by Sue London
She would admit that Mr. Burnham also seemed less affected by his advantages than one might expect. He had no complaints about his humble surroundings. She’d not even caught him sneering at any of it, which honestly if he could dash off a note to his brother and expect money to arrive he lived in a vastly different world than she did. How would she react to his world, she wondered. He lived the life of a Naval officer, but that wasn’t all. He had a wealthy family. She’d certainly been impressed with Sabre’s family. Was Mr. Burnham’s anything like that?
She realized suddenly that she’d been wool gathering. “Shall we visit the shops before I have to open for the day?”
He set his mug aside. “Sounds splendid.”
***
In his circle it was common for men to complain about women shopping. The worst of all was when a woman made you go shopping with them. Just now, watching Miss Walters dance with the butcher’s toddler daughter, Reggie wondered what the bloody hell his circle was complaining about. The little girl’s pet chicken joined the frivolity and it was all sunny smiles, laughter, and a few red feathers floating through the air. If this was a hell he was supposedly consigned to, then bless him but he would sin again.
Miss Walters scooped up the child and handed her over to her mother before joining him again where he chatted with the butcher. “I love these sunny days!” she exclaimed and the butcher returned, “Aye.”
Sunny? If she’d seen Bermuda she would consider these dull days indeed. There was barely enough warmth in Cleadon to encourage removing one’s jacket. Today on Irish Island would easily be twenty degrees warmer, and the sun would make you think twice about wearing more than a white shirt. She would have no need for those gloves she favored, that was for certain.
He tucked her hand in his arm for their stroll back to the dress shop. Every few steps she called out a greeting to someone on the street. Her greetings were cheerfully enough returned, but he supposed it was not this class of people who could afford to frequent her shop. These were the people she lived with. Who understood the challenges of being a young woman alone in the world. He wasn’t helping her respectability at all, he knew, but that wasn’t to be helped. If he had to choose between her safety and reputation then it wasn’t even a contest. Anyone who couldn’t understand that would receive short shrift from him.
Of course, he himself had only this morning been thinking that he wouldn’t be around for long. How could he upbraid anyone disrespecting her if he wasn’t around to do so? It made him wish that things were different somehow, although he wasn’t sure quite how. It seemed beyond the pale to consider hying her off to the islands just to help her avoid some small town censure. Perhaps one of his sisters could take her in? He thought on it for a bit and rejected it. They would treat her like a servant and she most definitely was not that. Better to let her have her independence, sink or swim, than attempt to coddle her while inevitably crushing her spirit. He should know how it weighed on you, the way you were treated. He’d gone from being a privileged school boy to a swab. As he’d realized quickly that using his father’s name to escape service would only leave his friends trapped without him, he’d suffered every indignity they did without complaint. And even though he’d known he was the son of viscount, the confidence of that knowledge had slipped away under the daily privation and abuse of their situation. It had taken years to regain his sense of self. They had all worked their way up to being noncommissioned officers. Harry for his facility with healing, Wally for his bravery in battle, and Reggie for his cleverness in assisting the engineers. Reggie could have bought a commission, but then where would that leave Harry and Wally? Not that it mattered now, he supposed. Wally was gone and Harry was going to medical school in Scotland. Perhaps he should purchase a commission. It provided a swath of benefits that he’d not been privy to before. And a certain respect that his naval career had been lacking thus far.
He released her hand, perhaps a bit reluctantly, so she could open the door to the dress shop. He saw the ruffians still lingered down the street. It amazed him that the constable hadn’t encouraged the men to move along by now. If his shoulder would heal a bit more then he would encourage them himself. Rather than grow used to their presence he found it more and more irritating. Mostly because he imagined more specifically what could happen to Miss Walters, and he’d grown fond enough of her to want to protect her personally rather than some anonymous woman. Anonymous woman with a good aim, no less.
“I’ll put the sausages on to cook,” she said, locking the door behind them. “And we will just open a bit late today.”
She took her bonnet off and set it aside on the main counter. The counter she’d been crouching behind when she’d shot him that first day. Hearing her half-boots spring lightly up the stairs he took a moment to pick up her bonnet and stare at it. Certainly less frivolous than anything his sisters would wear, but somehow all the more enchanting for it. Simple straw and ribbons. He set the hat back down and frowned. If he was mooning over the work of her milliner that it was possible he really was done for.
He went to the back room that had become his de facto bedroom to remove his jacket. The motion made him hiss in pain again. Damn, but the bloody stitches caused most of the problem. He wondered if he could convince her to cut them out. Every time he moved his arm too far they pulled something awful. Which undoubtedly meant it would be weeks, not days, before he could give those men on the street the thrashing they deserved.
“Mr. Burnham, I-oh! You’re bleeding!”
Reggie turned to see Miss Walters coming toward him, a look of concern in her eyes.
“Turn around,” she ordered. “And lift your shirt.”
He endeavored to do so without pulling at the stitches again, but it proved a delicate task. She grew tired of his slowness and pulled it up over his shoulder on her own.
“You’ve torn two stitches out,” she said in a distracted tone. Her fingers delicately probed the area. “I’m not sure that I should replace them. The bleeding is from where you tore them, not the original wound.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” he said, trying to ease his shirt back in place.
