by Jo Beverley
It wasn’t his concern. He needed to cow Jack Gardeyne, then guard Laura and Harry.
From afar.
Then watch her marry another man.
He took out his brandy flask, which he’d had the foresight to have Topham refill, and took a deep drink. Damn good brandy. Not surprising, in the heart of smuggling country. He drank the next mouthful more slowly in homage. He couldn’t afford to get drunk, but a little haze would be welcome.
He hadn’t lit the candles, but firelight was sufficient for drinking and regrets. He sat by the window, sipping from the flask, watching the faint glimmer of waves rippling eternally to kiss the shore.
Kiss.
So few kisses he and Laura had shared . . .
The door opened and he turned, cursing the gloom, the brandy, and the fact that he was half a room away from his pistols.
Laura?
She must be a drunken dream.
Laura, her beauty radiantly unconcealed, her dark curls loose, wearing the rose-pink robe that had almost stolen his wits at Caldfort House. As he pushed to his feet, she closed the door and walked toward him.
Opening her robe.
Letting it slide off her shoulders and down her arms, to reveal perfect, breathtaking nakedness.
Full breasts. The sweet curve into her waist. Flare out to her hips, thighs . . .
He quickly looked up at her face, free even of the mole.
“You need to know,” she said, eyes brilliant, “that I am not at all shy.”
He opened his mouth and absolutely nothing came out.
“Or hesitant.”
She unfastened one, two, buttons of his banyan.
He found a word then—“Laura”—as he grabbed her hand.
“Don’t be silly.” She slipped free with a smile that was alarmingly like the Laura he’d known years ago. The Laura who would never have stroked him through the heavy silk as she was doing. Or continued to undo the buttons and open the robe.
“Of course, if we go too far,” she said as her hand closed around his pulsing erection, “we’ll have to marry. Remember that, Stephen.”
Remember . . . His temples were throbbing and he wasn’t sure he could see.
He was somehow back in the chair, and the red glow of the fire revealed her perfect face and perfect body as she straddled him.
“Are you shocked? This is who I am, Stephen.”
In no more than a rasp, he said, “I have to be able to think to be shocked.”
She smiled, captured his head, and kissed him, a deep, clever-tongued kiss, but when she drew back, her expression was serious. “You have to think. This is who I am. A lusty woman. A demanding woman. A woman who enjoys a man and knows how to pleasure him.”
It was as if her words rushed straight to his penis. He gripped her hips and shifted to enter her, but she slid away and went to her knees. Her hand enclosed him and her hot mouth slid over him.
“God ...”
Her tongue, playing games as she gently slid and sucked. Her teeth, startling him, but only teasing. He vaguely thought he should protest. Laura? But he sank his hands into her silky curls and closed his eyes. He’d never even dared dream of something like this.
But something blocked him. He looked down, then pulled her up by the hair. “I want you. In you.”
Her eyes seemed impossibly full of stars. “If you come in me, we marry.”
“Damn it, I want to marry you, remember?”
“Do you want to marry this woman? Be sure, Stephen.”
He laughed. “Are you mad?”
He picked her up and carried her to the bed, tossed her there, then shed his trailing robe. He fell on her, vaguely aware that the efficient woman had pulled back the covers and was lying on the sheet.
He found the strength to halt at the brink. “Are you sure?”
She laughed. “Are you mad?”
She grasped him, guided him, and he plunged home.
Thoughts of elegance bumped at the distant edges of his mind, but he was too far gone. He slid in and out as slowly as he could bear, eyes open, every sense quivering to fix this miraculous moment so it could never be taken from him.
Laura.
His.
Even more wonderful than he could ever have imagined.
She smiled back at him, lips parted in clear ecstasy.
“At last,” she gasped. “Oh, Lord, but that feels so wonderful. More, Stephen, more! Harder!”
Her hands, her nails, demanded, and he obeyed, feeling her clutch of pleasure as his mind exploded into bonfire stars.
