And all for a smuggler. All to stop the flow of French brandy into the country. Rage rose in her. Her cheeks flushed, her hands clenched into fists. Somehow, she wanted Hamilton to pay.
Somehow, she needed to get out of this room and away from him before he stole her indignation and her heart and left her with nothing but dust and memories.
Intelligent. Ronald had told Hamilton she was intelligent, and she needed to prove it now. Hamilton was a clever man with no visible chinks in his armor … but she guessed he had neglected his duty to tarry with her. True, he suspected she was a source of information and he wanted it, but once he’d seen the diary he could have taken it from her by force. If he hadn’t been a tiger, hungry for her …
Loosening her fists, she smiled at him. Her lips trembled; he’d said she didn’t dissemble well, but this time she hoped to distract him with the promise of another sample of her.
Hamilton’s eyes narrowed and he considered her as if she were a defendant before the court.
So he was wary. What did loose women do when faced with a dangerous customer? She’d seen enough of them on her walks from the small shop where she worked to her even smaller living quarters, so she imitated them and shrugged her shoulders in a rotary motion. The movement loosened the front of her robe and Hamilton’s gaze followed the light material as it slipped back off her chest and opened a narrow gap around her waist.
He said something; it sounded like, “Geminy.” A most fervent exclamation for one so dispassionate.
“Come here.” Taking Ronald’s diary, he put it to the side and held out his hand. “Sit with me and be warm. I don’t know what I was thinking, bringing this up when we just now finished with our wedding night.”
She wanted to slap him for patronizing her. Instead she bent her head in a parody of obedience and went to him.
He brought his knee — his bare knee — out of his greatcoat.
She perched there. The worn wool of her robe didn’t protect her from his heat, and she feared to melt like a candle exposed to the flame.
But she wouldn’t. This was for Ronald.
Tucking his arm around her, Hamilton said, “One of my men should be waiting for me in the stable. I’ll tell him about the accomplice, and we’ll organize a search, but in truth I doubt we have a chance of finding Jean. He’s long gone. He’ll not remain in the area with so many of my agents here, so I’ll have to seek him another way.” Reaching his hand inside her robe, he slid his fingers along her ribs until he’d encircled her with his arm and the robe’s protection was but a memory. “You’ll be safe here. I’ll be back for you in the morning, and we’ll finish this thing we’ve started.”
Did he plan to kill her, or take her back to bed and teach her how to be an even more satisfactory mistress? No matter, she was ruined, and she had no intention of remaining when she could escape.
“Oh, Hamilton.”
“Keefe.”
She didn’t want to repeat his name, but she did. “Keefe.” The word tasted bitter on her tongue. Flinging her arms around him, she pressed her face into his neck to hide her outrage.
He had sent her brother to his death.
“Keefe,” she repeated. “You’ll be in danger.”
His fingers crept along until they rested over the cleft at the base of her spine. Her motion had exposed even more of her, and when she kissed his ear, then outlined it with her tongue, his body shuddered to life.
Sounding both stifled and pleased, he said, “I’ll be fine, my dear. I’ve performed many of these missions and scarcely received a scratch.”
“What about this?” Sitting up straight, she pushed his greatcoat off his shoulder and outlined the bare, white scar by his nipple. “You call this nothing?” Her palm grazed him until goosebumps started on his flesh. “You might have been killed.”
“Youthful stupidity,” he said. “I’m neither so young nor so stupid anymore.”
But he was. He had to be. Her plan depended on it, and when she nudged closer into his lap, she discovered how his truthful body made a falsehood of his words. She tried to hide her triumph and gaze soulfully into his eyes, but he looked suddenly mistrustful and she remembered his claim she didn’t lie well.
So she mashed her lips on his.
He didn’t respond at first, but tried to push her away. Not cruelly or emphatically — that he could have done easily. But like a man who feared to hurt her feelings, yet surmised something was wrong.
She didn’t let go of his neck, and she opened her mouth on his with as much insistence as he’d shown earlier. The hand that she’d used to caress his nipple she slid down his body, opening his greatcoat as he had opened her robe, until she touched the hollow of his thigh just below his stomach. There her fingers hovered, almost in contact with his shaft.
Did she have the nerve to seduce him coldly, for her own purposes? The plan seemed excellent, but the execution was proving difficult. She’d learned the rudiments of arousal earlier that night, and she had yet to lose the shyness of innocence.
Yet she had to concentrate on titillating him rather than on her scheme to escape, for her acting couldn’t stand up under his scrutiny. She had to lose sight of the lie and want him again.
After all, that shouldn’t be difficult. She did want him again. She’d always wanted him. She recognized the tiger inside him, because it corresponded to the tiger inside her. Even if he were the Seamaster and had sent Ronald to his death, even if he were Jean and ordered Ronald’s murder, still she wanted him.
She had let him have his way with her. She told herself she had no choice.
But that was not true. She had mated with the tiger because … because deep inside, she recognized her one true love.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE REVELATION horrified Laura. She found herself leaning back, staring at Hamilton’s strong, sculptured face.