“Let me check the other side,” she said. “Sit down.”
It was that efficient tone again that brooked no argument. He was tempted to bite back at her but instead simply followed her instruction and submitted to having her pull his shirt the rest of the way off. He leaned back while she inspected his healing flesh, probing it delicately with her fingertips.
“You seem to be healing well,” she announced. “We can have those stitches out in a few more days.”
“Why not now?” he asked.
She stood up and rocked back on her heels as though she’d just realized how close she was to him. “We’d best not risk having you open the wound up again.”
Chapter Twelve
Mr. Burnham’s deep, rumbling voice in her ear made her shiver, but now he frowned at her. “A wound you gave me.”
For all their convivial exchanges, it seemed that it didn’t take much to make them snipe at each other again. “Thank you for the reminder. I shoot so many men it is hard for me to keep track.”
She flipped her hands nonchalantly but that drew his attention. “You’ve blood on your glove,” he said, catching her hand in his.
Having her hand clasped in his made her heart speed. “No matter. It will wash out. Most likely.”
Before she knew what he was about he peeled off the first one and reached for the other. She clasped her hand closed to stop him.
“We should soak them to make sure the blood doesn’t set,” he argued.
“It’s only on the one glove,” she reasoned. “And we should wash your shirt as well.”
‘You know as well as I do that the gloves should be washed together.” He was a stubborn man and set to pulling down the glove where it covered her wrist. He stopped short as she thought he might. “Is that… Do you have a tattoo?”
She knew that he
was probably scandalized. What normal woman of British society would have a tattoo? “Yes,” she said, her voice thin.
He pulled the glove the rest of the way off, as she no longer resisted, and stared at her wrist for a long time. “A compass rose,” he said quietly, tracing his finger over it. “Why?”
She’d never told anyone about it and found that she didn’t have the words now. “You could say it’s how I grieve.”
He looked up at her, his brow furrowed in concern. “Your mother?”
“And my father.” She blew out a pent up breath. He seemed more curious than scandalized.
He turned his attention back to her wrist. “The artist didn’t quite finish this part.” His finger traced where the line tapered off near her hand and she trembled in response.
“It hurts a lot to work there, but I’ll finish it yet.”
“You did this yourself? No.” His grin said more so than his words that he didn’t believe her.
“Yes. I read about how it was done in a story about the one of the Pacific expeditions. I started small, just to see if I could make the ink hold.”
He finally released her arm and chuckled. “You are, without a doubt, the most endlessly surprising woman I’ve ever met.”
She couldn’t tell if that was a good or bad thing, but the way her tummy squeezed made her think it was bad. “Yes, well, I’m always glad to entertain.”
“Who would expect to find a burgeoning pirate in the middle of Tyneside?”
“I’m not a pirate,” she protested.
He leaned back on his hands and gave her an assessing gaze. “Says the woman who shoots first and has tattoos.”
“That doesn’t necessarily….,” she trailed off and looked into his teasing gaze. “I do sound a bit like a pirate, don’t I?”
He nodded. “I’m afraid you do. You’d best be careful, Miss Walters, because as a Navy officer it would be my responsibility to punish you for any piracy.”
She wasn’t sure exactly how, but his tone made the threat sound terribly naughty. “Well,” she said a bit breathlessly, “what would you consider to be an act of piracy?”
“Stealing. Violence.” He looked over at his shoulder and frowned. “Hmm.”
She bit her lip and thought about that wall she’d stood on as a child. She’d visited it later and had to admit that it looked to be a scary fall. But there was bravery in innocence. She would try to capitalize on some of that ignorance of peril now. “Such as stealing a kiss?”
She didn’t think she was breathing at all anymore. He tensed at her words and when his gaze returned to hers she felt herself tremble again. His eyes were narrowed.
“That would be a high crime indeed.”
The uncertainty of what he meant drove her mad. Did that mean he wanted to kiss her? Or didn’t want to kiss her? She decided to throw caution aside. If he thought her a pirate, then a pirate she would be. She put a knee on the settee and moved close to him. He didn’t shrink away. She put her hands to his jaw to pull him near, as she’d seen Mama do to Papa from time to time. His skin was roughened with a day’s growth of beard and felt scratchy under her palms. She had him, she thought, right where she wanted him. But she had to hope that he would kiss her because she really wasn’t sure how one was supposed to go about that. For now they stared in one another’s eyes, each breathing a bit harder than they had been before, as though they had just run up the stairs together. She felt his hand settle at her hip.
“Well?” he asked. “Are you going to steal that kiss?”
***
Reggie had spent the week telling himself, in increasingly difficult circumstances, that he would not compromise Miss Walters. This was, undoubtedly, the most difficult of circumstances. She was in his lap demanding a kiss. His control was very near to deserting him completely. The only thing keeping him in check was that, despite her boldness, her blue eyes had a keen fragility in evidence. As though she were made of fine china and he could easily do something harsh that would destroy her. After a moment of holding his gaze her’s fell to his lips. She licked her own, then bit the top one as she seemed to do when thinking. What was there to think about? She was driving him mad with waiting. He was tempted to take control of the kiss, to show her what he wanted, but didn’t want to scare her.
