Angel In My Bed

by Melody Thomas

  Her hair flowered around her, framing her face and shoulders in a cloud of dark silk, and he could not pretend he was unaffected by the desire to hear her answer. Nor would he feel guilty that he asked the question. He knew on some level that she had always loved him, so the question was moot for him. But she had to hear herself say the words, as if saying the sentiment aloud made it real.

  “Do we want to make another child between us, David?”

  He looked at her kiss-swollen lips, then at all of her, the symbolism of that gesture not lost on her. He claimed her for his own. Her past, her present, and her future belonged to him. “Isn’t that concern a little late, considering we are already well into our sybaritic inclinations? Many times over.” His mouth found the pulse at her throat.

  “Then consider this. What if no matter what you do, you can’t prevent the inevitable? Will you be able to live with that?”

  It was then David realized she was more worried about him than she was about herself. “We’ll make it work, Meg.” He caught her nipple between his lips and suckled, leaving her shift hot and damp above her stays. She gave a start at his encroaching intimacy, but did nothing to dissuade him from continuing. No other part of his body touched hers. He moved lower past her stomach. “Tell me, Meg,” he said, awaiting an answer to his initial question.

  “I love you, David.”

  He pushed on his palms. Her lashes framed deep pools of violet the pale light pulled from her eyes, and she could not have awakened a fiercer hunger. “You wouldn’t be exaggerating, would you? Or saying that just to make me happy.”

  She shook her head and laughed. “I love you.”

  She held his gaze as he went down on her and found his way beneath her shift. He covered her thighs with his palms and pushed them farther apart. “Tell me again, love.”

  The hot breath of his whisper touched her intimately. “Oh, Lord,” she rasped, tortured. “I love you.”

  And he loved her, too, with his mouth and his fingers, but especially his mouth, claiming her possessively, claiming her as his own, making her body do things he wanted her to do. He stoked her fire, found her rhythm burning in the flames, felt her hips arch. She was where he wanted her to be, and when she cried out and clawed her hands into his hair, he felt her climax in his mouth.

  He rose up on his knees and, looking into her passion-drugged eyes, fought the violent need to push inside her before he spent himself on the floor between her legs. Her gaze slid down his body, touching him like the fire burning inside her. “Do you want me to stop?”

  In answer, her hands cupped his face, and she pulled him into a kiss, a moan vibrating from deep in her throat as she wrapped her legs around his hips with a predictable effect. His kissed her back. Controlled at first, then no longer controlled. He pushed inside her where she was wet and warm and welcoming.

  “You make me feel helpless, David.”

  It was a feeling that he, too, had worked hard through the years to overcome. But as he pinioned her hands to the soft leather mat at her back, and his heartbeat quickened, some of that helplessness engulfed him.

  His breath a harsh rasp against her ear, he held her with slow deep thrusts, entwining his fingers with hers, soon lost within the melody and harmony that hummed between them, until her name became the tempo of his breath. Her orgasmic cry broke in a breathless gasp. Rising on his palms, he kissed her openmouthed, taking her cries into his throat where they joined his.

  And in the warming glow that filled him, the heightened tremors of her pleasure shuddering through him, he lifted his head to draw in a draught of air and thrust one last time, spilling himself deep within her. As he collapsed against her, their bodies damp and indulged, he knew the world could end around him and he would not notice.

  Victoria snuggled deeper against the warm shoulder jostling her cheek. The first rosy blush of dawn had begun to stir the eastern horizon when she opened her eyes and saw that David was carrying her down the corridor to her room. She wore nothing beneath her wrapper. Her legs dangling over his arms, she smiled against his shoulder. His clothes beneath his coat remained in disrepair. “Where are you taking me?” she murmured.

  “Your room or mine?”

  She straightened, but he bounced her and she fell against the hard wall of his chest. “Your room or mine?”

  David had done things to her body that still made her blush, but strangely, she wasn’t ready to end this morning. “I don’t expect we can keep this a secret any longer.”

