by Henke, Shirl
She surveyed him as he leaned against the sash of the doorway, arms crossed over that broad chest, one booted foot crossed over the other, a study in indolence if not for
the tight set of his mouth and—was there a haunted look deep in those blue eyes? Subtle signs, difficult to interpret. Always the consummate spy, Derrick Jamison gave little away. Her heart began to pound in her chest and the pulse at her throat raced. She fought the urge to throw herself in his arms as if nothing had happened to estrange them.
“When you left me that night I felt betrayed, yes,” she admitted, dying to know what was truly going on behind those magical eyes.
“Yet you bound up my wounds and allowed me to steal Vittoria's best mount,” he said with a touch of the old bravado. Perhaps all was not yet lost!
He knew she had watched him take the horse—knew that she could not bring herself to sound the alarm. His sheer male arrogance galled her. She felt used all over again. “You never lacked for nerve, Derrick. That was one of the reasons I assumed that you would find a way to rescue me when I received your note.”
“But I failed,” he said, slumping against the doorframe. “I am sorry, Beth. I heard how Fatima had you punished.”
“From Nola? The women in the harem gossiped about how the dey bestows odalisques on visitors whose favor he wishes to curry.”
He was amazed at the sudden flash of fury that surged through him. “You're jealous of Nola after Kasseim!” He advanced on her, all the fear and anger bottled up inside him exploding. “I never touched the vapid little chit—I was too busy trying to devise a way to get you out of that sink of depravity before they killed you!”
He had been jealous of the prince, but more importantly, far more importantly—he had remained faithful. And she sensed he was telling the truth. Such joy suffused her that she did not realize what he had implied about her and the prince. “You did not sleep with her? Oh, Derrick, I am sorry for my accusations—for everything! I'm sure you would have rescued me if you could have. Just receiving your note gave me the will to survive,” she said, moving across the cabin and throwing her arms around his neck.
The moment she smiled and ran to him, his anger vanished like fog at sunrise. His arms enveloped her and he held her long slender body against his, savoring every soft, lush curve, so dearly familiar, so dearly missed for all the hellish lonely months they had been separated.
He reached down and swept her into his arms, carrying her over to the bunk where he knelt and laid her on the mattress, leaning over her as he lowered his mouth to hers. Her arms came up, encircling his neck, pulling him to her as her lips opened for his invasion. Their tongues touched like lightning sparks, twining, dueling as hungry mouths glided and pressed together, fitting and refitting, accommodating in old, well-remembered ways that thrilled and delighted anew.
His hands caressed her breasts through the soft cotton of the caftan, feeling the tips harden as she arched upward eagerly. She writhed desperately, wanting the barrier of cloth between them removed, on fire with the need to feel his bare skin on her own. Her fingers worked the fastenings of his shirt,tearing the front open so that she could press her palms against the crisp springy hair on his chest.
When she felt his hand gliding up her leg, baring it from ankle to calf, then up over her thigh, she cried, “Remove this accursed sack from me.”
“Your wish is my command,” he murmured as she wriggled the bunched cloth over her hips and sat up, raising her arms so that he could pull it over her head. He threw the voluminous robe across the cabin. It floated to the floor as he cupped a breast in each hand, teasing the nipples, then raising them to his mouth one at a time, feasting in pure delight.
The heat, the sweet suckling pressure of his mouth sent frissons of ecstasy through her, pooling low in her belly. Beth worked with clumsy fingers at his belt, sliding it off, then unbuttoning his fly and reaching for the hardness imprisoned inside. When it sprang free she wrapped her hand around it and stroked until he moaned.
“You'll unman me if you don't stop that,” he growled, stilling her busy fingers. Sitting on the edge of the bunk, he tugged off his boots and pulled down his breeches. As he kicked them away, she peeled the sweaty white cotton shirt from his shoulders and threw it onto the growing pile of clothes.
