Linna : Historical Romance (The Brocade Collection, Book 5) (23 page)

She was actually proud of herself, a
s she bent back to her supper. Then she heard the rip of what could only be his trousers. Her entire body stiffened until she felt the reaction in the middle of her back. He wasn’t ripping his clothing off! He wasn’t!

He wasn’t that barbaric...was he?

She refused to check. Linna put another bite in her mouth, swallowed, then took another. Simons had used a savory blend of sage and paprika when he’d cooked his chicken. The spices rolled about her tongue as she made her mind put names to them. Cord hadn’t any trousers left that she knew of. It was extremely foolhardy of him to destroy a pair, especially leather ones....

Wait a moment
, she thought.
Leather doesn’t tear like that
.

He caught the glance this time, as if he’d been expecting it, and she gaped
. It wasn’t at his gaze, although she felt singed by the contact, it was because he’d just ripped a pair of women’s lace-bedecked pantaloons in half and was drying his hair off with it.

My under-garments
? He’s using my under-garments
? She reeled, and he must have known she was, because he watched her with an unblinking moss-green stare. Linna turned back to her stew.   

“Enjoying your sup?” he asked in a low tone.

“Yes, thank you,” she said primly. “It’s very good. Simons has my compliments. His dumplings are light, yet moist, while his chicken melts on my tongue.”

He choked back what was probably another laugh
. Linna straightened her back further. The man was little more than a savage and a fool-hardy one at that. He obviously didn’t have enough coin to buy her more under-garments.

“Is something bothering you, sweet?”

“Your presence,” she answered.

He chortled
. The sound annoyed her further. She concentrated on putting another bite in her mouth, chewing it and swallowing.

“If you’re concerned over the slip, don’t be
. It’s mine.”

“You wear lace now?” she asked.

“It was a memento.”

Another bite, Linna
. Just take another bite and ignore him!

“And it isn’t yours,” he answered.

The stew congealed in her stomach. She actually felt it. Linna had to swallow, rapidly and continually, in order to keep it down. His words meant nothing. The heat flooding up her breast meant nothing. Neither did the tears filling her eyes almost to overflowing and making her hate every bit that came with being female.
I will not cry
!
I refuse! If he has bed every female I’ll ever come across, I don’t care! If he keeps every woman’s under-garments, he’s welcome to them...and more!

The stew went out of focus as she watched it, willing herself not to blink
. If she just kept the moisture from leaving her eyes, she could stop this. She knew she could.

“
Not anymore, anyway,” he finished, softly.

Linna sucked in a breath of cool sweet air and felt such an array of emotions, she couldn’t pick them out separately
. Her eyes were wide on the remains of her stew, shimmering where it perched on her lap, yet she didn’t really see it. She was recalling Cord, putting her garments to his nose and inhaling them after that first night. Linna was afraid of the rush of tremors, terrified of the needle-like feeling at her cheeks and nearly giggling at what could only be absolute joy.

That emotion was truly terrifying.

The whisper-like sound of what could only be his pants hitting the floor made her drop the spoon. Linna turned on her trunk. Cord was running two soaked cloths over himself, turning flesh and bone into a rippled, lightly-tanned, god-like creature, and dusting the floor with drops of mixed water and soap. It was incredible.

Linna stood
. She didn’t even hear the pot fall over the roar in her ears.

Cord did though
. He stopped at one knee and looked up. It wasn’t far to reach him, but it took more time that it should. Linna reached for the crease in his forehead, running her fingertips along it,  then down the side of his face to his chin so she could lift it for her kiss.

God, stop me
! She begged it, then remembered. God didn’t listen.    

Cord straightened, pulling her to her tiptoes before he made a jerking motion to free his mouth
. Linna watched as he stepped back.

“I’m wet,” he said.

“So?” she countered, running her hands along his chest, around his sides, and then she pulled him close.

“You’re getting wet,” he
told her.

Linna moved a hand around his neck and pulled his head down to hers
. “So?”  She breathed the word into the cavern of his mouth,  then she used the motion he’d taught her, dancing with his tongue until it seemed impossible to think.

