by Lucy Monroe
"I know sailors. I've been around them all my life."
He still looked unconvinced. "Was he drunk?"
Remembering the man's brute strength and steadiness on his feet, she shivered and shook her head. "No. I don't think so."
"I guess you could tell that by his smell, too?"
She glared at Drake. "As a matter of fact, his breath was too awful to have recently been cleansed with any sort of spirits."
He shook his head. "It doesn't make sense. Thea, every seaman on this ship knows that it's worth his life to attack a female passenger. Even drunk, most of them would never think of it, much less act on the impulse."
"Why isn't it worth his life to attack a man?"
Drake looked at her as if she had lost her mind. "He would have no reason to attack a man."
"Well, I didn't think he had any reason to attack me either." She moved again. There was simply no comfortable position. "Imagine wanting to throw a passenger overboard. He must be mad."
Drake grabbed her shoulders in a painful grip. "He tried to throw you overboard?"
"I have enough bruises from tonight's adventure. You needn't add to them."
He immediately loosened his hold, but he didn't release her. "Explain."
She nodded and began with the villain accosting her from behind, continuing until she had told Drake everything.
"He said something about fighting with the sharks and dragged me toward the side of the ship." She didn't realize she was crying until she tasted the salt of tears on her lips.
Drake brushed her cheeks with gentle fingers. "I don't understand."
"I don't either."
Although now that she had gone over the events again, she couldn't help wondering if this incident and the accident at Merewether Shipping were related. She could not afford to dismiss it as coincidence. Since writing the letter to the London office regarding the discrepancies in the ledgers, she'd had two nearly fatal experiences. Her instincts were screaming that the incidents had something to do with her investigation.
"You know something." His grip tightened. "Bloody hell. What is it?"
She winced and his fingers loosened again. This time he caressed her arms. "Sore?"
"Yes. I feel as if I've been tossed about in a runaway carriage."
"You have experience being knocked around in runaway carriages?" A quizzical smile tilted the corner of his lips.
"Well, yes, actually. When I was fourteen. One of Jacob's sons decided to play a trick on me and put a thorn under the harness of the horse when I was learning to take the leads."
"What happened to Jacob's son?"
"I couldn't say for certain, but he didn't sit in my presence for several days."
Drake's dark eyes glinted with amusement and she leaned into him, relaxing in the strength of his embrace. She felt safe.
"Don't you think it strange that you've had two near misses so recently?" His words, echoing her own thoughts, startled her. "Tell me what you know about what happened tonight."
She wasn't sure how to say what needed to be told, so she stalled while trying to marshal her thoughts. "I'm sure the villain who attacked me tonight was nowhere near the warehouse when that barrel fell down."
Drake remained silent, his hand making a circular motion on her back. His silence wasn't the relaxed, accepting kind, however. She felt that with every rhythmic caress on her back, he was commanding her to tell him the entire story. She didn't want to. He already thought she needed a keeper and she had no intention of allowing him to hinder her investigation. He had no right to, of course, but she wasn't a fool enough to think that would stop him.
"I already know about your abolitionist activities."
How could he? No one knew that she helped runaway slaves escape the island on Merewether ships. Not even Uncle Ashby.
"What do you mean?"
"Jacob told me how vocal you are with your beliefs on the subject."
Oh, that.
She smiled against his shoulder, breathing in the spicy scent of him. "That's neither here nor there. Of course, I'm vocal about it. Slavery is an abomination that England should never have had any part in and should abolish now. Passing laws to outlaw the slave trade is not enough."
He surprised her with his ready agreement. "You're right. However, that is a fight you must leave to the lawmakers."
She pulled away from his arms. "No, it isn't. Every citizen of our Great Nation should take up the cause until the powerful few who have made their fortunes on the deaths and forced labor of their fellow man are made to stop."
"Your opinion is not a popular one in England and even less so on the Islands."
"It's not my opinion. It's the truth. Right is right and slavery is wrong."
"Bloody hell. No wonder someone tried to throw you overboard."
She was incensed. "I thought you agreed with me."
"That doesn't mean I agree that you should risk your neck spouting off about the subject to everyone you meet."
She knew it. If he thought her discussing her beliefs on the moral cowardice of slavery was risky, he would go wild if he discovered she was conducting an investigation into thievery.
"I don't lecture everyone I meet." When he raised his brows in disbelief, she shrugged. "Just everyone who needs it."
"Who have you lectured on the ship?"
He thought she had offended someone on board enough for them to try to kill her? "I've been sick in my cabin most of the time. I've hardly talked to anyone." His tense muscles relaxed a bit.
"I probably said something to Lady Boyle on the subject, but she's your aunt and not likely to do me harm."
"Naturally."
She smiled at his sardonic tone. "Well, then there was the steward. He made a comment regarding Africans I had to set him straight on."
"What comment?"
"It's not important."
He frowned. "Who else is hardly anyone?"
"I may have mentioned abolition at dinner last evening."
He looked confused for a minute.
