He had no need of a blooded House to protect him or a useless title to gain him a decent wife.
No, he chose me, she reminded herself sadly. She averted her gaze, overwhelmed by shame. It’s not right for me to dally with this honorable man when I know I cannot give him a future that won’t cause his death.
He touched her, his fingers gliding under her chin to tilt her face back to him. The calluses on his palms made her quiver, her inner thighs slick with longing. How his hands could be so rough yet gentle she had no idea.
Eyes solemn, he repeated, “Why?”
Her throat was so constricted that she could barely get the words out. “Because I would regret never loving you when I die, even though I know it’s despicable for me to use you like this.”
His eyes flared. “Use me, my lady, I beg you. Love me, and then allow me to serve at your side.”
Automatically, his shoulders tensed into a protective stance, which only served to break her heart all over again. No one could protect her from the wrath of Queen Majel. No one but herself. But oh, it was so sweet to have him care enough that he wished he could help her.
She pressed her mouth to his, lingering over the fullness of his lips and the slightly bitter taste of coffee on his tongue. For once, she actually found herself craving that foul brew, for it tasted like magic from his mouth. Or maybe it was those big hands gliding down her bare arms. She shivered and pushed against him, shifting anxiously, begging for more of his touch while her fingers flew down the front laces of her corset.
She threw the last of her finery aside without heed, too hungry for the warmth of his skin. Sliding her palms over the wide expanse of his chest, she found a puckered scar low on his left shoulder. Further investigation revealed a matching scar on his back. Sobered, she pushed him flat on his back in her bed and began a thorough investigation of his body for other injuries.
“It’s merely an old Indian wound.” Unconcerned, he reached up to pull her down atop him, but she shook her head while she probed the scar. He had no discernable loss of use of the limb. No blackened marks surrounded the skin about the wound, so it hadn’t been a lazor. The cutting burn from such a weapon would have likely cost him his entire arm.
The colonials had used antique powder-shot pistols in their revolt, but a wound created by such a weapon would have left a scattered pocked pattern of burns. This wound was clean. Using her fingers, she estimated the width of the projectile, prodding the underlying muscle hard enough he grunted.
Whatever had struck him had been fired with enough force to penetrate his body completely, but the back wound was as neat and tidy as the front. So not a manufactured piercing bullet from Bei-Jing, or the exit hole would have been as large as her fist. “What manner of weapon made this wound?”
“An Iroqux arrow.”
She cocked her head and let her fingers tap restlessly against his chest as she tried to remember details about Indian uprisings. Most had occurred when the colonists first arrived, because the natives had naturally protected their land. However, backed by Britannia’s might and fueled by their own determination, the colonists had easily driven back the Indians into the forests and mountains from which they’d come. She hadn’t heard of an Indian uprising in ages, and she had no idea what their weapons looked like exactly, but she must respect them if they left such a wound.
“They use long, smooth sticks of wood capped by a sharp stone tip and shoot them from hand-hewn bows,” Gil explained. “My squad found a bow after a skirmish and it was a hard draw, even for me.”
“Weren’t you wearing any body armor?”
“Not yet. But you may wager we started wearing it soon after.”
Intrigued, she couldn’t help but picture such a weapon. While primitive, it had managed to pierce a man. Stone could be very sharp, and since it wasn’t metallic, it would be impervious to certain technological invasions, like her nanobot dissemblers that loved to eat metal or simply broke down any compound into its various parts. A dissembler would have a difficult time chewing on stone.
Wood would be easily destroyed though, and from great distances…
A sharp sting on her neck jerked her attention back to him.
Gil had sat up enough to nip her neck. “Are you honestly more interested in primitive warfare than a man lying naked and ready beneath you?”
Smiling down at him with a deliberately wicked light in her eyes, she took him inside her without a single preliminary warning. This first time, she had no need of preparation, for once her mind had decided to take Gil to her bed, her body had been more than eager to attack.
His gasp made her hesitate. She’d assumed a man of his age, living the life of a colonist far from the strict morals of Britannia’s Court, would have plenty of sexual experience, but perhaps she’d been mistaken. If she’d ruined a first experience for him…
“Don’t stop,” he groaned. “It’s been too long. I can’t…wait!”
Urgency tightened his body beneath her, so she rode him hard, giving him the frantic need that bubbled inside her. Gritting his teeth, he clutched her hips and fought back his own release, but his hands were not where she wanted them. She pried his right hand off her hip and pressed that big, rough palm to her breast. Covering his hand with hers, she massaged and kneaded, dragging that rough skin over her nipple until her head fell back on a low moan of bliss.
A quick study, he cupped her other breast, rubbing and squeezing and torturing her nipples until she shuddered. Shifting her weight forward slightly, she ground against him, twisting and shaking as climax swept through her. His big frame flexed beneath her, his hips arching on his own cry of release, but he never ceased rubbing her breasts.
Stretching out atop of him, she smiled down at the glazed look in his eyes. “Now, dear sir, I want you to rub those incredible hands all over my body.”
His dark eyes gleamed and he curled his sensual lips into a lazy smile. “T’would be my great honor, my lady, as long as I may start…” his palm slid down her back to cup her backside firmly, “…here.”
