Henry grinned. “Have another sip. It’ll help.”
Even as she held the back of her hand to her lips, a look of distaste darkening her features, she did as he bid her.
“You’re getting better at it,” he said, taking the flask she held out to him. “You didn’t spit half of it out this time.”
Caroline let out a sputtering sigh. “You forget William Townshend is my brother. Debauchery runs in my family. It’s only a matter of time before I can drink you under the table.”
Henry took a sip, sucked a breath through his teeth. Heavens, but that was a potent brew; no doubt Hope was in need of so vibrant a libation, considering he was nearly bankrupt, his bank teetering on the edge of ruin.
Henry could certainly relate.
He took another pull, a long ribbon of fire trailing down his throat, before screwing the cap back on the flask. He replaced it in his breast pocket, and met Caroline’s eyes across the coach. She held her arms tightly about her chest.
The air between them tightened; it was always charged, magnetic, Henry realized, but at this moment the pull was acute, as unavoidable as the past they shared.
“So,” she said.
“So,” he said.
“Alone again.”
“If I didn’t know better, Lady Caroline, I’d accuse you of planning this—absconding with me to a darkened corner. Be honest. Do you mean to seduce me?”
Caroline scoffed, glancing once more out the window. He’d asked her that same question twelve years ago, on their wedding night.
He hoped her answer tonight was the same as it had been then.
The hackney had come to a halt; as far as Henry could tell, the driver had led them to a dim, damp alleyway. “That would prove a compelling distraction, wouldn’t it?”
He grinned. “I would not be opposed.”
“No,” she said, turning to look at him once more. His heart rose when he saw she, too, was grinning. “I didn’t think you would be.”
She looked down at her hands, tangled in her lap. “You don’t think they’re going to find it, do you? The diamond.”
Henry didn’t answer. His fingers itched for the flask.
“What are we going to do,” she asked, softly, “if they don’t?”
“I’ll take care of it.” Of you, he wanted to say. But he didn’t.
“This old argument,” she said. “Let’s not have it again.”
Henry watched the working of her throat as she swallowed. “William is going to be fine, Caroline. If he can make it out of Hope’s ballroom with a priceless gem shoved in his smalls, he’ll make it out of this. And Mr. Moon—he’s been through worse. He’ll be fine.”
Her eyes flashed to meet his. She was shaking again; he could see the trail of goose bumps along her bare arms and chest.
Of course; why didn’t he notice it sooner? In their rush to leave Mayfair, Caroline hadn’t had a chance to gather a pelisse, a shawl, anything to keep her warm.
Cursing himself, Henry shrugged out of his coat.
“You don’t have—”
“I want to,” he said, crouching as he leaned across the hackney. She leaned forward, allowing him to hook his jacket across the yoke of her shoulders. He tugged the lapels closer about her breast, wrapping her tightly in a sea of fabric.
“Henry,” she said. He could feel her looking up at him.
“Just a minute, are the sleeves all right? Are you better?”
“Henry.” The way she said it this time made him pause. His pulse drummed as he looked down.
Caroline’s eyes were wet. The space between them crackled with longing, with unspoken things. Henry was glad to have shed his coat; he felt warm under his collar.
Her arm emerged from between the lapels of his coat; carefully, she dug her fingers into the buttons of his shirtfront, just beneath his cravat. Of its own volition his head ducked into her pull, his mouth hovering an inch above hers. He could see the pearlescent glow of her teeth peeking through her parted lips.
The way she was looking at him—it made his entire being ring with everything. Hurt and desire and regret and lust and love.
“Distract me,” she said. “Please, Henry, distract me.”
And then she pulled him down on her mouth, her lips moving over his hungrily, desperately, as if the world were ending, and this was their last night together.
Thirty-seven
Henry reached across the hackney and tugged the curtains closed, his mouth never leaving Caroline’s. She moaned against his lips as his arm brushed against her breasts; desire, liquid and hot, arrowed through her.
