Edith Layton (22 page)

She smiled, and with his help, shucked out of her gown and put it aside. Now her eyes were adjusting to the scant light. She could see it was still late afternoon by the dim, gray, fading light at his high window, and so she could also see him as he bent and stripped off his breeches and hose. He had wide shoulders and a lean hard chest, but she’d known that. She was pleased to see that shapely chest tapered to a flat, well-muscled abdomen, and his hips were as trim as they’d appeared in his clothing. Then as he turned and bent to her, she couldn’t see more than his face, intent, his eyes filled with the reflection of the last gleams of stony light, his stern mouth, smiling. She closed her own eyes so she could better feel the wonderful shape of him as he took her in his arms again.

“Ah, Julianne,” he sighed, and she needed no other urging to relax and lie down in his arms.

They lay on his bed together. He made her forget her surroundings, just as she’d said. But still, she’d a moment to be glad of the feeling of her silken gown beneath them, before she became more enraptured by the feel of his smooth skin sliding against hers.

“Christian,” she said, and he stopped, and waited.

“What?”

“Just…Christian,” she said into his ear. “I like saying your name.”

She felt his smile against her cheek, then his hands cupping and caressing her, as he turned her so that she lay on the bed, and he above her.

She was thrilled not only with what he did, but with the joy of who he was. She loved his long
hands, his slender muscular body, so different from her own, so perfectly suited to her. She touched him tentatively, and then with growing adventure and wonder. He let her explore, but lay with the lower part of his body against the cot, lest he startle her. But when he half rose, to turn so he could taste her other breast and begin to cover her, he brushed against her. She made a soft sound of surprise as her hands found his sex.

“I don’t want to frighten you,” he said gruffly.

“I’m a country girl,” she said, “and know about such things. Although I haven’t seen one when it’s like this…and won’t either, in this light,” she added, sounding disgruntled.

Even muddled with desire, battling the need to complete what he’d begun, still he couldn’t stop himself. He reared back and laughed. “Oh Lord, Julie,” he breathed, “will you never stop surprising me?”

“I hope not,” she said. “I don’t want you to grow bored with me.”

Her voice was breathless, and her heart was beating wildly. He was very large, and sleek with desire, obviously ready for what they would do. With all the excitement she felt and the joy of having him so close, and affecting him so strongly, still she wasn’t sure of what was coming. She suddenly found conversation preferable to action.

Again, he knew. Holding himself up on his elbows above her, he bent and nuzzled her lips. “Let’s go back to where we were,” he said quietly. “And we won’t go on until you’re entirely sure, and absolutely ready. All right?”

She nodded.

He kissed her, long and deeply, his hands first tracing along the outlines of her body, then returning to those places that had made her sigh before. Then he found and stroked the other secret, wildly beating pulse she hadn’t realized he knew she had. And then, finally, she stirred beneath him and gripped his shoulders tight.

“I shall surely die if you don’t show me now,” she told him.

“Oh, I can show you many things now,” he said in a thickened voice, and pressed his fingers deep, withdrew, then stroked again, and whispered, as she gasped and began to rise against his hand, “Yes, that, and that, my love, and more, and more.”

She caught her breath as she discovered a long dazzling spiral of pleasure that drew her out of rational thought, making her teeter on the brink of something cataclysmic, then whimpered in astonishment as she found it. As her body still hummed and buckled, and her mind spun, he rose above her. He moved her legs and settled between them.

“Yes,” he said as he positioned himself and pushed down hard, “this, too. I’m sorry,” he managed to grunt, low, as she froze in surprise. “But it will pass,” he said in a hoarse whisper as he strained against her and finally moved within her. “Oh, Julianne.”

He didn’t say more as he thrust against her; he could not. She didn’t do more than hold him hard, but when he fell against her at last with a groan, she still held him tightly.

“Thank you,” she said, against his damp shoulder, when he finally lay still, breathing harshly.

He recovered his breath, and moved away from her, but only an eyelash length. “Are you all right?” he asked anxiously.