Lying with her head pillowed on Gil’s chest, Charlotte tried to be fully at ease, but her mind refused to cooperate. Hours of lovemaking should have left her replete and limp with pleasure, for her lover had been most diligent and vigorous. However, the more he moved her heart with his fervent gentleness, the more she longed to tell him of her past, no matter how dangerous it would be for them both. I ought to explain a bit, if only to help him understand why I can’t have him for forever.
Gathering her courage, she whispered, “I left Britannia seven years ago and I can never go back.”
“It matters not to me, as long as you allow me to protect you.” He kissed the top of her head and tightened his arms about her so she could barely breathe.
As though he seeks to keep me at his side forever. Silly man. Her throat tightened and her eyes burned with emotion. He’s the one who needs protection.
“As your husband, I would do anything to keep you safe. We can sail far from here. Hell, we can find an uncharted planet and start our own colony.”
Most untitled men would give their first born son to marry into a prestigious House, while Gil was ready to leave even the modest comforts of this colony behind. Of course, he didn’t know exactly how titled she was, although he surely suspected she was of noble blood. He didn’t even sound shocked that she never intended to go back to Britannia.
Certainly the parties and dances of the Season were in full swing, building with desperate gaiety at the Solstice’s approach. The longer the nights became, the more frantically the Houses would party, as though they could ignore the insidious creep of the blackness that would soon settle over the center of the galaxy.
How ironic that Americus—an insignificant hunk of rock barely more than a moon—could cause an eclipse that darkened the most advanced civilization in the galaxy. The colony planet was a fraction of the size of Britannia, but when the planets aligned on the seventh Solstice, tiny Americus
was exactly the right size and distance from their great sun to cause a total solar eclipse, casting the capital of Londonium into full shadow for nearly an hour.
Since the rebellion, the eclipse had taken on new meaning, both to Britannia and the colonists, for if one small colony could revolt and declare their independence, then why not others? Many of the planets conquered by Britannia were assimilated into the Empire because of their weaponry or technology. When they conquered a planet, they took what they wanted, killed any of the natives which dared to object, and if necessary, infected them with biological and technological weapons.
Many that I enabled them to create.
Charlotte squeezed her eyes shut to hold the tears inside. “They think I’m dead and I must stay that way. You’ll never be safe with me, Gil. Never.”
Loosening his fierce grip, he let his fingers roam up and down her spine, a soothing waltz that melted her shame and made words clog her throat. It was all she could do to hold back the wretched truth. But if she told him the secrets still buried deep in her mind, he’d become a target of the Crown. Already, he knew too much. If anyone came to Queenstown asking for information about a woman who fit her description… The Guards would drag him off to the Tower and peel back every layer of skin while they scoured his mind.
“What about this other man?”
He surprised her by not pushing for more specific details of her past. He was a lawman. Surely he knew that if she’d gone to the trouble of faking her death, then she must be a wanted criminal. If Americus had not rebelled, then it would be his solemn duty to drag her in for a quick DNA scan, and once her identity popped up on the Londonium grid, the galaxy would empty to chase her down no matter the cost and drag her back to Queen Majel.
She pushed up on his chest and searched his face with narrowed gaze. “Why aren’t you determined to uphold your duty, Sheriff?”
He laughed, trying to make a joke of it, but his eyes were entirely too serious. “As if I’d ever turn my most beloved in to Britannia.”
Perhaps that’s why he’d proposed. As her husband, his duty would be to her, not the law. But he knew nothing of her past. He couldn’t have known that she was so desperately wanted on Britannia until she’d told him. If he knew the truth, he’d scoop me up in his arms and run for the nearest shuttle to the deepest, darkest corner of space he could find.
“Tell me about your other man,” he repeated, carefully polite but firm. “I have a right to know.”
“He helped me escape Britannia undetected.”
Gil made a low sound of grudging acknowledgement. “Then I suppose I must thank him for his assistance.”
She snorted at the thought. “In the flight, he was seriously injured when our ship was attacked. It was all I could do to land his small craft in the wilderness here on Americus. The hull had taken so much damage that life support failed and the guidance system shorted out. I had no idea where we were, and I thought he would die in my cause. I couldn’t bear another burden on my conscience, so I saved him.”
“How?”
Such a simple question. It made her breath hitch in her throat and ice trickled down her spine. Her stomach quivered at dread of his reaction. “I…I healed him.” In a rush to avoid his questions, she went on. “Later, I learned the attack had nothing to do with me. Bounty hunters had word that Lord Regret was on board and…”
Gil shot up out of her bed and had the antique pistol in his hand before she even sat up. “Lord Sigmund Regret? That’s the man you choose over me?”
Lord Regret, gunslinger assassin famed across the universe—although gunslinger wasn’t entirely correct for he would use any weapon at his disposal. He would even kill according to detailed specifications in his contract if the patron was determined to exact revenge in a particularly memorable manner.
Stories abounded of his outrageous killings. He could drop a man without the victim even knowing he’d taken an injury. Sometimes the target would arrive at home only to fall down dead at her doorstep without ever once realizing she’d left behind a trail of blood. But one thing he’d never used was technology like hers, until she’d used her latest experiments to save his life.