“Shh,” he whispered. “I won’t share your sounds—I won’t share you with the driver.”
His admonition only heightened her excitement. She couldn’t ignore it, this desire. She didn’t want to.
It was enormously foolish, of course, to give in; how many times now had she sworn not to do exactly that? A hundred, a thousand?
And still she could not ignore it. Her body felt wild with heavy things: worry, fear, a growing dread that this was all going to end badly, that Mr. Moon would end up dead. Nothing could make her forget, she knew, except Henry’s hands. His touch drowned all that she didn’t want to feel. She liked how she felt in his arms, beneath the assault of his passion.
How much longer would she have him, besides? He was leaving, whether or not William and Violet managed to pry the French Blue from this jeweler’s grasp. God, Henry was leaving, and Caroline would be a devoted widow again, and she would never be able to touch him like this. He would never touch her like this.
The loneliness of that knowledge—it was too much to bear.
In the space of a single heartbeat she pushed him back onto the squabs and climbed onto his lap, straddling his legs. He dug a hand into the hair at the back of her neck, his fingers gliding past pins and braids to work free her curls, which fell heavily about her shoulders.
Caroline held his face as he met her stroke for stroke. It was the kind of kiss she felt everywhere. She burrowed against him, his heart working against her breasts as she plied his lips with her own. He held her close against him, one hand in her hair, the other on the small of her back.
Henry sat up, settling Caroline farther onto his lap. She felt his arousal prodding against the throb between her legs. As she kissed him she inhaled his scent, long, heady draughts of spice and sandalwood, of his skin. She wanted to bite him; she couldn’t get close enough.
Her body warmed beneath the gentle caress of Henry’s touch. She drew back her shoulders and tugged at the sleeves of his coat. He helped her shrug it off, tossing it aside.
“That didn’t last long,” he murmured, his breath warm on her skin. He slid his hands up the length of her bare arms and throat, resting just beneath her jaw. He tried to take control of the kiss, moving her head in time to his lips, but she shrugged out of his grasp. This time—this embrace—was hers. Caroline would take what she wanted, and learn what she wanted to know, before Henry was gone.
Before he was gone forever. Again.
He was inching her skirts up her legs, urging the fabric out from under her knees and sliding his palms along the smooth expanse of her silk stockings. Something about the sound of it—the scrape of his skin against her legs, quiet, a happy whisper—made her grin against his lips. It was involuntary, this grin, irrepressible.
“Caroline,” he said against her mouth. “Are you laughing at me?”
“I”—kiss—“would”—kiss—“never.”
“Yes, you most certainly would.”
And then she really did laugh, and so did he, and in that second between them, Caroline’s heart felt so full she wanted to cry.
She kissed Henry instead.
Her fingers worked at his cravat, unwinding it from about his neck. He held her, softly, on her sides, thumbs hooked
into the spaces between the ribs of her stays.
Caroline pressed him back against the seat, unbuttoning his shirt.
“You’re certain?” he panted.
“Certain.”
She felt him relax. “All right.” He held out his arms, grinning. “Do what you must, my lady, I am your willing servant.”
“Splendid,” she said, pulling away so that Henry could take off his shirt. She watched as he reached his arms over his head; he grasped the back of his collar and slid the shirt over his head. It was dark, but even so Caroline could appreciate the enormity of his physique, the flex of the muscles underneath his arms and along the sides of his torso.
She bit her lip, slid her hands over his chest. “Now stay still.”
She remembered their first night together—their wedding night—and she remembered how he taught her to touch him. He hadn’t allowed her to finish then. He would tonight.
Sliding her hands down the length of his chest, Caroline leaned forward and covered his mouth with hers. He tensed as her hands found their way to his belly, to the waistband of his breeches.
Henry’s hand shot down to catch her by the wrists. She pulled away. “Stay. Still.”
