She did not step back and invite him in because she was not even sure she wanted him to come in. She certainly did not wish to be an inconvenient obligation.
“I didn’t mean to keep you waiting,” he added with a dispirited nod of his head.
With half her body still shielded behind the door, she recognized stress lines in his expression, and began to wonder if his tardy appearance might not be what she thought. “Apology accepted,” she cautiously replied. “But why are you late? Did something happen?”
He turned to look down the corridor as if he didn’t quite know what to do with himself, then faced her again. “Can I come in?”
“Of course.” Curious, she stepped aside to let him pass, and closed the door. “I’m sorry the tea is cold.”
He walked all the way in and waved a hand as if to say it didn’t matter, then he sat down on the bed.
“What happened?” she asked.
He raked a hand through his hair again. “I have been accused of foul sailing tactics by your friend, Lord Breckinridge.” He looked up at her with fire in his eyes.
“I wouldn’t call him my
friend
,” she decisively informed him. “But what happened? What did he say?”
“It’s worse than what he simply said,” Martin replied. “It’s what he did. The man is a liar and a cheat, Evelyn, and I hope to God you never consent to become his wife.”
Taken aback, she probed for more information. “What in the world did he do?”
“He broke one of the laws of the sea by refusing to give way on a port tack, and we almost collided.”
“Good heavens. Was anyone hurt?”
“No, we’re all fine, but only because I made a last minute turn to avoid him, and then he had the gall to tell everyone at the Squadron that it was
me
—that I was the one on the port tack. He lied—he and Hatfield both—so it was our word against theirs. And we all know the world considers him
a perfect gentleman with a flawless reputation. He even had the audacity to bring up the boats I wrecked three years ago.” Martin’s fingers flexed over the edge of the mattress. “Not a day goes by that I don’t regret being so bloody foolish back then.”
Evelyn sat down beside him. “But you were devastated over the loss of your wife and child.”
“You’re very forgiving,” he said flatly, almost resentfully. “Not everyone is. There are many people here who think me a reckless sportsman and would like to see me fail.” He paused. “But do
you
believe me about today?”
“That you were not in the wrong? Of course.”
She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that despite his scandalous reputation, he was an honorable sailor and a gentleman on the water. Hatfield, on the other hand, she was not so sure about.
“And here I’ve kept you waiting for over an hour,” he said, his irritation beginning to diminish. “How very rude of me.”
She managed a smile. “You had a legitimate excuse.”
He shook his head. “I was fit to be tied an hour ago,” he said, “which is why I did not come. Spence tried to convince me to go back out on the water because he thought it was the only thing that would calm me down.”
She rubbed her hand over the top of his thigh. “If it calms you, why don’t you go?”
“Because I promised you more pleasures in bed, my dear, and I never break a promise to a lady.”
Her heart turned over in her chest. “Why don’t we go sailing together, then? And I will promise to release you of any obligation for sexual favors.”
Her magnanimous offer amused him. The lines of stress around his eyes disappeared. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go, but I want you beside me at the wheel. No one but you.”
“Why just me?” she asked shamelessly.
He hesitated—as if he had to think about how to answer that—then he spoke with affection and humor. “Because you distract me, of course, from the dastardly deeds of that cheat who calls himself a sailor. The same cheat who thinks himself worthy enough to be your husband—which he is not.”
Evelyn smiled, for she liked that answer. She liked it very much.
Martin stood. “Shall I go ready the
Orpheus
, then?
“Yes, Captain, if you please.”
S
hortly after sunset, Martin steered the
Orpheus
into a quiet cove and dropped anchor. The moon had already appeared low in the sky, and the wind had become a faint whisper through the creaking rigging.
As soon as the boat was secure, he approached Evelyn, who sat on deck near the wheel, smiling up at him. “Would you like some wine?” he asked.
“Please.”
He nodded and went below, lit a lamp and opened a bottle of his finest, then climbed back up the companionway with the wine and two glasses.
“You mean to tell me we’re not drinking out of the bottle to night?” she said.
“We can do anything you wish,” he said with a knowing glint in his eye.
She laughed and waved a hand. “No, I think I would like at least
some
propriety this evening.”
Holding both glasses in one hand, he tipped the bottle up and poured. “Should I be disappointed to hear that?”
Because he’d been very hopeful they would engage in a great deal of
im
propriety now that the anchor was over the side.
He set the bottle down. Evelyn accepted the glass he held out.
“I was referring to our consumption of fine wine,” she replied.
“Well, that’s a relief, I must say.” He sat down beside her and held up his glass. “To your beauty.”
She raised her glass as well. “And to your great success in the race.”
They both sipped the wine, then Evelyn slid closer to him. “Are you feeling better about what happened today? You were very agitated when you knocked on my door. I hope our sailing together had the desired effect.”
“I was indeed agitated, and I apologize. I should not have burdened you with that.”
“Of course you should have,” she argued, sounding stunned that he would suggest otherwise.
“What is a lover for if not to ease the hardships of life?”
He grinned. “I don’t think those are the hardships most people wish to ease with their lovers.”
She brushed the tip of her nose across his cheek. “You can ease any hardships you like with me, Martin.”
His body heated instantly with a rush of desire, which he felt almost painfully in his loins. “You are a temptress, Evelyn, but I want you to know, you are a great deal more than that as well. You were my safe harbor today. You reminded me that the race is not everything, nor is this boat, which is something I often forget. I want to thank you for that.”