"After you left. And then there was that nasty gentleman in the passenger parlor. He's a plantation owner and went on about intelligence differences and one race serving another. I argued most vehemently with him, but I don't think he was convinced. He left the parlor in a huff."
Drake admired the fact that she could route a man, but didn't like the pattern she had set. The woman was a menace to herself and didn't realize it. "Who was the man?"
"Why?"
"I want to talk to him."
"I told you that my attacker was a sailor."
She had and she'd made a good case for it, even if he had acted disbelieving at the time. "There is a greater motivator than whiskey for villainous behavior. Money."
Her eyes widened. "Oh."
"Now, tell me the plantation owner's name."
"I don't know it. Lady Boyle would know, though. She appeared to be somewhat acquainted with him. He plays whist."
Drake nodded. His aunt was an avid card player, and if the man did indeed indulge in the occasional hand of whist, she would know him.
"I'll ask her." He stood up to leave.
He wanted to ask the first mate if he'd had any luck finding the attacker. Drake had his doubts, but he wanted to know anyway. Turning the lamp down to a faint glow, he then headed toward the door.
"Where are you going?"
He turned back toward her. "To ask the first mate what he found."
Frowning, she said, "I'm sure the villain got away."
He studied her. "You need your rest. I'll let you know my progress tomorrow."
"Do you need to leave now? I'm not at all tired and we should discuss strategy."
He saw the lie in her expressive blue eyes. She had barely stifled a yawn a moment ago and her eyelids drooped with weariness.
"Would you feel better if I posted a guard outside your door?"
She looked horrified. "No."
"Why not?"
Dealing with the female of h
is species was often confusing, but Thea was incomprehensible.
"It would be embarrassing. Besides, Melly would want to know why he was there."
"Then you would tell her."
She shook her head. "No."
"No?"
"You must see that if we tell her about my little adventure tonight, she would be upset. She would probably stop drinking your ginger tea to prevent me from going out again while she slept. Then her seasickness would come back. We mustn't breathe a word to her."
"Are you going to go on any more walks alone at night?"
She shuddered and he knew that whatever else had happened tonight, Thea's encounter with her attacker had scared her deeply. "No."
"Then I won't tell her. But don't you think she'll notice the bruises when she dresses you?"
"I started dressing myself a long time ago."
He shook his head. In many ways, Thea acted like any other English lady he had ever met, but she wasn't. She was unique. His mother required a maid to help her dress, shop, and do all sorts of things Thea was accustomed to doing for herself.
"Very well. I will swear the first mate and captain to secrecy. That will help in the investigation as well. We needn't tip our hand to the villain."
Her head bobbed up and down in agreement. "Just so. Let him think he is safe from detection. Perhaps then he'll try again, and next time I'll be ready for him."
Bloody hell. "He isn't going to try again because you aren't going to be alone again."
"Not at night, no, but during the daytime it would be just the thing. We will lure him out of hiding and nab him."
Is this what she meant by discussing strategy? Setting herself up as bait?
He stalked over to the bed and leaned over her with one thought on his mind, to put a stop to her nonsensical notion. "No."
Her lips parted, but she didn't argue as he had expected.
Instead, her brilliant blue gaze became fixed on his lips as if mesmerized. Her eyes glazed over with desire, and all thought of the argument fled his mind. He wanted her lips and he took them, the desire that had been building in him since he first met her exploding in a sudden conflagration of need.
Thea locked her arms behind his neck, and returned Drake's voracious kiss with all the enthusiasm at her disposal. Thrilled at the feel of his mouth on her own, she savored each sensation. His mouth tasted incredible, unlike anything she had ever experienced, and she wanted to go on tasting it forever.
She tunneled her fingers into his dark hair and relished the feel of the silky strands against her fingers. She could not remember touching another person's hair, could not remember a time when she had wanted to, but this intimacy with Drake felt so right and so very, very good. His tongue probed her mouth with expert thrusts that sent shivering awareness below her waist. She could no more help rocking against him than she could stifle the involuntary moans emanating from her.
He groaned, the sound coming from deep in his throat. Suddenly her nightgown ripped and she felt the night air against her breast. She shivered with both longing and cold, but the chill did not last long as he cupped her breast in one hot hand.
Moaning, she pushed herself against his palm. It felt wonderful.
He tore his lips from hers. "You like that, don't you?" He tugged on her nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
"It's heavenly. Don't you dare stop!"
He laughed, the sound strained. "Bloody hell, Thea, you aren't like any other woman I have ever known."
Cold fingers of dread snuffed her rising desire. What did he mean? "Do I disgust you with my forwardness?"
He pulled away from her until their eyes met. Gripping her chin, he forced her to maintain eye contact. "You delight me."
"But you have ignored me for days."
A harsh laugh escaped him. "I have tried to save you from myself."
"You're worried about my reputation, aren't you?" She knew it.
"Aren't you?"
She shrugged. "Not really. But it occurs to me that you may feel that you have compromised me one way and another."