“What? Laura, what is it?” He held her as if he thought she would tumble down without his support. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I want you.” Her voice sounded little and far away, even to her own ears.
Now he looked as stunned as she felt. “I want you, too. I want … all of you. I want to talk to you and … make love to you and simply … be with you.” The words seemed to struggle from him, from this composed, restrained, thoughtful man. One of his hands rose to stroke her face, and his fingers were trembling. “It’s too early, I’ve done it all backward, but I want … I have to ask …”
She didn’t want him to ask her anything. If he did … oh, heavens. If he did, she might tell him the truth.
So she grasped his penis with her hand.
He grimaced as if she had hurt him.
But apparently not, for he picked her up and rearranged her so her legs parted over the top of his. He put her back down.
The sensation of her bare bottom against his bare thighs shocked her back into good sense. He wanted to do this here, now, and if they did her plan would have failed. She had to get him back to the bed. Pushing against his shoulders, she said, “No!”
“What?” Desire glazed his blue eyes.
“On the bed. Please.” She scooted back.
He grappled to keep her close.
“Please. Hamilton. Keefe. The bed. I want to try something … exciting.”
“This’ll be exciting,” he promised.
“I can’t. Not here.” She slid off the end of his knees, and the pressure made her aware of her own arousal, of how easily she could succumb to his persuasion. “Please.” She stood and tugged at his hand. “Come on.”
He stood, too, and looked down at her. “I shouldn’t,” he muttered.
“This won’t take long.”
He half-laughed. “No, I don’t suppose it will.”
He stumbled over the edge of the rug as she led him to the bed.
That reassured her. He was off-balance. At her mercy. As she walked, she untied the belt of her robe. When they reached their goal, she placed it beside
the pillows.
His hands encircled her waist to boost her onto the bed.
She twisted quickly away. “No, you get on first.”
He studied her. “You’re bold for a fledging.”
“A cub,” she corrected. Pushing his greatcoat off, she held it in one fist and promised, “You won’t need this.” She patted the mattress.
Still bemused, he climbed up and stretched out, a broad, large, handsome piece of bare male flesh.
He made her mouth water.
He said, “When you look at me like that …”
It was all too obvious what happened when she looked at him like that.
It was obvious he expected her to cure his condition, too.
She found the end of his coat’s belt. Holding it, she dropped the coat to the floor and let the weight of the wool free the leather strap for her use. Then she placed it beside her robe’s belt. She took his hand.
“You’re trembling.” He held out his hand. “Come up here and let me warm you.”
Of course she was trembling. She was scared. Climbing on the bed, she said, “Let me warm you.”
Her voice shook, too, but he smiled at her, all sensuous encouragement. “Have your way with me.”
Sprawling on top of him, she threaded her hands through his hair and lowered her lips to his. She pecked at him, then kissed him, then penetrated him with a desperate relish. This would be, after all, the last time he’d want her. If he realized what she plotted, it wouldn’t matter whether he were Jean or the Seamaster, he’d extract a terrible revenge.
And if she succeeded … if she succeeded, she’d have made a fool of him, and no man could bear that.
He responded to her kiss with quite satisfactory enthusiasm, and she wondered if she might not have a talent for this.
Only with Hamilton, of course. Hamilton was her mate.
She ran her hands over his chest, down to his waist, then stroked him as intimately as she knew how. She loved the feel of his skin, the coarse hair over it, the strength of the muscles below it. His arms encircled her, tightened, and he clearly intended to roll over to place her beneath him.
“No!” She sat up and pressed her palm into his breastbone. “I want to stay on top.”
“Dear heart, I shouldn’t even be here on the bed with you. A Hamilton never neglects his duty.”
“You’re not neglecting it, you’re postponing it, and besides, haven’t you a duty to … your wife?” She almost choked on the last two words, and added hastily, “Shut your eyes.”
“What?”
“Shut your eyes.” Leaning over him, she brushed his eyelids with her lips until they stayed down. “Raise your arms.”
His eyes opened again and he directed gray blue amazement at her. “What?”
Taking his muscled forearm in both of her hands, she tugged until his hand was in the vicinity of the headboard. Then she wrapped it around one of the rails. “I want to touch you freely. I want to make you want as fiercely as you made me want.” She lifted his other arm and he let her, although he clearly wondered at her. “Is that so strange?”
“I don’t understand it,” he admitted. “Why would a woman—”
“Give as much as she takes?” Laura lifted a mocking eyebrow at him. “Be generous with her gifts? Seek a sweet revenge?”
His massive arms wrapped around her, hugging her to him, and he held her head while he kissed her fiercely. Letting her go, he raised his hands and grasped a rail in each hand. “Do your worst.”
If only he knew!
She didn’t demand that he close his eyes again, but instead concentrated on touching him in ways he had touched her. Usually affectionate, occasionally intimate, each caress seemed to effect him more intensely. He waited, almost breathless, for each new contact, and his anticipation built her own. Her body seemed synchronized with his; her muscles tightened when his did, her breath caught with each of his stifled groans.
This was fun. This was fabulous. This was everything she’d promised him, and she had to finish what she’d started.