He rolled to one side, gathering her close, kissing her hair, her neck, her shoulder, whatever part he could find. Filling his hand with a magnificent breast, assuring himself that this was real.
“Shush,” she said, a hand stroking him, and he realized he was weeping.
“Oh, God . . .”
“Don’t you dare be embarrassed, Stephen. I’m weeping, too.”
He touched her cheek and found it wet. Licked a delicious, salty tear.
“It’s been a long time for me,” she whispered. “Over a year.”
“Then why weep?”
“For joy. Are your tears for sorrow?”
He smiled and met her eyes. “No, but a man should weep when he experiences a miracle, shouldn’t he? It’s been a long time for me, too.”
She looked a query.
“Since I heard you were a widow.”
She raised a hand to cradle his face. “Yet you waited.”
“Was I supposed to rush up to you at the graveside?”
“But later?”
“I meant to wait the full year. My will wasn’t strong enough. I was afraid some other man would snatch you away.”
“One might have done, and simply because I had no idea how you felt. Or,” she added, tracing his brow, his nose, “how I felt. What a tragic mistake that could have been.”
Did she accept that Gardeyne had been a mistake? That was irrelevant now, now that she was his at last.
Then he remembered what he’d said about Gardeyne earlier and recognized that her coming here had been an act of faith that humbled him.
“Why?” he asked.
She moved farther away, but wove her hand with his. “To capture you if I could. But fairly.”
She wanted to talk seriously, but he couldn’t resist tasting her breast, her full, dusky nipple. “What do you mean?”
“I wanted you. I needed you.” She grasped his hair and pulled him up to look at her. “Pay attention, Stephen. I want you for myself, but also for Harry. Marrying you will be best way to keep him safe.”
“You expect me to object?” He savored her breast with his hand. “It’s true.”
“But I meant to tell you before you committed yourself,” she protested, stopping his hand. “I wanted to explain that I’m still Lady Skylark. I’ll want fine clothes and parties and light company at times. I won’t be happy spending all my time on politics and philosophy—”
He caught her words in a kiss that lingered, but then he brought it to an end. “Laura, you goose, what sort of dullard do you think I am?”
“You don’t like fashionable affairs.”
“Don’t I?”
“I hardly ever saw you at one.”
“Because I worked like a nervous general to avoid you. I want to marry you, Laura. Are you trying to claim that I don’t know you? That I don’t know that you love fine clothes and dancing and parties. That you’re impetuous and free-spirited? That you’re beautiful, inside and out. And I’ve learned even more these past few days. I want to marry skylarking Laura, who has some understanding of Hume, and a lot more of social rights and justice. And who can probably beat me at chess with a little practice.”
He suddenly thought to look at her left hand and found it ringless, though the mark showed. He touched it.
“It didn’t seem right to wear it here, but I’ll have to put it on again.”
“Until I replace it with mine.”
He looked up. “When?”
He recognized that it was a blunt proposal, but they were past pretty speeches.
“It’s three weeks until the anniversary of Hal’s death.” She frowned slightly. “I’m sorry, but . . .”
“But it would look crass to marry the day after. I can wait, love. Until you’re comfortable.”
“I don’t want to, but we must.” Her hands were wandering his body, perhaps unconsciously, but with exquisite skill. “We could announce our betrothal then, perhaps. I meant what I said. I’m using you to protect Harry. Lord Caldfort won’t be able to refuse to make you Harry’s guardian, and then we can keep him safe.”
She looked anxious, or perhaps even guilty, so he kissed her again. “Everything I am, everything I have, is yours to command.”
“The balance seems unfair.”
He laughed against her breast, awash in her warm, mysterious perfume. “Our pleasures here have been a little unfair. I must correct that. As for our future . . .”
He slid his hand down her body, into the hot moistness between her thighs. “My life has felt incomplete for six years. I’m no tragedy. I’ve lived my life well, enjoyed most of it, but I’ve always been aware of the missing piece. I need you. All that you are. Nicholas mentioned the lock and the key, and that’s it—quite apart from any erotic connotations,” he added with a smile, sliding fingers into her and seeing, feeling her quick response.
