Lady Doctor Wyre (2 page)

Charlotte was so proud of that coverlet that she had become quite attached to it. It felt wonderful and luxurious, so alien on this forsaken colony. The secret finery amused her, for not even the ladies in York would easily possess so much silk, thanks to the blockade. But it also served as a grim reminder of all that she’d lost. Once upon a time as a young woman heading her House, she’d ruled the
ton
as Queen Majel ruled the Empire. She’d set the fashion for the Season. She’d determined who would succeed at Court and who would fail miserably, signaled by Lady Wyre’s cut sublime.

Yet with all those delightful distractions, she’d been unable to keep her curiosity contained. What had started as a hobby began to consume her interests until she rarely made an appearance in Town, and the few times she did, everyone had stared and whispered about her oddity. They reviled her more than the lowly medical doctor, for she, Duchess and Lady of House Wyre, dared to dabble in technology, the realm of the Military Intelligence & Galaxy Sciences division, not the lauded aristocracy.

Certainly no proper lady of her station would stoop to soil her hands in
sciences
. The horror!

Even the loss of her position in society hadn’t deterred her foolishness, until in the end, she’d created the very technology that allowed the Empire to devastate world after world after world. Stupid, arrogant, risky, yes, but every cell in her body burned to return to that dangerous research.

So many regrets, not the least would be losing this honorable man who viewed her with such respect. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she tugged the queue out of Gil’s hair and combed her fingers through the heavy dark mass that hung to his shoulders. Now the respectable sheriff resembled a wild beast, and the way he looked at her with those dark, intent eyes made her feel like a very luscious meal indeed.

“Why now?”

Which she knew he’d wished to ask,
Why me?
She cupped his face, forcing her fingers to gentleness not raging hunger. “I’ve wanted you for a very long time, Gil.”

“You have a very odd way of showing your affection,” he grumbled. “I meant every word, Charlotte. I’d be a good husband to you. I want to protect you.” His eyes darkened, narrowed and intense. “From everything and everyone.”

Despite her refusal, desire smoldered, licking her flesh with hunger. She wanted to strip him bare and survey every magnificent inch. “I know.”

Since there were no ladies maids to be had on the colony, the women had adopted simple gowns that were easy to remove. A few buttons, a twist of her hips, and she stood before him clad in her last treasured luxuries. She had mended her stockings a time…or ten…but she loved the delicate pink shade and prayed they’d last forever. Of course, she also wore a corset, which had to be one of the most ridiculously fantastic things Gil Masters had ever seen by the way he ogled her.

She couldn’t help but chuckle as she sauntered toward her silk-clad bed. “Haven’t you ever seen proper underclothes before, Sheriff?”

“But where…how…” He swallowed so hard she heard the gulp, as though he’d swallowed his own tongue. “I didn’t think the ladies wore such…
unmentionables
…here.”

“There are many things in this galaxy that I’ve been forced to live without, but I will always at least have proper, pretty underclothes, even if I must pay an exorbitant amount to the tailor to have him construct a corset which I can tighten myself.”

She sat on the edge of her bed. Holding his gaze, she lifted an arched foot to best show off the rare stockings. Slowly, she loosened the pink ribbon holding the silk at her knees and inch by inch rolled the stocking down her calf.

He made a low, ragged sound, whether growl or curse she didn’t know, but he attacked his own clothes, shucking the ugly brown coat and equally coarse breeches in record time. By the time he pushed down his drawers and jerked the linen shirt over his head, she had a most unladylike moisture in her mouth and, yes, between her thighs.

Sheriff Gil Masters was a fine male specimen. Not even the greatest scientific advances she’d ever dared dream in this galaxy could possibly improve on his musculature. His skin fit as tight as a fine glove, gliding over muscle and sinew and bone. He was thicker, more muscular and taller than most men on Britannia, his spirit and energy burning with a healthy glow. She’d long argued that Society’s ridiculous rules had inbred the Great Houses for so long that they were destroying themselves with their own rigid bloodlines.