“Oh yes,” she said. “It didn’t hurt so much as sting and burn. After all I’d heard, I’m very relieved.”

He chuckled. “Lord, but you’re easy to please. But not for long, you’ll see, I promise you.” He rested his damp forehead against her shoulder. “Oh good Lord, Julie, I hope we have the time and space for me to teach you that. But I can’t be sorry. Thank you, forgive me.”

She didn’t say anything as she took him back in her arms. But she turned her head so he wouldn’t feel her tears against his face.

And so she never knew about his.

They washed from the tiny bucket, and since the toweling he’d been provided was already damp, he insisted on using his own shirt to dry her. Then they lay and spoke, low, about a dozen things they never would remember after.

“You have a scar,” she finally said, when she felt comfortable enough with him to speak of difficult things. Though she’d given him her heart and her body, against all she’d been taught, she still was tentative with him because there was so much of him she didn’t know.

“The one on my back, yes,” he said. “You could scarcely avoid feeling it. It runs from my shoulder to
my waist. A great knotty thing, isn’t it? Does it bother you?”

“No,” she lied, because she wanted to kill whoever had dared ruin the perfection of that strong, tapered back. “But it must have bothered you.”

He shrugged, and settled her head more comfortably on his chest. “At the time, yes. It’s from a whip. An overzealous guard on the
Orion
, a Hulk I stayed on, gave it to me. It never happened again. He learned. I had my father and my brothers and my friends to ensure that, you see.” He sensed her confusion. “The guards are prisoners of their jobs, as surely as we are. If they want to survive, they learn whom they can or can’t abuse beyond their right. Power is power, even in chains. They may kill you, by law. But they dare not bedevil you without reason—if you have friends.”

She lay very still. She’d wanted him to talk about his demons and was glad he could speak of it now, but her heart hurt when he did. And he didn’t seem to realize that when he did, he spoke as though he were still a prisoner. She felt cold when she remembered that he was, and splayed her hand over his beating heart, as though to shield it.

“Amyas has more scars, and deeper ones,” he said conversationally. “I’m lucky to only have this. But you know,” he said in wonder, “I’m even luckier, because now, here, with you, I can look back and see it all as past. You’ve erased Newgate itself. There’s a miracle.” He raised his head and tried to see her face. “Now, shall we see if you can make me forget the rest?”

She smiled and reached for him.

“You’re sure you don’t feel sore?” he asked.

She rose and bent over until she’d veiled him in a curtain of her hair. She kissed him.

“It might take a very long while to forget
all
the rest,” he warned her in a thickened voice, as he touched her hair.

“Good,” she said.

And it did take a long while, because he spent even more time preparing her and pleasuring her before he came to her again.

“I begin to see that there’s more to this than I thought,” she commented when they were done and lying spent in each other’s embrace.

“Oh good,” he said, “because I don’t think I can show more than appreciation anymore, at least tonight.”

They laughed, and murmured gentle praise and lovers’ nonsense to each other. Neither wanted to end their meeting in something as mundane as sleep, not when they didn’t know when, or even if, they’d see each other again. They chatted like old friends, and kissed like new lovers. But though they spoke of many things during that long dark night, they never once talked about the morrow.

T
he lovers lay entwined, exhausted, still astonished. The bed was hard and narrow, but she rested against him, close as his next breath, her head on his chest, her hand on his heart.

“I’m sorry,” Christian said softly.

“I’m not,” she said.

“I tried to take care,” he said softly. “I was going to leave you before I compromised you fully. Then when I realized I couldn’t do that, I was going to pull away before I…” His voice dwindled. “But it turned out I wasn’t half as clever or in control as I wanted to be. This place addled my wits, but you completely overwhelmed me. But I don’t blame the flower for being lovely enough to pick. It’s entirely my fault, I’m sorry.”

“I’m not sorry for anything,” she said. “Except that you are here.”