His eyes had closed once in sensual overload, then fluttered open as he struggled to maintain control.
She knew she could make him close his eyes. She could make him lose his mind, if only for a moment. She was the female tiger, after all.
She’d used her hands so far, but they formed only part of her arsenal. Now she kissed his body, smoothing the skin of his chest with her lips, then daring to taste his nipple when it came within reach.
He groaned now, right out loud. “Laura.” His body shuddered, too, and he twisted on the bed, his eyes tightly shut.
She had him. She’d trapped him. All she had to do was close the trap, but first, she wanted … Her mouth wandered to the other side of him while her hands wandered below, and she realized she enjoyed watching him squirm. She liked the power, and she badly wanted to finish the moment.
Not now.
Blindly, she reached for the cord of her robe and wrapped it around the rail above his wrists.
Not ever.
With a quick motion, she used an embroidery knot to secure Hamilton to the bed. She whipped his leather belt around the other direction to reinforce the restraint.
She was done with love now. She’d never be the countess of Hamilton again, not in truth or even in her imagination. She wouldn’t even dare dream of this.
“Laura?”
His eyes opened.
She leaped off the bed.
He looked up at the restraint, and tugged.
She watched the knot tighten, the material stretch. The knots would hold, and the oak bed rail was old and solid.
She had trapped the tiger.
“Laura?” He was fully aware now, his gaze shifting between bewilderment to concern. “What are you doing?”
She glared at him, stretched naked before her. “I’m leaving you.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
NO WOMAN could tie an effective knot. Hamilton knew it, and he jerked on the restraint that held him. Nothing gave, and he twisted to look above his head. The knot, complex and unknown, alarmed him. “Laura, this isn’t funny.”
“Believe me.” Laura picked her clothing off the floor and began to dress rapidly. “I’m not laughing.”
He watched hungrily as she lifted her arms to pull the shift over her head, then jerked his attention away. That was the kind of nonsense that had got him into this dilemma, and still his body spoke to him louder than his common sense.
She glanced at him, running her gaze down his form, then looked away.
He guessed the constant changes in his body spoke to her, too. Pleased that he had at least that much influence and convinced he could persuade her to free him, he asked, “Why would you want to do this?”
From the corner of his eye, he could see as she pulled on petticoats. “Perhaps you are Jean, the leader of the smugglers, as I first suspected.”
Damn the woman! She was a tiny thing, her waist so small he almost spanned it in his hands, with direct blue eyes and curly brown hair, and she was as stubborn and opinionated as his grandmother in one of her matriarchal moods.
How dare Laura not believe him?
Pulling himself up the bed by his wrists, he glared at her. “I am the Seamaster!”
Laura nodded without a smile and pulled her dress over her head. “If you are, as you claim, the Seamaster, you sent my brother after these smugglers when you knew the danger he courted. Regardless, you are responsible for his death, and I intend to make you pay.”
“Pay? How? By humiliating me?”
She had that stubborn thrust to her chin that he’d learned to recognize. “That, if you’re the Seamaster. Or by turning you over to the proper authorities if you’re Jean.”
The flawlessness of her plan left him speechless with admiration. Admiration, and fury, and an unquenched desire that made him determined to teach her a lesson — when he got untied. He tugged at the knots again and frowned when he saw that the strain only tigh
tened them. Perhaps he could have ripped free from the wool band, but she’d been smart enough to use the leather strap from his coat, and that wouldn’t fail. “Now, dear.” He kept his voice low and soothing. “This isn’t a good idea. If you’d just think about it, you’d realize that. You don’t really believe I’m Jean, the man who killed your brother. If you believed that, you wouldn’t have turned to flame in my arms.”
She glanced up from her buttons to cast him a look composed of equal parts of alarm and disgust.
“You did, you know. This night has been a rogue’s fantasy.” That wasn’t what he’d meant to say. He didn’t mean to dwell on the pleasure of the dark. But the memory of her sweet passion still enfolded him.
She’d trapped him by recalling that gratification and promising more, but he should have guessed no woman as inexperienced as she had proved to be would be bold enough to attempt a seduction.
She folded her generous mouth tightly. Her color rose.
And he realized he had embarrassed her. He didn’t want to embarrass her now; he desperately needed her to stay so he could convince her to free him. Hastily, he steered back toward the logic he hoped would sway her. “If I’m the Seamaster, as you know I am, then Jean is still loose, still capable of murdering more people as he murdered Ronald. Surely there’s more satisfaction to catching him than in gaining a petty revenge on me.”
“I’m finding there is a great deal of satisfaction in petty revenge.” Pulling up her stockings, she tied her garters around her knee, and he strained to see the turn of her ankle. She lowered her skirts with enough haste to tell him she’d noticed, and she said, “You yourself told me you don’t think it’s possible to catch Jean tonight, that he’s escaped from this area.”
“I told you too damned much,” he muttered. He’d been overconfident, treating her like a woman who would be swept away by the scope of his passion.
She was completely dressed now, shoving her extra clothes into the carpetbag she’d hauled from under the desk.
He scowled at her. She should have been swept away by the scope of his passion, damn it.
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