  She felt the curve of his mouth against her hair. “I don’t expect we ever did, love.”

  “My room. The bed is softer,” she said.

  And only when he’d set her in bed, did she remember that she’d thrown the telegram from Lord Ravenspur on her nightstand. She opened her eyes to see David standing over the lamp, reading the telegram Nellis had given her. Silently, she groaned, but it must not have been so quiet because David looked at her over the top of the paper, the dark blue in his eyes sharpening to pinpoints of black.

  “Nellis gave you this?”

  She released a long sigh as she took measure of his tone and nodded slowly, knowing it would be unproductive to forestall the truth. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you flying over to his residence and give him cause to arrest you.”

  “That would be most unlikely.”

  Victoria pulled the blanket around her, not persuaded to share his confidence.

  “He told you Lord Ravenspur worked for the foreign secretary.” David folded the telegram in half. “He neglected to tell you that Lord Ravenspur was my brother-in-law.”

  “Maybe he didn’t know,” Victoria said. “Or he would have assumed I would have known and found no pleasure in taunting me.”

  “If he didn’t know then that may tell me something.”

  “Am I supposed to understand what that means?” she asked, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ears.

  “Only that Kinley would know that information,” he said, his eyes focusing on something in his thoughts. David pulled out a slip of paper from the same coat pocket where he’d shoved the telegram. “Is this Nellis’s address?”

  “Yes. He lives on Grand.” Victoria noted the writing as also belonging to Nellis. “Where did you get that?”

  “From Pamela’s bedroom.”

  She could not help the vise that squeezed her chest. “Should I be worried you found purpose to be in Pamela’s bedroom?”

  David sat on the edge of the bed. “Come here,” his voice was less an order and more of a promise. He leaned over and dragged her across the mattress, covering her with his chest as he pressed her into the pillows. His feet remained on the ground.

  “I’m very particular where I put certain parts of my anatomy. I always have been.”

  “I’m glad to know that.”

  “Nellis told you that Ravenspur worked for Lord Ware. You thought despite everything we’ve talked about, I was still planning to spring some trap on you.”

  “My trepidation was born of my own guilt as it was our past.”

  He brushed a length of hair from her cheek. “Nellis neglected to tell you that Ravenspur is my sister’s husband. What he didn’t know is that I’ve petitioned the crown to see the charges against you dropped. That was my intent in contacting Lord Ravenspur. That was why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t know if—”

  She placed a finger against his lips. “You wanted to talk to your brother-in-law first.”

  “No doubt when I didn’t show at the depot in New Haven, Ravenspur set his sights on locating Kinley. If my brother-in-law doesn’t know about us, he will soon enough.”

  “How will you explain to your family how you met me?”

  “I met you in India,” he said neutrally, unsure how to answer her question as it seemed to be one he’d been mulling over himself.

  “You must have an extremely tolerant family if you think they will still want to know me once they learn the truth,” she mused, and he looked at her
tentative smile. “I am not innocent of that which I’ve been accused.”

  He enclosed her hand with his and gently kissed her palm, understanding her well enough to know that she was afraid to hope. “Considering your youth at the time of the crimes, and the circumstances surrounding your life with Colonel Faraday, and everything you’ve accomplished since, we’ll get a pardon. I’m sure of it.”

  And as he spoke the words, so sure in the belief that he stood on the side of right and justice and that his family surely loved him as much as she did, Victoria began to believe as well. The first ray of hope was like a touch of sunlight to her heart. He framed her cheek in his palm, and his touch stole a little more of her breath. “It worries me that I have brought you to tears.”

  “I’m not crying.” She laughed and pushed at his weight. But he was an unmovable entity, his arm cast heavily across her chest and, suddenly, looking at the dark promise in his eyes, she no longer seemed to care. “You make me believe in the impossible, David. No one has ever given me that before.”

  “Then you’ll understand if your father is here, we’ll find another way to catch him.”