Desperate in their need, they wasted no time, tumbling backward onto the hard, narrow mattress. As he lay on top of her, her legs opened, wrapping around his hips. Derrick plunged deep inside her welcoming heat. She was wet and tight and blissfully sweet, but his long celibacy denied him the patience to savor that as he pumped furiously. Her own hunger matched his. She rode with him, maddened by each long hard stroke, her hips arching, her fingers digging into his back, the nails scoring it as she felt the swift completion begin.
It was too soon, too soon, and yet it was such blessed release after the long bitter separation from this man, from the wild hunger he evoked and only he could quench. She gave in to the climax. Derrick could feel her body spasm, feel the furious pounding of her heart, hear her sharp cries muffled in his mouth as he kissed her and followed her over the edge to fierce, draining surfeit.
They lay collapsed and panting, sweat-soaked and utterly sated, his body pressing hers into the mattress, hers enveloping his while they both let the universe spin away. If the dey had opened fire with all the cannon on the city walls, neither of them would have noticed. Finally, Derrick rolled off her and onto his back, pressed against the wall on the narrow bunk. Still breathing hard, he raised himself up on one elbow, resting his head against his hand and looking down at her, letting his eyes travel from her flushed face to her slender feet and back, enjoying all the creamy curves along the way.
“Woman, you are a wonder,” he breathed, touching her lightly with his other hand, letting it rest on her hipbone.
“I'm filthy and disheveled, my hair is a tangled rat's nest and I have nothing to wear.” Looking up into his eyes, she did not seem the least bit concerned about any of those problems.
“You're the most beautiful creature I've even seen. I'm the one who's filthy. I warrant this mattress is gritty with half the sand in the foothills.”
“You were out riding, weren't you?” She was curious about why he had been away while so much was going on in the city.
“My original plan was to win you from Kasseim.”
Beth was flummoxed. “Win me?”
He shrugged one shoulder, not sure how she would take it when he replied, “In a horse race.”
“A pity you didn’t arrive in time to collect your prize,” she said with some asperity. A horse race indeed!
“I lost. But at least I had a contingency plan. Whom do you think sent Drum to Decatur with word that you were being held by the dey?”
“How did you know that I was there in the first place?”
He grinned and ran his hand over her belly, caressing the concave surface. “I was interviewing the male prisoners taken from your ship, assuring them that they and their families would be ransomed, when I heard some remarkably familiar oaths. Then you exploded out into the courtyard pursued by several very unhappy Janissaries.”
“I'd heard stories in Naples about Barbary, but nothing prepared me for being enslaved. I'm glad Commodore Decatur taught them what it means to interfere with American rights—also glad he was there to get me out when your original plan failed.”
That still rankled. “If Kasseim hadn't changed from the usual race course, I would have won you, but either way I had to get him out of the city while his father was negotiating with the Americans. He's too much of a hothead to have given in as easily.”
“You know him then?” she asked, biting her lip. The night she'd spent in his bed as he lay drugged still made her ill.
Not as well as you, I fear. The treacherous thought came unbidden. He suppressed it and replied, “I was sent to Algiers several months ago to watch Decatur when we learned his fleet was headed there. Cultivating the young heir was a good way to learn
the mood and workings inside the power structure.”
“Always patriotism, Derrick?” she whispered, wondering sadly if everything he cared about was related to his sense of duty.
“Enough talk,” he murmured, letting his hand glide lower, covering her mound, massaging it as he said, “So lovely, it matches the hair above.”
“Arab men find women's body hair unattractive. There would have been nothing to compare if I hadn't fought like a wildcat when Fatima ordered my nether parts beautified.”
His hand froze and his breath hissed sharply before he could control it. “Let us never again speak about your time in the harem,” he said.
She could sense the anger he was holding inside. “What is it, Derrick? What's wrong? You act as if it was my fault that those animals enslaved me.”
“That accursed corsair Quinn would never have captured you in the first place if you'd stayed at home,” he blurted out angrily.
