Shirley Kerr (15 page)

He stepped up behind her and wrapped her in his embrace, rubbing her arms through the blanket. “Getting any warmer?”

She leaned her head back onto his shoulder and graced him with a tipsy smile. The brandy glass was empty again. Since she’d had the first two glasses on an empty stomach, she was likely well on her way to being foxed.

Probably just as well, though he’d rather she didn’t have to deal with a hangover in the morning, on top of her injury.

“There’s no fire, so I suppose you’ll have to do.” She spun in his embrace, wrapped her arms around his waist, and rested her cheek against his chest. “Mmm, much better.” She burrowed closer.

He ran his arms up and down her back, still feeling the tiny tremors wracking her body. “You should lie down, bundle up with more blankets.”

She shook her head. “Bed’s cold. You’re warm.” She splayed her hands against his back and pressed her body tight against his.

He tried not to inhale her enchanting rosewater scent, tried not to think about her ripe curves pressed against his hard planes. Especially now that he didn’t have to imagine what those curves looked like, or even felt like. Under ideal circumstances he’d have been in no hurry to cover up her smooth-as-satin skin, would have traced the freckles with his fingers, and had her gasping from laughter, moaning in pleasure.

He squeezed his eyes shut. Logic was the way to go.
“Your bare foot will be warmer tucked between the blankets than standing on the cold wooden decking.” At the very least, he should successfully protect her from catching a chill.

“Mmm, per’aps you’re right.” She eased her grip on him, took a step toward the bunk, and swayed.

Alistair caught her before she could fall.

She giggled. “I think I should have eaten
before
drinking the brandy.” A hiccup escaped, which made her laugh again.

“Definitely time for you to lie down.” He guided her to the bunk and helped her settle on her uninjured right side, and tucked the blankets around her.

As he drew back, she caught his cravat and tugged him close again. “You’re a gen’leman, right? So I can trust you not to take advantage of me.”

He’d have been insulted she even had to ask were it not for his baser instincts clamoring to be let out. “Of course.”

“Good. Climb in.” She patted the mattress beside her.

T
his must be how Adam felt when Eve offered him that damned apple. “I really don’t think that’s appropriate.” Alistair had everything under control, but only because he was no longer in physical contact with Charlotte.

“We passed ‘appropriate’ when you had your hands on my bare arse.” She patted the mattress again. “Please. I’m cold.”

He could no more deny those guileless blue eyes than stop breathing. But get in bed with her?

He was a gentleman. Not a scoundrel with the self-restraint of a two-year-old, like his father. He could keep his baser instincts in check. “Let me just take off my shoes.”

He slipped them off and then padded in his stocking feet to the lantern over the table and blew it out. He ex
tinguished the lantern by the bunk, too, leaving just the one lit over by the desk. Lamps out on the wharf were now visible through the window, and cast shadows across the cabin. After a glance down at his silk waistcoat, he took it off and hung it over the chair back, on top of his coat. With another moment’s consideration, he untied his cravat and added it to the collection of his clothing.

“You’re stalling.”

Her quiet accusation struck him to the quick. He slowly turned to face her. “Generally, when a man contemplates getting into bed with a woman, it is under different circumstances than this, with a very different intent.”

“But I’m cold.” She held the blanket to her chin. “I need you.”

When was the last time the independent Miss Parnell had uttered those three words to anyone? He slid into the bunk beside her.

He arranged the blankets to cover them both on the narrow mattress that was never intended to sleep two, and stiffly lay on his back. “Have enough room?”

“You’re too far away. C’mere.” She wrapped her arm around his waist and tugged him closer. Once he’d complied, she pushed his arm out of the way so she could snuggle against his side, tucked her icy feet against legs, and rested her cheek on his chest.

Silence reigned in the semi-dark cabin, broken only by the distant call of a night watchman or a clanging ship’s bell.

“Your heart is beating faster than a galloping horse.”

“No,” he lied, “that’s yours you hear pounding. Mine
is as steady as if I’d stayed home and read improving sermons all evening.”

She giggled, and he felt the tremor all the way down to his knees. Cautiously, he wrapped his arms around her, trying to share the warmth of his body and nothing else.

“Mmm.” She burrowed even closer and tightened her arm around his waist.

She was injured, cold, and under the influence of pain and brandy. He should not be tempted.

Try telling that to certain parts of his anatomy.

She had nubile curves that begged to be explored, soft and rounded in all the right places, and a mouth made for kissing.

He stroked her hair, smoothing the silken strands from the top of her head down her back. Her hair ended just below her shoulders, and the wool blanket wasn’t nearly as soft against his fingertips, but he kept stroking, all the way down to her waist. And stopped there.

That should be safe.

“That’s nice.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Try to sleep.”

