Swept Away By a Kiss (3 page)

This time she hardly noticed his Jesuit costume. He was, quite frankly, astonishingly handsome, nothing like the stiff, pallid noblemen who pandered to her in London and Boston since her come-out four years earlier. The priest’s perfect masculinity appeared like an artist’s rendering of a man carved from rich marble—the angle of his strong jaw, the sensuous curve of his lips, the aristocratic cast of his brow. Unfashionably long, sun-gilded hair curling around his collar and impossibly high, sculpted cheekbones lent him an exotic air. A rakish air. Dangerous.

Valerie lifted her gaze. His flame-laced, amber eyes glowed with amusement and the arrogance of a confident adversary.

Her heart stumbled. She righted it and tilted up her chin.

“You flatter me,
monsieur
.”

“Flattery tends to mislead,
mademoiselle.
I prefer the truth.” Rich, warm, and startlingly seductive for a cleric, his voice curled into Valerie’s belly, tightening it.

“The truth? I suppose that is a necessity of your vocation,” she quipped, trying to overcome her unexpected reaction.

“Rather, personal proclivity.” His mouth curved up at one edge, a mouth God had clearly spent great time and care fashioning.

“I see. I didn’t know men of the cloth were allowed that.”

The curve turned into a grin.

“On occasion. Dependent upon good behavior, of course.”

“Of course.” A smile tugged at Valerie’s lips too. She stifled it. His words teased, but the fiery spark in his eyes remained. He was not flirting with her. He seemed to be challenging, though she couldn’t imagine why. Of course, the French were an overly proud people, especially when they thought they were winning a war.

The captain looked anxiously between his passengers, no doubt recalling Cousin Abigail’s dire warnings. But he needn’t worry. Valerie was through with unsuitable dalliances and foolish escapades, even if her cousins did not believe it. And even if, at the particular moment, her own senses did not seem to believe it either. But she’d always chosen willing partners in her crimes of passion. A Catholic priest speaking of good behavior did not exactly fit the model, no matter how breathtakingly handsome.

As on the quay in Boston, he returned stare for stare. But something unsettling was happening in his eyes. The gold glint grew deeper. Knowing. Valerie’s insides quivered.

He knew she had just dismissed him out-of-hand.

No. He could not read her mind. She blinked to dispel the vision.

A lion’s eyes gazed back at her.

Valerie’s blood seemed to rush toward stillness. As a girl she had seen a real lion at a London menagerie. The priest’s slow, penetrating gaze mimicked the magnificent animal’s. It seemed to warn her that she, always the predator before, had become the prey.

Startled by her absurd musings, she wrenched her attention to the shipmaster.

“I suspect good behavior is a quality Mr. Raymer values in his sailors,” she managed. “Don’t you, Captain?”

“Yes indeed,” Raymer said with a splutter of relief. “But please forgive me for neglecting my duties as a host. Lady Valerie, allow me to present to you Father Etienne La Marque, late of the Louisiana Territory. Father, this is Lady Valerie Monroe.”

La Marque bowed, bending his lean frame deeply as though in mock reverence. The wooden beads tucked into the sash around his waist clacked against the crucifix at the end of the chain.

“So then,
monsieur
,” she said, wishing she could shake herself free of his curious effect, “on this voyage should we expect to encounter the dreaded sea god himself, or some of his nereids?”

“Perhaps a stray mermaid?” A half smile flickered again at his lips. “One can only hope, my lady.” He seemed genuinely amused now. But, for heaven’s sake, mermaids? Did priests truly flirt? “Naturally,” he added with a Gallic shrug, “such encounters depend upon the route we sail.”

Raymer chortled. “Lady Valerie is bound for Portsmouth, Father. The Earl of Alverston will meet her there.” The captain announced the noble connection with undisguised pride.

The priest tilted his head. “Family, my lady?”

“Yes. I have lived with my American cousins for two years and am anxious to return home to my brother’s estate. Mr. Raymer has kindly taken me and my maid aboard at the last minute, although I suspect he left valuable cargo behind to accommodate us.”

“Yet none so precious, I daresay,” the priest said.

Valerie silently exhorted her foolish knees not to turn to jelly.

Raymer chuckled gruffly again. “Nothing is as valuable as human cargo, Lady Valerie.”

“Good heavens, Mr. Raymer. Cargo?” She laughed, but her hands went cold. She had been weaned on caustic wit, and as the daughter of a peer she always knew her worth lay in her lineage and dowry. She willfully flouted that for years, but now that she was trying to make a new start of it, the captain’s comment cut too close to the quick.

Her gaze slipped to La Marque. His smile had vanished.

The gaff fluttered, setting up a sudden racket, and the heavy boom slipped sideways. Raymer’s expression sobered and shifted to the mizzenmast. A sailor hurried over and the captain stepped aside to speak with him, his thick legs sturdy as the deck tilted. Valerie steadied herself, and her gaze slid back toward La Marque.

The ship rolled, pitching Valerie forward. Her palms met solid muscle beneath cassock, hard and lean. Fingertips and palms alive with instant feeling, she pressed against him to steady herself. He grasped her wrists, and Valerie swung her head up. Awareness, delicious and thrilling, jolted through her. Flame sparked in his eyes. The heat of his body reached out, enthralling and forbidden. Valerie swallowed through the thickness in her throat. His gaze shifted to the motion at her neck, stroking like a caress.

She tugged her hands away, grabbing on to the rail for support.