“What is a key without the lock it fits?” he went on, and tongued her nipple. “What is a lock without the key that turns it?” He rotated his fingers inside her. “Once, I would have laughed at the idea of fated partners, but we are that, Laura. It means that I can make you complete, as you complete me. Tell me what you like.”
“Press harder.” When he obeyed, she gasped and rose up to kiss him. “You do complete me. I’ve felt that ever since we arrived here, Stephen. Love. As if I was discovering the whole of me through you.” Her lids lowered and she exhaled. “Ah, yes, yes . . . But your fingers aren’t the true key, you know.”
She grasped his erection and he let her guide it again between her thighs.
“You’re a very demanding woman.”
“You noticed,” she said with a sultry, teasing smile as their hips joined. “Click.”
Chapter 42
“A miracle,” Laura said much later, rousing out of a light sleep to sweet darkness, “cannot by definition be so substantial.”
“And if we bring Kant into it, should not be so delightful.”
She laughed, returning to the pleasures of licking his salty skin. “I don’t want to think of stern Herr Kant. How suitable that is, that his name form a negative. I’m sure he’d say that we can’t do this.”
“That would be to deny reason entirely, since we are.”
“No philosophy,” Laura protested, tickling him.
“You started it.”
“I—” But then she pushed him away. “Do you smell smoke?”
“The fire?” he said, sitting up, but she knew it was dead by now. Not even the slightest glow.
“I’m sure I smell smoke.” She scrambled out of bed in the dark and fumbled her way to the door. “It is!”
She heard the scratch as he tried to make a light, but she opened the door. The corridor had night lamps, and in their light she saw wisps of gray smoke coming up through the floorboards.
“Fire!” she cried, then gasped, “Harry! I locked the doors.”
She almost ran as she was, stark naked, but took the seconds necessary to scoop up her robe from the floor. The tinder flared then, but she was already racing barefoot down the corridor, grabbing the key to her bedroom from the pocket.
Behind her, Stephen was yelling, “Fire! Fire!” and banging on doors.
No flames yet. Her hands fumbled the key, but then she got it in, turned it, and was through. Through the bedchamber, through the parlor, to her son.
Juliet was just stirring. “What . . .”
Laura grabbed Harry. “Fire! Wake up, Ju!”
Juliet came alert. “God save us!” She was out of bed and into slippers and cloak in moments. Laura had already unlocked and opened the bedchamber door, which faced the stairs. Praise God, they looked clear, though smoke swirled around there, too.
Then she heard a distant crackle of flames.
Not in this part of the building, and she was shoeless and almost naked. She thrust the crying Harry into her sister’s arms. “Take Harry and get out.”
“Mama!”
“You come, too!” Juliet cried.
“I’ll only be a moment. I need to get shoes!”
Juliet looked as if she’d argue, but then she raced down the stairs and out of sight.
The excuse was real. There could be broken glass, anything, but Laura also couldn’t bear to leave Stephen. He was still pounding on HG’s door. She dashed into her dark bedchamber, shouting at him, “Leave them! Perhaps they’re already outside.”
But then she heard voices. So the two men were awake now, and would get to safety. She looked desperately around the room for her shoes. Where?
A bell began to clang, and she could hear yelling voices along with distant crackling flames. Then smoke made her cough.
Stephen bellowed, “Laura! Where are you? For God’s sake, get out!” He appeared in the doorway. “Come on. The whole place could go up at any moment.”
“I need a nightgown and the wig if I’m to escape scandal.”
“To hell with scandal.” He hauled her up, but she wrenched free.
“No! Only a moment.”
Shoes. On. Nightdress on bed. Shed robe, pull it on. Stephen came to help her with the robe, then slammed the wig on her head, coughing. The clanging bell was a clarion of urgency.
“Come on!” he yelled. “Smoke can choke before the flames reach you.”