“You’ll still be here with me when I wake up?”

He patted her back. Definitely not a caress. “Not going anywhere.”

Soon she stopped trembling. Her iron grip on his waist slackened and her breathing evened out.

What a night of firsts. First time he’d treated a bullet wound.

First time he’d spent the night with a woman in his arms without making love to her.

First time he’d seen Charlotte’s naked body, and heard her pant and moan. For all the wrong reasons.

First time he’d ever been on a spy mission, for that was most certainly what Charlotte had been on tonight.

She hadn’t stated it so bluntly, but she had apparently been working as one with her brother. For years.

By accompanying Charlotte, he had acted as a spy as well.

He didn’t feel like a spy. He certainly bore no resemblance to what he expected of a spy. Weren’t they roguish-looking fellows, almost but not quite fitting in with polite Society? Like Nick or Blakeney, or the two men who’d also been after the snuffbox before Nigel stole it from them. Who were they working for? He’d have to discuss that with Charlotte when she woke up and her head cleared.

Then again, Charlotte didn’t look like a spy, either.

But the war was over. There wasn’t any real spying to be done anymore, was there? The assignment given to Steven, which Charlotte wanted to complete on her own, was nothing more than restoring a stolen object to its rightful owner.

It was retrieval, not espionage.

But how often was a pistol fired in a simple retrieval operation? He heard again the sharp report of the pistol, the grunt of pain when Charlotte had been hit. How she had bravely said nothing, though it must have hurt like the devil.

But she was safe now, asleep in his arms. He’d failed to keep her safe in Toussaint’s garden. He wouldn’t fail
her now. He’d stopped the bleeding, and she was no longer chilled.

He must have dozed off, for the next thing he knew, Nick was leaning over him. Silent, unmoving. Unnerving.

“What?” Alistair whispered.

“How is she?” Nick whispered back, his brow furrowed.

Alistair shifted his arms just enough to check that he could still do so. He didn’t move any farther, not wanting to disturb his living, breathing, Charlotte blanket. Yes, she was still breathing, still warm. He opened his mouth to reply.

“She’s sleeping,” came her muffled voice from the vicinity of his chest. “Go ’way.”

“Ungrateful wench.” Nick gave a broad grin with his softly spoken words. “Kick a man out of his own cabin, force him to sleep in a hammock among the riffraff crew, and—”

“Bugger off.”

Alistair nodded. “What she said.”

Nick pulled the blankets up to Charlotte’s chin and tucked them around her. “I’m going now, but only so that you’ll name me as godfather to your first child.” Nick picked up the detritus by the door and left them in peace again.

Alistair’s thoughts raced, even as Charlotte’s breathing slowed, indicating she had already slipped back into sleep.

Their first child?

The very idea ought to terrify him. Their engagement was a sham, just a cover to enable the spy to do her work,
and for his father and grandfather to leave him out of their feud and let him continue his astronomical observations in peace. But he’d done precious little of his own work since he’d begun helping Charlotte with hers.

She was close to attaining her goal. As soon as she retrieved the snuffbox, they could end their fake engagement and part ways.

Alistair tightened his arms around her. He didn’t want to let her go. Not now, not in the morning, and certainly not once she had the snuffbox.

He didn’t want their engagement to be a fake. The only satisfactory ending to their betrothal would be their marriage.

At some point during this crazy day and night, his feelings had shifted from being intrigued, amused by, and attracted to the curvy blonde, to something much deeper, less transitory. Something permanent.

She murmured in her sleep.

“You’re safe, I’ve got you.” He kissed the top of her head again. “And I’m not letting you go.”

She snuggled more securely into his embrace and was still.

Her eyes still closed, Charlotte awoke to a rumbling beneath her ear. A snore.

A very quiet snore, to be sure, hardly more than loud breathing, but definitely a masculine snore.

And the reason she heard it so clearly was because she was lying atop the snoring man, her ear pressed against his chest. Not just lying next to or beside him, but directly on top of him.

Such a position yielded quite different sensations from that of dancing with a man, even waltzing. His heart beat steadily beneath her ear. His arms wrapped snugly around her, enveloping her in a cocoon of warmth and security. The fine wool of his breeches and stockings brushed against her bare legs. Bare?

She slid one leg to the side, with the intent of sliding off him before he awoke, and gasped at the sudden pain in her backside. She froze, and the pain eased.

Then again, perhaps she’d just stay right where she was. Her companion tightened his hold around her and murmured in his sleep. She gulped.

Good heavens, had she drooled on him?

Her eyes flew open. Daylight streamed through the small window in Nick’s cabin.

She was aboard the
Wind Dancer
.

Lying on top of Viscount Moncreiffe.

Memories of everything that happened the previous night came crowding back, and her cheeks flooded with heat. Mortifying. Last night had been utterly mortifying. Not to mention painful.

