Ecstasy Wears Emeralds (25 page)

Because retreat wasn't an option. She'd burned her ships, or at least, most of them. She hadn't worked up the courage to tell her aunt the truth, and was still unsure if she had the strength to forfeit the last living family she possessed by doing so.

She stayed in the bath until the water's warmth was gone, and even then, she lingered, distracted by thoughts of Rowan and the future she couldn't see.

Gayle returned to her room, noting that the house had fallen quiet for the night, and retrieved the case study. She curled up on her bed, tucking her feet under the quilts, and read it all in one pass.

It was a gruesome scene, even in clinical terms.

“Blood loss? From a fever?” Gayle spoke aloud, checking back to see if she'd missed something, but then saw in the Standish Crossing doctor's hand on a smaller page his indication that he suspected “bleeding for a remedy,” and she wondered if Aunt Jane had tried bleeding Charlotte first to relieve the fever and with an amateur hand and done more damage than good.

A small handwritten note in the margins caught her eye, and she turned the page sideways to try to discern what Rowan had intended.

 

Then nothing.

No indication of cause. It was all about the outcome.

She read it all again, more slowly this time, willing the truth to appear in her hands, but there was only the mystery of one young woman's death.

She closed the notebook and set it aside, then blew out her lamplight. In the dark, she felt safe enough to whisper what the study had revealed. “There is no how. He couldn't have done anything. He was well on his way to India when it happened. He's innocent.”

Chapter
19

Waking up a short time later, her hair still damp from her bath, Gayle wrapped her blue velvet robe around her and restlessly walked the floor of her room. She lit the lamp on her desk and put the case study away in the back of the drawer, as far as she could, as if it were a snake that might strike her. She wanted to talk to him and send all her fears away. Even an argument was more desirable than being alone with her doubts.

And then it was as if she'd summoned him, as if he'd heard her thoughts.

“You'll catch a cold strolling around like that.”

“I'm fine.” She smiled at the sight of him leaning against the door frame. He wore only his white linen shirt, untucked and unbuttoned to give her a glimpse of his body, and his long black woolen pants. “I didn't hear the bell.”

He shrugged. “I came in the back to try not to wake Carter.” He walked toward her. “You're not using your dead bolt, Miss Renshaw.”

“That would defeat the purpose of deliberately leaving it open and hoping that you would pay me a call.” She held her breath.

“I said I would.”

She nodded. “You always do what you promise to do.”

“There's a delightful change! Thank you, Gayle.”

“I take it that Miss Featherstone isn't dying?”

“Not tonight. Although she did manage to come down with a genuine cold, so it was a nice diversion from her overexcited blood. Naturally, the combination of an imaginary disease and a genuinely sore throat was almost more than the poor creature could manage, but I think it's the recommended treatment that might do her in.”

“A new tonic?”

“Warm throat wraps, brandy, and
absolutely no talking for three days
.”

Gayle gasped in delighted horror. “Three days? You're a wicked man, Rowan West.”

“Not wicked enough, I fear. Here, come, calm yourself and let's sit for a minute.” He pulled her down to sit on the cot and then winced when it squeaked in protest, the rusty frame shifting slightly under his weight. “My God! Tell me this bed isn't as uncomfortable as it sounds!”

“It's worse than it sounds, but I've grown fond of it, so don't insult my dear little room, please.”

“I'll ask Carter to get you a new bed.”

“Don't! Don't you dare! It's completely inappropriate for you to show any interest or knowledge about my bed, Rowan!”

“I love it when you're prim and impossible, Gayle. But if you prefer, I'll refrain and you can continue to enjoy your dear little room—iron cot and all.”

“Thank you.”

“Now tell me what has you marching around up here?”

“Did you mean what you said earlier, about having more to lose? Nothing is what I expected on this journey, Rowan, and I can't help but worry that I'm blindly doing more harm than good. But I can't quit. I won't—”

“I spoke out of turn, Gayle.” He pulled her close, kissing her softly behind one of her ears in a tender onslaught that stripped her slowly of her arguments. “Lament the world another day. You and I, we can only control the tiniest little sliver of our existence. The rest of it is out of our hands. But you and this . . . this . . . and this . . .” Each
this
was accented with the touch of his mouth against one of the delicious points of pleasure across her throat and shoulders. “This is all that matters now.”

At his touch, all her worries slid away, and she gave in to it. “Yes. I believe you're right, doctor.”

