Celine (11 page)

Releasing her hair from his grasp, he lightly traced small circles at the base of her throat with one finger. At the sharp intake of her breath, he slowly widened the circles, trailing downward as he went until his finger rested between her breasts, where the fabric of her robe came together.

Her body throbbed and floated, yielding to him.

Slowly, he pulled her wrap open, exposing her breasts beneath her thin night rail to his experienced, sensuous fingers. He moved his hand to cup one breast, sending a thousand exploding sparks throughout her body. He bent his head to her chest, his breath coasting across her skin. Touching her breast lightly with his mouth, he teased her with languorous kisses.

And then he sucked.

“Unfair,” she gasped as hot pleasure ran from her breast to her inner thighs and to the place she had been keeping secret from him.

He drew more circles around her breast with his tongue. The velvety softness of his mouth closed over the tip of the mound.

“You said—”

He sucked again.

She hissed. He was about to overwhelm her.

His mouth left her breast and trailed slowly up her neck, and closed down on hers. She supped on his sweet heat. Then she pulled away, panting. “You promised.”

Gently, he raked his fingers through her hair, tucked a lock behind her ear. “And I am keeping that promise, Celine, for I will not enter you until you ask me.”

He smiled down at her, gathered her to his chest, and closed her wrap back over her breasts.

“Are you trying to get me to beg for your favors?”

He stilled for a moment, then buried his hand in her hair and gently eased her cheek to his chest. “Supplication is the last thing I want from you,
ma petite.
” Time was suspended as he held her, combing his fingers through her hair, staring silently into the flames until they were mere embers.

She couldn't move—didn't want to. How very different this night had turned out to be from the morning.

“To bed,” he whispered in her ear. “Alone, unfortunately.”

He carried her to the four-poster and gently tucked her under the covers.

She felt like a babe.

He lifted a single rose from the vase by the bed and placed it beside her pillow.
“Dormez bien, mon coeur.”

Chapter Eight

Trevor exited the house alongside Cameron and stepped silently into the cool morning mist. Jewel-like droplets of water beaded across the toes of their smartly polished boots as they made their way through the dew-kissed grass to the carriage that would transport them to the waiting ship.

Like a giant firefly dancing in the air, a lamp waved slowly back and forth from shore, signaling to the riverboat captain that there were passengers waiting to board. The ship's tender hastened the familiar clang of three bells to indicate a light had been seen and that the prospective passengers should make their way from the plantation house to the shore. The huge sternwheeler loomed from the center of the Mississippi—an enchanted castle, the river's turgid waters her protective moat.

A mystical haze clung to the ship's sides and hovered, cloudlike, over the dark waters as a pale dawn overtook the night. Moss-laden cypress trees crooked along the riverbanks at odd, ghostly angles.

While Cameron eagerly disappeared into his cabin, Trevor boarded with hesitation, shrouded in a peculiar kind of melancholy. Three weeks in New Orleans seemed a long while.

He leaned against the ship's railing with his forearms resting on the rich oak trim, and peered through the vaulted corridor of oaks to his childhood home, as if he could see beyond the façade, straight through to the far corner room where Celine lay sleeping. A deep, dull ache tugged at him.

Two stout seamen hauled in the cumbersome gangplank. The gate closed behind them with a solid clang. The safety bar dropped in place, and they disappeared into the bowels of the sternwheeler, leaving Trevor alone on deck. The mighty steam engines belched thick, white clouds into the air, and the huge paddles hitched, readying themselves for the journey.

He stared into the water's depths, only to see Celine's image floating on the surface, smiling sweetly at him with beckoning, turquoise eyes.

What the devil
was
it about her? When he'd returned to Carlton Oaks, he hadn't expected to find a mysterious beauty standing on the balcony, peering down at him from behind a fat Doric column. Even then, he could tell she had spirit. She'd fascinated him enough to draw him into the house and right up the stairs after her. And when he got to her, those captivating, kaleidoscopic eyes that seemed to change color along with her moods kept him finding one reason after another to be in her company.

His groin tightened at the memory of her in his lap last night. A twinge of guilt coursed through him. He should have told her that he'd be gone in the morning.

A light in the manor house was but a mere speck now as the sternwheeler slipped through the water. He stared at the twinkling dot. Cobwebbed memories of his mother and father strolling along the river's edge hand in hand crept into Trevor's contemplations. Where had
that
come from, and what the devil did it have to do with Celine?

He pushed away from the banister and sought his stateroom. He would see to putting his things in order and then meet up with Cam. Business matters were sure to distract him from haunting thoughts of
her.

