideon laughed softly. “No. Let’s play these hyenas the civilized way. At least at first. Show them into the drawing room and say I’ll be there presently.”
“What are your plans? The lass is safe enough where she is.”
“I think it’s about time I got some benefit from being the bloody Hero of Rangapindhi.”
Tulliver’s eyes glinted with his rare humor. “Aye, guvnor. It is about time and all.”
Downstairs, Mrs. Pollett opened the door. Gideon didn’t wait to watch her greet the arrivals but scaled the steps to his bedroom two at a time. In his heart, savage satisfaction beat like a drum.
At last his enemies would have faces. Sarah’s stepbrothers were foes he could fight and defeat. After that vile debacle in the attics, he welcomed an unambiguous purpose. The kiss changed everything between him and Sarah, yet it changed nothing. He grimly recognized that stark reality, yet still the physical aftermath lingered to torment him. His lips tingled, his skin itched, his gut cramped. And rapacious desire was a roiling eddy in his blood.
He left his unwelcome guests cooling their heels long enough to put them on edge. He had no fears they’d take it into their heads to search for Sarah on their own. Tulliver guarded the door from the hallway. So Gideon’s insouciant air as he sauntered into the drawing room twenty minutes later wasn’t entirely pretense. Sir John Hol
land, the local magistrate, turned to greet him with barely concealed relief.
“Sir John, pleased to see you.” Gideon stepped forward and forced himself to accept the middle-aged fellow’s brief handshake. His flesh crawled at the contact but with an effort, he concealed the reaction.
Sir John looked irritated but not overly worried, which meant this visit was more reconnoiter than hostile raid. “Sir Gideon. I haven’t seen you since you were a stripling. Now you’ve set the world on its ear, begad. You must come to dinner and tell Lady Susan and me all about your adventures.” He suddenly sobered. “Sorry to hear about your pater and Sir Harold, of course. Mustn’t forget the sad circumstances that brought you back to us.”
“Sir John, is this a social call?” The game commenced. Gideon intended to reveal nothing he didn’t have to.
The man straightened and cast an annoyed glance at his two companions. “Not entirely, although been meaning to pay my respects.”
There was an awkward pause. In his best rake-of-the-ton manner, Gideon arched his eyebrows at the two strangers, who stood in silent menace behind Sir John.
Of course, he’d studied them from the moment he’d entered the room. Just as they’d studied him.
He noted their surprise at his elegance. Thank God for the London tailors he’d patronized upon his return from Rangapindhi. He wanted these wretches to realize they dealt with a man of standing.
Sir John cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Sir Gideon Trevithick, may I present Hubert Farrell, Lord Burkett, and his brother, Lord Felix Farrell?”
Lord Burkett? Good God, the older brother was a bloody marquess. Sarah had kept that salient piece of information to herself.
Gideon had known a large amount of money was in question, and he’d guessed she must come from the gentry at the very least. Until now, he hadn’t realized he tangled with the aristocracy’s upper echelons.
“Delighted, I’m sure, “Gideon said with deliberate boredom, returning the Farrells’ chilly bows with a dismissive bow of his own.
Lord Burkett was in his late twenties, large, powerful, brutish, although already his heavily muscled frame turned to fat. Gideon bit back his sick fury as he pictured those thick hands pummeling Sarah’s tender flesh. Lord Felix, younger by a year or two, was slight, fair, and handsome. Burkett looked confused. Felix looked suspicious. Even on such short acquaintance, Gideon recognized Lord Felix as the more dangerous of the two.
Captive of Sin Page 14
