The Perils of Pleasure (26 page)

She
did
want to be kissed.

And then his fingers opened to feather across her ears, along her throat, the nape of her neck, and she felt her head tip back trustingly into his hands.

Cradling it, he touched his lips very, very softly to the pulse in her throat.

“Oh, Mad.” It was half sigh, half soft laugh. “Do you have any idea how I’ve wanted you?”

“Of course,” she whispered.

Colin smiled. Then he dragged his lips softly from the arch of her throat to her ear, to her lips, which were parted, while her eyes were still closed.

“Now
I’ll kiss you properly,” he murmured.

She knew how to do this. She’d done it before. Her
body knew where it wanted to be touched, and how it wanted to fit against his, and oddly, nothing had ever seemed more right. And still somehow it became a little battle, as it always was with the two of them, in part be
cause she still only felt safe in the midst of battle. Their lips brushed, bumped, nipped softly, Madeleine now afraid to surrender to this. Too late she recalled how a kiss sometimes had the power to split one dangerously, vulnerably, open. More so even than lovemaking.

“Shhhh,”
he whispered against her mouth, although she wasn’t making a sound. It was as though he wanted to soothe the battle inside her.
“Shhhhh.”

His hands were at the back of her neck, soothing, stroking, and he brushed his lips over hers, urged hers apart with tender strokes of his tongue, sending a rain of silver sparks down her spine, and she gave a sigh. It was part pleasure, part some unexpressed sadness. The sound of something released.

Madeleine’s hands slid up to the hard blades of his shoulders, pulling him closer, and her lips fell open beneath his. His tongue, at first, was a gentle invader, warm, velvety soft, finding and twining with hers softly in a tentative foray.

He took his lips away from hers, looked into her eyes, as though looking for some sort of answer or wanting to see what the kiss had done to hers. His own eyes were hazy with desire.

And then his firm, clever lips took hers again, more decisively this time, and she was ready. Her arms slid up his chest to wrap round his neck, and he pulled her into his body, and his iron-hard arousal pressing against her was a maddeningly erotic contrast to his soft lips, his soft tongue. He drove the kiss deeper, and she met him; their tongues touching and tangling, part dance,
part duel. He moaned softly, the sound of it vibrating in his chest beneath her hands. He withdrew his tongue to bite her bottom lip gently, a sensation startling and erotic.

Then he took her mouth again, ferociously this time, and she took as much as he did, devouring, needing him deeper into her body. He tasted sweet and dark, and as she kissed him everything in her was melting, dissolv
ing, until she knew that terrifying, exhilarating sense of having no other existence outside the heady, penetrat
ing bliss of this kiss.

And then Colin suddenly broke the kiss with a gasp.

He tucked his cheek against hers. His whiskers rasped at her delicate skin; his breath was hot and swift on the crook of her neck.

He was quiet for a long time. His arms loosened on her.

Confused and strangely bereft, Madeleine clung to him a moment longer. Then her arms loosened about him, too, uncertainly.

“Just a kiss,” he whispered, sounding dazed.

She didn’t quite understand what he meant.

They remained close but not nearly as close as mo
ments before, their breathing slowing to before-kiss rhythms.

Colin lifted his head up, looked down into her eyes. He looked as if he was considering whether to speak.

“Did you love him, Mad?”

The question surprised her so completely that she didn’t have time to disguise the truth, and she was cer
tain it was written all over her face.

Why did he do this?
How
did he do this?

He took his thumb and gently brushed it over her
jaw, over those two scars. One for her husband, one for her son.

“Life can be the very devil sometimes, can’t it?” he said softly.

She stared at him.

“The very devil,” she agreed thickly after a moment.

He smiled down at her, as only Colin Eversea could smile.

And when he took her by the hand back out to the road, Madeleine felt as though she’d been thrown from the moon back down to earth.

And then they were walking again.

A long interval free of conversation but fi lled with the maniacally cheerful birdsong ensued. The denizens of the country were certainly noisy.

No travelers were on this track, thankfully, or at least not this early. Colin strode ahead up to the very slight rise—flat country, this—peering hopefully for the crossroads sign.

“Colin!” she heard him squeal to himself, in yet an
other marvelous imitation of her voice.

And then he chuckled. And kept walking.

Just as he was about to vanish over the rise, she scooped up a pebble and threw it at his back.

“Ow,” he said cheerfully, without fl inching and without looking backward.

nm

ood

morning, gentlemen,” Marcus said to

the phalanx of soldiers lounging in front of the Eversea town house. He’d brought out a plate of seedcakes for them, and they all took one. They looked bored, as well they should. Why on earth would they think Colin might migrate to his own town house?

“Good morning, Mr. Eversea.”
“Any signs of my brother yet?”
“None, Mr. Eversea.”
“Good,” he said.
They all laughed. “One hundred pounds, Mr. Ever-

sea! Colin is worth a fortune!”

