Jo Goodman (50 page)

Their bodies twisted. Half on the blanket, half off, she found herself beneath him, her thighs cradling him. She guided him into her. After the first thrust he was still.

Her eyes were luminous. He watched the centers darken and widen. Her mouth parted and the edge of her tongue was just visible. She contracted around him and the pressure was a sweet agony. He kissed her hard but it was no punishment. She laughed joyously as he began to move inside her.

Finally there was only the rushing water and the rustle of leaves overhead. Their breathing was silent, their hearts steady. Sunlight glanced off her bare shoulder and highlighted the sculpted lines of his face.

"I'm not afraid anymore," she said. For all that this announcement was made quietly, there was a hint of a revelation in it. Mercedes tilted her head to see Colin better. "I've been afraid so long I was numb to it. It dulled every other feeling I've ever had." She searched his features for some sign that he understood. "There's never been room for anything else."

There was the merest suggestion of a smile shaping Colin's mouth. He had always known she was holding back, always sensed the reserve that kept her from him even when she thought she was giving him everything. "And now?" he asked.

"I love you," she said. She said it with abandon and joy. She said it again as though saying it for the first time and she listened to the words and understood their meaning. Her heart was in her eyes.

* * *

They argued after dinner.

"You are making no sense," she said. The book that lay unopened in her lap was put aside. "I thought you'd be pleased. Didn't you just tell me this afternoon that you could do a China run in two hundred days?"

"Yes."

"Well?"

Colin splashed a crystal snifter with a small measure of brandy. He raised it, swirling the glass, but didn't drink. "I've already informed Aubrey that I intend to quit as master of the
Mystic.
He's taking my resignation back to Miss Remington. Jonna will place him in command and he'll make the same run in a few days more or less. I don't have to be at the helm. In fact, I plan to invest in the run."

"Why are you doing this?" she asked. "I was so certain you wanted to go."

"You never really asked, did you?" Colin said. "You wouldn't even discuss it. All I ever wanted to do was discuss it."

Mercedes ducked her head guiltily. "I told you I was afraid before. I was afraid of everything. Of losing you. Of keeping you. Of chasing you away or making you feel bound to me." She glanced at him sideways. "I don't want you to resent me in a month or two when you regret your decision to stay at Weybourne Park."

Colin sat opposite her. He leaned forward in his chair and rested his forearms on his knees. The snifter rolled on its slender stem between his palms. "Why do you think I'll regret it? This is where I want to be, Mercedes. I thought you knew that."

"I wanted to believe it," she said softly. "It's not precisely the same thing as knowing."

Colin was quiet. He considered his words carefully. He imagined it would be difficult to say his thoughts aloud. In truth, it wasn't. Mercedes was not the only one who had stopped being afraid. "I don't know if I'll ever see my brothers again. I don't know what they look like, what their names are, or the kind of men they've become. The search for them, the fear of
failing
them, has kept me alive at times and kept me from living at others. The act of looking for them became running from everything else.

"I
am
bound to you, Mercedes. I want to be. It's my choice, and there's no chance that I'll regret it." His eyes lightened with the smile that raised the corners of his mouth. "Being here, with you, is more liberating than the open seas ever were. I don't know that you can understand that, but from my perspective it's true."

Mercedes's eyes were troubled. "Oh, Colin," she whispered. "You can't mean it."

"I do." He paused, studying her face, the confusion in her eyes. "Does it frighten you that I love you that much?"

She shook her head emphatically. "No," she said quickly. "Not now. Before..."

Colin put his snifter down. He hadn't tasted the brandy. He reached across the space that separated them and pulled Mercedes into his lap. She came without hesitation. "Before?" he prompted. "Before I would have thought I didn't deserve you. I would have thought you'd see through to my heart and know what a frightened little rabbit I was, always jumping at shadows, flinching from an extended hand. You'd see that I wasn't nearly as brave or confident as I pretended. I wouldn't have wanted you close enough to learn the truth."

Colin pressed his smile against her hair. "Have you forgotten how we met?" he asked. "That was no frightened rabbit at the Passing Fancy."

"Liar. You know I was terrified."

"You were magnificent."

She gave him an arch look. "You didn't think so at the time."

"I've revised my opinion."

That warmed her. She cupped the side of his face. "I hope you're not abandoning your search for your brothers because of me," she said.

"I'm not giving it up," he said. "I'm simply going to stay in one place."

"You're certain?"

"I'm staying here," he told her. "Aubrey's known it longer than I have. He'd tell you that himself if you'd talk to him."

Mercedes knew she had been neglecting her guest. She'd been polite but cool, and it was not only on Colin's account. "What are his intentions regarding Sylvia?" she asked. "Has he told you? She's in love with him, you know. I don't like to think that she's going to be hurt."

Colin didn't like to think it either. "We have to trust them to sort it out."

"Like we did?"

"I don't know that I'd wish
that
on them."

Mercedes wasn't certain she appreciated his dry response. She poked him lightly in the ribs but managed to elude his grasp when he would have kept her on his lap. There was a saucy swing in her step and laughter in her eyes. She sashayed out the library's doors and didn't have to glance behind her to know that he was following

* * *

"Take me with you," Sylvia said. She blushed at her forwardness, but her eyes were lifted, challenging Aubrey's.

Aubrey's fair complexion took on a ruddy cast. He felt the heat in his cheeks in contrast to the light breeze coming out of the woods. "I can't do that."

"You mean you won't."

Aubrey thrust his large hands in his pockets to keep them from straying toward Sylvia's neck. It was a slender throat, very vulnerable. He was perfectly capable of snapping it in half. Not that throttling her was the only thing on his mind. "All right," he said. "I won't."

"Now you're agreeing with me to avoid an argument."

"Yes."