This was a man who’d worked all his adult life scraping a living out of nothing but dirt. She had no idea why he’d chosen to become a colonist, but he’d been successful, even if this colony had earned the wrath of Britannia by revolting. Colonel and Sheriff of Queenstown, he was respected and well-liked. They had only modest crime in this pastoral town, nothing like York or Bostonia.

He had no need of a blooded House to protect him or a useless title to gain him a decent wife.

No, he chose me
, she reminded herself sadly. She averted her gaze, overwhelmed by shame.
It’s not right for me to dally with this honorable man when I know I cannot give him a future that won’t cause his death.

He touched her, his fingers gliding under her chin to tilt her face back to him. The calluses on his palms made her quiver, her inner thighs slick with longing. How his hands could be so rough yet gentle she had no idea.

Eyes solemn, he repeated, “Why?”

Her throat was so constricted that she could barely get the words out. “Because I would regret never loving you when I die, even though I know it’s despicable for me to use you like this.”

His eyes flared. “Use me, my lady, I beg you. Love me, and then allow me to serve at your side.”

Automatically, his shoulders tensed into a protective stance, which only served to break her heart all over again. No one could protect her from the wrath of Queen Majel. No one but herself. But oh, it was so sweet to have him care enough that he wished he could help her.

She pressed her mouth to his, lingering over the fullness of his lips and the slightly bitter taste of coffee on his tongue. For once, she actually found herself craving that foul brew, for it tasted like magic from his mouth. Or maybe it was those big hands gliding down her bare arms. She shivered and pushed against him, shifting anxiously, begging for more of his touch while her fingers flew down the front laces of her corset.

She threw the last of her finery aside without heed, too hungry for the warmth of his skin. Sliding her palms over the wide expanse of his chest, she found a puckered scar low on his left shoulder. Further investigation revealed a matching scar on his back. Sobered, she pushed him flat on his back in her bed and began a thorough investigation of his body for other injuries.

“It’s merely an old Indian wound.” Unconcerned, he reached up to pull her down atop him, but she shook her head while she probed the scar. He had no discernable loss of use of the limb. No blackened marks surrounded the skin about the wound, so it hadn’t been a lazor. The cutting burn from such a weapon would have likely cost him his entire arm.

The colonials had used antique powder-shot pistols in their revolt, but a wound created by such a weapon would have left a scattered pocked pattern of burns. This wound was clean. Using her fingers, she estimated the width of the projectile, prodding the underlying muscle hard enough he grunted.

Whatever had struck him had been fired with enough force to penetrate his body completely, but the back wound was as neat and tidy as the front. So not a manufactured piercing bullet from Bei-Jing, or the exit hole would have been as large as her fist. “What manner of weapon made this wound?”

“An Iroqux arrow.”

She cocked her head and let her fingers tap restlessly against his chest as she tried to remember details about Indian uprisings. Most had occurred when the colonists first arrived, because the natives had naturally protected their land. However, backed by Britannia’s might and fueled by their own determination, the colonists had easily driven back the Indians into the forests and mountains from which they’d come. She hadn’t heard of an Indian uprising in ages, and she had no idea what their weapons looked like exactly, but she must respect them if they left such a wound.

“They use long, smooth sticks of wood capped by a sharp stone tip and shoot them from hand-hewn bows,” Gil explained. “My squad found a bow after a skirmish and it was a hard draw, even for me.”

“Weren’t you wearing any body armor?”

“Not yet. But you may wager we started wearing it soon after.”

Intrigued, she couldn’t help but picture such a weapon. While primitive, it had managed to pierce a man. Stone could be very sharp, and since it wasn’t metallic, it would be impervious to certain technological invasions, like her nanobot dissemblers that loved to eat metal or simply broke down any compound into its various parts. A dissembler would have a difficult time chewing on stone.

Wood would be easily destroyed though, and from great distances…

A sharp sting on her neck jerked her attention back to him.

Gil had sat up enough to nip her neck. “Are you honestly more interested in primitive warfare than a man lying naked and ready beneath you?”

Smiling down at him with a deliberately wicked light in her eyes, she took him inside her without a single preliminary warning. This first time, she had no need of preparation, for once her mind had decided to take Gil to her bed, her body had been more than eager to attack.