Beth bolted upright, furious and amazed. “And pray where is ‘home’? Naples? You left me there, riding away on your sacred mission to stop Napoleon—you could've bled to death in the mountains for all I knew! Was I to pine away staring out at the Apennines for the rest of my life? Or is home America? Then we should never have become lovers in the first place—a capital idea now that I think on it!”
She swung her legs from the bed and started to rise, but he reached out and seized her wrist, roughly pulling her back into his arms, muffling his own angry oaths in her mouth. As he savaged her lips, she started to claw at him, but her nails did not dig in. Rather her fingers clamped over his shoulders, holding fast to him as she returned the fierce possessive kiss.
They tumbled back onto the bed, lost again in a maelstrom of passion, flesh slick against flesh, hungers flaring, demanding appeasement after the long abstinence of so many months. This time he lay on his back, placing her over him, staring intently into her eyes as she impaled herself and rode him as if she were some splendid pagan goddess. His hands cupped her breasts while she arched her back, flinging her tangled hair over her shoulders. Then he teased her nipples, urging her to bend toward him so he could feast. When she did so, the milky globes hung like ripe fruit for him to taste as his hands held herhips,guiding their wild ride.
This time he slowed their rhythm, prolonging the glory of the joining, as if sensing there would be a reckoning once their passions had been sated. Each time they neared the brink, he would clamp his hands over her buttocks, stilling her gyrations as they both strove for control, until they could endure the sweet torture no longer. Then they spent themselves utterly once more.
Chapter Fourteen
Beth lay with her head on his chest, feeling the furious beating of his heart gradually slow to an even thrum. She had never loved him more...and never been angrier with him than at that moment. Still, in spite of her hurt, her fingers played with the hair on his chest and she nuzzled her face in the curve of his shoulder, unable to stop her body from reveling in physical contentment as he held her tightly while his hand played with a lock of her hair.
Derrick hated to break the spell. But they could not make the voyage to Sicily joined together without respite. Then again...? He could not help smiling against her hair, stroking the wild curls. “This is good, isn't it, puss?”
Once there had been so much more—laughter and companionship, the enjoyment of simple things such as walks on the quay, rides in the countryside, sunsets on the bay, even arguments about politics and Italian unification. “Yes, it's wonderfully good...but only this, Derrick? Is passion all we have left?” she asked sadly, raising her head.
He sighed. ”I don't know. What do you want us to have, Beth?”
The question hung in the air between them. He wished he could take it back. Am I afraid of what she will answer? Or of what I will?
She knew what her heart longed to reply, but that could never be. He could never marry her, she who had so long protested that she would never marry. What irony. There would be no vows, no children, no growing old together. “Only now, Derrick,” she replied simply, turning into his embrace. “I only want us to have now.”
They spent the following days aboard the cramped quarters of the ship trying not to think of what lay ahead, living moment by moment. And the moments were good. The weather was golden and the leisurely pace of the overloaded old brigantine gave them time to walk on the crowded deck, laughing and exchanging jests with the sailors whose Genoese dialect was often difficult to understand.
They talked about everything...and nothing. By tacit agreement, neither raised the subject of what would become of them once his assignment in Naples was complete. He told her that the restoration of the Spanish Bourbons had been smoothly facilitated by the Royal Navy. Joaquim Murat had been placed before a firing squad by his own Neapolitan troops and Queen Caroline and their children had fled to France. There would be no reason for Derrick to remain in Naples after he made his initial report. But he never spoke a word about his plans and Beth did not ask.
Instead they talked about Naples and what she would paint when she resumed her place in art circles there. With lavish spenders such as the Bourbons at court again, commissions would be plentiful. Her future was assured. And bleak. But she revealed nothing of her feelings to him, only going along with his glowing predictions about her brilliant career.
