Tides of Passion

by Sara Orwig

  Josh straightened, jamming his hands into his pockets. The movement pulled his breeches tautly across his loins and she saw the hard evidence of his desire. She held her breath as he crossed the room to her.

  His hands rested on her shoulders; the drumming in her ears was an ocean’s roar at the height of a storm. She fought the impulse to wind her arms around his neck, to pull his mouth down. Her breasts grew taut; longing burst low inside and spread a heated warmth through her veins.

  With a shuddering breath Josh’s chest expanded, and his brow furrowed as if he fought a silent battle with himself. Suddenly he yanked her to him, leaning down to open her mouth with his, to thrust his tongue deep, to wind his hands in her hair. Gardenia blossoms tumbled down as midnight locks fell. Glorying in his kiss, she locked her arms around his neck and stood on tiptoe.

  Time vanished; through her thin nightdress she felt Josh’s hard thighs, his throbbing shaft, his heated body. Heartbeats joined into hammer blows while tongues slipped together and raging fires erupted. She moaned and clung to him. His strong hands drifted slowly down her back to cup her buttocks, to tilt her hips fully against his.

  He raised his head, and torment or anger, an emotion she couldn’t fathom, filled his eyes. He whispered, “Good night, love.”

  His chest heaved with his ragged breathing as he released her and left in swift, angry strides. The door closed with crushing finality.

  In shock Lianna stood rooted to the floor, her senses pulsing with desire, with hot flaming need for Josh’s kisses and hands and body. Why had he come in to kiss and torment her? Why had he gone so swiftly? Her body yearned for him, but what about her heart? Troubled, she climbed into bed to stare into the darkness and fight the turmoil in her thoughts.

  In the middle of the morning, Lianna opened her eyes to see Juanita enter the room. “Buenos días.” She nodded at Lianna.

  “Qué tal?” Lianna answered sleepily, wondering where Madryn was. She usually came in the morning. Juanita’s black eyes lowered and she looked at the gardenias and hairpins strewn over the floor. Lianna blushed as the woman turned to open the drapes.

  Madryn entered, greeting Lianna; then she said to Juanita, “I didn’t know you were in here.”

  “I thought I would open the marquesa’s drapes. The marqués has gone. You may finish. I’ll clean his room.”

  Juanita left, and suddenly Lianna wondered if Josh had deliberately kissed her to give him the opportunity to scatter the gardenias across the floor. It was a convincing sign that she had been loved by her husband. Had he done it for a purpose or merely because he wanted to kiss her? And to her disappointment, the first reason seemed the more likely.

  Madryn picked up the gardenias. “You had a good time at the ball,” she said dreamily.

  “Madryn, save a flower for me. One gardenia.”

  “Of course,” Madryn replied as she picked up the white dress and shook it. “How beautiful you looked.”

  “Thank you.”

  “My parents announce our engagement tonight.”

  Lianna came more awake and sat up in bed. “How nice! I must meet him. Tell me where to find Rinaldo.”

  “At the stables at the end of Avenida Blanco.”

  “I hope you’re happy.”

  Madryn giggled, so unlike her usual composure that it was infectious, and Lianna laughed. “With Rinaldo I will be in heaven!”

  “I hope so.” A crushing weight of envy dealt Lianna a blow, and she knotted her fingers in the covers.

  Madryn picked up a book, glanced at the cover, and idly read the title aloud.

  “You can read?”

  “Sí. My father taught all his children to read. Tonight we have a party. All my cousins, my parents and grandparents, everyone in both our families will come.”

  “And what will you wear?”

  “I have a dress I’ve made.”

  Lianna looked at her white dress and realized if she kept it, each time she looked at it would only serve to make her long for Josh and the brief, happy moments at the ball. How much better to put it to use where it would bring more happiness, so she said, “You may have mine that I wore last night.”

  Madryn’s eyes widened. “This beautiful dress? Your husband had it made for you.”

  “I’d like for you to wear it also, if you want.”

  “Oh, gracias!” Madryn picked up the dress to hold it in front of her before the mirror. “Gracias, Doña Lita.” She became solemn. “I cannot. Your husband will be angry.”

