Since the Surrender (13 page)

“…and I said, ‘Those shares will be worthless when they have the Stockton and Darlington railroad completed…’”

She turned her head into her shoulder and bit down on her soft bottom lip, and he saw again white teeth in her bottom lip like that night at the d’Alignys’. Her swift breath was hot, moist against his shirt. Her eyes closed tightly. And when he saw her fingers on her own breasts, circling, languidly circling, his own arousal was such a drug, such a madness, he suddenly became certain he could take her here, plunge into her here, behind this bookcase. His finger slid into her…and out. And in, and out. He traced hard, repetitive filigrees over her hot, satiny flesh. He wanted her to acknowledge what she wanted, to ask for it definitively with her body. And she at last began to move against his hand, and together they found a swift and primal rhythm that would end beautifully and inevitably and hopefully soundlessly.

He began to feverishly imagine tipping her forward just a bit more to achieve the angle he needed to penetrate her. He liked imagining whether she thought he would, because suspense was a whetstone for his desire, and now it was urgent.

He took his hand reluctantly from between her legs and began to slide her dress up from behind.

And her body suddenly stiffened to the pliancy of a plank. He went still, too. Puzzled.

And then…fiercely, darkly suspicious.

Her thighs were ever so slightly parted, and before she could jam them closed he slipped a hand through the space between them: something bulky and dully shining was strapped to her thigh with a pair of satin garters—one pink, one white.

She clamped her thighs closed on his hand—or tried to—but his hand had already wedged itself in there.

He traced the contours of the thing. For an instant the contrast between the silky give of her skin and the lethal, unyielding metal of the weapon was astoundingly erotic, and his absurdly high state of arousal prevented its significance from penetrating instantly. An instant later desire evaporated in shock and fury. What the bloody hell did she intend to do with a pistol?

He froze.

And she did, too. Her desire had completely given way to fear. As well it should. Bloody woman.

With feather-delicate fingers and a heart thudding from nerves and thwarted lust merging into anger, he did what he could have done in the dark, anywhere, with any pistol: he ascertained it was locked. It was.

It was.

He dropped his hands from her silky thighs, and the now crushed dress fell like a blind drawn, and he landed his hands hard on her shoulders.

Rosalind’s mouth was sandy with terror.

Despite that, she felt…thwarted. There was a cold fluttering in her stomach; she deeply, irrationally resented missing the shattering release she knew would have been hers. She should have felt inappropriately indignant at being thus handled, despite how thoroughly—how wantonly—she’d participated. How on earth had it begun to make perfect sense: why shouldn’t Captain Eversea take me behind the bookcase in the library?

The way all kinds of rashness made sense when he was near. If only he hadn’t raised her dress up so high. He might never have seen the pistol at all.

Sweet merciful God. What was she thinking? Thank God he’d hiked her dress up that high, or God only knows what she would have done. And if a woman couldn’t hide a pistol up her thigh, then where could she hide it?

Chase turned her around to face him. Slowly.

She didn’t want to turn, but it wasn’t as though those hands of his gave her a choice. She was eye-level with his cravat now. She risked a look higher up.

His eyes glittered with all the warmth of a gun barrel. He mouthed the words broadly: Go. Down. Stairs.

He stared at her until she did what he seemed to want her to do: she nodded vigorously in comprehension.

Quietly, he added.

He didn’t add or else, but it was rather implied by his expression. She wondered what he intended to do.

Chase couldn’t just leap out from behind the bookshelf with his fading erection.

She waited.

He backed slowly, slowly, away from her, edging along the wall toward the entrance of the library again. Just the way she’d entered. One careful backward footstep at a time. He seemed to be listening hard, and Rosalind, breathless with nerves, listened, too; but none of the voices fell in volume or ceased chattering; nothing about the rhythm of their seemingly impromptu male gathering suggested they might know someone was spying or creeping backward or anything else.

He reached the entrance.

And then all at once Chase plunged forward with a hearty,

“Gentlemen!”

Rosalind gave a start.

