She was either completely ingenuous or the most skillful coquette. But he had more than enough money to indulge her and she amused him immensely.
He dealt the cards.
And when the beefsteaks arrived some time later, the cards were put away and they both tucked into the succulent meat with gusto.
She ate with a kind of quiet intensity, absorbed in the food and the act of eating. It made him consider his casual acceptance of all the privileges in his life with a new regar
d
—
b
ut only briefly, because he was very young, very wealthy, too handsome for complete humility, and beset by intense carnal impulses that were profoundly immune to principle.
He'd simply offer her a liberal settlement when the
Siren
docked in Naples, he thought, discarding any further moral scruples.
He glanced at the clock.
Three-thirty.
They'd be making love in the golden light of
dawn
... or sooner perhaps, he thought with a faint smile, reaching across the small table to refill her wineglass.
"This must be heaven or very near . . . ." Serena murmured, looking up from cutting another portion of beefsteak. "I can't thank you enough."
"Re
m
y deserves all the credit."
"You're very disarming. And kind."
"You're very beautiful, Miss Blythe. And a damned good cardplayer."
"Papa practiced with me. He was an accomplished player when he wasn't drinking."
"Have you thought of making your fortune in t
h
e gaming rooms instead of wasting your time as an underpaid governess?"
"No," she softly said, her gaze direct.
"Forgive me. I meant no rudeness. But the demimonde is not without its charm."
"I'm sure it's not for a man," she said, taking a squarely cut piece of steak off her fork with perfect white teeth. "However, I'm going to art school in Florence," she went on, beginning to chew. "And I shall make my living painting."
"Painting what?"
She chewed a moment more, savoring the flavors, then swallowed. "Portraits, of course. Where the money is. I shall be flattering in the extreme. I'm very good, you know."
"I'm sure you are." And he intended to find out how good she was in other ways as well. "Why don't I give you your first commission?" He'd stopped eating but he'd not stopped drinking and he gazed at her over the rim of his wineglass.
"I don't have my paints. They're on the
Betty Lee
with my luggage."
"We have to dock in Lisbon to alert the authorities to the man Horton. Why not buy your paints there? How much would you charge for my portrait?"
Her gazed shifted from her plate. "Nothing for you. You've been generous in the extreme. I'd be honored to paint you"—
s
he paused and smile
d
—"whoever you are."
"Beau St. Jules."
"The
Beau St. Jules?" She put her flatware down and openly studied him. "The darling of the broadsheets . . . London's premier rake who's outsinned his father, the Saint?" A note of teasing had entered her voice, a familiar, intimate inflection occasioned by the numerous glasses of wine she'd drunk. "Should I be alarmed?"
He shook his head, amusement in his eyes. "I'm very ordinary," he modestly said, this man who fueled the scandal sheets and stood stud to all the London beauties. "You needn't be alarmed."
He wasn't ordinary, of cours
e
—
n
ot in any way. He was the gold standard, she didn't doubt, by which male beauty was judged. His perfect features and artfully cropped black hair reminded her of classic Greek sculpture; his overt masculinity, however, was much less the refined cultural ideal. He was startlingly male.
"Aren't rakes older? You're very young," she declared. And gorgeous as a young god, she decided, although the cachet of his notorious reputation probably wasn't based on his beauty alone. He was very charming.
He shrugged at her comment on his age. He'd begun his carnal amusements very young, he could have said but, circumspect, asked instead, "How old are
you?"
His smile was warm, personal. "Out in the world on your own?"
"Twenty-three." Her voice held a small defiance; a single lady of three-and-twenty was considered a spinster in any society.
"A very nice age," he pleasantly noted, his dark eyes lazily half-lidded. "Do you like floating islands?"
She looked at him blankly.
"The dessert."
"Oh, yes, of course." She smiled. "I should save room then."
By all means, he licentiously thought, nodding a smiling approval, filling their wineglasses once more. Save room for m
e
—
b
ecause I'm coming in. . . .
******************
When the dishes were cleared away by the servants and coffee and fruit had been left, they moved to a small settee to enjoy the last course. She poured him coffee; he added his own brandy and leaning back took pleasure in watching her slice a pear and leisurely eat each succulent piece.
"Your employers didn't feed you enough, did they?"
She turned to look at him lounging against the settee arm, all languid grace and beauty. "You wouldn't understand."
His lashes lowered fractionally. "Tell me anyway."
"I don't want to," she retorted, suddenly disquieted, all the misery still too fresh. "I don'
t
want to remember anything about those four years with the Tothams." And despite her best intentions, her eyes grew shiny with tears.
Quickly setting his cup down, he took the dessert knife from her grasp and the remains of the pear, wiped her fingers on a lavender-scented napkin, and holding her small hands in his, softly said, "It's over. You don't have to go back."
When a tear slid down her cheek, he gently drew her into his arms and held her close. "Don't cry, darling," he murmured. "By the time we get to Naples, you'll have won a fortune from me. And then the Tottles can go to hell."
She giggled into his chest.
"And I'll see that the portrait you paint of me is seen at the Royal Academy. Should I pose nude as Mars? That should draw attention."
She giggled again and pushing slightly away from him, gazed
l
ip into his smiling face. "You're incredibly kind," she whispered.
Her lips were half parted and only inches away. It took all his willpower to resist the temptation, her sweet vulnerability, her sadness affecting even his disreputable soul.
