Historical Romance Boxed Set (41 page)

* * *

Alexandra was awakened by a gentle hand stroking her arm. The sun was setting and its rays filled the room with a golden light as she glanced up to see Nathaniel watching her.

“Are you all right?” she murmured.

“You could make me better,” he replied, giving her a crooked grin.

She batted her eyelids coyly. “Meaning…”

“Meaning it’s about time you made good on that offer you made me at Gunther’s place. Didn’t you say you wouldn’t charge me a farthing for an hour or so with your glorious body?” He reached over to cup her chin in his palm and began kissing her neck.

The feather-light touch of his lips made Alexandra shiver. “I was speaking hypothetically,” she reminded him.

“Well, the hypothetical is here.” He lowered his mouth to where her dress gaped away from her chest and tickled the swell of each breast with his tongue. “I never pegged you as the type to go back on a bargain.”

She tried to bat him away, but the attempt was halfhearted at best. “Unlike someone else I know,” she replied, lowering her eyelids as desire pooled, warm in her belly. “What was it last time? A trip to shore for a kiss? “

His smile broadened. “Don’t worry, I don’t plan to cheat you this time. I plan to take my time and give you all you want and more.” He slowly undid the buttons of her dress and pushed it off her shoulders to below her bust. Admiration filled his eyes as his gaze lowered. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered. “Even more beautiful than I imagined.”

Alexandra could see his outline in the dwindling light, the aristocratic features, the strong chin, the square jaw. She’d removed his shirt before checking his wound, and the muscles of his torso rippled smoothly beneath his bronze skin as he moved. Nathaniel was thinner, but his body was no less defined for all his ill treatment. In repose, his face could look boyish, especially when his dark hair fell across his brow. But when he was filled with hate or anger—or passion, like now—the planes of his face looked chiseled from stone.

Luxuriating in the heat their bodies generated, Alexandra let her fingers travel up his bare arm. He closed his eyes as her hand moved onto his chest, where she spread both palms against him, feeling the softly curling hair that grew there.

“See? I don’t bite,” he whispered hoarsely. Nipping at her ear, he added, “Not hard, anyway. Do you remember that time I walked in on you after your bath on the
Vengeance?”

Alexandra nodded. “How could I forget? You looked as though you might eat me for dinner.”

He chuckled. “A promise I still intend to fulfill.”

“We can talk about the past,” she said, “but please, don’t let me think about tomorrow.”

Nathaniel pulled back to look at her with shocking intensity. “You can’t go into this blind, Alexandra. I don’t know what my future holds, or when, if ever—”

She raised a finger to his lips. She didn’t want to think. She wanted only to relish the way his hand moving over her body made her quiver like the most delicate note of a harp vibrating on the air. Nathaniel was not the one she had always pictured in her dreams. In fact, he was almost the opposite. He was headstrong, sometimes arrogant, definitely dangerous. His emotions were palpable and often tempestuous. She couldn’t see him in the role she had assigned to her calm, steady, imaginary husband.

But she could picture no one else as her lover. No one else could possess her body—and her soul—like she knew he could.

She pressed her ear to his chest to hear the steady thump of his heart until Nathaniel once again lifted her chin and found her mouth with his own. His lips were soft but firm as they moved with mounting pressure. The warm, velvety softness of his tongue slid into her mouth. Yielding, Alexandra let herself be carried away by the passion that swirled about them like a river’s strong current, pulling her away from safety to some unknown destination.

Nathaniel left her lips to trail kisses down her throat, stopping only when her hands delved into the thickness of his hair to pull him back for more. The unforgiving muscle of his body, the unique smell of the sweat glistening on his torso, and the budding desire to know him in a way she had never known a man created a heady mixture that put sanity safely out of reach. How long had she imagined this moment? No matter how many times she had tried to force away any thought of Nathaniel making love to her, such visions had encroached on her dreams, slowly ensuring her heart won the battle with her head.

His large hand cupped her breast, circling below it and lifting it for his examination as though he saw some magnificent work of art. He traced its swell from her collarbone to its very tip, then his mouth lowered to take her nipple between his lips and to tease it with his tongue.

Alexandra’s stomach did a somersault, and she arched toward him as he moved from one nipple to the other.

Pulling her dress down to her waist, Nathaniel’s eyes followed his hand along the flat planes of her stomach.

Alexandra felt a moment of self-consciousness and was tempted to cover herself, but something more powerful wanted no barriers between them. Reaching out, she fiddled with the buttons of his breeches, and his hand quickly moved to help her.

He slid his pants off his lean hips, and Alexandra gasped at the sight of his maleness. Never had she seen a man without his clothes; the sight nearly melted her bones.

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered, hearing the wobble in her voice as his hand began to seek out the most private parts of her body. “You’ll have to guide me.”

“Everything will come naturally,” he said, but her words seemed to give him pause. After a moment he lay without moving, as though trying to rein in his desire.

Finally he rolled away, his face set. “We can’t do this.”

Alexandra stared at him, willing herself to feel something besides a longing so powerful she almost reached out to pull him back to her. The quiet, safe existence she had always wanted seemed less important than having Nathaniel fulfill the promise his body had already given hers. “I want to feel you inside me,” she whispered. “Don’t stop.”

He closed his eyes, breathing deeply through his nose, but didn’t speak.

“What’s wrong? Don’t you want this?” she asked.

Moving beyond touching distance, as though he feared the slightest contact, he sat on the edge of the bed with his head bowed. “I’m wanted by the authorities. It’s bad enough that I must leave you in London on your own. I won’t deflower you as well. What if I leave you with child?”