  “No, he won’t. He’ll be pleased because it makes you happy. Take it and be happy with Rinaldo.” Something constricted around Lianna’s heart as she looked at Madryn’s glowing eyes. She threw back the covers and stood up. “I’ll bathe now,” she said, to escape her thoughts.

  “Oh, sí!” Madryn went back to work to help Lianna dress.

  When Lianna went down to breakfast, she was informed that the marqués had left for the estancia. Disappointment was tempered by relief. She sat down to eat alone. And, as they had promised the night of the ball, young matrons came to call. Lianna found her mornings taken up in stiff, formal visits.

  To her dismay, most of the women she met bordered on illiteracy, having been raised with only one purpose in mind—marriage. They knew nothing of politics or literature, but plied Lianna with endless questions about the latest hair and dress styles in Spain, to which she related in detail the latest London fashions.

  Invitations came to dinners, which were given to Josh, and the decision to accept or refuse was his.

  In the afternoons Lianna shopped and rode in the carriage, enjoying the sights. Occasionally she encountered General Farjado astride his white stallion. Sometimes he would ride beside the carriage, leaning down to chat with her through the open window. On several afternoons she met Josh, who stopped to talk briefly before he would ride away, sitting tall and straight astride a sorrel stallion.

  Two weeks after the ball, they attended a dinner given, by the Marqués Dantas, where Lianna was seated at a long banquet table between General Farjado and Señor Bucarica, an older retired diplomat. Even though Josh was seated at the opposite end of the table, between two beautiful women, an invisible chain of awareness bound her.

  On solid silver plates they were served an elaborate dinner of centollas, delicious sea crabs, and turkey mole with piquant sauce. As Lianna lowered her fork to comment on the food, General Farjado leaned close.

  “The mole is made of as many as fifty ground-up ingredients—it can include cloves, cinnamon, aniseed, slivers of bitter chocolate…”

  “The cooks have been busy.”

  “Do you like Santiago, my dear?” the man across from her asked.

  “Sí,” Lianna answered, finding her enjoyment partially dampened by the persistent attention of Captain Fernando Caribe. His watery brown eyes openly studied her and he had plied her with questions, his heavy jowls working as he chewed while he talked.

  “I don’t know how I’ve missed seeing you around town.”

  “I’m home with my husband most of the time.” She stressed the word “husband.”

  “An excellent shot,” the general added cheerfully, and Caribe’s eyes narrowed.

  “You’ve seen my husband’s ability with pistols? I’m surprised he’s had occasion to use one.”

  “There is always an occasion,” General Farjado said, then changed the topic. “Have you seen the Church de San Francisco?”

  “I’ve passed it,” she answered, relieved to turn from the attention of Captain Caribe. She looked up into brown eyes that flashed with satisfaction.

  “Then I must show it to you. You should see the interesting places here with someone who knows the background.”

  “I think my husband knows the history fairly well.”

  General Farjado’s black eyes twinkled. “Sí, to be sure, but your husband is a busy man with many interests—gambling, riding, ranching. And you share him with a most demanding mistress—politics.”


  “Kindly phrase it another way, general!”

  “Marquesa, perdón!” He laughed. “I regret my choice of words, but I’m dazzled by your beauty.”

  “Gracias, but also remember, I’m very happily wed.”

  “And does the lady protest too much?”

  She glanced down the length of the table as Josh laughed with a flash of white teeth over something said by the golden-haired woman next to him. If only he would look her way and confirm her statement to General Farjado! And each time she declared her love for Josh, every time she mentioned their happily married state, she felt a rising panic. If she fell in love with her handsome, reckless husband, it would mean misery far beyond any she had experienced before in her life. Misery that would have no end, that would be unbearable, because Josh Raven was a sea-loving pirate and a man of iron. He would neither change, nor bend, nor yield. Nor would he care, and that hurt most of all.

  She knew she courted disaster each time she was with him, because every moment together, every contact, forged another link between them. A link that bound her to Josh…how tightly?