There was an air of uncertainty and desperation beneath their laughter, even in their loving. They came together nightly, even in the afternoons, slipping into the privacy of their cabin during the heat of the day to make love. The hot, sultry day they arrived in the beautiful Sicilian port of Palermo, Derrick stood staring out at the harbor, ringed with British warships of all sizes, gazing past their masts to the enchanting town set amid jewel-like green hills. The houses, great and small, were painted soft pastel blues, greens, pinks and yellows. Flowers abounded everywhere.
“Tis lovely,” she said as she walked up to join him.
“Calvara says it will take the rest of the day to unload his cargo. We don't sail until morning, so we could find a local inn and wash the itch of saltwater from our skin.” He turned to her with heavy-lidded slumberous eyes.
“I would like that very much,” she replied, already feeling the fire lick through her veins.
They found a small inn on a hillside overlooking the waterfront. The elderly man who owned it smilingly ushered them past a splashing fountain in the courtyard and up a narrow outside staircase leading to a second-story room that was airy and spacious, with floor-to-ceiling glass-paned doors that opened onto a balcony with a view of the bay.
Derrick made arrangements for them to stay the night and ordered a large wooden tub filled with scented water to be delivered immediately. They sat out on the balcony and ate a light repast of fresh melon and rich goat cheese washed down with crisp white wine as the servants scurried up and down the stairs bringing pails of water.
“Tis so peaceful here,” Beth said dreamily, looking over the verdant hills surrounding the city.
“Appearances can deceive. Only look to the British flotilla in the harbor. This has been the Royal Navy's major outpost in the Mediterranean since the war began. All of Sicily is rife with political intrigues.”
“What a perfect place for a spy,” she replied lightly. “Will you keep at it now that Napoleon is no longer a threat?” She had not asked until now. Perhaps it was unwise, but she longed to know what he would do after they reached Naples tomorrow.
He stared out at the distant sky, billowing with fluffy white clouds, saying nothing for a moment. “I honestly don't know. I would probably not have ended up in this life if not for Bellingham.”
“The peer you killed in a duel—or was that just a Ban-bury tale made up for me?”
“I was in bad loaf over the duel, true, but Bellingham was just a baron of little consequence with greedy relatives who felt a deal more warmly about my father's money than they did him. My father summoned me to Lynden Hall after that incident...”
He paused for a moment, as if the memory were too painful to speak of, then sighed and went on, “He was furious with me for besmirching the family name and demanded that I purchase a commission. I had been a wastrel, bored with my aimless life. Killing a man changes one. I agreed to do so, thinking the army would be a way to redeem myself, but Colonel Sir Wilton James introduced me to two senior members of the Foreign Office instead. It seemed they'd heard of my difficulties—and my facility with foreign languages and, er, other things.” They'd heard of his reputation wheedling his way into the beds of noblewomen, a useful skill in their line of work, but Derrick did not choose to mention that.
“And you were allowed to tell no one what you were doing—not even your father. I can only imagine how terrible that must have been.”
“When he became ill several years later, I intended to return to the Hall and explain. But then there were rumors that Bonaparte might invade Russia and I was sent to Paris. By the time my assignment was completed the earl had died and my brother succeeded him. I believe I told you that he gave me the cut direct the one time I attempted a rapprochement in London. I never tried again.”
“You should return and try once more,” she said, her conscience forcing her to suggest it, even as her heart broke at the thought of losing him.
“Lee and I were never close. No, I will continue working for the government. Tis an atonement of sorts, serving my country to make up for disgracing my family.” He shook his head sadly, breaking the melancholy spell, then smiled and took her hand. “Enough of brown studies. I believe our bath awaits, puss.”
They undressed each other slowly in front of the huge wooden tub, inhaling the fragrance of sandalwood blended with the musky essence of their own arousal. She was dressed in a loose peasant blouse and skirt much like those she had worn in Naples. Derrick had purchased the items on the waterfront while she waited aboard the ship, clad in an oversized sailor's shirt and trousers, which were much like what he wore now. The simple clothing dropped to the floor, piece by piece.