“Wondering when you’d turn up, E’ershea!” Someone was drunk and had lost the ability to pronounce certain consonants.

“Chase!” said someone else in round aristocratic tones. Rosalind began to inch backward in just the same way Chase had. One light, gingerly light, backward footstep at a time.

“Captain!”

Much manly clapping of backs and clasping of hands seemed to be taking place. Slurred, profane, affectionate greetings, the sort she was accustomed to hearing among soldiers, were exchanged. She crept farther back; the wall was cold against the half-moon of her back exposed by her gown.

The corner around which she could disappear, and the hall, were so tantalizingly close.

Chase was talking. “Took a wrong turn in the house, gentlemen, and bumped into an old friend here, which is part of the pleasures of London. I cut it fine, I fear, and I thought I might have time to linger for a chat, but fear I must be on my way. On to another engagement.”

A chorus of protest rose up.

“Surely there’s no other place worth being tonight?” This was Kinkade’s refined voice; Rosalind recognized it, and damn it all, she wanted to talk to him, but she didn’t dare now.

She heard absolutely nothing from Chase by way of response, but he must have either winked or made a rude and illustrative manly gesture—she could simply picture it—because the men burst out laughing and hooting.

“You’re right, Eversea, that’s a place worth being at any time.” This was Kinkade, sounding sincere. “But thank you for gracing us with a moment of your presence, Captain. And do ride her once for me.”

Bloody hell. He was leaving? She thought he’d intended to stay with the men and was simply sending her away.

This was when she bolted.

The voices faded as she dashed down the hall, skirt gripped in her hands, face aflame, stomach a block of motivating ice-cold fear. Lit sconces were a blur as she rushed by them.

Her hair began to loosen; there was so much of it and the pins could only be counted on to hold it for so long, and down it came, a strand at a time.

She nearly skidded when she turned the hall corner. If she could only outrace him—surely she could outrace him now (and what an unworthy thought that was)—she wouldn’t have to face his wrath. She hadn’t the courage quite yet.

At last, there were the stairs, mercifully. She placed her hand on the cool, beautifully polished banister. She saw her face distorted in its shining surface as she launched herself down the marble steps, her slippers clacking down hard, her borrowed dress bunched carelessly in one fist to free her feet. She watched her slippers carefully, lest she fall. The flash of her toes hitting marble dizzied her.

And she came to a sudden abrupt halt.

A crowd clotted the foyer and the main door, of course. Damnation.

She plunged into the crowd with all the grace of a diver. She made a valiant go of it, gamely wending her way out of the door of the town house, weaving skillfully as a polo player through the silk and muslin and long-coated men, shaking off the long coats that snagged on her as she shoved past, taking a plume in the eye just once, leaving in her wake more than one indignantly squeaked “Oh!” as she elbowed through.

She saw the door. The brace of footmen. The tiny rectangle of dark outside. She felt the breeze of the night air.

And she was jerked to a halt by a large, hot hand gripping her elbow.

An experimental tug told her she wouldn’t be freeing herself with any ease.

She turned her head over the shoulder and flinched when she met angry blue eyes and a positively horizontal mouth. She gave another fruitless tug.

Where had he come from? Bloody fast, he was. “Abram cove,”

indeed.

“Duck your head,” he commanded. Low and cold, right in her ear, the tone brooked no argument.

He hurried her—marched her, rather—out of the door, clearing the way with his own height and his walking stick and willingness to step on toes, until they were once again into the blessedly cool-bycontrast night, his own head tucked into his chest to hide his face in order to protect her reputation.

She could feel the ever so slightly uneven gait as he dragged her down the stairs.

down the stairs.

Nauseatingly hard, swift heart thuds sent blood ringing in her ears. Why are you afraid of me? she’d asked him so many years ago. What an unforgivably green girl she’d been. Her taunting of him, her flirtations, her testing, had been because she was afraid of him—so much stronger, more certain of himself, was Captain Eversea. So seemingly impervious to her.

Her attempts to disarm him had been like so much hissing of a kitten.

She should have known better then. He’d had his limits. They’d both paid the consequences.

