Beguiling the Beauty (8 page)

C
hristian worked steadily through the two packets of letters that had caught up with him in New York. The sea, smooth as a tablecloth when the
Rhodesia
passed Sandy Hook into the open Atlantic, grew noticeably less level as the day wore on. He stopped reading reports from his agents and solicitors when the rocking of the ship made it unprofitable to continue. A walk on the decks required frequent use of the handrails, as the ship rocked from side to side. In the smoking lounge, where the gentlemen made their customary bets on the ship’s daily progress, he had to chase after his ashtray.

The rain began at tea, gently enough at first. But before long each drop slammed into the windows with the ferocity of a thrown rock. He watched the rain and thought again of the baroness.

It was possible that she still distracted him because she’d spurned him and he was not accustomed to rejection. But he did not believe so. He was concerned less with his own sentiments and more with the seething intensity of hers. She was ferociously aware of him, yet even more ferociously offended by his attention. And that intrigued him more than her identity or the reason she kept her face concealed.

A strange but not altogether unpleasant sensation, being preoccupied by a woman who was not Mrs. Easterbrook.

Too bad the baroness would have nothing to do with him.

I
n theory, repudiating Lexington to his face should have afforded Venetia a modicum of satisfaction.

But the truth was she hadn’t dismissed him. She’d fled from everything that was masculine, confident, and powerful in him, the way a very young girl might run away from the first boy who challenged her to do more than just flirt.

For the rest of the day, instead of congratulating herself on knowing when to cut her losses and abandon clearly demented goals, she stewed in frustration. Was she truly so useless a woman? Had Tony been correct when he’d told her that everything she was, she owed to her looks? Without the advantages conferred by her face, did she have no hope of holding her own with Lexington?

She stared at herself in the mirror. The stewardess she’d selected to help her dress for dinner, Miss Arnaud, had coiffed her hair into a sleek chignon that left her face quite bare. “It’s better this way,” the girl had said. “Madame is so beautiful; nothing must interfere.”

Venetia could not judge. She saw an assembly of features that were often a little odd: Her eyes were
very
far apart; her jaw was rather too square for her own taste; her nose was neither diminutive nor pert—it went on and on, in fact.

But none of it mattered here. To conquer him, she would have to wage her campaign with an arsenal that did not include beauty.

If, that was, she had the guts to go back to him.

The thought of his hands on her—she shuddered. But not entirely from revulsion. As much as she despised him, he was a handsome man. And a part of her found his nerve and sangfroid utterly riveting.

She must come to a decision soon. She’d dismissed Miss Arnaud a long time ago. In the dining saloon they would be serving the final courses of dinner now. If she missed him tonight, quite likely by tomorrow he’d have found himself another lover.

She shuddered again, a mixture of fear, loathing, and a fierce, perverse need to bring this man to heel.

Her hand reached toward her veiled hat.

Her decision, it appeared, had been made.

T
he going was more difficult than she’d anticipated.

She knew, of course, that the
Rhodesia
had run into a fairly significant storm. But sitting in a bolted chair, alternately questioning her sanity and raging at her cowardice, had not given her a proper appreciation of how animated the Atlantic had become.

But out in the mahogany-paneled corridors, she tottered as if drunk, lurching from bulkhead to bulkhead. It wasn’t so bad when the floor rose to meet her. But every time it dropped away, there was a moment of disconcerting weightlessness.

The ship’s lights flickered. It plunged at an angle that would have served for a young children’s slide. She gripped a nearby doorknob to keep her balance. The
Rhodesia
, reaching the trough of the wave, began to climb again. She grabbed onto a sconce so she wouldn’t tumble backward.

The dining saloon was reached by a grand staircase adorned by a frieze of Japanese gold paper. There were
also carved teak panels, but she could not see them very well, for the steps were packed with ladies in feathers and gentlemen in tails heading out, everyone hanging on to the banister.

Panic assailed her. Had dinner already concluded? Was she too late after all? But Lexington was not among the departing diners, so she pressed forward, descending the stairs against the exodus of passengers, ignoring their stares of curiosity and disapproval.

The dining saloon was a hundred feet long and sixty feet wide. The ceiling opened at the center into a rectangular wall that rose two decks to a glass-covered dome. On a clear day, sunlight would spill down this well and illuminate the rows of Corinthian columns and the four long tables that ran nearly the whole length of the room, each capable of accommodating more than a hundred diners.

On this stormy night, a bright if quivery light still cascaded from the well, its source the large, silver-branched electric chandelier that swung with the pitch and roll of the ocean liner. Had Venetia arrived an hour earlier, the sound of silverware and muted laughter would have greeted her, the familiar murmurs of privilege and satisfaction. But now the dining saloon was largely deserted. Two of the long tables were completely empty, all the dishes and cutlery cleared, all the bolted chairs turned out. A few hardy passengers still lingered, their plates and glasses held in place by a special wooden frame set on the table. A middle-aged, robust-looking woman loudly discussed her experiences with past nor’easters.

Lexington, in evening formals, sat by himself near the windows, a cup of coffee before him, his gaze on the storm outside. She prayed for no abrupt changes to the rhythm of
the
Rhodesia
’s movement—she did not want to stumble along the way, but cut through like a shark, sleek and dangerous.

He glanced in her direction. With her veil on, it was difficult to judge his expression, but she thought she caught a flicker of surprise.

And anticipation.

Her stomach tightened. Her face heated. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears.

