"Ah, how timely," Franklin declared as they drove toward him. He retained the driver of the first carriage and handed the cabin boy another coin for his trouble. "Rachel, Sin-Jin," Franklin beckoned, "follow me."
The older man trudged carefully across the dusty street, then paused, waiting as the august entourage climbed down and gathered before the carriage.
"Gentlemen, I am honored." Franklin inclined his head to the group of men.
The tall, elegant man who had appointed himself spokesman for the others stepped forward and smiled his welcome.
"Monsieur Franklin, you have arrived on the date you stated you would. The others," he indicated the men with him, "they had their doubts, but not I. You have proven to be a man of your word time and again. And when you say you arrive on such and such a date, I know that it will be so. So I urge our friends to come and provide a suitable escort for you back to Paris. The days we will travel, the evenings, rest and discuss events." He placed his hand in Franklin's. "How goes it, old friend?"
"Splendidly. I would like you to meet someone." He gestured toward Rachel. "Messrs. Harlow, James, Den-nison, Monsieurs Henri, Dubet, I would like the extreme pleasure of presenting Mademoiselle Rachel O'Roarke to you.”
There was a murmur of greetings. Dubet, the dapper, gray haired man who had greeted Franklin first, took Rachel's hand and kissed it. Within moments, his dark eyes had taken complete inventory of all the young lady's observable charms and found them pleasing.
"Enchanted, mademoiselle." Straightening, Dubet cocked his head and looked quizzically at Franklin. "Yours, mon ami?" There was envy and admiration in his deep voice. Franklin's reputation was well known on both sides of the Atlantic.
Franklin chuckled and feigned ignorance of Dubet's intent. "She was once my ward."
Dubet's thin, aristocratic lips peeled back in a smile. He looked at Rachel once again with more than a little interest. "Ah, then I am free to—"
Sin-Jin easily placed his body between Rachel and the aged diplomat. "—travel along with us on our trip to Paris, just as you have offered." The smile on his lips was wide, guileless, as he took Rachel's arm.
The look in Dubet's eyes frosted as he regarded the third member of the American party. "And you are, sir?" he inquired formally.
Franklin saw a problem arising and was swift to avert it. "My attache."
"And Rachel's intended," Sin-Jin added in the next breath. He slipped his arm around her shoulders and felt her reaction to his words as she stiffened.
"Intended what?" Rachel asked in less than a whisper as she stared at Sin-Jin.
"Never mind, we'll discuss it later. Gentlemen, since the journey is a long one, I suggest we begin immediately." Sin-Jin nodded at the others, then hurried her along to their carriage. The driver had just finished loading the luggage on top.
Rachel didn't like decisions being made for her. She liked being cavalierly herded along like a mindless wench even less. With an annoyed huff, she jerked away from Sin-Jin and threaded her arm through Franklin's. "Whatever possessed you to bring him along?"
If ever two people were meant for one another, Franklin mused, it was these two. "Whimsy," he answered Rachel, keeping a solemn expression for her benefit. But his eyes gave him away.
"Lunacy would be more the way of it," she murmured as she stepped into the carriage.
The second carriage traveled in their wake.
A third of the words that were spoken within the tapestried walls of the vast, stuffy room where she sat were completely lost to Rachel. Their sound buzzed around her ears like summer bees around the garden. The chief French negotiator spoke predominately in his native tongue. When he tried to fit it around the English language, his accent was so heavy, his pronunciation so ponderous, he might as well have continued speaking French.
Despite the drawbacks, the language barriers, the long hours seated in uncomfortable chairs, the continual breakdowns in negotiations, Rachel found it all exhilarating. Here was history, forming right before her eyes.
But even the formation of history, at times, was tiring to witness. The men at the table had been arguing, in French and English, for hours. Rachel tried not to be too conspicuous as she attempted to stretch her weary body. She saw Sin-Jin raise an intrigued brow in her direction just as the chairman declared that the meeting was adjourned until the following morning.