His chest was
heaving, and Linna moved with each of his breaths, feeling every bit of the heat, the dampness and the sensation that was Cord Larket. She moved her hands to her vest and pulled it off, flinging it somewhere over her shoulder.

Cord pulled away
. “You shouldn’t do that,” he warned.

“Why?”

“We leave the ship tomorrow. Early.”

“So?” she asked again, pulling every button out of her shirt as quickly as her fingers would move.

“You have to wear something...when we do.”

Linna had the blouse undone, but knew it would take too long to unfasten her cuffs
. She didn’t want to waste that much time. She wanted to feel him and quickly before her sanity returned.

“You’re going to...ruin your outfit,” he huffed out the final three words
.

Linna knew it had something to do with the way she’d pulled the laces from the front of her chemise, pushing it down and releasing her breasts from the little confinement they’d been in
. “I have more,” she answered.

“But
–.”

“You
talk too much.”

“I’m serious
, Linna—” he started, then lost the rest of it on his groan.

Linna
put both arms around his neck and jumped up, pressing into him, crushing her softness against his chest. The sound that filled the cabin wasn’t coming from just his throat. But she couldn’t stay in place. Her legs kept slipping, and it was difficult to hold onto the water-and-soap covered muscle atop his shoulders.

“Hold me up!” she hissed.

“You’re going to have to release me first.”

“No,” she whispered.

“How the hell am I supposed to hold you if I can’t touch you?”

Linna pulled
her head back to look at him, drowning in those moss-green eyes. “I’m afraid of heights, and I’m off the floor. Now hold me.”

Cord grinned and put both hands beneath her buttocks, lifting her easily against hi
m. He wasn’t disinterested, either. He was Big. Hard. Ready. Linna split her legs, bracing each booted foot against the wall behind him.

“You’re in danger of losing another pair of perfectly good drawers,
Madame
,” he ground out, while using his hips to apply heat where she needed it most. Even with material between them, Linna felt him. She clenched her thighs and rode him to such ecstasy, her body shook with it.

“What...did you do?’ she brought her head back down to ask, filling her senses with the haziness of gray-green eyes.

“Release me from my damned bargain, I’ll show you.”

“No,” she whispered the word
.

“Release me,” he said again, in a harsher tone
. A look of flashed across his face. A frightening one. Angered. Linna shook her head.

“Damn you
, Linna! Release me!”

Cord’s nostrils
flared, his eyes bored into hers, and his lips were pulled back in a snarl. Linna shoved her mouth against his, bruising her lips. With a hand, she pushed her skirts out of the way, hooked fingernails into the seaming at the crotch of her pantaloons and ripped.

“Oh, no
. No. Not without my release. No.”

Cord tried to pull
back to say it, but Linna didn’t let him. She latched onto the pulse showing in his throat, and sucked, sure to bruise again.

“Release me!” 

Cord was yelling it, judging by the sound. Linna enlarged the hole she’d just made in order to shove herself toward what he was denying her.

“No,” she whispered against his flesh, licking at the reddish spot she’d made on his neck
. “No. Never.”

“Never
? Why? No! Stop! Oh...
love
.”

Cord’s voice
cracked as she pushed onto him, her flesh expanding to encompass, enwrap. Imprison. Linna cried aloud with pleasure before fighting for her next breath. And the one after that. Cord may have been speaking words of dissent, but it didn’t match his body. He was helping, bucking his hips to match her tempo. His hands were supporting her, too, while his arms shifted her back and forth against him. Back from him. Ramming forward. Back. Ramming forward again. Each one gaining more depth, and more intensity.  

“
Oh, Linna.
Bebe
. Oh yes! Oh don’t stop, love. Don’t stop.”  The words accompanied their motions, making a matching cadence. “Don’t stop, Linna love...never! That’s it. Right there. Yes...no. Wait! This isn’t right. You have to release me, damn it! Release me...please? You hear me? I’m begging!”

Linna slammed herself to him
over and over, making their conjoined bodies thump against the wood, keeping the rhythm savage and brutal with every kick of her feet against the wall.

“No,” she answered.

“But—why?”

“Because I don’t want you,” she panted
.

“You...don’t?”

His growl was accompanied stronger, surer strokes. Thick. Heavy. Pounding lunges.