She should have known better now.

All she’d done for him, truly, was cause him grief, and between the two of them, they’d nearly shamed each other yet again. Her extremities were cold with fear despite the sultriness of the night. She couldn’t anticipate what he intended to do to her. Hers was a child’s temper compared to his.

He’d gotten her through the ball crowd, and they were on the street now, wending through the great diverse clog of hackneys and carriages of all vintages and quality. His gloved fingers were not quite digging into her arm, but still, it was not entirely comfortable.

“Where are your lodgings, Mrs. March? Are they close? Did you take a hackney here?”

Why were they going there? Was he merely escorting her home?

Hope and wild relief surged through her.

“Three streets over. Across the square. I’ve a small—” She was surprised when she heard her voice. A thin, frayed thing. His anger and tension made it difficult to speak.

“I’ve a house. Very close.”

The walk was unpleasant, fast and silent.

Gaslight newly installed in the district lit soft patches of cobblestone and left chessboards of darkness and light along the street. His arm was rigid; he was alert as a panther prepared to spring. His gait was only a trifle uneven. She half sensed he would welcome another attack, for at least he could spend some of his anger. She turned toward the house, got up the stairs, and her hand trembled. She fumbled endlessly with the key, and still his hand remained where it was, gripping her arm.

She got the door open. She turned to him, with a naively hopeful,

“Thank you, Captain Eversea. I bid you good—”

He pulled her into the house, closed the door with a certain amount of feeling.

And released her elbow at last.

She rubbed at it while he whipped off his coat and hat and arranged them with swift neatness in a stack on the table where her mail and invitations would have collected, had anyone been about to collect mail or invitations for her.

mail or invitations for her.

“Why,” he said, that soft-smoke voice far too reasonable, “the bloody hell are you wearing a pistol strapped to your thigh?”

Something had happened to her lungs. They seemed disconnected from the rest of her body. She couldn’t breathe. Then again, she couldn’t think or speak, either.

She could hear his breathing now, which could not bode well.

“I will ask again: why are you wearing a pistol strapped to your thigh, Mrs. March?”

“I—”

Suddenly he was on his knees before her, and before she could gasp, his hands roughly yanked up her dress. He swiftly looped her garter with a finger and sliced it with a frighteningly sharp knife that seemed to come from nowhere. The silk gave like butter under its blade and came away in his fingers.

He did the same with the other.

The gun fell heavily into his hand.

The tips of his fingers rested where the gun had been, on that satin, vulnerable skin between her legs. He left them there, her dress hiked to just above where her legs made a vee, parted just the width of the gun.

She was terrified, shivering.

And it was all she could do not to open her legs and invite him in, Oh please, please.

He looked into her face, his hand still hot on her bare thigh. His fingers spread, savoring her skin, tormenting her. Teasing her. Frightening her.

His eyes flared hotly at what he saw in her face. He dropped his eyes, steadying his own breath. And deliberately he slid his fingers down, down, away from her. Leaving a hot trail over her skin. Snagging briefly in her stockings.

And then he yanked down her dress.

And sat back in a chair.

All done in seconds.

She was speechless.

And he said nothing at all.

A moment passed while they both gathered composure. The breathing in the room seemed unnaturally loud.

The fire was a wan thing, and she wished she could poke it up a bit, but she hesitated to move just yet.

She could not have guessed what passed through his mind in that long stretch of wordlessness. Still, she did know when a tentative peace arrived, when the worst of his anger had ebbed. It was palpable.

“Tea?” she suggested tentatively.

His mouth quirked.

She stood. In the tiny kitchen she filled a kettle and put it on to boil. The maid had left a fire burning low.

When she returned to the sitting room, he was still studying the pistol. “Mathew’s,” he said.

She found her voice. It emerged subdued. “Yes. It was Mathew’s. I intended it for protection.”

“Protection.” He said this flatly. “Protection.” His head came up; he stared at her incredulously. “What if it fired while you were dancing a quadrille, ricocheted off the punch bowl, severed the chain above the chandelier, which then fell and crushed the cream of London society?”