He rose as she approached the table, but offered no greeting. A waiter emerged from nowhere to help her with her chair, another presented her a cup of coffee.

Lexington retook his seat. Without taking his eyes off her, he lifted his coffee and drank. It would seem he had no intention of making this easy for her.

She spoke before she could change her mind again. “I have reconsidered your proposition, sir.”

He made no response. The air between them all but crackled with charge.

She swallowed. “And I’ve come to the conclusion that I am open to persuasion.”

The steamer heaved. Her hand shot out to protect her coffee cup; his did the same. His finger wrapped around hers. She felt the shock of it deep into her shoulder.

“I was about to go back to my rooms,” he said. “Would you care to join me?”

For a long second, her voice refused to work. Her lips trembled. The thought of being alone with him squeezed the air from her lungs.

“Yes,” she rasped.

He set down his cup and came to his feet. She bit her lip and did likewise. Their exit garnered inquisitive looks from the remaining diners. Lexington took no notice of
them. Strange how on her way to him, she’d been equally heedless of the unwanted attention she’d attracted. But now she felt as if she were about to be pilloried.

She preceded him up the grand staircase. The ship listed sharply. His arm was instantly about her waist.

“I’m quite all right, thank you.”

He let go of her. She grimaced at her tone—she sounded nothing like a woman with lovemaking on her mind. If she were any severer, she’d be leading the temperance movement.

The Victoria suite was several decks above the dining saloon. For the rest of the way, they said not a word to each other. At the door of the suite he glanced at her—an unreadable look—before he turned the key.

The parlor was dimly lit. She could only make out the location and general outline of the furnishing: a desk and a Windsor chair before the window, a chaise longue to her right, two padded chairs opposite, shelves that had been built into the bulkhead.

He shut the door.

A surge of panic made her blurt out, “You will not ask to see my face.”

“Understood,” he answered quietly. “Would you care for something to drink?”

“No.” She inhaled hard. “No, thank you.”

He walked past her, deeper into the room. It was not until he reached out a hand that she realized he was extinguishing the light. Shadows enfolded her, alleviated only by flashes of lightning.

He drew the curtain, the slide of rings on rod quick, metallic. The unbroken darkness pressed against her sternum. The din of the storm faded. Even the slant and toss
of the
Rhodesia
seemed to happen elsewhere. Her body knew how to brace itself for the volatile swells of the sea, yet the very predictable course Lexington set was a maelstrom, threatening to tow her asunder.

“Would you agree that I can’t see anything now?”

He was right in front of her, just on the other side of her veil. Her fingers clutched the folds of her skirts. “Yes.”

He removed the veiled hat. Her breath caught. She had never felt more naked in her life.

He slid the back of his hand against her cheek. It was as if a torch caressed her. “The door is unlocked. You may leave at any point.”

The scene crashed into her head: Lexington wedged inside her, and she, overcome at last, begging to be let go.

“I won’t.” Her voice was small but defiant.

He made no reply. Her shallow, erratic breaths drowned out the waves battering the
Rhodesia
. He touched her again—the pad of his thumb grazing her lower lip, leaving a burning trail in its wake.

“You don’t want to sleep with me. Why are you here?”

She swallowed. “I am not unwilling, only afraid.”

“What do you fear?”

He kissed her just below her jaw. She shuddered. “It—it has been a very long time.”

His hands were on her arms, their heat scorching her through the satin of her sleeves. “How long?”

“Eight years.”

He wrapped one hand around her nape and kissed her, parting her lips without hesitation. The kiss tasted of Arabian coffee, as pure and potent as his will. And she felt that will deep inside her, in places that had lain dormant for nearly a decade.

All too soon he pulled away. The ship staggered. But the violence of the sea was nothing compared to the turmoil inside her: She wished he hadn’t stopped.

“Where is the door?” she asked, her voice uneven.

He did not answer immediately. Into the impenetrable night came the sound of his breathing, less quiet, less controlled. “Five paces behind you.” He paused a second. “Would you like me to walk you there?”

“No,” she said. “Take me in the opposite direction.”

T
he bedroom was, if possible, even darker than the parlor. Christian stopped when he reached the bed. Under his thumb, the small vein at the baroness’s wrist throbbed wildly, one beat indistinguishable from the next.

He spread open her tightly clenched hand. She was as tense as a full-blown war. Yet beneath all the rigidness, all the reluctance, pulsed an arousal made audible by every one of her ragged breaths. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman so incited him.

Cupping her face, he kissed her again. She tasted impossibly clean, of rain and snow and spring water. The scent of her was equally spare, no sultry musk or sweet flowers, only the fragrance of freshly laundered hair and skin, underpinned by the warmth of her body.

She made small whimpers in her throat. Lust shot through him. His fingers were impatient, almost unsteady, as he undid the top of her bodice, peeling back the layers that imprisoned her.

He was more interested in her reactions than her flesh, yet the sheer smoothness of her skin made him light-headed with desire. He took her mouth once more, invading it
thoroughly. His body pressed hers into the footboard of the bed.

She trembled. Did she feel him through everything they still wore? He was hot and hard, almost senselessly so. Then she did something that poured fresh fuel on the fire of his lust: She helped him with her corset, her hands and his working the busk closures together.

The corset was the castle gate. Once it had been undone, everything else was but formalities. He pulled the pins out of her hair and rid her of the rest of her clothes, touching her as little as possible in the process, not quite trusting his own usually ironclad control.