Rachel rose quickly, grateful to be able to move about once again. She gathered the various notes she had made together. Sin-Jin took her arm and they made their way out the door. The sound of men arguing followed them all the way out.
A carriage took them to the inn where they and Franklin were lodging during the negotiations. The inn was blissfully bright and warm in contrast to the dismal evening without and the hall where they had just been.
"I'm finding it difficult to believe," she said to Sin-Jin as they entered, "that a preliminary treaty has already been signed by all parties concerned."
He was glad they hadn't been a party to that as well. It would have been an ordeal if ever there was one. "Almost six months ago," Sin-Jin recalled.
She didn't understand. What was the problem? Men always made such mountains out of dots of dust. "Why don't they just re-sign it and be done with it instead of spending the rest of the summer arguing?"
He laughed at her solution, though there were times when he was wont to agree with it. "I'm afraid it's not as simple as that."
She sniffed, expecting nothing less from him. After all, he was a man. "Apparently men like to make things difficult." She took up her bound papers again.
"Men?" Sin-Jin raised an amused brow. Women were the complicaters as far as he was concerned, always picking a thing to death.
She didn't care for his mocking tone. Sarcasm entered hers. "Yes, men. I saw no women at the bargaining table today."
And thank God for that. He fell into step next to her as they approached the stairs that led to the rooms on the landing above. "If there were, it would take years instead of months to sign the final treaty."
"If there were," Rachel corrected haughtily, "it'd take days."
"Ha!"
She whirled on him just short of the first step, her hands fisted on her hips. "And pray tell, just what is the meaning of that sound?"
He loved seeing the firelight in her eyes. "It means that women can never make up their minds about anything quickly."
They'd been here a week and in that time, she had made up her mind. He came to her each night, though they primly kept two rooms and took pains so that none would suspect their dealings. She had reviled him the first time she had laid eyes on him. Now she couldn't imagine living without him. Strange how some things evolved.
Rachel's eyes glided along his face. "Oh, we can about some matters."
He didn't misread her meaning. Sin-Jin laced his fingers through her hand. "Tell me more."
Rachel lifted her chin, feigning disdain. "And run the risk of swelling your head?"
His grin was nothing short of wicked and whirled through her soul like a hot, summer wind along the coast. "It wasn't my head I was thinking of at the moment."
A blush dashed up her cheeks like a streak of lightning, ending in the roots of her hair.
"Heathen," she whispered, looking around and hoping that no one had overheard Sin-Jin.
He knew what she thought he meant. "It was my heart I was referring to, not another part." As if to give credence to his claim, he took her hand and placed it on his chest. She felt the steady, strong beat beneath her fingers. His eyes narrowed as desire entered. "God, but you are a lusty lass."
Rachel pulled her hand away indignantly. "I'm nothing of the kind."
He stole a kiss before she had a chance to avert her face. "I know better." His whispered words warmed her cheek.
Rub her nose in it, will he? She'd show him. Rachel raised her skirts and turned to ascend the stairs. "You'll be knowing nothing."
Sin-Jin caught her by the elbow, then quickly swept he
r into his arms. Before she could protest, he kissed her again, long and hard, melting her resistance away like snowflakes in the April sun.
"Then teach me."
Knowing when she had lost, and in losing won, Rachel laced her hands around his neck. She shook her head. "We'll be seen."
He began to walk up to the first landing. "Not behind closed doors."
It wasn't seemly to be carried around like some woman of ill repute. She wiggled a little for form's sake. But her heart wasn't in it. "But someone will see you carrying me to my room."
He saw right through her. At bottom, if it interfered with what she wanted, Rachel cared not a fig for public opinion. "And I'll be the envy of all concerned."
As he came to the landing, a door opened and an elderly woman stepped out. Her mouth dropped open when she saw the pair and her raised brows disappeared beneath the bonnet she wore.
Sin-Jin smiled at her calmly. "My sister sprained her ankle." He nodded down the hall. "I'm taking her to her room."