“Ah, there you are.” Cameron leaned against the door to the stateroom next to Trevor's. “I was beginning to think you fell overboard. I'm famished. What about you?”

“Indeed.” What the hell, putting everything in order could wait. They headed to the opulent dining room at the ship's stern.

Breakfast with Cameron began pleasantly enough. A hunger, more ravenous than usual, consumed Trevor. He blamed it on the fresh air and the fabulous French chef on board.

Cameron lifted a brow. “I say, old boy, I can't recall ever seeing you so preoccupied with food. You seem to be quite lost in thought, as well. Is it the excellent fare, or have you other reasons for such heartiness this morning?”

“Hmm?” Trevor took another mouthful of eggs. “Can't imagine what's got into me. Guess I've a lot on my mind.”

Cameron lifted his cup of
petit noir
and sipped. “Like what? Or, should I say, like whom?”

His quip was light, but his eyes were intense, as though he was trying to discern what Trevor was thinking without disturbing the mantle of privacy he'd purposely erected these past few days.

Trevor adjusted his weight in his chair, and with the shift in posture came a change in demeanor that he hoped signaled Cameron to back off. Pulling an agenda from his waistcoat, Trevor brought business to the forefront. “Regarding the founding of the Bank of New Orleans—Father was adamant that both our signatures appear on the original mandate rather than his or your father's. Any objections?”

Cameron shook his head. “That ought to be our first item of business to dispense with.”

Trevor nodded, but there was something unsettling in Cameron's demeanor. “What's on your mind?”

Cameron took a sip of coffee and shifted in his seat. “Actually, it's the new clipper ships due in that have me chomping at the bit.”

Until then, Trevor had only been tending to the conversation with half a mind. “My sentiments exactly.”

He had commissioned Donald McKay out of Boston to design and construct the fastest merchant sailing ships ever built. McKay had a reputation for building clippers that were achieving unheard of runs of more than three hundred fifty miles a day. Trevor had told him to build theirs to run four hundred.

“Hell, Cameron, Captain Waterman skippered the
Sea Witch
from New York to San Francisco in ninety-seven days. He now commands four times more money than anyone else sailing the China seas. If we can cut the time from New Orleans to San Francisco down to thirty-seven days, we'll lock in the China trade. With all three ships due within the month, our slower ships can then be used to ship sugar to Australia and bring that country's wool back to the port of New Orleans. A couple of months out, and we'll have secured worldwide trade.”

Cameron only nodded.

“How does it feel, Cam? A shipping empire unmatched in England or America, and neither of us beyond thirty.” Trevor leaned forward, a sense of victory already pounding in his veins.

“I am in total agreement.” Cameron spoke with a quiet authority while unconsciously running a fingertip over the rim of his cup, which meant he had his own agenda, which would somehow run contrary to Trevor's. “However, I do want to make one thing clear.”

Trevor's gut tightened. He had an ugly feeling about what was to come.

Cameron smoothed his mustache with the tips of his thumb and index finger. “I feel I am the best man to captain the lead ship on its maiden voyage to San Francisco. Especially since I have agreed to relocate there.”

Just as Trevor figured. A peculiar anger percolated in him. “Do I have to remind you that we are
both
required to inspect all three ships upon their arrival?”

When Cameron set his jaw and failed to respond, the air grew so thick with tension, the passengers dining immediately adjacent shifted about in their chairs and either grew silent themselves, or lowered the volume of their conversations.

Trevor stirred his already stirred coffee and dropped his spoon onto the porcelain plate with a clatter. “And do I have to remind you that when we head for San Francisco, you and I need to be on the last clipper out in case something goes wrong with those leading the pack? And since our first ship out is the one needing to break all records, we cannot afford to sail for sport. I had someone else in mind. You know Captain Thompson is the best man. . . .”

Cameron's face blanched. He leaned forward and listed cogent reasons for his captaining the first ship out of New Orleans. The cadence of his speech was deliberately paced, the tone low, but aggressive. He had the unruly habit of openly rebelling whenever someone tried to direct him.

Trevor leaned back in his chair, locked eyes with Cameron, and spoke quietly. “Celine is to be on that first ship.” He paused for a beat. “But then, you knew that.”

The two men glared at each other in deadly silence.

And then Cameron leaned back in his chair as well. “You, Cousin, can be such an insufferable bastard.”

Like tinder set alight, Trevor's anger flamed. “Oh, goddamn it, get off your high horse. We have records to break. I can't have a captain of one of our ships running after a woman's petticoats when I need his full attention. Jesus, man, we stand to lose millions if we aren't on top of that maiden voyage every minute of the day.”