  “Doña Lita,” General Farjado said, his voice husky. “What a lovely name you have.”

  She turned and gazed into black eyes with thick, long lashes. And it occurred to her that if she had more male acquaintances, she might not be so vulnerable where either Josh or Edwin was concerned. She smiled slowly, and something flickered in the black depths of General Farjado’s eyes.

  “Perhaps you can show me that church after all,” she said.

  His full lips parted, revealing white teeth as straight as Josh’s. “Ah, excellent!” He seemed to think a moment, then asked, “Wednesday afternoon after siesta?”

  Wednesday Josh would be at their estancia. She looked into the waiting black eyes. Did General Farjado know Josh’s plans? Josh’s warnings rose like mist from a river: “Beware the general…he’s a dangerous, evil man.”

  How could viewing a church be dangerous? She smiled. “That will be a good time.”

  “Ah, my week has improved vastly!”

  After dinner, when the men had joined the ladies, she stood at Josh’s side as several men and women talked. She was aware of a cold aloofness in one of the men in the group, Don Alfredo Todaro. Josh was talking about a horse he had acquired in a recent gambling venture, laughing with Don Jorge Suárez.

  “You won my black stallion, but this week, perhaps I shall win him back.”

  “Or perhaps I shall win the bay you ride,” Josh teased, a twinkle lighting his eyes.

  “You seem to know what you’ll win. Perhaps, Don Jorge, you should watch closely how the cards are played,” Don Alfredo said.

  An instant silence fell on everyone in that part of the room. Josh’s dark brows flew together, and he frowned while Lianna held her breath.

  “I haven’t heard a complaint from Don Jorge,” Josh said evenly, and Lianna could feel a slight easing of tension. The insult had been enough for Josh to call Todaro out, and she was surprised he had let it go by, but she was thankful he had.

  Todaro smiled thinly. “Perhaps I don’t fear to call a man a cheat if I know he is.”

  “I think you need to prove what you say,” Josh said quietly, and now the entire room had become silent.

  Todaro shrugged. “I can’t prove it when I don’t gamble with you.”

  “Nor can I prove what a liar you are,” Josh said, and turned his back, taking Lianna’s arm.

  She saw the swift flush that turned Todaro’s cheeks pink and she held her breath as she walked across the room with Josh.

  “Señor…”

  Josh turned, and Todaro slapped him, his eyes flashing angrily with an unruly lock of hair curling on his forehead. “How soon can we meet?”

  “Tomorrow morning at sunrise,” Josh said coldly. “Pistols.” He turned to cross the room to their host to offer apologies for the disruption of the party, and then minutes later they were in the carriage on the way home.

  “Josh, you can’t fight a duel!”

  “I have to. Todaro pushed me into it.”

  “Why? What have you done to him?”

  His head snapped up, and she looked into his angry eyes. “My father, love,” he said quietly, his voice tight with anger. “Always, my father. He’s determined to get his revenge.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Don Alfredo Todaro is actually Sir Timothy Paddington from London. He’s despised me since the first moment I met him, because of my father. He wants this duel; he wants to kill me.”

  “Oh, Josh!” She threw herself across the carriage to hug him.

  “Lianna!” His arms went around her, and he squeezed her while shock at her reaction struck him.

  “Josh, I’m so sorry. I don’t want you to be killed! Can’t we run away to El Feroz?”

  He laughed and held her away to look at her while he settled her on his lap. “Lianna, love, I have no intention of dying!”

  “Then you’ll have to kill Don…Paddington!”

  “I might, but he gave me no choice.”

  “Oh, Josh!” She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him to her to hold him.

  “Lianna?” She heard the question in his voice as he stroked her hair. “You care?”

  “Of course I care! I don’t want you shot and killed!”

  “Someone will get you home if that happens,” he said dryly.

  “Josh, let’s go home now. Let’s go before you have to fight this duel.”

  He pushed her away, tilting his head to stare at her questioningly. “You say you love Edwin Stafford, yet you cling to my neck and beg me to run away.”

  “I don’t want you to die!”

  “I have your pity,” he said, his voice full of curiosity.