It was danger to him as much as to herself that had her racing to the open door. So much smoke now, and a glow, as well, down the end of the corridor. The first flames, licking up from below.
Stephen’s arm came around her, but they almost collided with Farouk, running out of the smoke in his robe, but turbanless, carrying a clinging, nightshirted Dyer. They let him by, then fled down the stairs after.
Laura heard a roar and thought it was a crowd or the sea, but then she realized it was another element—fire. Roaring in triumph as it began to consume the inn.
They reached the hall and she saw safety beyond the open door. Farouk raced through it, but the Grantleighs were staggering out into the hall, the old woman trying to support the coughing, hunched man. Stephen rushed to assist them.
Laura hesitated, but she wasn’t needed there. She ran out into clean, fresh air in search of Harry and Juliet.
“Mama!”
She saw them then, by the ruddy light the fire was already casting over the growing crowd. She raced over to take him in her arms, to hug him close, to soothe him, to assure herself, kissing his hair, his face, that he was all right. Juliet tugged on the wig, straightening it. Heaven knows what she’d looked like.
Laura turned quickly back, seeking Stephen. Then she finally relaxed. He was safe, attending to the Grantleighs. Other people were helping. Townspeople, rushing to see what they could do.
A bucket line was forming to bring seawater to the fire. She’d run to help, but Harry was clinging. “It’s all right, Minnow. It’s all right.”
She prayed that everyone was out of the old building, for the fire was raging now at one corner and behind, in the stable area. Men were climbing up ladders to the roofs of the neighboring buildings, ready to try to beat out new fires. The chandler’s to the left had a tile roof, but the house to the right was thatched like the inn. Dangerous.
Harry was becoming excited rather than scared. She supposed the brilliant sparks flying into the air looked like a bonfire to him.
Then she realized Stephen wasn’t with the Grantleighs anymore. They were being helped away, probably to some house, but where was he? Up on a roo
f?
She put Harry back in Juliet’s arms. “Stay with Aunt Ju, Minnow. I need to find Sir Stephen.”
“He might be helping with the horses,” Juliet said. “Look.”
Laura turned to the arch into the inn yard, which seemed only a frame for flames, and saw people and horses in there. Oh, the fool. No, the hero.
She ran forward, dodging through the crowd, seeing some horses to one side. Most of them must be out. But she couldn’t see Stephen.
Then against flames and black smoke, she saw him leading out two blindfolded horses. Controlling two huge beasts that could crush him if they tried.
A scream whipped her head toward the Compass and a great gasp came from the crowd. Someone was hanging out of one of the tiny dormer windows in the thatch and screaming for help. It even sounded like a child. A kitchen maid or the boot boy?
Somewhere in the crowd, a woman screamed, “Jemmy!”
As if to frame the moment, the fire bell went silent. Men rushed toward the burning building. One grabbed a ladder from the next-door building, propped it against the Compass, and began to climb. Other men held it, despite the growing danger. Flames could be seen, now, through the lower windows.
Laura pushed closer, as if that could somehow help. She tore her eyes away to search for Stephen and saw him handing off the horses to other men. She ran over and grabbed him before he could go back.
“The stables are hopeless!” she shouted.
“The horses are all out.”
They both turned to look at the rescue.
Then Laura gasped, “Stephen! It’s Jack!”
She knew his shape at the top of the ladder, reaching to pull the lad out through the small window. Knew his voice as he called, “Stay calm, lad, you’re strangling me!”
Jack—a hero? Had she misjudged him all along?
The lad didn’t stay calm. He clung, screaming, and the ladder began to topple. As if everything slowed, Laura watched the men at the bottom try to keep it up, and it tilt inexorably sideways.
Everyone went silent, so only the roar and crackle of the flames accompanied the child’s scream as the ladder crashed down.
People rushed forward. Laura would have gone, but Stephen held her back. “You have to stay out of sight. Go back to Harry. I’ll take care of things here.”