  Her voice came quickly. “If?”

  “I’m not convinced Colonel Faraday fired that rifle. Or if he is even alive.”

  “Is there a possibility he isn’t alive?”

  “Rockwell isn’t sure if he is.”

  “But that doesn’t mean he is dead. Sir Henry won’t leave here, David. If my father is alive, he would only follow me if I left.”

  Not for the first time did she feel his crushing desire to shake sense into her. “I’m not here any longer as an agent to the crown, Meg. I’m here as your husband.”

  “Does Kinley know that?”

  He sifted his fingers through her hair. “He will as soon as I speak to Ravenspur.”

  An unfamiliar vulnerability shone in his eyes and softened the uncertain edges of her heart. She kissed the corner of his mouth. “Because you hope to use your brother-in-law as an ally? Perhaps with your own family as well?”

  “It does not matter if anyone else accepts my life.”

  But it was the not the truth, she knew. His family’s lack of acceptance of her might not keep them apart but it would hurt David, more so than their rejection of the choices he had made that put him in this place. “Your family has only to know you to love you,” she said. “And if they love you they will love Nathanial and me, too.”

  He sat and pulled her across his lap, where he cradled her in his arms. “Are you saying no one can resist me?”

  His shameless smile captured her. “I would dislike such an observation going to your head.”

  His fingers curled around her chin, and he kissed her. “I fear it has already gone there, my love.”

  Chapter 20

  An image of a buxom mermaid swung from a sign above the heavy oaken door. Thunder grumbled across a leaden sky, turning the drizzle into a downpour as David stepped through the door into the common room. Men stood around tables drinking ale and talking. Long mullioned windows opened to the main road from New Haven.

  The white weather-boarded hostelry tucked away near Smuggler’s Cove aptly named the Buxom Mermaid was a fitting throwback to yesteryear and owned by a warmhearted couple David had met the first week of his stay in this part of England. Mr. Smith managed the livery while his robust wife handled the affairs of the inn. “Right this way, m’lord.” Mrs. Smith held a lantern aloft as David followed her up the creaky narrow stairs to the second floor. “They’re expectin’ ye.”

  Walter Kinley looked over his gold-rimmed spectacles as the pocket doors opened and David stepped into the drawing room, serving as Kinley’s temporary quarters an hour outside town. Heat from the fireplace radiated throughout the cluttered room, dissipating the cold. Yet, as David glimpsed the second man standing at the hearth, a chill in the silver-edged eyes looking back at him, the room could not have felt more frigid.

  Raindrops had gathered on the black cashmere wool of David’s coat and dripped on the floor as he surrendered the wrap, hat, and gloves to the servant. “Ravenspur.” David acknowledged his brother-in-law with a subtle nod. As tall as David, the Duke of Ravenspur could look him in the eye.

  “I see that the two of you need no introduction,” Kinley said with some industry, seemingly content that there would be no family reunion to suffer. “Ravenspur insisted that we talk, else you would not have been summoned. How you leave today is up to you.”

  David’s mouth crooked, though no hint of humor touched his eyes. “Implying that you intend to take me out back and shoot me?”

  “Unless you prefer a rope around your neck,” Ravenspur said.

  “Sit, if you will, Donally,” Kinley suggested.

  “Do either of you want to tell me what this meeting is about?” David asked, giving His Grace the benefit of a second appraisal as he walked to the window though he could see nothing in the pitch of the night. A glimpse in the adjoining room showed a servant cleaning the table of a recent dinner, but no men waiting in the wings.

  After receiving Ravenspur’s missive, David had ridden through a downpour to get here by nightfall. He’d left Meg and Nathanial at Rose Briar. He’d left a crew of workers at the church, tearing down the burned-out infrastructure. Now, gazing at his brother-in-law dressed out in a dark jacket, burgundy waistcoat, and perfectly creased trousers, looking every bit the lord undersecretary, David felt the first sting of reality push aside the initial scope of hope that had brought him here. But if there was a man who could not claim to be without sin, his brother-in-law topped the list of the stubbornly defiant, a man who had more often than not in the past walked the line of sedition.

