“This,” he whispered against her lips, “is convenience.”
He let her go, unwinding his arms, and she had to grasp the trunk lid to be sure of keeping her feet. As he began to pull down his damp breeches, she spun away, her back to him while she rummaged in a cupboard for a pair of shoes.
This is convenience. Was he making fun of their arrangement? Or reminding her of it? After her astonished joy at seeing him come for her in such a way, after that kiss, she badly needed reminding of it.
Nothing has changed, she reminded herself. An emotional moment does not alter our agreement. I may be his wife, he may value me, but he does not want me as he wants Frederica Ireton, or those other woman people keep hinting at. He does not love me.
The trouble was, kisses like that gave her the added agony of hope. She had to avoid them if she was to be the wife she had promised to be and still keep some kind of contentment in his companionship.
“You don’t need to hide your eyes,” he said. “You are my wife.”
“I remember,” she managed, turning with her gaze cast down to place the battered boots she had discovered on the floor.
He had donned the pantaloons, so she dared look up to see him pulling the shirt over his head.
“So, what was your plan?” he asked.
“One of Rupert’s men is going to take me ashore, to the inn, and from there, I meant to ride to Branwell, collect Marvin, and hire a chaise. What was yours?”
“Oh, I had many. Most of them involved beating my favorite cousin to a pulp. Beyond that, I’m not sure I should tell you. I hadn’t got as far as returning to Gosmere. So, by all means, let us go to Branwell to begin with.”
He shrugged into the ragged coat, which barely buttoned across his chest. He changed his mind and left it loose. Swiping up the boots, he sat on the bed and stamped his feet into them. “Very well, let us go and thank Rupert for his hospitality.”
A breath of laughter caught her unawares, and his eyes gleamed in response. Walking past her, he opened the door and held it for her.
She led the way on deck, where the men sprawled about against the rails, keeping their eyes on the cliffs and the sea and the lifting mist. Rupert held the rum flask casually by his side. It appeared to be stoppered, but as they approached, he raised it again, offering it to Christopher, who accepted with a wry inclination of the head.
Christopher unstoppered it and offered it to Deborah. She hadn’t tasted run before and was unlikely to get the opportunity again, so she took it recklessly and tipped some of the liquid into her mouth. It burned pleasantly.
“It’s better than brandy,” she allowed, passing it back to Christopher.
“And considerably cheaper,” Christopher said before raising it to his cousin and taking a healthy swig. He gave it back to Rupert. “I’m sorry for thinking the worst. And I will do what I can to prove your innocence.”
“You’ve a few matters to sort out on your account first,” Rupert observed. “I will keep.”
“Well, don’t do anything else silly,” Christopher advised. “How is your wound?”
“Almost completely healed. I’m fine.”
Christopher searched his cousin’s face, then changed the subject. “I’ve left you my riding breeches and a decent shirt. I can send your threadbare coat back with whoever rows us ashore.”
“Do that. It’s a useful coat. I take it this means you wish to go now?”
“If you’d be so good,” Christopher said civilly.
“You’re mighty cool for a man who threatened my lieutenant and accused me of abducting your wife.”
Christopher walked across the deck to Rickett, who eyed him with rigid hostility. Deborah couldn’t hear what her husband said, but it brought a reluctant grin to the man’s face.
Chapter Fifteen
Christopher had tied his horse to a tree at the top of the cliff, near the path they labored up from the shore.
“Anyone could have seen him there,” Deborah observed as Christopher untied the animal.
“But no one likely to interfere. I’d already sent the exciseman running after his fellows.”
“What if we meet them on the way back to the inn? Or at the inn?”
Christopher bent, clasping his hands to form a step for her. “We’ll deal with that if and when it happens. I expect they’re still pursuing whoever it was that took Rupert’s place.”
“Peg’s son.” Deborah regarded the big horse warily, then stepped onto Christopher’s hands, and was boosted into the saddle.
She expected him to lead the horse, but to her surprise, he mounted behind her, enclosing her with his arms. Which made her feel a great deal safer since it was not a lady’s saddle, and she was very liable to slide off in this position.
As the horse broke into a canter, she clutched his arm, and he held her around the waist, guiding the horse with one hand. She liked the closeness. She liked it too much, especially when she relaxed back against his chest, and she felt the whisper of his breath against her cheek.
“How do you know Rupert does not love Georgianna?” he murmured. “Did he tell you that?”
She shook her head. “No, I just know. I could tell by the way he spoke of her. He was angry with Dudley’s betrayal, not at losing her.”
“But you know nothing of love. Or so you told me.”
“I can still recognize it in others,” she said calmly. He would never know how fast her heart beat just because of his nearness. Love, it seemed, was something she understood only too well, but she would never embarrass him with the admission.
It was not a long ride to the inn, where the same surly youth came to take the horse.
“Give him water and a bite to eat,” Christopher instructed. He slipped to the ground and lifted Deborah by the waist. “And have the lady’s mare saddled.”
Old Peg stumped out of the front door, glowering at Christopher. “I thought you were customers.” She sniffed and addressed Deborah. “My grandson found your lady at the Lion’s Head. Was there and back in no time, just to please you.”