“So I’ve heard. But not for the lot of you, am I right? Finding him is your
job
. What a shame, eh? And my brother is innocent, you know.”

He’d said this every morning since Colin disap

peared. It had become a ritual for all of them. “If you say so, sir,” they answered politely. Soldiers amused him. “Where are you off to, Mr. Eversea?” “To see Mr. Redmond. We’ll be having a talk about

gaslight.”

“Oh, very good, sir!”

Marcus didn’t have far to go, for the Redmonds’ town house was also on St. James Square. He galloped for the mews, dropped the reins and headed for the car
riage house.

Mr. Bell was sitting with his feet up on the table, hat tipped down over his eyes, blue caped coat hanging over the back of his chair. He was snoring softly.

“Good morning, Mr. Bell.”

The man nearly crashed to the floor, startled, and Marcus righted the chair for him just in time.

Bell stood rapidly, brushed his hands over his im
maculate trousers, and when he registered that it was Marcus Eversea who stood before him, Mr. Bell, who trended toward swarthy, went decidedly pale. He did manage to bow, however.

Marcus dispensed with his own bow. “I have a ques
tion for you, Mr. Bell. Were you hired to take out the Mercury Club carriage?”

A pause. “Why would I do that?”

This was the classic stalling question used by a person unaccustomed to stalling or lying.

Marcus stepped forward. Mr. Bell stepped backward.

“I know Mr. Baxter hired you, Bell, on the day after Roland Tarbell’s murder and the day of my brother’s hanging. To do what?”

He wasn’t certain of this, but he became certain when Mr. Bell looked about wildly, as if for an exit or assistance.

Marcus had his hand clenched in the man’s cravat before the man saw it dart out.

Mr. Bell looked more surprised than alarmed for a second, and then alarm took over, and he stared down at the hand below his chin.

“
To do what
, Mr. Bell?”

Bell swallowed hard, which was difficult to do when one’s cravat was nearly doubling as a noose.

“Whatever Baxter paid you, I’ll pay you twice as much,” Marcus added every so slightly more politely.

“To take Mrs. Redmond to St. Giles, and passengers to Marble Mile,” Bell choked out quickly.

“St. Giles? You took
Mrs. Redmond
to St. Giles?”

Bell nodded rapidly.

Marcus would puzzle over that later. “
Where
in Marble Mile did you take these passengers?”

“Place called Mutton Cottage. Past an inn.”

Marcus released his grip, and Bell’s hands went up to rub his throat and rearrange his cravat lovingly.

“And
who
did you take, Mr. Bell?”

“This I honestly cannot say for certain, sir. I thought it best not to ask, you see, as it all struck me as rather odd, though the pay was
very
good. But I do know I took on several bundles at one location in Southwark. And I fetched a man from a pub near the docks.”

“Just one man?”

“Well, one man and a dog.”

They’d walked nearly an entire day in the country heat, with stops for forays into their rations and for Madeleine to attend to Colin’s ankles with Saint-John’s-wort and fresh bandages, and they finally stumbled not across Mutton Cottage . . . but the rumored inn.

From a slight distance away on the road, they stared at it.

“A bed,” Colin finally said, with the hushed rever
ence one might say, “The Grail!”

They silently pondered their options.

“Do you think it even exists? Mutton Cottage?”

Madeleine replied. It seemed a fair question at this point.

“More than one person seems to know about it, Mad. We’ll get there. But we can’t keep walking all night tonight, and I want to sleep in a bed. How much money do we have left?”

“One pound.”

“All right, then. We’ll indulge in untold extravagance of a shilling or two for a bed.”

The inn wasn’t crowded—a few sleepy-looking el
derly men were playing chess by the fire, and a couple was dining on what appeared to be stew in the dining room—and Madeleine paid for a room for herself and Colin, who made sure he was gazing anywhere but into the inn proper, and managed, somehow, to appear unobtrusive.

Once in their room, Colin locked the door and of course slid a chair beneath the doorknob, and Mad
eleine examined the window, and the height from the window to the ground. One could leap out with mini
mal injury, if it came to that.

And the centerpiece of the room was, indeed, that glorious thing called a bed.

They both approached it gingerly, as though it would flee in terror if they came at it too quickly. And then they crawled over it, and turned over onto their backs, and sighed.

And then there was a silence.

Madeleine would have thought they would reach for each other and begin pawing off clothes, but neither seemed inclined. The silence was peaceful and refl ec
tive, and they both seemed to be allowing the weariness of the day, and indeed the whole journey, to sink into the mattress below them. They could almost pretend
he wasn’t a convicted escaped criminal with a price on his head.

“What will you do when you reach America, Mad?” Colin asked after a moment.

“Oh . . . I shall very likely marry as soon as pos
sible,” she said practically.

