Once Tempted (23 page)

But when she’d taken them to Colin and tried to tell him of the additional clothes in the trunk, he’d laughed.

“Oh, the devil take my wife. She promised she wouldn’t make another pair of those.” Captain Danvers shook his head. “She wears those when she climbs the rigging and at home she has a pair she wears under her riding habit. She swears they are more comfortable than anything Bond Street considers fashionable.”

Olivia regarded the woman whose clothes she’d inherited through fate with high admiration. And she’d finished the twill britches at night during her shifts by Robert’s side.

She could well imagine what Lady Finch would say about a lady wearing britches.

As she climbed the ladders between decks and walked around the deck, secretly wearing her new acquisition beneath her more matronly dimity gown, she felt quite scandalous.

But tonight she decided to wear another treasure she’d found in Georgie Danvers’s trunk. A sheer dress that was as daring as it was gorgeous. Cut low at the neck, the fabric draped down to Olivia’s feet; the white embroidered leaves and vines decorating the dress shimmered in the lantern light.

She tried to tell herself that with her very staid chemise on beneath and with her hair done so matronly in a plain chignon, she wasn’t
that
improper. That is, until she entered Colin’s cabin.

Gavin was there to serve the dinner, and he was the first one to spot her. He let out a low and entirely indecent whistle.

His father frowned at him and bade him to go fetch the soup. “Good evening, Miss Sutton,” Colin said in his most formal tones, bowing to her.

She curtseyed to her host. So he knew her real name. She supposed she should be relieved that he knew the truth, for she hadn’t liked lying to him in the first place. As she looked up, she spied Robert lounging across the room, his back to her. His head turned slowly, and for a moment he stared at her as if he had never seen her before.

A startled light flamed to life in his eyes. While it blazed hot and fast, the look that followed told her that perhaps she should have stuck to the more demure and practical dimity gown of Georgie Danvers’s that she had taken to wearing during the day.

His gaze raked from the open neck of her dress over where it clung to her breasts, rounded over her hips and grazed slowly down the length of her legs until it reached the tips of the satin slippers she wore.

She took a slow, deep breath. The intimacy of his examination left her with the feeling of not just his eyes but his touch having inspected every inch of her. Her breasts tingled, while her legs faltered for a moment as an unsteady rush flooded her middle.

He too had taken some care with his preparations for dinner. His hair was brushed, he’d managed to shave and he wore what she guessed was Colin’s second best jacket, though on Robert the coat cut tightly across his chest.

Robert made his bow, but his eyes never left her. “Olivia,” he said, his voice deep and husky. “You look. . . lovely this evening.” He took her hand and brought it to his lips. The moment they whispered over her skin, the heat of his touch burned and enflamed the already heated response he’d elicited from her with his scorching gaze.

“Thank you,” she mumbled, hastily retrieving her hand and taking the seat Colin offered.

“I hope you aren’t still angry over this afternoon,” Robert said, his words teasing down her spine with their smoky fingers.

She paused for a moment, trying to still her wildly beating heart. “No, I can’t say that I am. Especially since you seem quite well yourself this evening. Apparently there was no harm in a bit of exercise.”

As awkwardness settled over the table, Colin made his best attempts to diffuse it. “Do try this wine, Miss Sutton,” he said. “It is from Portugal and quite nice.”

She smiled as he filled her glass.

Robert waved the offer away. His own glass was half filled with a liquor that swirled in a chestnut haze.

Gavin brought in the soup and served them with little incident other than grinning at Olivia and filling her bowl more than the others.

“My wife will be quite vexed with me,” Colin was saying.

“Why is that?” she asked, trying to keep up with the conversation and ignore the dark, heated looks from the other guest at the table.

Colin grinned. “I’ve always told her she was the prettiest lady that I ever beheld when she wore that gown, but I must say you do it ample justice.”

Olivia blushed. She had the feeling that the color rose all the way from the tips of her breasts up to her scalp. Struggling to ignore her embarrassment, she tried to change the subject. “Tell me about your wife, Captain Danvers. I always wondered how it was that men of the sea found time to court a lady. How did you meet her?”