  “Yes! And I care for you.”

  “And you care for me?”

  “Of course I do!”

  “Lianna, this might be my last night on earth,” he said, watching her intently. What the hell did she feel for him? She was hanging on his neck and pleading with him to run from danger, yet in the next breath she could be telling him how much she loved Stafford! Josh wondered if she knew what she truly wanted. She had been young and sheltered and he had swiftly forced her into bed and marriage. Perhaps she wasn’t as certain about Edwin as she acted. He stared at her in momentary curiosity. Fair or foul, she was on his lap and in his arms, and he faced a duel with the dawn. This was one night he intended to take Lianna to his bed and not question motives. For tonight, he would settle for her body. Her blue eyes widened endlessly as she looked at him, and she caught her lower lip in her teeth. Tears sparked her eyes, and if he hadn’t known all too well that the Englishman had her love, he would think he might be winning her heart.

  “Josh,” she whispered, stroking his cheek.

  He kissed her throat. Now that he had made the decision to possess her, all the heated desire he usually fought so hard to ignore burst into scorching flames. “Lianna,” he murmured huskily. “Love me tonight. Paddington is a deadly shot.”

  She cried out and stroked him, showering kisses on his throat. He trailed his lips to the softness of her breasts while his hands sought her flesh beneath her skirt. She gasped and softly moaned as he stroked her.

  The carriage rolled to a halt, and he climbed out, pulling her into his arms to carry her inside. He dismissed the servants except Fletcher. He asked Fletcher to go to Don Gerado Davio and ask if he would be a second for him in a duel at dawn. Then Josh carried Lianna upstairs to his bedroom.

  Her pulse pounded while protests fled at the thought that he might be killed at dawn. She didn’t want Josh to die in a duel, and she stroked his chest as he set her on her feet. Looking into his eyes, she felt a blast of heat as if she had looked directly into the summer sun. His gaze drifted down, and every nerve quivered in anticipation.

  “Lianna, a duel will be worth this,” he whispered, and slowly began to unfasten the tiny rows of buttons that ran down the front of her bodice.r />
  As he peeled away her dress and chemise, she forgot the duel. She trembled and gazed at him through half-closed eyes while her hands pushed at his clothing. He slipped off the evening clothes, dropping the cravat carelessly on the floor, the shirt following, and Lianna was lost as he began to kiss her slowly, temptingly, moving over every inch of flesh.

  “I’m going to make you cry my name over and over,” he said in a slow, heated drawl while she wound her fingers in the silky thickness of his hair.

  He picked her up to carry her to bed, and Lianna’s heart drummed violently as he stood over her, his eyes devouring her until he put his knee on the bed and his weight came down beside her.

  Lianna stirred, murmuring Josh’s name and turning to run her hands sleepily across the bed. “Josh, love…” Her eyes flew open as she remembered. She sat up, gazing around the dusky room. Josh was gone.

  She threw aside the covers and tugged the bell-pull to summon Madryn, asking her to send word to ready a carriage and then come back to help her dress. Madryn rode with Lianna only moments later as the carriage careened down the road. Lianna sat stiffly in the corner, her eyes closed while she prayed for Josh’s life.

  22

  Josh rode in the carriage in silence, listening as Lord Brenthaven swore steadily in a flat voice. “Damn the man! He hasn’t the wits of a flea! We need each bit of help we can get, not to kill each other off before the fighting commences! The bastard has pudding for brains.”

  “I tried to avoid this.”

  “Dammit, I know you did. I wanted to slap the bloody fool’s face.” He paused, and his voice dropped. “He’s supposed to be a good shot. He’s fought several duels.”

  “I know. I don’t intend to die. Nor do I want to kill him. I have no deep quarrel with Paddington. It’s my father’s hatred that’s caused the trouble. Whatever the outcome, it would make my father laugh. He’s a damnably cruel man.”

  “I know him. I can understand why you ran away.”

  Josh looked at Lord Brenthaven, who stared back stonily. “I hate to lose Paddington, but I hope you win. We need cooler heads than his for the coming battles.”