“No
!” The word was wailed, sent on such a keening note of sensation, she was surprised when time and sense returned, that he still heaved into her, pummeling her body as he strained toward his own release.

“But...why?” he asked again, “why
? Oh, Linna. Love. Don’t stop now...”

Stop
?
Linna didn’t have the will to do anything except spiral into paradise. Her body wasn’t her own anymore, it was his. Everything was his.

“Is it...so you can hate me in the morning?”

“Yes,” she answered. “No. Yes. No.”

“Which?”  Cord’s teeth were gritted
. His mouth locked in a snarl. His eyes nearly closed, while his body pumped so strenuously against her it sounded like he was trying to beat the wall down.

“Yes!”  She panted it.

“You hate…me?”

“Yes!”  She managed to answer again.

“You hate...this, too?”

“Y
-y…es!” 

The word came
out garbled. Indistinct. It didn’t match the words in her heart. She didn’t dare say those. They were too damning. No one would ever hear them.    

“Linna
. Linna. Linna.”

Her
name was curse, accompanying each heave of his body. He turned his head then, tightened his jaw, yet still couldn’t stop the cry of satiation and ecstasy from sounding. Linna clutched him to her, gripping with every limb as his groan grew louder. Longer. Spasms rocked his body, taking her along. And then it was over. He stilled.

It isn’t true, Cord
. It isn’t true.
 

He turned his head and met her gaze
. Fathomless green eyes regarded her from inches away. Every other feature looked chiseled from stone. Linna felt the cry that ran through her depths. Loud. Harsh. Heartrending. She was amazed he didn’t.

His body was still enmeshed with hers,
his chest was still shaking. He had a fine sheen of moisture covering every bit of him she could see. If she could have, she’d have shut her eyes and heart and mind to all of it.

He curled his lip
. “Looks like you lose,” he said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Linna hadn’t seen many ports, but the town of Larroque
didn’t look all that different. Just smaller. A lot smaller.

There was activity going on
everywhere. Dark-skinned workers, clad only in trousers, formed a line and moved crates and trunks one-at-a-time,  hand-to-hand down an unfenced gangway, keeping a rhythm only they seemed to hear. The smell of fish and brine, sweat and flowers hung in every breath she took.

Linna gulped and leaned against the bulkhead
. She’d been brought here over two hours earlier, and it hadn’t been by Cord. In fact, she hadn’t even seen him since last night.

Last night
? Oh, if she could only unwind the clock! If only she’d done something different, kept her attention on her supper, kept her mouth shut...anything! Anything would have been better than having to live through his silence as he’d dressed and then left.  

Tears obscured the cacophony of light and color
all about her. She blinked rapidly at them. She sagged further into the wood at her back and continued to sweat. The heat was incredible, and made worse by the black, superfine woolen traveling outfit she wore. She shouldn’t have had it sewn. She shouldn’t have wasted space in her trunk to pack it. She should have taken more care with her brown tweed. She should have done a thousand things different!

Linna sighed and wiped a hand across her lashes
. She wasn’t crying. Not again. People who didn’t cry at their own mother’s funeral simply didn’t cry. They were cold and heartless. She needed to get back to that state. She squared her shoulders, straightened her back, and stood up. She wasn’t going to lean dejectedly against the bulkhead while she waited for her husband to come for her. She had more fortitude than that.

She just wished she could find it.

She was hot, she was thirsty, she was tired, and she was heart-sore. So heart-sore that the entire area beneath her breast bone felt like one huge ache. Linna shook with the effort at holding the emotions back. She wasn’t going to be sobbing when he came for her.
If
he came for her. She wasn’t going to ask one person for assistance, either, not one. Especially if her only option continued to be Simons. Linna held her fingers to her eyes and waited for the streams of shivers to go away.

“
Madame
, you are ready?”

Her lack of luck was continual
.

It was Simons
.

Linna took a deep breath, wiped at her eyes, and turned to him
. She wasn’t prepared, but that couldn’t be helped. “Ready for what?” she retorted in a tart fashion.

“Your escort from the ship
. Don’t look at me that way. I don’t want to do it either.”

“You?”

“Of course me. You see anyone else forced to come to your aid?”