Christopher tossed her a coin. “The rest is for the horses’ feed.”
“Have some dinner if you like,” Peg suggested to him. “I suppose she’s your cousin, too.”
Christopher stared at her. “No. She’s my wife.”
Peg cackled. “Pity the young captain, then!”
“I buried him behind your inn,” Christopher said amiably, and Peg looked so worried that Deborah laughed.
*
They reached the Lion’s Head before dark, but thick clouds had formed overhead, and thunder rumbled in the distance.
They discovered Marvin at the inn’s coffee room, sitting rigidly upright in the corner. She greeted Deborah with obvious relief while looking anxiously about for Lady Bilston.
“I’m afraid I got it all wrong,” Deborah told her. “Her ladyship never left Gosmere. I have inconvenienced you for no reason. And her! However, she knows this was my fault, not yours.”
Marvin looked dismayed. “But it will be dark before I get there! In fact, how am I to get there?”
“The weather is turning filthy,” Christopher said. “If you wish, I’ll hire a chaise for you to Gosmere, but I think we are all best staying here until morning.”
Deborah glanced at him in surprise, for she had assumed they would leave their horses here and travel back in the chaise with Marvin. Which would not be terribly comfortable.
“Perhaps you are right,” Marvin said indecisively. “I would disturb the whole household arriving in the middle of the night. Do you think her ladyship will understand?”
“Of course. I shall tell her everything,” Deborah assured her.
“Then I shall bespeak bedchambers for us all,” Christopher said. “And supper!”
Deborah watched him saunter across the room, which was surprisingly busy. He was a poised and distinguished figure, and the innkeeper himself had come to meet him before he even reached the door.
Hastily, she looked away. “Have you dined?” she asked Marvin, who shook her head. “You must be even hungrier than I!”
Christopher joined them a few moments later. “We have bedchambers, but there are no private parlors free. Apparently, it is market day tomorrow. So I have asked for supper to be sent up to our chambers. The innkeeper’s wife is waiting to show us the way.”
Marvin looked relieved to be out of the public way and, no doubt, to escape Deborah and Christopher. She said goodnight with a curtsey at her chamber door, and they followed the landlady to the end of the hall, where she threw open another door.
“It’s our best bedchamber,” she said proudly, “and quite spacious as you see, so I hope you won’t feel the lack of the parlor. Your dinner won’t be long.” She curtseyed and hurried away.
Deborah’s gaze flew to her husband’s. “I thought…”
“They only had two bedchambers available. I hoped you would rather share with me than with Marvin.”
Approaching voices sounded in the passage, and Deborah hastily stepped inside the chamber. As their hostess had boasted, it was a spacious, pleasant room, with a table and two chairs in one corner, a wardrobe and almost-matching chest of drawers. The curtains were open, allowing in the last of the grey daylight and a view of the church across the square.
But there was only one large bed. Draped with heavy linen curtains, it became all that she could see.
“It is large enough for us never to find each other even if we were looking,” Christopher said dryly. “But if you wish, you can easily form an impregnable barrier of pillows and blankets.”
She flushed. “I would not dream of such a thing. I know you have no desire to change our agreement.”
His lips quirked as he regarded her from his intense blue eyes. “And how do you know that?”
“I am not unobservant, sir,” she retorted, removing her hat and placing it on top of the chest of drawers.
He set his beside it and stepped back to admire the effect, before turning his gaze back to her. “And what have you observed, wife of my bosom?”
“Your penchant for Mrs. Ireton, for one thing,” she retorted, then bit her lip, annoyed by her indiscretion. But his gentle mockery had inspired a rare spurt of temper.
“I have no penchant for Mrs. Ireton.”
Her gaze flew back to his, but a knock at the door heralded the innkeeper’s wife and servants bearing a tray of delightfully fragrant dishes. The table was speedily set with cutlery and glasses, plates, and bowls. A tureen was placed in the middle of the table with some newly baked bread and wine poured into glasses. A tray containing three further covered dishes was left on a side table.
“We thought you would prefer to serve yourselves,” the clearly over-burdened innkeeper’s wife declared, making a virtue out of necessity.
They bustled off again, and Christopher politely held one of the chairs for Deborah. He sat, too, and she busied herself with serving the soup while he sliced some bread.
“Mrs. Ireton,” he said unexpectedly, “seems to have developed a penchant for me—although, of course, that may just be retaliation for her husband’s interest in you.”
Amazed that he was even prepared to discuss it, she paused with her spoon halfway to her mouth. Then she drank the soup. “I am not offended. You need explain nothing. I am aware you are old friends.”
“And how are you aware of that? Did she tell you?”
She paused again. “Yes, actually.”
“For what it’s worth, Frederica Ireton and I have never been friends. I’ve known the family forever, and recently, when we’ve met at London parties, she seemed to expect a little public flirtation. To be frank, I barely noticed it. Which may have been unkind or idiotic, but I never suspected she was taking it seriously. It certainly never got beyond that.”
Deborah laid down her spoon. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I hope you might care that I was not embracing her last night, but trying to keep her hands off me.”