“I can’t. Not when you’re touching me like that. You don’t have to—”
But his refusal was lost in her kiss. She wouldn’t be thwarted. Not when she’d come this far, and there was so little time left to them, together.
He tensed, his body coiled, as she fingered the buttons of his fall. His cock pressed eagerly against her touch. He was enormous here, too; for a moment Caroline was overcome with doubt. What if she did it poorly? What if she hurt him?
Henry would tell her, that’s what. She would ask. And he would tell her.
Caroline hadn’t a clue from whence this sudden bravery had come. Wasn’t she just swearing, hours ago, that she was too scared to allow herself to feel the things that lurked on the dark side of her heart—the things she once felt for Henry?
And yet.
She felt herself sinking into these lurking things, these delicious, overwhelming, warm-feeling things. She let the weight of her body pull her down into the flood, and she liked it. For these minutes, she would allow herself to admit to liking it.
The front of his breeches fell away beneath her fingers. Henry sucked a breath through his teeth as Caroline wrapped her fingers around his cock. The place between her legs throbbed. With longing, with curiosity.
“Show me,” she whispered. “Like you did before.”
Henry reached down between them. As he had more than a decade ago, he wrapped his hand around hers, urging it tighter around his manhood. He moved his hand and she moved with him, thrilled by the intimacy of the act, by the eroticism of the power she felt, knowing that she controlled his pleasure.
Caroline kissed him, hard, and he kissed her back wildly. His body arched against hers, his teeth nicked her bottom lip. He was groaning against her mouth, his worry about the driver all forgotten; he was saying her name, whispering it as he kissed her. Her pleasure rose in time to his.
“Caroline.” He gritted his teeth. “I’m going to come. Let me go, God, let me go, please, before—”
The words caught in his throat. Quickly she unhooked her fingers and pulled away. Henry covered his cock with his hand and squeezed shut his eyes. He pressed his forehead against hers, sucking a breath through his gritted teeth as he was overcome by his completion.
For several moments neither of them said a thing. The only sound was Henry’s rough breathing; Caroline’s heart beat loudly in her ears, almost as loudly as the desire that beat between her legs. Had she, in all her twenty-nine years, ever been so aroused?
She closed her eyes, too, and willed herself to memorize the feel of Henry’s forehead, damp with sweat, against hers. Willed herself to be aware, immaculately, of this feeling of freedom. The lightness of living in this moment, one heartbeat to the next. No past, no interminable future. Just now, when Henry was all hers, and she wasn’t afraid of what that meant.
Caroline felt Henry’s eyelashes flutter against her nose. She opened her eyes and saw him looking at her, his pale eye translucent in the darkness. The way he looked at her—it made her heart turn over in her chest.
Her gaze moved to his other eye, the one that was missing. She reached up, feathered her fingers across the patch. The look in Henry’s good eye changed, intensified. His nostrils flared with each breath he pulled in.
Caroline didn’t know why she did it; only that she was curious, and sad, and that she wanted to know what it was like, to have half the world hidden from view.
She traced her finger over the leather’s crackled ridges, like the scales of a tiny fish, and wondered what she would find beneath it. A scar, perhaps, or a red-rimmed hole. What had happened to his eyelashes? Would they have survived, she wondered, if his eye had not?
Her fingers moved to the leather thong pressed into the skin of his temple. Henry pulled back, suddenly, as if she’d caught him with the edge of her fingernail. Caroline looked away, embarrassed.
He reached for the rumpled length of cambric that was once his cravat. Looking down, he went to work tidying himself up, wiping his hands before tossing the cravat aside.
And then he looked at her again. She heard him swallow. His hands were on her thighs again, thumbs inching toward the place where she ached for him, fiercely.
Caroline glanced to the window. She pulled back the curtain: nothing. No sign of William. No sign of anything, really, as the alley was darker than the night from which they’d escaped.
She turned back to Henry. He lifted a hand and pressed his thumb to the place where her eyebrows met.
“You’re worrying again,” he said. “I thought I was supposed to be distracting you.”