“Go away.”  Linna turned her back on him and faced the other direction
. She saw a few small, quaint houses, teetering to the brink of the shelf of land. Beyond that, open ocean. It was picturesque, and she concentrated on that.

“I’m not fond of the chore, either,
Madame
.”

“I do not ask for, nor do I require your assistance,
Monsieur
Simons. You may leave.”

“Tell that to your husband.”

“Have him fetched and I will.”

“He’s working
. He has better things to do with his morning than to see to the likes of you. Why do you think he entrusted you to my care?”

Linna swiveled, pierced him with
a cold look and wrinkled her nose as if detecting something unsavory. “Are you still here?” she asked.

“You shouldn’t spend so much of your time with him fighting
. There’s much better things to do with a man like that.”

“If you’re speaking to me, you’re wasting your breath
. We don’t fight.”

“He
got another mark, fresh on his neck, and you’ve got another bruise yourself. Right on the tip of your chin. I never thought him the type to hit a lady. You must not be one.”

“If anyone gives a class on
intelligence, would you be a sport and take it?” Linna asked sweetly and watched his lips thin further. She exulted in his narrowed eyes and the way his nostrils flared. She hadn’t had this much entertainment since last year, when she’d been presented and been the belle of every party, every fete, and every gathering. In that past life, civilization had reigned and verbal sparring was the weapon of choice. That had been back before everything had turned ugly.

A
nd stayed that way.

“No answer
? For shame.”  She clicked her tongue and turned back to the far view. They really should put up some sort of support under the farthest house, she decided, squinting to look at it. It looked like the next wind might knock it from its perch and right into the sea.

“Fight
him all you wish,
Madame
Larket. It’s what chases him away.”

Linna looked over her shoulder at him, like she hadn’t a care
. “Chases him away?” she asked, in mock horror. “Good heavens,
Monsieur
, if I don’t get a moment from him, I’m going to collapse at the exhaustion. He’s a very virile man. I’m rather lucky he had other things to do this morning.”

“
Mon Dieu
!” 

He tossed his hands up and stalked off
. Linna released her breath. She was glad to see him go. Even if she had to walk the gangway, she wasn’t going to do it with Simons at her side. One did not request the enemy to witness their weaknesses. Linna turned back to the docks, shifting her skirt and pulling the blouse from her skin so her outfit would make the movement with her. It was hot and sweaty in the black wool, she was queasy with the heat and lack of nourishment, and things didn’t look any different than the last time she’d looked this direction.  

A coil of rope hit the deck beside her, making her jump
. It was immediately followed by Cord, sliding to hang above the decking by a good three feet. And he just stayed there, swaying. Linna would have looked up to see what he was attached to, but she didn’t dare move her eyes from where his thighs were entwined with the rope. She only hoped he hadn’t heard any of the exchange.

“That was stupid,” he commented, finally
. “He had orders. I gave them to him.”

“I don’t care,” she replied.

“That much…is obvious. See yourself off the ship. There should be a carriage waiting. Belongs to Plantation Larroque.
Adieu
.” 

He put one hand above the other one and pushed with his legs
. Linna told her eyes to look away, but they didn’t obey. She watched as he maneuvered back up the rope and onto a wooden cross beam. She didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until he was there. She also didn’t realize how dizzy it would make her to look up. She barely caught the fall as she stumbled back into the bulkhead.

His laughter stiffened her spine
. She may be terrified of heights, but another moment in any of their company was worse, she told herself. She set her jaw and moved toward the gangway. It looked just as high, just as narrow, and just as dangerous as it had when she’d first come aboard. Linna hung onto the post at the top and watched as the strip of intertwined rope and wood swayed, creaking slightly with each movement. Nobody was impeding her. Nobody was watching. Most of the other passengers had departed already. She’d watched them.

Terror had a name now and a face
. It was that little gangway bordered by rope and stretching into a strange kind of black fog toward the end.
Stop it, Linna
! She blinked, but the view didn’t change. The fog actually got closer. Linna shut her eyes.

This was ridiculous
. People walked across this every day. The workers had even stood on one like it, to work. She’d watched them from the safety of the bulkhead. It wasn’t but a brief walk along what was basically a wooden path. She knew. She’d timed it earlier as she watched others traverse it.