She reached blindly for her wine glass, wishing she was not so pleased to hear it. “I suppose it was a rather vulgar display for our civilized agreement. Though not quite so vulgar as my stamping on Mr. Ireton’s foot. Or you, hitting him, I imagine.”
Christopher pushed his bowl away with his left hand, hiding his right in his lap. “I’m not a saint, Deborah, but even at my worst, I would never have humiliated you in such a way. And I will always defend you.”
She thought of him swarming over the rail and holding Rickett’s own knife to the smuggler’s throat. “I seem to cause you more problems than I have solved.”
“Funnily enough, I like dealing with your problems. Don’t give up yet on Lucy, or on the whole scandal behind it.”
She nodded, removing their soup bowls and the tureen, then placing the dishes of meat and vegetables on the table instead. This time, he served her.
“Which brings me to another matter,” he said. “As you know, I made my offer of marriage while I was still angry with my grandfather and focused solely on getting my own way. There were things—many things!—I did not consider, including your feelings or my own.”
She picked up her knife and fork. “I am happy with the bargain we struck,” she said with difficulty. “There is no reason for you to feel guilt.”
“I think there is, but it is not, I confess, my primary emotion.”
They ate in silence for a little.
“Don’t you want to ask what is?” he asked at last.
“No. But I am happy to listen if you wish to tell me.”
He sat back, a faint, curious smile playing around his sensual lips. “You.”
Her heart leapt. Somehow, she said calmly, “I have never been called an emotion of any kind before.”
“But you are. You intrigue me, soothe me, worry me, arouse me, turn my selfish world upside down. In short, you inspire so many emotions that I have named the unique mixture after you.”
Heat seeped into her cheeks. “You are making fun of me.”
“No, but of myself, a little.” He held her gaze, his eyes secretive. “Tell me, Deborah, would you be opposed to changing the…boundaries of our relationship?”
Her heart beat uncomfortably hard. “In what way?”
“In, perhaps, allowing nature to take its course. In imposing no boundaries, simply following our…emotions.”
“I thought that was what we agreed on in the first place,” she said, making an effort at lightness.
“With regard to other people,” he said, waving that aside. “We did not take account of each other.”
She dragged her gaze free. She could not think when she lost herself in those profound, exciting eyes… She swallowed, casting wildly around for possible reasons behind his words. And it came to her in a rush of painful understanding.
“You want an heir,” she blurted.
He blinked. “Eventually,” he allowed, “it is a consideration, though hardly an urgent one.”
“Of course, none of this is urgent,” she said hastily, returning to her dinner, which was tasty and deserved more attention than either of them were providing.
“Isn’t it?” he said, waving one hand to encompass the whole chamber. “Here we are, alone and without servants, respectably married and…intrigued.”
“It was you who said intrigued,” she retorted. “You cannot speak for me.”
“You mean you are not intrigued by the idea of expanding our relationship?”
She could not see the bed, but it filled her mind’s eye. Worse, in her vision, it contained Christopher’s beautiful, golden body as she had seen it on the ship, only sprawled across the sheets, waiting for her…
“Not at this time,” she said desperately.
He sat back, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Your lips said otherwise when I kissed you. Both times.”
The flush spread through her whole body. Again, she reached nervously for her glass. “I was emotional,” she excused h
erself.
He smiled, causing a swarm of butterflies to soar in her stomach. “Is that not exactly what I have been saying?”
A breath of laughter took her by surprise. She set down her empty glass, and he leaned across to refill it and his own. She stood a little too quickly to avoid his nearness and removed their plates. As she hoped, the thread of the conversation was lost in investigating the sweet-tart and custard.
But as the talk lightened, the tension tightened. In truth, given the way she felt about him, she should have been delighted to “expand the boundaries”, but the intense glow of his eyes spoke of immediacy, which panicked her. If she did not have to fear Frederica Ireton, there were too many other unknown women in his life, and she could not give up his friendship and her own pride for one night of his attention. Or even a few nights. She was in far too deeply for that.
And yet, she wallowed, gloried, in his company. As they moved from the table to the sofa to finish their wine, she came to the very odd realization that she actually liked this strange edge to their companionship. It changed nothing, of course, but it was undeniably exciting, intriguing, just as he had said…
In the glow of the candles, she felt the world outside recede, leaving only herself and Christopher. Her confusion mounted as she realized that, despite what he had seemed to offer, he kept to his own corner of the sofa, making no effort to touch her, let alone seduce her. She should have been relieved, though it felt more like pique.
At last, he said, “Feel free to retire when you wish.”
Her gaze flew to his.
Perhaps he read the uncertainty there, for his smile was sardonic. “You are concerned about privacy. Never fear, I have the perfect solution.” He rose and, with a courtly bow, offered her his hand.
She took it in the same exaggerated style and walked with him to the bed. Her heart thundered. What will I do? What should I do if he kisses me?
He released her and drew back the bedclothes, bowing to indicate she should get into bed. Nervously, she sat on the edge.
“Right in,” he said like a cajoling nurse.
Married to the Rogue Page 17