What on earth was happening to her? She’d spent two miserable years in her cousins’ home, bored senseless with every gentleman they paraded before her, and now a handsome Frenchman’s brief touch overset her?
Ridiculous
.

If the earl were alive, he would say,
Typical
. Society would no doubt agree.

“Mr. Raymer keeps a well-ordered ship,” she said hastily.

“It is in his interest to do so.” The priest’s voice sounded hard.

Valerie’s gaze snapped up. “The captain is a fine gentleman,” she said uncertainly.

“Raymer is no different from all other merchants, my lady, gladly ferrying whatever he can to increase his wealth.”

That seemed unjust. The Dutchman was so kind and fatherly.

“I think you are ungrateful, sir. Here you are taking advantage of a man’s hospitality, then abusing him for it?”

“If I am indulging in that sort of behavior, at least I am in good company.” La Marque’s brow lifted and he looked pointedly at her bonnet swinging from her elbow on its ribbons.

Valerie’s eyes shot wide.
Fustian.
She should not have removed the thing in Mr. Raymer’s company. It was an insult to the gentleman. And now the priest was chastising her for it like some stuffy Almack’s patroness.

His eyes glinted. Valerie lifted a palm to her warm cheek and sucked in a breath. She never blushed, not involuntarily, at least. And she never quailed like this with men, not even very handsome men.

“You are not offended,” he said, his gaze gentling with humor. “You are trying to decide how to respond, but you have no real quarrel with me, though you wish you did.” A hint of a smile played at the corner of his lips again.

Valerie’s throat tightened. How did he seem to know her already? He couldn’t possibly, as he couldn’t have read her mind earlier. Could he? Perhaps priests had some special knack for that sort of thing. But it was more than that, a familiarity she could not shake off, as though he truly did know her.

A flurry of wind curled off the main course and across Valerie’s lips, stroking her cheek. La Marque stood close enough for her to imagine his scent—delectable man and a hint of limewater. His golden gaze seemed to darken, and hunger ground in Valerie’s belly, deep and tingling.

Too deep. And, in point of fact, somewhat south of her belly.

She blinked to clear her senses again. She should not allow him to flummox her. She could do this. It was only mild flirtation, after all, and with a priest, for pity’s sake. It could be amusing. He seemed clever, and he was lovely to look at. Added to that, she would do anything to avoid spending hours alone dwelling upon her uncertain future.

She lifted her brows in mock disapproval.

“Is this some sort of examination,
monsieur
? Have I failed or passed it?” Of course she could do this. It was what she had always done best, after all.

Aside from seducing inappropriate men.

Chapter 4

S
teven allowed himself a grin. This woman was as willful as her touch was heated, and exquisite from her sparkling eyes to her lithe, beautifully curved body and regal bearing. In the brisk breeze, her gown clung to her intoxicating figure as though reveling in contact with her flesh. Her loosely bound, dark hair strayed against her full lips, unwilling to be tamed by pins.

“Upon what in God’s great creation,
mademoiselle
,” he replied, “could I wish to examine you?”

Her ocean-colored eyes danced and she took a visible breath, tightening the confection of expensive silk across her high, perfectly rounded breasts. She did not reply, openly considering him instead. Steven stood immobile, bearing down upon his stirring arousal as her gaze slipped along the length of his cassock. Her lashes fluttered, a flicker of desire simmering in her eyes.

She cleared her throat, finally lifting her gaze. It shone warm but peculiarly clouded, as though something more than desire troubled her.

Not what he had expected. Not welcome either. Her desire he could accept. He had been the object of women’s desires for years and never paid it much attention. But he didn’t like her confusion. Confusion in a willful woman invariably became curiosity, and the bonnet hanging at her elbow showed how much she respected convention.

Steven did not have room in his plans for a curious, unpredictable woman. Especially not one with eyes the color of the turbulent sea.

He should not have sought her out. He had managed to avoid her for three days, taking his dinners alone rather than meeting her in the captain’s quarters each evening. Something drew him, though, some ineffable lure. Now that he had made the mistake of speaking with her, however, he might as well play the moment in a manner that would fulfill her expectations.

Taking her gloved hand, he raised it near his lips, bowing again and hoping the courtly gesture would put her at ease.

Her fingers went rigid. Instead of a coquettish glimmer, her eyes swam with need, a world waiting to come to life. Vibrant and raw, the emotion in her gaze constricted Steven’s chest.

He had misjudged her. Willful, beautiful, yes. Desirable, without doubt. But not a jade or even a coquette. Perhaps twenty-one, yet still full of youthful passion, Lady Valerie Monroe was precisely the sort of bride Steven’s aunt continually encouraged him to take. The sort who would make a perfect viscountess.

Steven did not want his viscountcy, the title he had unexpectedly acquired years earlier. And he certainly did not want a viscountess. Not ever, and especially not now when he had a job to complete that he’d been planning for months. A notorious slave trader ran amok in the Atlantic, greedy for the vast fortunes won trafficking since Britain had declared the trade illicit three years earlier. With each shipload of men and women that Clifford Hannsley, Fifth Marquess, sold illegally at western ports, another bag of gold passed into his insatiable hands, gold that helped him influence kings and princes.

Hannsley, however, had the bad luck of long ago making himself Steven’s childhood nemesis. Steven was determined to destroy his old rival or die trying. He had no space in his life for a noble title or the trappings that went along with it.