He moved his hand over her back, then let it lie there and closed his eyes. Without meaning to, he slept. Lost, and found, and whole again, he drifted away from his love in the place of his nightmares.

She heard the change in his breathing, and after
long moments of waiting she turned, carefully, so she could watch him sleep. She resisted the urge to touch him. She didn’t move, not even so much as to ease a cramp in her leg, lest she wake him from what seemed to be easeful sleep.

She lay quietly, luxuriating in the fact of being with him, until she saw the texture of the black night outside the high, barred window begin to thin. Then she slowly and carefully eased herself out of his arms and edged off the bed. Her gown had fallen to the floor: She had only to give a gentle tug for the last of it to slide from under him. It was crumpled and wrinkled, but it was forgiving silk. She shook it out and quietly dressed.

When she picked up her slippers and sat gingerly on the bed again to slip them on, he woke in an instant and sat up sharply.

“Julianne?” he said. He saw her outline in the newly graying light, and sank back again, his arm crooked so it covered his eyes. “Is it already time, so soon? And I wasted it in sleep.”

“Well, that’s good. You needed it.” She rose and paced to the door. “I hope Amyas comes before it gets too light.”

“Tired of me already?” he asked from behind her as he slipped his arms around her.

She leaned back against him. “Never,” she said simply.

He turned her and kissed her. She relaxed against him, feeling the now familiar thrill and growing languor his kiss brought to her. But then he stepped away, quickly.

“No more of that!” he said, as he went to the cot and scooped up his clothing. “I have to get dressed; Amyas is a man of his word. He’ll be here in a minute, and I have my reputation around here to consider.”

She giggled at his jest. “I wonder,” she said carelessly. “If he doesn’t come for me, does that mean I’ll be an inmate, too?”

“Don’t even joke about it,” he said sharply as he dropped his shirt over his head. “Listen,” he said, as he sat and pulled on his hose, “you’re not anxious enough. You seem too contented, too pleasured, too pleased with yourself. I’m delighted, but it worries me. You told your family you were sick, please remember that. You must mind your behavior until I come for you. Suffer a little, please.”

She laughed.

He rose and dragged on his breeches, then produced a flint, scratched it, and lit the lamp. Light bloomed again in the gray cell. He turned to her and saw her smiling at him. “Good gad!” he exclaimed. “Where’s your veil?”

“Oh,” she said, with another giggle, “I forgot.”

He picked up her hat and brought it to her. She could see his troubled expression clearly. “Don’t forget anymore,” he warned her as he drew her cape over her shoulders and rested his hands there. “Don’t speak a word until you’re in the carriage again, then go home and straight back to your room. Let Amyas know that you got there undetected. Send a note to the runner by way of your footman, or let him know any way you can arrange with him, because I won’t rest easy until I know.”

Her expression turned serious, too. “And if I don’t get there safely? If someone sees?”

“Then I’ll have someone come for you, to take you from there,” he said. “You don’t have to experience a minute of their anger or accusations. I expect to be out by then. But even if I’m still here, I’ll take care of you.”

She smiled. “Don’t worry. I can go home. My parents will understand.”

His expression didn’t change. He kept his two hands on her shoulders and looked down at her. “You’re my responsibility now. Now, and forever, whatever happens to me. And I see to my debts.”

She stilled. “Is that what I am to you?”

He finally smiled. “My debt, my reward, my heart, and my salvation. Do you think I’ll let anything happen to hurt you?”

Her eyes filled with tears. He stood only paces from the scaffold, his own life was no longer in his keeping, and yet he promised her safety. And still, she believed him.

They both heard the key in the door. He plucked the hat from her hands, placed it on her head. She quickly put up a hand to keep it there, and pulled the veil down over her face. They swung around, in concert, as the door opened.

“Good morning,” Amyas said. “Are you ready to leave?”

“We both are,” Christian said. “But only she goes with you now,” he added, as the guard stepped forward menacingly. “Take care of her, brother,” Christian said, “as you would my own life.”