Apparently the subject was something of a family scandal, for both Colin and Robert sputtered over their soup.

“At a ball,” he finally managed to mutter.

“Oh, how romantic,” she said.

“Yes, it was very romantic, from what I’ve heard,” Robert said, his tone teasing. “Do tell Miss Sutton all about it.”

“It was just a regular sort of ball,” Colin said abruptly, turning his full attention back to his soup.

Olivia wasn’t really listening. She was watching Robert. And right now his eyes sparkled with a mischievous gleam.

“It wasn’t a regular sort of ball, Da,” Gavin said. The impetuous boy turned to Olivia. “They met at the Cyprians’ Ball.”

Robert burst out laughing as Colin’s very proper features colored to the dark shade of a beet, while Olivia uttered a surprised, “Oh my.”

Lady Finch had a two page sheet of advice on how ladies could keep their husbands from attending London’s most scandalous event. The Cyprians’ Ball was the annual fête thrown by the most expensive and illustrious demimondaines and Incognitas about town.

No decent, self-respecting lady of the
ton
would dare set foot in such company. Despite the fact that their men flocked to the event.

“That sounds quite interesting,” she managed to say, while searching for a more neutral subject to raise and to keep her attention away from Robert, whose eyes danced with merry delight at his brother’s discomfiture and her innocent surprise. When she glanced over at him, she found his amusement infectious and brought her hands to her lips to stifle the giggle threatening to spill from them.

And in that shared moment, their gazes met, and Olivia was mesmerized. This was a side of him he exhibited so rarely that she wondered if this was the real Robert Danvers—a man of warm humor and deep passions. She also couldn’t help wondering, as she looked even deeper into his green eyes, if she’d ever be able to know the answer for herself. For the woman, she guessed, who could find the key to unlock his hidden side would discover a prize greater than all the gold in Spain.

She hastily dropped her gaze. There was no point in dwelling on questions she’d never find the answer to, so she asked his brother, “Captain Danvers, have you been to Lisbon before? I hear it is a beautiful city. Pray, do tell me about it.”

Colin looked more than relieved to escape the scandalous subject at hand and leaped into a rapt discussion of Lisbon’s good food and friendly people.

While Robert and Colin debated in friendly and familiar tones the finer points of the city, Olivia wondered at her own fate in Portugal. After she met Wellington, then where would she be?

Back on a ship home? And to what? A hanging?

What if news of Chambley had already reached the British officials in Lisbon? Would they be waiting at the docks with shackles and a confessor for her last rites or just transfer her to the nearest ship bound for Botany Bay?

She could only imagine what would happen to her if her translation of The King’s Ransom’s location turned out to be wrong. Robert would probably lead the hanging party himself.

She choked and sputtered on the bite of tart she had just taken.

“Are you all right?” Robert asked, reaching over to pat her on the back. His hand was warm and strong, his touch burning through the thin fabric of her gown.

For a moment, her gaze met his, and that strange, inexplicable fire between them blazed to life, drawing them together. In that second, Olivia could have believed the entire world consisted just of them. And she had no doubts that Robert felt the same—his gaze held her captive with unrelenting desire.

With temptation and a promise.

It terrified her to find that she wanted nothing more than to give in to his passionate, unspoken offer.

Just as quickly, as if he sensed her surrender, he pulled his hand away, breaking the spell.

“I’m fine, thank you,” she told him. “I think I just need a little air.” She rose from the table, Colin and Robert bounding to their feet as well.

She thanked the Captain for the excellent meal and left the room.

Robert watched her go, his body aching to follow her, to stay within the graceful shadow of her light.

He’d always thought her a beautiful woman, despite her penchant for widow’s weeds. But tonight he’d discovered a woman he’d only seen hints of before.

Tonight the sight of Olivia had taken his breath away.

The gown had only revealed what he had long suspected lurked beneath her matronly disguises, the body of a woman meant to be bedded and bedded often.

He couldn’t help himself. He started to follow her.