“Marry!” He sounded so astonished, she was both amused and nearly insulted.

“And why shouldn’t I marry?” she said mildly. “It seems the practical thing to do.”

“Practical?”

“Well, of course. ’Tis a rugged country. I’ll have a farm, and I’ll need assistance with it.”

“Who?” He demanded. “
Who
would you marry?”

“Well, an American, no doubt. Perhaps another farmer.”

“An American
farmer
!”

He sounded so outraged she couldn’t help smil
ing. “What have you against Americans? Or farmers? They’ve as much need of wives as Englishmen. More so, I would warrant.”

He seemed to be searching for a reason. “They bathe very rarely. Americans.” It was half in jest.

“Yes, whereas
you
smell like a garden.”

There was a silence.

“I
should
like a bath,” he muttered gloomily.

He gazed up at the ceiling for a time, and the quiet expanse of whitewashed white seemed to cool his mood.

“I like them well enough,” he conceded fi nally, be
grudgingly. “Americans.”

“Oh, so do
I
,” Madeleine concurred warmly. Be
cause she was enjoying his outrage.

More silence.

“You know nothing of farming,” Colin said. It sounded like a warning.

She wanted to say,
How do you know?
but he was right, so she simply waved a disdainful hand. “I learn quickly. I can certainly fire a musket, and I daresay I should hold my own against an Indian or a bear. And I thank you for your concern.”

He seemed to take his time mulling this, too. She turned to him. His sea-colored eyes distant with thoughts of that wild, malodorous land across the sea, no doubt. And then he smiled a little, no doubt pictur
ing her in battle with an Indian or a bear.

“We’ve a farm. The Everseas.” He sounded more re
flective now. “On the downs, near Pennyroyal Green. It’s where I’ve always hoped to live one day, in truth. Sheep. Wool. I know my father would be happy to sur
render it to me.”

“You! On a farm! I thought London was your home.”

“Louisa is my home,” he corrected, somewhat ab
sently. “Wherever she is . . . ”

Oh, of course. Madeleine fought a great wave of ir
ritation for the paragon that was Louisa.

“What is
she
like?”

“Louisa?” He looked surprised by the question, which struck her as funny, as he was always so full of questions himself. “Well, beautiful, of course.”

“Of course. That goes without saying.”

He knew she was being wry; he threw her a glance. He opened his mouth to say something, decided against it. He folded his arms behind his head and settled into his description. “And you’d think she was gentle and dreamy . . . for she’s these large, very soft blue eyes, Louisa does. More
bluebell
blue than sky blue. Every
spring you’d notice, when the bluebells bloomed, how like spring
she
was, with hair like sunshine and those blue eyes. The funny thing is, she’s a very practical girl. And she listens brilliantly. Enjoys reading. Walking on the downs.”

Louisa, Madeleine thought, sounded dull. But Mad
eleine knew love could make any picture feel more vivid, and she didn’t happen to love Louisa.

“Does she make you laugh?”

He thought about this. “She laughs a good deal when I’m about,” he allowed.

Did Colin Eversea really want to be laughed
at
rather than
with
his entire life? He was the most maddening person she’d ever met, but his humor contained angles; he used it both to deflect and persuade. And if one could see around it, one would see into vulnerability.

Maybe he didn’t want to be seen, because, after all, it was often uncomfortable to be seen thoroughly. Unless you surrendered to it, and then it was heady and liberat
ing, and before you knew it you found yourself lying on a bed in an inn with the bloody man. He was very good at noticing things. He never ceased, really.

She smiled to herself. He was exhausting.

And then she asked, because she couldn’t help it, “Have you . . . have the two of you ever . . . ”

“Done things in lofts?” He threw her a sly sideways glance. “No.” He sounded amused. “Of course not. She’s a la—”

He stopped. Wisely.

“Ah,” Madeleine said.

But he had the good sense not to apologize, which would have made it significantly worse. Though an awkward silence did ensue, as it was.

She didn’t care, she told herself.
She
did things in
lofts. She had, in fact, initiated things in lofts. She’d been married. She could fire a pistol, and a musket. There really wasn’t any undoing what she was, or what she’d become, and she didn’t think she wanted to. And now she was lying on a bed next to Colin Eversea, and with luck they would do things there, too.

But in a few weeks time, if they found Horace Peele, with the two hundred pounds she would earn from Colin Eversea’s family for returning him, she could be anyone she wanted in America. She was still young enough, and healthy, and beautiful and strong.

And Colin Eversea had somehow managed to give her back . . . herself. She went still for a moment, real
izing the enormity of that gift.

“I
have
kissed her,” he volunteered, which she sup
posed was intended to make her feel less of a whore.

“So you’ve said.” The words emerged so testily, Madeleine started. It was if someone else had borrowed her mouth to speak them.