"May I kiss you?" she whispered, her feelings in turmoil, the warmth and affection he offered inexpressibly welcome after so many years of emotional deprivation, the feel of his arms around her comforting after the recent desperation of her plight.
"You probably shouldn't." He was trying to be honorable. She perhaps didn't understand what a kiss would do to him.
"I'm not an innocent." She'd been kissed before, although against her will, by the Tothams
'
repulsive son, when he'd dared transgress his mother's commands. It was immensely satisfying to offer a kiss of her own accord.
Beau shut his eyes briefly, her few simple words permission for all he wished to do. And when he opened his eyes, he murmured, heated and low, "Let
me
kiss
you.
. . ."
She was lost then, a true innocent despite what she'd said, her notion of a kiss eons distant from Beau St. Jules's kisses.
He made her feel lusciously heated, melting, his mouth delicate at first, offering butterfly kisses on her lips and cheeks, on her earlobes and temples, on the warm pulse of her throat, and then his mouth drifted lower, following his fingers as he unbuttoned the top three buttons of her neckline, drew her collar open, and kissed her soft, pale skin.
She kissed him back after that and a new tremulous feeling flared deep in the pit of her stomach. Pleasure inundated her senses, her heated blood, the warming surface of her skin, and most of all, gloriously in her spirit where she felt overwhelmingly happy. "You make me feel wonderful," she whispered, too long in the wasteland to want to forgo such blissful sensations.
"You make me fee
l
—
i
mpatient." He lifted her into his arms, moving toward his bed, his mouth covering hers again, eating her tantalizing sweetness.
"Maybe I shouldn't," she breathed moments later when he lowered her gently to the bed.
"I know," he murmured, brushing his mouth over hers. "I shouldn't undo these buttons," he whispered, unclasping another pearl button at her neckline. "Tell me I shouldn't."
"It's highly improper," she gently teased, touching his strong jaw with a trailing fingertip, smiling up at him.
"But I have this powerful carnal urge." His voice was deep, low, rich with promise.
"Should I be frightened?" Her heart was racing, her senses in tumult.
"Are you usually?" he silkily inquired, amused at how well Miss Blythe played the game.
She didn't know what to say for a moment. "No," she finally replied, trembling, eager for his touch. "I'm not."
And then the man known by salacious repute as Glory lived up to his name.
Her dress was discarded between flame-hot kisses and bewitching caresses, his hands intoxicating on her flesh, his touch incarnate sensuality, her petticoat and chemise leisurely removed, her worn slippers and much-mended stockings slipped off with tantalizing languidness. And when she lay nude before him, flushed pink with arousal, the pulsing between her thighs leaving her breathless with longing, he pulled off his shirt and placed her palms on his chest so she could feel the powerful beat of his heart. "I want you that much," he whispered, seated beside her, his large hands covering hers, his skin hot, the rhythm of his heart turbulently echoed in her own.
The rich splendor of her body incited his passions: her provocative breasts pinked from his touch, their ripe fullness his for the taking; the sensuous curve of her slender waist and hips was female sorcery; and lower, her pale silken hair was lure and magnet to his lust. Lifting her hands to his mouth,
,
he lightly kissed her fingertips and then gently lowering her hands, he whispered, "Don't go away. . . ."
"Not likely when I'm melting inside."
"For me?" His smile was warm like his gaze.
"For you ..." An enchantress's voice, so
f
t, low, eager.
And when he abruptly rose to strip his breeches free she understood another compelling measure of his allure.
"You're very beautiful," she said, her gaze on his arousal. "I'll paint you for myself too."
"Like this?" He touched himself with a practiced hand, watched her eyes widen as his erection grew. "Be my guest," he softly said.
"Later," she promised, feeling fiercely independent, flushed with a precious, new freedom, a universe away from her servitude, from all her recent misery.
"Much
later," he quietly agreed, moving over her, sliding between her thighs, guiding himself to her hot, wet cleft.
Lacing her arms around his neck, she clung to him, glorying in his strength and power, in the unalloyed pleasure she was feeling.
He drove forward.
She screamed.
"Jesus." He exhaled explosively. "Jesus Christ . ." He shuddered, his body convulsed by the abrupt, s
h
ocking curtailment.
"I won't cry out again," she whispered, pulling his face down to kiss, a keen hot craving overriding her transient pain, avaricious need flooding her senses. "Please."
He softly swore, unsavory practicalities pertaining to wellborn virgins suddenly in the forefront of his brain, danger signals bombarding his senses.
"Let me help," she whispered, moving her hips in a delectable enticement, reaching down to touch him.
Her fingers slid down his rigid length and he groaned, the animal sound rising from deep in his lungs.
"Don't," he said on a suffocated breath.
"But I want to."
He shut his eyes briefly against his overwhelming urges. "You can't change your mind later," he said, his voice rough with restraint.
"I know."
"You can change your mind now." He took a deep breath. "And maybe for a few seconds more," he said, his whisper hoarse, constrained, his eyes half shut against the hot-spur needs of his body.
"I don't want to change my mind." She stroked his rigid erection.
It was too much for a man known for his heedless prodigality.
Brushing her hand away, he braced his lower body, held her hips firmly between his hands, and surged forward, plungin
g
into her with a savage, barely contained violence.
Her cry
ri
cocheting around the teak-paneled stateroom went unnoticed as he sank hilt deep into her luscious warmth and exhaled in acute gratification, sensational feeling strumming down his nerve endings.