Caroline released the furrow she hadn’t known was there, brows stinging with relief.
She half laughed. “Distract me, then.”
“I’m not going to take you in a carriage, Caroline,” he said. His thumbs inched up her thighs. “But perhaps I might touch you as you touched me?”
Henry didn’t wait for a reply. He sat up in the seat, pressing his lips to hers as his hands moved up her legs, pulling her against him. This kiss was slow, luxurious in comparison to the fevered bites and pulls they’d shared just minutes ago. He was being careful now, diligent that he should kiss her thoroughly, and well.
Behind closed lids, Caroline saw stars as his mouth moved to her jaw, her neck. The stubble of his chin tickled her throat; she giggled; Henry growled playfully.
In the throes of her rising passion, Caroline didn’t hear the voices approaching the hackney; or maybe she just ignored them.
Either way, she was not prepared for the ominous clap of the carriage door as it swung open.
“Mr. Lake.” It was Lady Sophia, Violet’s cousin. “I— Mr. Lake!”
In a flurry of movement, Henry tore Caroline from his lap and settled her behind him, his fingers shaking as he attempted—and failed, of course—to button up his breeches.
Caroline glanced over his shoulder to see Sophia standing openmouthed outside the carriage, eyes wide as saucers as she took in the scene before her. Behind her, Mr. Hope hovered, the limp figure of Lady Violet draped across his arms.
Caroline’s blood rushed to ice. After the heat of her desire, the rush left her reeling; for a moment blinding pain flashed inside her head. The agony of being interrupted; the shame of being caught in flagrante delicto.
But there was no time for shame. At first glance, it appeared things had not gone as William planned: Violet’s head lolled over Thomas Hope’s forearm.
Oh God, Caroline thought. Oh, God, William would never let Violet out of his sight. Where in hell is he?
“Is she all right?” Caroline asked, helping Henry shrug into his coat. There was no hope for his shirt, m
uch less his cravat.
“Yes,” Sophia panted. “I’ll explain everything, but we need to go. Now.”
“What about William? My brother—where—?”
“We need to go.”
Henry placed a hand on Caroline’s thigh, gave it a good squeeze. He turned to Sophia. “I say, what’s that dreadful smell?”
Caroline blinked, her nose twitching as the acrid scent of singed tar, overlaid with the more savory smell of burning wood, filled her head.
Bile rose in her throat. That couldn’t be good.
With Henry’s help, Thomas—giving his old friend a black look—handed Violet’s body into the hack. Thomas and Sophia climbed in after them, squeezing Caroline against Henry, hip to shoulder. His hand was still on her thigh.
“No word of the diamond?” he asked.
Hope shook his head, let out a sigh of defeat. Like Henry, he stood to lose everything—his bank, his fortune—if the diamond was lost. “That fool Harclay set the jeweler’s ship on fire. Why, I haven’t a clue. The ship will sink, if it hasn’t already.”
Caroline began to shake. Was William still on that ship?
“Violet told us virtually nothing,” Hope continued, running a hand through his mop of dark curls. “We found her running from the ship, choking on smoke. For all we know, Artois could’ve run off with the diamond before the fire started, or that Eliason chap could’ve jumped ship with it in his pocket. The French Blue could be anywhere by now.”
Caroline jumped when Henry slammed his fist into the roof, jolting the driver—and the hack—into motion. “Bloody perfect,” he growled. “We came so close. So bloody close.”
She rolled her lips between her teeth, struggling to breathe against the panic rising in her chest.
William. Where the devil was he, damn him, she’d box his ea—
An enormous sound—so enormous it was more of a sensation, a force that knocked the wind from her lungs—rent a hole in the darkness. It was like the thunder that followed lightning struck very close: crackling, huge. The horses cried out; Caroline cried out. Henry’s arm shot across her breast, bracing her against the seat as the hackney drew to a sudden halt.
The Undercover Scoundrel Page 28