She finally leaned closer and settled her lips on his, tasting him so gently that it was like a butterfly wing. His hand tightened on her hip. She brushed over his lips again creating the barest of friction. The third time her lips clung to his and he responded with the same sweet gentleness. When he claimed her lower lip with a nibble she sighed and wrapped her arms behind his neck. He pulled her truly into his lap then, her knees at his hips while his arm wrapped behind her to hold her close. He’d never been so thoroughly seduced. He wanted this timeless moment of sweet kisses to never end. But he also wanted to possess her with an intensity he’d never known.
He deepened the kiss, gaining entrance to her mouth with teasing swipes of his tongue until she opened for him. She tasted of honey and ginger biscuits. This was heaven, she was heaven.
She made an impatient noise and he took that as license to kiss her as he’d been wanting to. She was pressed hard against him and he put one hand in her hair. He angled his head and coaxed her to roughen their play. She was easily tutored and the first time she sucked his tongue into her mouth he thought he would come, as he was already so hard it was a wonder he didn’t split his breeches. He wanted to get her damned skirts out of the way so he could feel her pressed against his manhood. His hand was stroking up her thigh when she pulled back.
Gods, she was beautiful. Kiss swollen lips and slumberous eyes. This was what he wanted. Her, like this, forever. He should take her upstairs first. A bed. Their first time should be on a bed.
“Mr. Burnham,” she said, her voice husky, “I don’t believe you can punish me. I can’t steal that which is freely given.” She pushed herself to stand on unsteady legs and put her fingertips to her swollen lips. She held his gaze and damn him but she most likely didn’t know how blasted seductive she was. It would take one step, precisely one step, to gather her against him again. This time he wouldn’t stop until that pretty blue dress was stripped off of her. Until he could kiss every inch of her and claim her for his own. Disaster was so close that it was a heady sensation of its own, a weight pressing down on him as though from the heavens. If he took that one step it would change his life. If he took her to bed, then that was that. He would marry her. He’d not put up with any excuses from her about wanting her independence. If she let him into her bed it was a completely foreseeable outcome.
He found it was almost impossible to think clearly with a raging hard on while staring at a thoroughly kissed angel, but he could at least see that. Bed meant marriage. Did he want to marry her? Just this moment it seemed a close thing that he might sell his soul for the right to pull down her dress and kiss her lovely bosom. He wasn’t sure why at the moment, but that seemed a terrible exchange somehow. Would the pleasure of the moment be worth a lifetime of commitment? He’d hoped that such a question might douse the fire in him, but it showed no sign of abating.
She stumbled away on legs as unsteady as a colt’s. “I’ve most likely burned the sausages.”
Reggie thought it best not to follow her immediately. The bedroom was too close to where she cooked.
Chapter Thirteen
After taking the sausages off the fire Francie sat down heavily on one of the chairs. What had that been? She’d never thought that a kiss could be felt everywhere. When he’d thrust his tongue in her mouth and squeezed her bottom she’d felt a quiver deep in her belly. She still had a heat to her, as though he’d stoked a fire inside of her that would be slow to burn down. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there staring at nothing, but she heard Mr. Burnham on the steps. Reggie. She heard Reggie on the steps. She pressed her hands to her still burning cheeks.
“Did you save the sausages?” he asked. He was dressed again, appar
ently having a third shirt in his satchel as he was holding his bloodied one and her gloves in his hand.
“Oh! I don’t know, I didn’t look.” She jumped up to poke at the sausages in the pan with a fork. “Hmm. They’re a bit burned on one side, but quite edible.”
“A veritable feast, I’m sure. We should put these in hot water,” he said, holding out the garments to her.
“Yes, of course.” Apparently, one really could be kissed silly, or at least stupid. She wasn’t sure she was capable of adding two plus two at the moment. He grinned at her in what she took for masculine pride. She should be outraged that he was pleased he’d addled her, but she just felt her cheeks heat again.
Although she felt awkward and shy after their kiss he managed to draw her into conversation again over their sausages. She should be concerned about lingering over their repast and not opening the shop, but she decided it didn’t really matter as they hadn’t had a customer in days. Once she completed her commitment to the girls for May Day dresses perhaps that would be the end of it. That was sad, but not as sad as she might have suspected it would be.
“So why a compass rose?” he asked, indicating her arm. He was the first person she had left it uncovered around. She’d managed to keep it a secret even from Phoebe.
Her voice was so quiet even she could hardly hear it. “A compass helps you find the people you love.”
He’d leaned forward to listen and when she raised her eyes to his she could see his compassion. “You’ve lost too many people at a young age. I’m so sorry, Miss Walters.”
“Francie,” she corrected softly. “And so have you.”
He quirked a sad smile. “Then I should have one, too. Perhaps you know an artist who specializes in them?”
She smiled back, but she also wanted to cry. In fact, it seemed far too appealing to crawl right into his lap and have a good sob. Wasn’t that just what a man wanted? A sobbing mess of a female. “Perhaps once I finish this dress.”