He looked down at her exposed breast and the dark, masculine fingers resting against it and then back up at her face. She felt her cheeks heat.
"It may have escaped your notice, but I have compromised you."
She shook her head as far as his restraining hand would allow. "Oh no, you haven't. No one need know about this."
"I know about it."
"Well, yes, but no one else need be the wiser."
"Everyone on the bloody ship already thinks I'm sharing your bed."
"This is about that conversation I overheard between you and Lady Boyle isn't it?"
"What conversation?"
"The one where she told you that you had to marry me to save my reputation."
He frowned at her. "I thought you were asleep."
She met his gaze defiantly. "Well, I wasn't. The thing is, Drake, I don't care about my reputation, so you don't need to worry about ruining it."
"You cannot attend the Season if no one will receive you." He spoke as if to a dull-witted child.
"I know that."
"Then your reputation is of utmost importance."
She was finished discussing the paltry subject. If he was determined not to understand, she wasn't going to force the issue. She wanted to experience more of what he made her feel.
Running her fingers down his neck, she tried to look alluring. "Kiss me again."
It must have worked because he groaned and did just that. He also moved his hand on her breast, squeezing her in the most delicious way, and she sighed with pleasure. She wanted this more than she wanted a Season, more than she had ever wanted anything in her life.
He made her feel things, and not just physical things. When she was with him, she did not feel alone as she had since her mother's death. When he touched her, she felt connected to him in a way that, in her secret heart, she had always longed for.
Drake made her feel like a woman without making her feel weak. He made her feel beautiful and desirable. How could she not want his touch?
She started unbuttoning his shirt and noticed for the first time that he wore no neckcloth. She got his shirt open and skimmed her fingers over his bare chest, noticing a sprinkling of dark hair across his chest. It felt courser than the hair on his head and she skimmed lower to explore this new discovery.
He made an inarticulate sound and grabbed her wrist. "No."
"I want to touch you."
Rather than argue, he flipped her on her back and came down on top of her. Locking his lower body against hers, he effectively prevented her questing fingers from going lower. She would have protested, but the delicious sensations she experienced as the hardness of his body rocked against her most intimate place swamped her senses. She arched her back to increase the sensations, and he plunged his tongue more deeply into her mouth.
He matched the rocking motions of his hips with thrusts from his tongue. Feelings spiraled within her. She rubbed her bared breasts against the hair on his chest and nearly fainted from the sensation it evoked. How had she lived three and twenty years without ever feeling remotely like this?
The tension inside her grew and grew, while the pleasure increased to unbearable proportions as everything coalesced inside her. Her body seemed to contract and expand all at once, with something like explosions going off inside her.
She may have screamed. She could not tell with his mouth devouring hers. Her entire body went stiff down to her pinky toes as the ecstasy gripped her. Then her muscles all relaxed at once and she went completely limp beneath him. He slowed the rhythm of his rocking hips until he was eventually still. His mouth withdrew from hers and rained kisses along her cheek, jawline, and down her neck.
"I am surprised that wives ever allow their husbands to leave the bedroom, as this is undoubtedly one of the few benefits of marriage," she whispered, incapable of speaking in a normal tone after what she had just been through.
; He shouted with laughter and Melly snored loudly, mumbling something in her sleep. They turned to look at the sleeping maid then back at each other.
"I forgot she was there." Drake's voice held astonishment.
"I did, too."
He jumped off her as if burned, leaving her more bereft than she thought possible. "We could have… I almost…"
She cocked her head to one side. "What?"
His glare was at complete odds with the passion they had so recently shared. "Damn it, woman. I almost made love to you in the same room as your sleeping maid."
She was confused. "Wasn't that making love?"
He stared at her, his brown gaze disbelieving. "How can you be so bloody innocent?"
She felt as if he'd insulted her, but wasn't certain how. Surely innocence was not a fault. "I assure you, had I met a man like you before, I wouldn't be."
"Well, it's a good thing you didn't."
"Why?"
"I would have been obliged to kill him."
He spoke with too much conviction to be jesting. Something inside her warmed at the thought that he wanted no one else to touch her. Close behind the warmth came fear. Is this how her father had been with her mother? Possessive?
Yet even now there was a marked difference. Drake did not say he would kill her, or even hate her. He said that he would kill the man.
She sighed. It was all very confusing. Much more so than contracts and ledgers, even ledgers that did not balance.
He walked over to the chest and pulled out a nightrail, his big, very male body unlike any Thea had ever seen. Returning to her, he laid it on the bed and then started tugging at the ripped gown she wore.
She slapped his hand away. "What are you doing?"
"Unless you want your maid to know exactly how you spent the night, you had better put on a new sleeping gown."
"I can dress myself."
His roguish smile surprised her. "I know, but I will like helping."
"Oh." This passion business had much more to it than she had originally thought. "Very well."
She put her arms out, to make it easier for him to pull the gown off. He laughed.
She frowned up at him, feeling at a disadvantage. "What?"
"You look like a small child about to be dressed." She was about to be dressed. How was she supposed to look?