Of course Regret wasn’t his real name, and she had absolutely no desire to learn the truth of his heritage, for she feared it was just as dreadfully respectable and as morally repulsive as hers.
Gil paced back and forth in the tiny expanse between her bed and the outer hull. “Good God, Charlotte, that man is wanted on every planet in the galaxy. The price on his head would buy this entire Queen-forsaken planet! Hell, we could buy an entire luxury cruiser and simply live in space for the rest of our lives if we turned him in.”
It shamed her to admit that she’d thought of it more than once in that first dreadful year of exile. Regret had helped her, of course, but he was also a very dangerous man. They had a business relationship that had ultimately led to a more personal exchange, but she’d never be foolish enough to think that he cared for her.
To complicate matters, her supposed miraculous existence despite her very public “death” had become a galaxy legend. Lady Doctor Wyre sightings were gossiped about and reported from York to Parisii and beyond. In fact, she was sure he’d been offered a contract on her head at least once or twice in the years since they’d crashed on Americus. He alone of everyone who’d known Lady Doctor Wyre now knew that she was not only still alive but also exactly where she hid.
The first rule of assassination: assassinate the assassin. Especially when he knows your most dreadful secrets.
At first, she’d waited in dread for the day he’d come to her door with that wide, easy smile and genteel manners that had earned him the nickname of Lord while he shot her dead, strangled her, poisoned her food, or a thousand gruesome ways he could end her life and take her head to Britannia.
Surely the only thing that had possibly stayed his hand this entire time was that the Queen wanted her alive so they could pry every last secret from her brain. If Queen Majel ever wanted her dead, then she was terribly afraid that he’d be unable to refuse the exorbitant price.
“Tell me,” Gil demanded. “I want to know everything.”
Charlotte climbed out of bed and slipped into a wrapper, but he made no move to cover himself. Irritated that the sight of him in all his masculine nudity seemed to loosen her tongue even more, she knelt by the bed and pulled out a small ornate chest. This conversation required tea.
She unlocked the chest with a key that she wore on her locket’s chain and lifted out a small bag of golden-tipped assum, her last most precious souvenir of Britannia. “For this conversation, I need something more palatable than the swill you call coffee.”
As she swept past him to the kitchen, he took the hint and pulled his linen shirt back over his head. At least his incredible body wouldn’t distract her from this tale. By the time she sat down with the pot of freshly steeped tea, her mouth was watering and her stomach grumbled with longing. Gil had righted her table and procured cups—the ugly heavy ceramics for coffee. She hadn’t bothered to purchase decent china since no one had tea to sell. She poured them each a cup, unable to suppress her sniff of disdain when he liberally dropped sugar cubes into his cup.
For long, blissful moments, she simply held the cup beneath her nose and inhaled. So good. She took a sip and her entire body trembled with ecstasy.
“I do believe I’m insulted,” Gil commented with a wry smile on his face that took away the lines of hard life here on the colony. “I don’t think you shivered that much when you came.”
She tipped her head slightly in acknowledgement, which made him chuckle. “Lord Regret—”
The smile slipped off his face and the hard-jawed determination of the lawman replaced it.
“—owes his life to me,” she continued, “and mine is owed to him for his assistance in fleeing Britannia. I shan’t turn him in after saving him.”
“I understand your attachment,” Gil said carefully, cupping his big p
alms around the cup but not drinking her precious treasure of tea. “However, I must insist that he be arrested and executed as quickly as possible. He’s a violent man, Charlotte. He’ll kill me, you, anyone, if the price is right.”
She nodded. “Yes, he will. But I won’t turn him in.”
“You love him so very much, then?”
She cocked her head, letting the memory of the last Solstice play through her mind. Regret had many needs, most of them savage and dark compared to what she’d just done with Gil, but love had not been part of their relationship. Or had it? Because surely a man wouldn’t trust just anyone with that secret side of himself. “I don’t know that I’d ever use the word love to describe my feelings for him, but I need him, and he needs me.”
Gil’s jaw tightened even more but he made no response.
“We’re connected, you see. Our lives hang in the balance together.” His eyes narrowed with consideration, and she took a moment to sip her tea, trying to think of a way to tell him somewhat of that connection without revealing her past. “I told you he was injured in the crash, and I was able to save him. I suppose you could say that I’m keeping him alive.”
“Is that why he comes every Solstice?”
“Yes and no. I always do check the connection between us to ensure he’s still strong and hale, but we’ve become friends over the years. Companions.” Gil’s face darkened and he averted his gaze, silent hurt and jealousy radiating from him. Softening her voice, she added, “You have to understand, Gil. When I came here, I was alone for the first time in my life, far from all the luxuries and powerful contemporaries with which I’d once mingled. I needed a friend, someone to talk to who knew enough of my past life that I felt…”
Abruptly, Gil slammed his hat on his head and stood. Throwing his coat over his arm, he stomped toward the door. “I understand, my lady. Lord Regret is your equal in a way no backwater colonist ever could be.”
Lady Doctor Wyre Page 2