Instead of a simple in-and-out excursion to collect the snuffbox, she’d shown herself to be incompetent, bested by Toussaint
and
the two smoking men. Nick and Moncreiffe had had to come to her aid as though she were a weak damsel in distress. And in so doing, she’d been laid bare before his gaze. Literally.

It was just a body. Everyone had one. It shouldn’t bother her that Moncreiffe had seen more of her flesh than even her current maid had. No stays to hold up her bosom, no empire gown to hide her thick waist, and most
humiliating of all was that he’d had to clean and stitch the wound on her bottom.

Oh, and how delightful, they were to be informal and address each other by first name now.

Nobody had actually fired a pistol, she’d so blithely said when he expressed his concern the other night. Her words had came back to literally bite her on the a—

The snoring stopped. His arms relaxed a bit. Should she move now?

There was a knock on the cabin door. “I’m coming in,” Nick announced.

She should sit up. She should not be seen like this, in such a compromising position.

As if sensing her intent, Alistair tightened his arms around her again. She pulled the blanket up over her head.

Nick slid the door open and poked his head in, his eyes closed. “Are you both decent?”

“Nothing to see, Nick.” Still thick with sleep, Alistair’s voice was a rich rumble in Charlotte’s ear.

Though the blanket covered her, she still needed to breathe, and was forced to pull the blanket back just the tiniest bit.

Nick tilted his head to stare at Charlotte, whose cheek was still pillowed on Alistair’s chest, until she felt like shouting
What?
at him. Most disturbing was that she couldn’t read his expression. He knew that nothing untoward had happened last night between her and Alistair, despite current appearances to the contrary. Didn’t he?

“I let you snooze as long as I dared. The tide and wind have shifted, and I can’t wait any longer or it will
take us three days to get out to the Channel. You have ten minutes to disembark, or stay on board for the trip to Dorset.”

“I hear Dorset is nice this time of year.”

Charlotte drew breath to protest.

Alistair patted her back. “Kidding.”

Nick draped her clothing over the back of a chair. “Your dress is still warm from hanging before the galley fire. Might be a bit damp in some places yet, but the shift is dry. Jonesy managed to get the blood out, and Tucker stitched it up all nice and neat.”

“Not to be ungrateful, but he didn’t use the same supplies he uses for repairing the sails, did he?”

“The thread came from the same source as the dressing gown you’re wearing. Trust me, even your maid will have a hard time spotting the repairs.”

“Thank you.”

“You can thank Tucker. All I did was spend the night in a hammock. Again.” He pulled out his pocket watch. “Nine minutes.” He shut the door with a thump.

Alistair pushed the blanket down to her shoulders. “I’d forgotten how grumpy he can be in the morning.”

“Me, too.” She could delay the inevitable no longer. She lifted her head and found Alistair looking at her with narrowed eyes.

“You know what Nick is like in the morning?”

“Well, of course. Sometimes it would take a week or more to get where we were going.” If she had a suspicious nature, she might have thought Alistair was jealous.

“How’s your head?”

She blinked. “My head?” The place where she’d been shot was considerably farther south.

“You drank brandy on an empty stomach last night.” He rubbed one hand up and down her back, reminding her that only a thin layer of silk separated her skin from his.

She had trouble concentrating on his words. His light brown hair was tousled as though she’d run her fingers through it, and stubble darkened his jaw. The top three buttons of his shirt had come undone, letting her glimpse the hollow of his throat and the top of his chest. Did his skin feel as smooth as it looked? She watched in fascination as his throat worked when he spoke.

“Do you feel any ill aftereffects?”

She took a moment to take stock. Aside from a sharp twinge of pain when she tried to move her left side, she felt as refreshed as if she’d spent the night in her own bed. “Just a little soreness. ’Tis nothing.” She shouldn’t have lifted her shoulders quite so far to answer. Sometime during the night the belt had come untied on the dressing gown. More of her bust was visible than in her most daring gown. The fine linen of his shirt was the only thing separating her chest from his.

Alistair followed the direction of her gaze. He cleared his throat. “Well, time is ticking away.” He sat up and slid sideways in a neat maneuver that quickly got them both standing up, still chest-to-chest. He rested his hands at her waist to steady her.

“We should probably check the bandage. Make sure it hasn’t slipped, that the bleeding didn’t start again.”

He wanted to examine her, in the light of day, with no
brandy in her system? She coughed. Her hand slid down to her hip. No dampness. The cloth binding was still in place. “That’s not necessary. It feels fine.”

He raised his brows.

“I’ll be home within an hour or so. I’ll have my maid take a look then.”

He didn’t look quite convinced. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure. I’ll remind her who pays her wages, and she’ll keep a still tongue.”