  “You’ll want a drink, I expect?” Kinley asked, accepting a tall-stemmed glass of claret from his servant.

  For once, as David took his seat, he declined alcoholic libation. “I prefer to have my wits about me, if you do not mind, sir.”

  “I’m aware you are seeking a pardon for Miss Faraday,” Kinley said.

  David looked directly at his sister’s husband, and felt his jaw clench. He had asked Ravenspur to intercede on his behalf for Meg. He had trusted Ravenspur with her life. Instead, he had given the London office reason to pull him off this case. “Clearly, reading my post must have been shocking to bring you racing to this corner of England, Ravenspur, when you could have relayed everything through Kinley. Have I ever called you a bloody bastard to your face?”

  “Frankly? The last time I saw you, you were wearing vestments and raising holy hell in Ireland.”

  “You forget yourself, Donally,” Kinley snapped. “Lord Ravenspur is your superior.”

  “And you’re both forgetting that without me, there is no bloody case against her.”

  “We have your deposition from Calcutta,” Kinley said. “You forget you’ve already helped convict her in her absentia, Donally. Or shall I call you Chadwick or Sir David. Who are you today?”

  With credible indifference, David made a steeple of his fingers and rested his chin on his thumbs. “I have been many men while working for you.” He crossed his boots at the ankles. “Who is it you want me to be today? The knight errant? Assassin? Thief? Husband? I have been them all. Now you can bloody add father to that list.”

  Kinley set the claret on the table beside the chair, a movement that surprised David for the subtle emotion it entailed. “I understand your dilemma…”

  “No, Kinley.” David pushed out of the chair. “You do not.”

  “You don’t like me, do you?” Kinley challenged David’s tone. “You question my judgment. You think I am too quick in my actions. That I am pompous. That I have no regard for the instincts of those who work for me. I have every regard for yours, which is why I requested to work with you again.”

  “I thought it was because you were hunting my wife.”

  Kinley’s eyes flickered, but he did not rise to the bait. “I’ve followed through with every promise guaranteed you,” he said. “I can
recommend taking everything away—”

  “The deed to Rose Briar is in my name. Purchased with my coin. As for my title, I don’t care what you do with it or anything else promised me. I’ve done all that you’ve demanded of me. What you choose to do, you do of your own accord.”

  Kinley rose. “It is clear that your feelings are engaged where they should not be. I need hardly remind you that I can revoke your status and have you returned to London if necessary until this case is closed.”

  “Are you threatening to arrest me for defending my family?”

  “He is merely promising what will happen if you take one step out that door with any intent other than seeing this case brought to an end,” Ravenspur spoke. He moved away from the fireplace. “If you are even a hairsbreadth from defecting with Faraday’s daughter let me remind you that Lord Ware has the power to slap a treason charge on your head. On that score, consider your son’s future if he should lose both his mother and his father.”

  David held up his hand staying any further comment. He was not yet at the threshold of his temper, but Ravenspur knew him too well not to recognize the weariness in the gesture. “What do you want me to say? That I won’t help her run?” Hell, Ravenspur must know he would. “I won’t put her through a public tribunal or let her go to some godforsaken prison for the rest of her life.” Or worse.

  “Sit down. Please,” Ravenspur said dryly, compelled to add please, a surprising gesture considering the previously issued threat. “There’s more you need to hear.”

  Rain pebbled the window behind him, growing in strength, and David shook his head, reflecting on the knot in his gut, and the ramification of Ravenspur’s threat. “Would you mind if I remained standing, Your Grace?”

  “Would it matter to you if we did?” Kinley drew David’s attention from Ravenspur, and reminded him of another memory similar to this one. His first meeting with Kinley.

  A memory that did not often plague him. His purpose for traveling here was the reason it plagued him now; he was sure.