In spite of her worries about Christian and the newfound stiffness in unusual parts of her body, Julianne hummed a pretty tune as she slipped back into her bed at the baronet’s house. “And no one suspects?” she asked Annie again.

“No one,” Annie said, “so far as I know. I made sure they knew you were in your room. I had to tell them you were feeling a bit better, though, and would come down to luncheon today. I was scared they’d have called the doctor if I didn’t. Because they were starting to worry, leastways, Sir Maurice, he was.”

“You’re a pearl beyond price,” Julianne said on a yawn. “Wake me an hour before lunch, and I’ll be fine. I’ll have had just enough sleep to be able to make sensible conversation, but I’ll be tired and wan enough to suit any story we told.”

Annie stood by the side of the bed, holding Julianne’s cast-off gown. She fidgeted.

“What?” Julianne said, opening an eye. “What is it? You were wonderful. I owe you favors in future, and you know I’ll repay you…”

“It isn’t that, Miss. We’ve been together too long for that. But are you sure you’re all right? I can call the doctor, or even go there with you later, with no one the wiser.”

Julianne sat up, looking worried. “Why? Do I look that bad?”

“No, Miss,” Annie said unhappily. She held out her mistress’s wrinkled discarded gown. “But see, there’s blood on your pretty gown.”

Julianne looked. There was, indeed, a darkened splotch on the back of her pretty peach-colored gown. Her cheeks flamed as she remembered how she and Christian had lain on it while they made love. And then she also remembered how tenderly he’d helped her clear her body of all traces of her first act of love, afterward.

“Being your personal maid of course I know your courses like I knows my own,” Annie was saying, her color rising. “And they aren’t due for two weeks.”

“I…I know,” Julianne said, ducking her head, her own face ruddy. “But I’m fine, I promise you. That’s not it, nor am I injured. It’s only natural, I just…we…that is to say…”

“Oh, Miss!” Annie gasped, her eyes growing wide.

“Oh, indeed,” Julianne breathed. “It’s all right, Annie, honestly, you see.” She hesitated, and invented quickly, “You see I’m going to be wedded, and soon, and so…”

“Oh, Miss,” Annie said, her eyes filling with tears.

And why shouldn’t she weep?
Julianne thought, biting her lip as she saw Annie’s agitation. The girl was more than a maid. In the manner of servants of gentry in the countryside, she felt like one of her mistress’s family, as well she should. And here she believed she’d helped her mistress steal from the house in the night so she could lie in the arms of a cheat and a scoundrel, a criminal, and a liar—and now, a seducer, too. But so, in the eyes of the world, Julianne realized, she had done.

Her smile vanished. Her newfound content shattered. All the doubts and fears she’d felt for days were
back again, only now compounded by shame and guilt.

Julianne spent the next half hour reassuring her maid that all would be well and that she knew what she was doing.

And then she passed the next three hours sitting up in bed, thinking about what she’d done. Now, too late, doubts returned to plague her. Without Christian there to laugh them to scorn, without his smile to blind her, his voice to soothe her, his presence to reassure her, she worried again.

She wasn’t promised to wed him. He’d made protestations of love, but he could have said what she wanted to hear. It was also what any clever deceiver would do, after all. She began to doubt his identity again, because she hadn’t learned more about his past except for his time in prison. He hadn’t told her about what he’d done since, or anything that had bearing on who he really was. She
had
learned ecstasy at his hands. But now that those hands weren’t there to hold her, she wondered if she’d really understood what she was doing. She’d helped him, if only for a night. She might have destroyed her own future.

But she didn’t worry about her reputation, she was wise enough to know that was futile. She had enough other things to trouble her.

Because he’d never explained about his “brother” Amyas before he’d had to when he’d made a slip of the tongue. And who knew if Anthony-Amyas had ever been a captain in the army at all? She’d been too entranced with Christian to think to ask more about
that. And later, on the ride home, she’d been too bemused, too full of memories of Christian’s lovemaking, to ask Amyas himself.