"It's no good if you won't fight. Don't you feel any passion?"

The evening was cool, but to Aubrey's way of thinking it wasn't nearly cool enough. Sylvia's blond hair took on a silver cast in the moonlight. She was perched on the stone balustrade at the rear of the manor, her small hands folded neatly in her lap, her face raised expectantly. The shawl around her shoulders fluttered, but she made no move to hold it more tightly.

Aubrey glanced behind him. On the second floor of the manor the lights were all extinguished. Lamps burned in the servants’ quarters and in a few rooms on the main floor. He knew that Sylvia's sister and brothers had gone to bed. He had been heading in that direction himself when Sylvia surprised him on the main landing. At her insistence and against his better judgment he had followed her outside.

Aubrey Jones was at his ease with saucy serving girls and the women who frequented the harbors. He never minded when they remarked on the breadth of his shoulders or the size of his neck or wondered aloud about proportions that were hidden from their gaze. Now, next to Sylvia Leyden, Aubrey felt ham-handed, tongue-tied, and clumsy. His feet were too big, his chest too wide, his thighs too much like tree trunks.

"I think it would be better if you'd go back inside," he said, ignoring her comment about passion. If she had been even a tenth as experienced as a tavern wench, she'd have known where to look to see the proof of his passion. "Please, Sylvia. Colin trusts me. Mercedes trusts you."

She wasn't certain what he meant by that. "Of course they trust us. And why shouldn't they? You haven't so much as kissed me. I think you want to. I know I want you to."

"You can't possibly know what you want," he said gruffly. She was so dainty, like a china figurine, cool and exquisite and irreplaceable if broken. Aubrey glanced down at himself as he rocked back on his heels. He would break her. Surely she would break if he touched her.

"That's a horrible thing to say." Sylvia's pale blond hair shimmered as she shook her head angrily.

Aubrey strove for patience. He ran a hand through his thick red hair. "You have plans for a London Season," he said carefully, as though explaining it to a child. "You'll meet lots of fellows there with money and titles and family trees that are so big you can swing on the branches. I'm not the one you should cut your teeth on. Better you should stick to your own kind."

From her bedroom window, shielded by the darkness of the chamber, Mercedes watched the combatants square off. Even at this distance, without benefit of hearing any of the exchange, she knew that she was witnessing at least a disagreement, perhaps an argument.

"Come to bed," Colin said sleepily. He patted the space beside him, which was already cooling since her departure, and moved the covers back as an invitation.

"In a moment." Mercedes rolled the glass of water she held between her palms. Thirst was the reason she had left her bed. Since her first glance out the window, she hadn't given it another thought.

She wasn't star-gazing. Colin saw Mercedes's eyes were focused in the wrong direction. "What has your interest out there?"

"Sylvia and Aubrey."

Colin pushed himself upright. It was not so long ago that he and Mercedes had been on the portico at night, unchaperoned. He hadn't cared about proper form then. Neither had she. That thought didn't comfort him when he applied it to Sylvia and his first mate. Colin sighed. He grinned lopsidedly as he realized how responsibility had reformed him on this count. "Am I going to have to demand satisfaction from my best friend?" he asked, padding toward the window.

"They're arguing," Mercedes said quietly, as if speaking too loudly would alert them. "Look at Sylvia. She has her chin up, and whatever she's saying is pushing Aubrey back on his heels."

Colin suddenly felt a wave of sympathy for Aubrey. He had been in that position. "She's more than able to hold her own."

"Of course. She grew up at Weybourne Park, didn't she?"

Colin took the glass from Mercedes's hands and put it on the bedside table. "Do you want me to go down there?"

Mercedes took comfort from the arm he slipped around her waist. "No, I don't think so. Aubrey's actions speak well of him. I'll have to talk with Sylvia though. She's the one behaving recklessly."

Even as Mercedes said it Sylvia launched herself from the balustrade and into Aubrey's arms. Unprepared as the large man was, Sylvia's slight weight made him waver. He clasped her by the waist to put her aside, but her arms were locked around his neck and her mouth was fused to his.

Beside him, Colin felt Mercedes stiffen. "I'll go," he said.

"No. Look. He's detaching her." It was exactly the right word for what Aubrey was doing. Sylvia had secured herself like a barnacle to the hull of a ship.

"The
Mystic
is scheduled to leave in four days," Colin said. "Do you want me to tell Aubrey to move it up a day?"

"He can do that?"

Colin nodded. "One day forward won't cause a hardship for the crew."

Mercedes considered it while Aubrey turned and began walking away from Sylvia toward the house. Sylvia stood where she
was, her pale hair almost silver in the moonlight. She was looking after Aubrey, and Mercedes noted there was nothing bereft about her features or posture. Sylvia's shoulders were hunched against the cool night breeze, not because she was dejected. "A day more or less," Mercedes said. "I don't think it will matter. Will Aubrey understand if you ask him to take up lodgings in London?"

"He'll understand. He may even thank you for the suggestion. I don't think he knows quite what to make of Sylvia. Aubrey's more comfortable with—"

Mercedes held up one hand. "You don't have to tell me. And you really are in no position to cast stones. I remember Molly well enough."

Without warning Colin swung Mercedes into his arms. "I don't know who you mean." Ignoring her surprised squeal and laughing protests, Colin carried her to the bed and tossed her in. She bounced and rolled, expecting Colin to pounce on her. Instead, he innocently handed her the glass of water.

"Thank you," she said. She sat up, leaned against the headboard, and drank. "And thank you for understanding about Aubrey. I know he's your friend. I don't like asking him to leave. It's just that—"

Colin sat on the edge of the bed. "You don't have to explain or apologize. As you said, I understand. I'm afraid I've become that terrifying arbiter of proper manners: a reformed rake."