His words were lost to the woman. A barrage of words, all French, followed them as Sin-Jin made his way to Rachel's room.
"Sister indeed," Rachel muttered, attempting to keep a straight face. But there was laughter in her eyes as she snuggled closer. "I've brother enough in Riley, thank you very much."
Pushing the door open with his shoulder, Sin-Jin walked into the room. He shut the door with his foot.
Sin-Jin set Rachel down on the floor and began to slowly slip her shawl from her shoulders, savoring each moment like a man unwrapping a precious gift. "Well, then I'll just have to think of another way to relate to you."
Chapter Thirty-two
Rachel sighed as Sin-Jin's kiss wound its way deep into her soul. If it was sinful to want a man like this, then she was eternally damned. And glad of it. Heaven would be no place for her without Sin-Jin or this wondrous feeling that was coursing through her veins.
Her arms still wrapped around his neck, Rachel leaned back and studied Sin-Jin with eyes that were half closed. He made her feel lazily content and wantonly excited at the same time.
Her smile was inviting, sensual. "I take it that you've already been thinking of a different way to relate to me."
Sin-Jin removed her hands from his neck and turned her around. "I have. I think I might have stumbled upon a way to both our liking."
He began to undo the intricate lacings at her back. It seemed as if she was sewn more tightly into her clothing tonight than usual. Or perhaps it was the desire pounding in his veins that only made it seem so.
"God, woman, why are there always so many ties to your clothes?"
Rachel turned her head and looked slyly at him over her shoulder. "Might it be to be giving you time to repent, perhaps?"
"I'll serve my time in hell if that's what's necessary." He stifled the urge to cut through the last of the lacings, loosening them instead. "I'd burn for you for all of eternity anyway."
Finally!
The dress parted and Sin-Jin slipped it from her shoulders. The straps of the chemise beneath followed. The material pooled to her waist, leaving her partially nude and completely exposed to his gaze.
Slowly, as if he had never seen a woman before, Sin-Jin turned Rachel around to face him. His eyes were soft, worshipful, as he filled his hands with the sweet flesh of her breasts.
Rachel moaned as she felt her skin being gently, tenderly kneaded. Sparks shot all through her, like the ones that emerged from a well-fed fire on the hearth at Christmas.
Why couldn't he get enough of her? The more he touched, the more he took, the more he wanted her. Would he never be sated? Sin-Jin wondered. Would there always be this bittersweet ecstasy of wanting her haunting him waking and sleeping?
He groaned, feeling his loins fill and pulse. "Each time I have you, it's as if I've never been with a woman before, as if it was all completely new to me." Sin-Jin pressed a kiss to the hollow of her throat and rejoiced at her low moan, at the way her fingers tightened on his shoulders. "What sort of spell have you woven over me, you Irish witch?"
"There's no spell being woven that I know of. I can't
be helping you with your problem, Lieutenant. I've difficulties of my own. This is new for me." She raised up on her toes, her breasts slowly rubbing along his chest. She saw the flare of passion in his eyes and felt her own being kindled. They fed on one another, goading each other to new heights. "And by all that's holy, may it never be old for either of us."
Rachel brought her mouth to his, her blood already heated past the boiling point, her desire full blown and demanding. She knew, from things she had heard while she had been growing up, that she should be demure. That these were pleasures a man was wont to take and it was a woman's lot to endure this as she did all the sufferings of life.
But there was no sense of endurance involved for Rachel. If anything, within her beat a desire for more, a desire to discover every secret harbored within Sin-Jin's fine, firm body. Beyond that very first moment on the ship, she had not experienced any shyness, had never felt the wish to retreat.
It was all part of her nature. Rachel had always hungered for knowledge, to peek behind the closed door, to pull aside the drawn curtain. A man's body was nothing new to her. She had deliberately crept out to the lake and watched, hidden in the bushes, as her brother and his friends went swimming. She'd been nine at the time and thought male bodies to be silly and repulsive.