She shifted on the bed, tucking one foot underneath her bottom to face him and give her natural curiosity full rein. “Rowan, how am I with you? I mean . . . how does any woman know how to conduct herself when she is with a man?”

He shook his head. “You are yourself. I don't want you conducting yourself, Gayle.”

Her cheeks warmed at his words, encouraged in her quest to discover how to please him. In the space of a single heartbeat, suddenly it was all she wanted most in the world—to repay him for his kindness and show him only pleasure. “Rowan, what seduces a man? What do you think a man finds most seductive in a woman?”

“Confidence. A woman who knows what she wants and isn't shy to ask.” He sucked in a breath as her teeth grazed the sensitive peaks of his chest, pebbling the flesh. “I—suppose it's different for every man.”

She slid her hands up his chest and over his shoulders to push his shirt off him, thrilled at the expanse of bare skin and smooth muscles beneath her touch. She pulled her fingers lightly through the hair on his chest and allowed her hands to roam where they wished, trailing them over his extremities until she pushed him back onto the bed and knelt across his legs to hold him captive. She bent over to concentrate on the buttons and ties at his waist, and unfastened his pants with unhurried hands, all the while watching his handsome face.

He was already hard, his cock jerking up to meet her hands as she released him. She caressed the velvet-smooth skin, enjoying the delicious textures of corded throbbing power that sprang so jauntily against her palms. The color of it was compelling, the head of him as ripe as any plum, but there the comparison ended as she absorbed with a sigh the masculine beauty that stood so proudly at her attentions. To tease him, she slowly drew the cotton cloth back over him, and then squeezed along the sensitive ridge to elicit a moan of pleasure from Rowan. “I love the way you're formed, Rowan.”

“I'm seduced, Miss Renshaw. See how easy that was?”
I don't think I have the self-control this is going to take if I continue to let her—

Her mouth dropped, latching onto the shape of him through the thin material of his breeches, and he nearly spent himself right then and there. She looked up at him with a wicked smile, his cock straining through the cloth mere inches from her red lips. “One compliment? Truly?”

“Very well. I shall try to present more of a challenge for the sake of education, but—”
Oh, God! So much for bravado. . . .

She pushed the cloth away, and she brazenly kissed his cock with the sweetest feminine sighs he had ever heard. Her mouth moved up his shaft, only to tease the tip of him, her tongue dipping down to meet the moistened rutting head that begged her for more. When her lips encircled him, and her tongue began to dance across his skin, he had to fight not to buck his hips upward and risk sending them both to the floor.

Rowan moaned and deliberately lifted her up and away from the demands of his cock, determined that this delightful interlude should last more than two minutes. “Here, woman, sit here and smother the poor thing for a bit.” He settled her sex onto his, the barrier of her nightgown adding to the sensual promise of the position.

“Rowan.” She pouted slightly, but wriggled to find a comfortable perch with his cock pressing up against her. “I wanted to learn how to please you.”

He nodded. “And so you are.” He grasped her hips, trying to hold her still and slow the pounding of his own heart. “Touch yourself.”

She obliged him, tentatively at first, unsure of what could be gained, but she grasped the game almost instantly. The molten desire in his eyes and open approval of her actions was heady. She cupped her breasts, pressing them together for him, encircling them with her hands as his hands had when he'd tasted her in the laboratory.

Without realizing it, she began to writhe and pump her hips as she moved in a primal dance of seduction and satisfaction. Her nipples hardened when her palms passed over them, and her breath caught in her throat at the discovery that her own hands could surprise and seduce.

He never looked away and a new power surged through her.

“Between your legs . . . touch your sex, there, for me.”

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

It was a new experience. It had never occurred to her to touch herself, much less to allow someone to watch her when she did. But her nipples were still tingling from her own hands and the ache between her legs was unmistakable.

She dropped one of her hands, fingering the coarse black curls on her mons and then easily found the wet flesh beneath. Slippery and hot, she gasped as her fingers brushed over her clit and slid a little inside her own body. This was a flavor of wicked she hadn't anticipated, and her eyes widened in surprise.

“Go on, Gayle. Touch yourself the way you would like me to touch you.”

As before, the nuances of the game came to her very quickly. She imagined that it was his hands pressing the tight little bud between her legs, his finger entering her and stretching her entrance, faster and faster, until her hand was coated with her own arousal and she could smell the sweet musk of her sex.

She was shameless only because he never looked away. His eyes reflected nothing but desire and approval. She felt more powerful than she ever had in her entire life—a queen in a very small erotic kingdom—but a queen, nonetheless.