“Why don't you mind your own business, Trev,
old chap?
After all, your business is supposed to be running the entire shipping company, not taking a magnifying glass to my actions.”

“I am minding my own business!” Trevor slammed a fist on the table. Coffee cups rattled in their saucers, and pieces of silverware jangled nervously against one another.

Passengers hushed. Trevor shifted in his chair. The idea of his cousin and Celine sharing anything close to what Trevor had shared with her last night—and over a period of weeks—was intolerable.

He leaned over the table and spoke in a hoarse whisper. “I know you are one hell of a sailor. But I also see that you are overly preoccupied with Mrs. Kirkland. I'll say this one more time—none of us can afford to have you divide your time between a woman and the ship. Likely as not, you'd end up losing both at sea. Be reasonable, man.”

By now the dining room was nearly empty, save for a few stragglers hanging about to eavesdrop on the heated argument.

Red blotches marked Cameron's cheeks. “You fool. Perhaps it is
you
who wants to captain the ship because Celine will be aboard, and this talk of hiring on another captain is a ruse.”

He cocked an eyebrow at Trevor. “It's been you with that randy air about you, not me. You have that demeanor of . . . how did I hear Celine put it the other night ... of a bull looking for a cow in heat?”

In order to keep from reaching across the table and pummeling Cameron, Trevor pulled himself to his full height and stalked off, knocking his chair over as he went. He growled at the nosy passenger sitting nearest. The rotund man skittered from the dining room through the opposite door.

Retreating to his quarters, Trevor yanked his jacket off, threw it in a heap on a chair, and flopped on the bed, suddenly weary. Pillowing his hands behind his neck, he stared at the ceiling.

What the hell had just happened? Aside from the ordinary scuffles of childhood, he and Cameron shared a comfortable relationship filled with high regard for one another. Lately, however, they seemed to be at one another's throats.

Of late? Only since green-eyed trouble arrived.

He knew full well Cameron could captain the lead clipper as well as Thompson, and see to it records were broken during that first sail. Hell, the ship hadn't even reached port yet and Celine—no, Mrs. Kirkland's presence—was already wreaking havoc. Why the devil had his father insisted she be on the lead ship?

Somehow, referring to Celine as Mrs. Kirkland set her apart from him, left him cold, unfeeling—gave her less dimension.

Cameron and he had shared many things in life, but never women. And damn it, Cameron and Celine were both heading for a life in San Francisco while he was going where? To China, and then back to England. What made him think he had shared anything with Celine? Or ever would? Or wanted to?

He lay there for a long while, thinking. He'd never seen his cousin so taken with anyone. And she certainly displayed what appeared to be genuine affection toward Cameron, while he wanted ... what
did
he ultimately want other than to bed a woman who sent a few extra sparks through him? She was merely a temptation that laid bare his weakness for a beautiful woman. And now she had become a hindrance.

To hell with it. He knew exactly how to solve the dilemma—he would not return to Carlton Oaks—not even for that blasted ball his father had planned for her. His decision left him strangely numb, but he'd be damned if he allowed anything or anyone to tear his family apart.

He rose from the bed and dashed off a note to Cameron, congratulating him on being captain of the lead clipper to San Francisco, while Trevor would have the privilege of being the first to sail her to China.

 

 

A clean-smelling, slightly humid breeze puffed marshmallow clouds across the sky as Trevor stepped onto the wooden banquette of Canal Street with Cameron by his side. They peered boldly into each passing carriage. Mysterious-looking ladies hid behind elaborately carved and painted oriental fans—the very same fans their shipping company would import by the tens of thousands from Whampoa and Hong Kong, along with fresh teas, fireworks, and furniture.

Their banking business completed, and their meetings regarding the clipper ships delayed until the morrow, the two stood together improvising plans.

Cameron crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels. “It's been a long while since we enjoyed New Orleans together. Which would you prefer tonight, the quadroon ball or Madame Olympée's?”

Trevor snorted. “Do you think Madame will remember us and call out her burly guards?”

“I doubt it since neither one of us was yet twenty when we nearly destroyed the place.” Cameron gave a nod toward Royal Street. “Walk with me to the jewelry store. There's something I need to purchase. So what's it to be, the ball or the brothel?”

Trevor shrugged. “Dinner at Antoine's, followed by a night at Madame Olympée's suits me.” He could damn well use a bloody outlet.

Cameron grinned and slapped Trevor on the back, resting his hand there to guide him into
Maison d'Orléans,
the finest jewelry store in the city.