If they could
do it, she could do it.

Linna opened her eyes and looked down again, taking
in a smaller view. There were little wood pieces Cord had described, put there for a heel hold. Linna looked at them with trepidation. She ran her eyes across to where they seemed to disappear again. There appeared to be twenty of them, maybe more. She would have to slide to twenty of them.

Twenty
.

Her mind heard the number and rejected it
. Linna called herself a fool. She didn’t have to know how many! Twenty? She’d never make it. There might as well have been a hundred!

“Buck up, Linna, they’re probably watching.”

Her voice sounded strange as it wavered, but it was better than nothing. Twenty wasn’t so many. It was nothing. She’d just get to the first, then she’d only have nineteen left.

Linna
tried laughing at the absurdity of her own thought process, but her voice had dried up in her throat. It wouldn’t work anyway. She knew that much instinctively. She was terrified of heights, facing her own personal hell, and nobody was going to assist her.

Why should they
?
Everyone who tries to help, you chase off
.

Linna moved a hand onto the stretch of rope
that stood-in for a hand-rail. There was still an amazing amount of movement happening all about her, but she couldn’t see anything except the little cross-piece of wood. She slid both hands down the rope, burning her palms with how tightly she clenched it, and then she forced her right foot forward.

Cotton-thick air cloyed in her lungs, the rope was slick with sweat, and her heart was beating so hard it felt like it was trying to lunge from her breast
. Linna kept the cry inside as her toe caught and held the cross piece, twisting her foot sideways as the side of her boot came to rest against it. The rope in her hands moved. First down, then up, then down again. She clung to it the entire time. It felt like hemp was embedded in her palms, and her knees were wobbly, but she forced herself to remain upright. She wasn’t going to fail. She wasn’t going to give anyone the satisfaction.

She moved her left foot tentatively, utilizing her new position to bring the other leg down
. It didn’t work. She was losing her footing and everything was going dark with the fog. There were a torturous few seconds as she slid. Linna knew then what dying must feel like. Like the blackness. Like absolute agony. She didn’t even hear her heartbeat anymore. She couldn’t hear it above the sound of her own breath leaving her body. Her ears were full of it.

She felt her foot missing the little cross piece
. She hadn’t any breath left to cry out about it. Then the rope was biting into her stomach, curving her over it. She was going to fall headlong into the blackness and nobody would even care.

“Maddening little twit.”

It was Cord. He pulled her against him. Linna didn’t question how or why. She was beyond it. She loved him. Desperately. To the point she couldn’t fight it much longer. And when she’d needed him the most, he’d come. She didn’t care that he’d called her names. He was there! He was holding her...rescuing her, protecting her. She clung to him and tried to make her shuddering form disappear into his strength.

~ ~
~

Cord stopped
the instant response he got from feeing her in his arms. She probably didn’t even know it was him. She had a haunted look in her eyes. He’d seen it before.
Besides
, he told himself,
you don’t like her brand of loving
. It’s full of hate and smacks of rejection. He’d been counseling himself all night. He hadn’t slept, he hadn’t talked to anyone. He hadn’t looked at anyone. He didn’t need one other soul on the face of the earth, and he sure as hell didn’t need her. He’d told himself that he wasn’t going to come to her aid, not even if she fell into the water.

But t
hen he’d watched her and the swiftness with which he’d swung down had several interested observers shaking their heads. They were still watching as she climbed onto him and stayed there. Cord held her close and waited for her shaking to calm and tried to tell himself it didn’t mean a thing.

“Linna?” he whispered against her ear, detesting himself
not only for the softness of his voice but the betrayal of his own body as he tightened his arms, hugging her closer to him.

“You came,” she replied, lifting her face to settle it into his shoulder
. “You came for me. I needed you…and you came.”

Cord stiffened against the sensation of her breath on his face, the sight of sunlight on her features
, and the feel of her weight in his arms.

“You almost hurt my heir,
Madame
,” he said, in as gruff a tone as he could manage.

“I’m sorry,” she replied, blinking rapidly
, while a sheen of moisture coated her eyes.