Alexandra tried to slow the pounding of her heart by taking several carefully measured breaths. She almost said that she didn’t care, that she’d welcome a child of his. But she knew he was right. How would she care for a baby? She had no job, no home. And would she want to bear a child that would never know its father? It was only a matter of time before the duke—or the constabulary—caught up with Nathaniel to take him away forever.

She watched him scrub the whiskers on his face with his hand and nearly drew him back to her, in spite of everything, when a knock sounded on their door.

“Where’s my money, wench?” the innkeeper shouted through the panel.

Chapter 20

“Open up!”

Nathaniel reached for the pistol he’d left at the side of the bed, but Alexandra motioned for him to lie back and be silent. Coming to her feet, she threw the covers over him and quickly repaired her clothing before crossing to the door and cracking it open.

“I don’t know why my, er, friend isn’t here yet,” she said, hearing the breathless quality to her own voice. “I’ll send a messenger to fetch him right away.”

The innkeeper scratched his crotch. “Ye got an ‘our.” He tried to peer around her. “I thought I ‘eard voices.”

“I’m alone now, but I won’t be for long. My friend should arrive any moment.”

“That’s what ye said before.” He sniffed, apparently reluctant to go. Only when Alexandra shut the door in his face did he finally lumber away.

She turned to face Nathaniel, suddenly embarrassed and uncomfortable in light of what had just transpired between them. “I’ve got to find Trenton. Do you know where Marley House is?”

Nathaniel threw the blankets back, and Alexandra looked away as he set his gun on the table and began pulling on his clothes. The blackness of his mood showed in the scowl on his face. “That man needs to learn some respect.”

“But you are not the one to teach him. We definitely don’t need you shooting someone right now,” she said.

He fumbled with his trousers. Guessing how difficult buttons would be with only one arm, Alexandra nearly moved to help him, but she dared not get so close again.

“The next time he speaks to you in that tone, I’ll shoot him for good measure,” he grumbled, but he gave her the directions she needed.

Alexandra smoothed her hair before the mirror. She could see Nathaniel in the glass and felt a sudden impulse to go to him and kiss his brow. Instead, she crossed to the door. “Just be good, for once, all right? I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

With that she headed out, but Nathaniel called her back. “Perhaps you should take this.” He groaned as he reached for the gun. “I don’t want you out on the streets alone. It’ll be dark soon.”

“I wouldn’t know how to use it anyway.” Alexandra waved the pistol away. “I’ll be fine,” she insisted, and closed the door behind her, grateful that the obese innkeeper was absent from his post behind the counter when she passed through the lobby.

* * *

Nearly two hours passed before Alexandra returned to the inn with Trenton. The trip to Marley House had been quick and uneventful, but Trenton had been gone when she first arrived and she’d had to wait.

“So there ye are,” the innkeeper said when he saw her.

“Yes, I’m back. And I’ve got your money.” She stepped aside so Trenton could pay for the room.

“Ye got yerself quite a business goin’.” He watched Alexandra closely. “The bloke in yer room can scarcely move, ‘e’s so tired.”

Trenton shot Alexandra a questioning glance.

“You didn’t disturb him, did you?” she asked, fear knotting her stomach once again.

The man dangled a key in front of her face, and Alexandra assumed it was the master key to her room. “Took a peek, is all. I knew ye ‘ad someone in there.”

Evidently reading the concern on her face, he added, “But don’t worry, I didn’t bother ‘im. ‘E’s sleepin’ like a babe, ‘e is. I’ll tell ye somethin’, though. I’ll not stand for ye to entertain one gentleman after another under my roof”—he thumped his huge chest between breasts nearly the size of Alexandra’s—”without some kind of compensation.” He eyed Trenton as if expecting an objection from that quarter, but Nathaniel’s first mate only scowled.

“How much?” Trenton pulled a wad of notes from his pocket, obviously eager to dispense with the man so they could get to Nathaniel.

Alexandra hurried to the room ahead of Trenton. Throwing the door back, she rushed inside, calling Nathaniel’s name.

He stirred. “Hmm?”

Alexandra let out a sigh of relief. “Trenton’s here, but first let me check your bandages.” She maneuvered Nathaniel gently to his side to check his wounds, which looked fine, then let him roll back as Trenton entered.

“Nathaniel.” Trenton strode across the room to clasp Nathaniel’s hand.

Nathaniel smiled. “Am I glad to see you. How’s my crew?”

“They’re a sad lot without their captain. They all blame themselves for letting Rat escape, but it was my fault. I was in charge. I should have kept a closer eye on him. I’m sorry, my friend.”

“You had no way of knowing what he’d do.”

Trenton smiled sheepishly. “Or that you’d stay in London so long.”

“Something here caught my fancy.” Nathaniel shot a glance at Alexandra. “Where’s the
Royal Vengeance?”

“Waiting in Calais. I thought she’d be safer in France.”

“Good. And what about the guns?”

Trenton shrugged. “I’ve kept up with the rent on the warehouse. We just have to go pick them up. I heard from the Lord High Admiral just yesterday. He wants to see the rifles for himself.”

“When?”

“Next week. But without witnesses of some kind, besides ourselves, I doubt we can convince him.”

“We’ll find witnesses. I doubt we discovered the only shipment, which means there are probably others who know about the guns. If we can get the Lord High Admiral to start an investigation the whole thing should unravel.”

Nathaniel smiled. “And if that happens, my father had better enjoy his days as a free man, because he won’t have many of them remaining.”

* * *

That night Alexandra slept on the bed beside Nathaniel while Trenton snored in the chair by the window, but she got little sleep. She was too aware of the pirate captain, and she knew he wrestled with the same desire she did.

Once, as she lay facing the wall, she felt him touch her hair. She squeezed her eyes shut and lay perfectly still until he shifted in the bed and turned away. She longed to feel his arm around her, but at the same time, she knew they’d never be satisfied with that alone.