“What are you doing?” Colin asked.

“I don’t plan on seducing the woman, if that is what you are worried about,” he said, though the knot in his gut said very clearly he was lying.

“Harumph,” Colin clucked like an old woman. “I’m surprised you had any room for the meal, considering you spent most of the evening devouring the luscious Miss Sutton with your eyes.”

Robert made a step around the table, but Colin stopped him. “I wouldn’t advise going after her.”

Shaking off Colin’s grip, Robert asked, “Why the hell not?”

“Because the last time Georgie wore that dress was eight months ago.”

“So?” Robert said, his attention still focused on the now empty doorway.

“Our next child is due in a month,” Colin warned, but he was saying it to an empty cabin.

Chapter 10

R
obert followed Olivia up onto the deck, despite his lingering misgivings about her. That afternoon he’d had every intention of asking her how she knew about Hobbe and what she knew of Orlando’s death, but then she’d distracted him with that damn question of hers and that sidelong glance that had nearly done him in.

While he wanted to agree with Colin that she had nothing to do with Orlando’s death, there was no disputing the fact that she had been at the scene of the murder. And there was no arguing that she wasn’t incapable of firing a fatal shot.

But most of all, he had to find a way to extinguish this fire she stoked in his gut with her every glance, her all too rare touch, and the constant memory of her passionate kiss.

Above deck, the night was still and black except for the glittering of a million stars overhead and a tiny sliver of a moon that cast its thin beam of light across the endless waves. But even in the pitch dark of night, Olivia was easy to find.

Her white gown practically glowed like the moon itself, making up for the poor crescent above. And he found himself inexplicably drawn to her.

“We’re getting close,” he said, taking a sniff of the air. “Not much longer at all.”

She didn’t turn around. “So we discussed at dinner.”

“There are some things I want to ask you,” he said, faltering over just what he needed to know first.

Olivia shifted from one foot to the other, then slowly she turned to face him. The wind ruffled her hair, pulling those tantalizing tendrils of fire free from her carefully crafted chignon. “You already know all my secrets.”

“I suppose I should first thank you for saving my life,” he said, moving closer to her until he stood next to her at the rail. He gripped the polished wood and hung on, rather than give in to the temptation to take her in his arms.

“You already have. Really, I only did what anyone else would have done,” she said, her face still pointed out at the empty sea.

Her profile revealed a woman with finely sculpted features, a delicate nose, and lips . . .  lips he could spend a lifetime kissing.

Oh, how he wanted her. As much or more than he needed to hear her say the words that would set his tormented soul free.

Deny your involvement in all this.

Yet all he could hear was Chambley’s taunting voice when he claimed that Olivia had joined in Bradstone’s treachery willingly and wantonly.

He wanted to sweep aside his doubts, but they twisted in his gut with tendrils that curled around his soul like Pymm’s most poisonous concoction.

He faltered for something else to say. “My shoulder feels almost like new. However did you learn to tend a gunshot wound?”

He thought for a moment that she flinched, as if pierced by the steely hot kiss of lead herself.

“I never have,” she said quietly. “Tended one, that is. But Lady Finch considers herself quite an expert on medical matters—she treats all the injured at the manor—and I’ve assisted from time to time, but never like what I had to do for you.” She sighed and brushed her hands over her skirt. “You should really thank her ladyship. She has some rather specific instructions on caring for flesh wounds, and I’ve copied them so many times, I suppose I’ve committed them to memory.” She glanced over at him. “Anything else?”

Robert shifted uneasily. “Well, yes. How did you . . .  well . . .  oh, dammit, it isn’t every day you see a woman shoot a man. Where’d you learn to handle a pistol like that?”

She didn’t flinch this time, but he watched as she came to the conclusion he had been drawing her toward.

“You don’t want to know where I learned to shoot but
when,
don’t you, Robert?”

“Even you’ll admit it is rather unusual for a woman—”

“To be able to shoot a man.”

He looked away, feeling an unfamiliar sense of guilt over his doubts about her. “Yes,” he finally said, unwilling to give up until he had his answers.