His gasp made her hesitate. She’d assumed a man of his age, living the life of a colonist far from the strict morals of Britannia’s Court, would have plenty of sexual experience, but perhaps she’d been mistaken. If she’d ruined a first experience for him…

“Don’t stop,” he groaned. “It’s been too long. I can’t…wait!”

Urgency tightened his body beneath her, so she rode him hard, giving him the frantic need that bubbled inside her. Gritting his teeth, he clutched her hips and fought back his own release, but his hands were not where she wanted them. She pried his right hand off her hip and pressed that big, rough palm to her breast. Covering his hand with hers, she massaged and kneaded, dragging that rough skin over her nipple until her head fell back on a low moan of bliss.

A quick study, he cupped her other breast, rubbing and squeezing and torturing her nipples until she shuddered. Shifting her weight forward slightly, she ground against him, twisting and shaking as climax swept through her. His big frame flexed beneath her, his hips arching on his own cry of release, but he never ceased rubbing her breasts.

Stretching out atop of him, she smiled down at the glazed look in his eyes. “Now, dear sir, I want you to rub those incredible hands all over my body.”

His dark eyes gleamed and he curled his sensual lips into a lazy smile. “T’would be my great honor, my lady, as long as I may start…” his palm slid down her back to cup her backside firmly, “…here.”

Lying with her head pillowed on Gil’s chest, Charlotte tried to be fully at ease, but her mind refused to cooperate. Hours of lovemaking should have left her replete and limp with pleasure, for her lover had been most diligent and vigorous. However, the more he moved her heart with his fervent gentleness, the more she longed to tell him of her past, no matter how dangerous it would be for them both.
I ought to explain a bit, if only to help him understand why I can’t have him for forever.

Gathering her courage, she whispered, “I left Britannia seven years ago and I can never go back.”

“It matters not to me, as long as you allow me to protect you.” He kissed the top of her head and tightened his arms about her so she could barely breathe.

As though he seeks to keep me at his side forever.
Silly man.
Her throat tightened and her eyes burned with emotion.
He’s the one who needs protection.

“As your husband, I would do anything to keep you safe. We can sail far from here. Hell, we can find an uncharted planet and start our own colony.”

Most untitled men would give their first born son to marry into a prestigious House, while Gil was ready to leave even the modest comforts of this colony behind. Of course, he didn’t know exactly how titled she was, although he surely suspected she was of noble blood. He didn’t even sound shocked that she never intended to go back to Britannia.

Certainly the parties and dances of the Season were in full swing, building with desperate gaiety at the Solstice’s approach. The longer the nights became, the more frantically the Houses would party, as though they could ignore the insidious creep of the blackness that would soon settle over the center of the galaxy.

How ironic that Americus—an insignificant hunk of rock barely more than a moon—could cause an eclipse that darkened the most advanced civilization in the galaxy. The colony planet was a fraction of the size of Britannia, but when the planets aligned on the seventh Solstice, tiny Americus was exactly the right size and distance from their great sun to cause a total solar eclipse, casting the capital of Londonium into full shadow for nearly an hour.

Since the rebellion, the eclipse had taken on new meaning, both to Britannia and the colonists, for if one small colony could revolt and declare their independence, then why not others? Many of the planets conquered by Britannia were assimilated into the Empire because of their weaponry or technology. When they conquered a planet, they took what they wanted, killed any of the natives which dared to object, and if necessary, infected them with biological and technological weapons.

Many that I enabled them to create.

Charlotte squeezed her eyes shut to hold the tears inside. “They think I’m dead and I must stay that way. You’ll never be safe with me, Gil. Never.”

Loosening his fierce grip, he let his fingers roam up and down her spine, a soothing waltz that melted her shame and made words clog her throat. It was all she could do to hold back the wretched truth. But if she told him the secrets still buried deep in her mind, he’d become a target of the Crown. Already, he knew too much. If anyone came to Queenstown asking for information about a woman who fit her description… The Guards would drag him off to the Tower and peel back every layer of skin while they scoured his mind.