She gloried now in Sin-Jin's body. She liked the way she could make him moan her name, liked the look that entered his eyes when she touched him. The blue orbs turned smoky as the tips of her fingers softly stroked, claiming the most secret of places for her own.
It made her feel weak in her stomach.
It gave her power.
With urgent fingers, Rachel pushed Sin-Jin's shirt from his shoulders, then slowly spread her palms along his bare flesh, branding him with her touch.
Sin-Jin buried his head in the curve of her neck, inhaling deeply. The scent that clung to her hair reminded him of spring. Always spring.
"Do you have any idea what you do to me?" he murmured thickly as he coaxed her petticoats from her hips.
Rachel's hands mirrored his, tugging his britches down. She matched him movement for movement, inch for revealing inch, until he was naked and she almost so.
Her body was quivering, restless with anticipation. Burning for him. "Show me," she whispered breathlessly. "Show me."
Gently, he laid her flat on the goose-down bed and slipped the last of her clothing away from her body. His breath caught in his throat as he looked at her. But rather than lie with her, his body cleaving to hers, Sin-Jin bent his head and began to dust her limbs with soft, sweet kisses that ignited her soul and sent a raging inferno through every part that he touched.
He moved slowly, languidly, as if they had all of eternity left to them. As if he wasn't making her mad by the very action. His tongue traveled along her legs, her knees, lingering on her thighs until she was reduced to a palpitating bowl of pudding.
And still he traveled on.
Her gasp lodged in her throat as his tongue darted and stars shot through her veins and whirled dizzily in her head.
"Sin-Jin?" His name was half a cry, half a query as something powerful pushed its way to the fore. It seized her in an iron grip as it threatened to rip completely through her body.
He raised his head for a moment. "Let yourself enjoy it, Rachel," he urged seductively. The words skimmed hotly along her moist skin.
She curled tufts of the worn blanket beneath her fingers, scrambling madly for some foothold to steady her. It kept building, this power, this energy inside, like a pot that had been forgotten upon the hearth until its contents threaten to spill over.
She ran from it. She arched toward it, greedy, wanting. The room dimmed and whirled.
His mouth was hot, teasing, mercilessly savage in its kindliness. She had never imagined, even in the wildest of fantasies, such overwhelming pleasure.
Her breath was short, her chest rising and heaving as she felt his tongue suddenly thrust into virgin territory. Rachel arched her back as stars mingled with rockets and burst within her. She wanted more. She could not bear another moment.
And yet, and yet—
She let out a long shudder as her body plunged down from the highest precipice. Her eyes fluttered open and she saw him in a purple haze. How could she still be here, in her room, when all this had happened to her?
Rachel stared at Sin-Jin, uncomprehending. "What have you done to me?"
"No more," Sin-Jin assured her, his body slickly gliding along hers as he raised himself to lie beside her, "than you have done to me with your own brand of witchcraft."
And then he began to make love to her with his mouth all over again. He entwined kisses about her neck like a necklace of the most precious of metals. He moved slowly, patiently, until she was ready again to receive him. Ready again to fall from the top of the mountain. When she was, he entered and together they rode to glory.
The afternoon light faded, melding into the evening outside her window. But within the small room, time had stopped altogether and nothing on earth existed except two people who had found one another.
The days slowly passed and negotiations dragged endlessly on. The ever patient, ever affable Dr. Franklin seemed to be the only unruffled one at the long table. John Adams, his temper ever short, was volatile, and John Jay grew impatient. The British negotiators were petulant, the French removed and at times, disinterested. It began to appear as if the final signing of the treaty was an impossible goal for all concerned.
Rachel began to long for home in earnest, but kept her thoughts to herself. She had no wish to seem ungrateful to her mentor. And there were compensations for being here, she mused, looking at Sin-Jin over the inn's unsteady table where they took their dinner.
Franklin accepted a second helping of stew, peering over his glasses at the ample display of cleavage as the innkeeper's daughter refilled his plate. He looked up and saw Sin-Jin's knowing smile as the young woman retreated. Franklin pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and chuckled.
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