Now, too, she recalled that Christian had never said he hadn’t stolen more than a candlestick from Egremont, not really. She hadn’t pressed him on that. She’d been too busily pressing against him, carried away by what she felt in his arms, at his lips. Julianne’s head began to ache, and she felt a sick disgust, remembering her own wanton behavior. He himself had said he hadn’t meant to go that far. She’d led him, letting him go as far as he wanted—as she’d wanted.

She didn’t blame him. She realized she’d taken him, literally, on faith, and in love, without more than what she felt in her heart—and in her traitor body. She’d been moved by emotion when she ought to have used her brain. Julianne put her head in her pillow but couldn’t make it dark enough to escape the light of dawning realization.

What if she had something more to remember of this evening than a night of love? What if a child resulted from it? Then she’d truly be an outcast, because even if her family forgave her, the world would not. And he? Would he even live to know about it? And if he did, would he care?

The worst part was that whatever he was, or wasn’t, did or didn’t, she didn’t know what would happen next and had no control over whatever did. And so she looked remarkably pale and drained when she came to luncheon, which made everyone ask if she was sure she’d been ready to get out of bed.

“Sir Maurice presents his compliments,” the butler said, “and wishes to know if you would meet him in his study this afternoon, before tea?”

Julianne looked up, startled.

Sophie clapped her hands. “Of course she will. Isn’t that nice of him?” she asked, when the butler had left the sunny small salon. “He probably wants to ask how you’re faring. I was worried myself for a while, but though you’re still pale and obviously not feeling up to snuff, you seem right enough now.” She looked down at the embroidery she was holding. “But it’s been a whole day, after all, since you came home at dawn with your gown trailing dew.”

Julianne’s eyes flew wide. She didn’t even feel the needle as it stuck her thumb and not the cloth she was sewing.

Sophie nodded. “Oh, yes. I knew. My maid had it from a downstairs maid, who heard it from the scullery maid, who’s always the first up in the morning and saw you creeping in. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone, excepting Ham, of course, because he and I share everything. He blamed us, you know. He always said you were too inexperienced and that we ought never to have used you as bait for the imposter in the first place. But what’s done is done. Don’t worry; even if it is locking the gate after the horse has strayed, we’ll look after you. You won’t be able to get so much as a yawn out now without someone knowing. But tell me,” she whispered, bending close, “was it worth it?”

Julianne sat bolt upright, her face turning ashen,
her cheeks feeling hot. She heard a buzzing in her ears and was glad she was sitting down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. When Sophie smiled, she added, “Nor do I care what you think. I’m going home.”

“I said I don’t blame you,” Sophie said petulantly. “The captain’s one of the most dashing men I’ve ever seen, even if he is eccentric. Imagine, always wearing gloves! And he does have that crook to his nose. But it lends character, I think, and he has such a nice smile, and an impressively athletic form, in spite of that limp. He speaks well and acts respectably. My father wouldn’t deal with a man who didn’t; the runner is entirely a different matter, one has no choice in that. Captain Briggs has no money, I’d imagine, but maybe he has connections. Even so, I hope you think twice before you throw yourself away on him. You could do so much better, you know.”

Julianne sat astonished, stricken with the urge to laugh as well as weep. But it was a reasonable conclusion, after all. Amyas
was
the man who had come home with her at dawn.

“There is no possibility of that,” she said, thinking fast. “And a ride in the night is not a night of lovemaking. I have standards, Sophie, even if I do sometimes give my trust unwisely. After all, I never knew you had other purposes for me until I actually arrived and couldn’t miss seeing them.”

She was relieved to see her cousin’s cheeks growing red. “One thing I can swear to on a stack of Bibles: I never made love to the man.” And since that was the absolute truth, Julianne found breath return
ing to her constricted chest. “I just wanted to talk to him about Christian and what happened to him, and what other time could I do it with no one knowing? I know what you and Ham, and the baronet think. But I still believe he’s really Christian Sauvage.”