She smiled, and he pressed his lips tenderly to hers, holding her in the moonlight while the boat rocked beneath them. Her lips tasted of sweet wine, her skin smelled of roses. She sighed with pleasure, and he needed no further bidding as his pulse began to pound with insistence.
He set down his glass and brushed his lips across her soft neck, then whispered in her ear, “Let me make love to you.”
“I thought you would never ask.”
He stood and led her down the companionway, below to the cozy, private forward berth. Shadows from the lamp on the bulkhead danced across the walls as the boat dipped on the gentle nighttime swells. Evelyn removed her spectacles and set
them on a shelf, then pulled the pins from her hair and shook it loose down her back. God, but she was an exquisite woman. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.
They crawled into the master’s quarters and sank down on the soft mattress, entwined in each other’s arms. Martin captured her lips in his own and wondered how long it had been since he’d felt such fiery depths of yearning for more than just the promise of one night with a woman. He didn’t wish this to be everything. He wanted more from her, and he wanted to
give
her more. He felt the strangest compulsion to reveal things to her and confess things he’d never confessed to anyone, which rather unnerved him.
But it was not something he wished to contemplate too carefully when she was here in his bed, eager for the pleasure he intended to give her.
Kneeling back, he undressed her slowly, beginning with the buttons on her bodice, then moving down to her skirts. Next he removed her undergarments—her corset and drawers and chemise. She lay patiently looking up at him, and when she was naked at last, he let his eyes feast leisurely upon her lovely face, her beautiful breasts and firm belly, and down to the narrow triangle of bushy brown hair between her legs, to which he would soon give his full care and attention.
Just the thought of it made him swell and
stiffen. He began his own disrobing, and seconds later, he, too, was nude in the berth, sliding his arm around her narrow waist and passing his lips across hers. She quivered with delight and strained upward, and he slid his hand down, feeling for the soft warm paradise between her thighs. She moistened at his touch.
Their tongues meshed wildly together, and she slipped her own hand down and wrapped it around his heated erection. Her body was warm and tender beside him, her thighs spreading wide, her sweet mouth open beneath his own.
He rolled over on top of her and licked eagerly over her nipples, which were hard as dark cherries and every bit as sweet. He was convinced no woman’s breasts were as beautiful, or so thoroughly licked and pleasured as hers were in those frenzied moments while he tasted them.
She wiggled and worked her bottom, rubbing her pubic hair against his stomach until he could delay no longer. He’d been wanting to make love to her all day, and it was all he could do to keep from exploding before he’d done all he could to give her the full mea sure of his abilities.
“We have all night,” he whispered, needing to apologize in advance for his eagerness, and vowing to give her everything he was capable of before dawn, “but I must have you now, Evelyn. I must.”
“I want you, too. I thought of nothing else all day. I can’t wait any longer.”
Their eyes locked on each other as he rose on one arm and reached down with the other hand to guide his way to her damp, primed opening. With a groan he slid some two inches into her, then withdrew and returned for the full onslaught of his passions. She implored him to drive deeper by cupping his buttocks in her hands and gyrating her hips as he drew in and out with unstoppable lust.
“Open wider,” he growled, and she readily obeyed, throwing her head back on the pillows and gasping with hungry desire.
He rose on one arm again and dipped his face to suck furiously on one of her breasts, while the friction below sent an excruciating fire through his body. He made love to her with everything he possessed as a man, watching her face, studying her responses and wanting only to pleasure her in every possible way. She was a pure angel. She deserved everything wonderful he could give her.
Soon, her fingers dug into the flesh at the small of his back and she bucked wildly beneath him and cried out into the night, arching her back, throbbing and flexing around his burning, blissful erection. He plunged down hard, crushing her soft form beneath him as she continued to climax;
then, when he was sure she was fully satisfied, he pulled out and exploded and poured onto her belly with a tremendous gushing of breathless pleasure.
“Oh, Captain Martin,” she sighed, her arms falling limp on either side of her as he rolled off her onto his back. “Did you say we had all night?”
He wasn’t sure he had the strength to speak. “I did.”
“Then I think I died and went to heaven.”
“I must have died and gone with you.”
They lay together in the quiet cabin, the boat bobbing up and down on the swells beneath their bodies, and Martin thought perhaps he
had
gone to heaven. He had not felt such contentment in a long time and didn’t want to let it go.
What would it be like to come home to Evelyn and share his bed like this with her every night? he wondered curiously. To keep her forever as the only woman in his life, and never say good-bye?
The very fact that he was asking himself that question sent a jolt of apprehension straight to his core for all that it implied. He did not want to be a husband or father again. That’s not why he’d entered into this affair. He’d entered into it for pleasure’s sake because he could not resist her, and she’d assured him that was all she wanted as well. It was not a courtship for the purpose of marriage. That much he knew, as did she. He could not let himself forget that.
Over the next four days, Evelyn and Martin went sailing together whenever they could sneak away unnoticed. They spent countless hours braving the wind and waves around the western tip of the island, and when they weren’t relaxing on board the
Orpheus
in calm waters, they were sailing her to her limits, reaching tremendous speeds and testing themselves with complicated maneuvers. At night, if they weren’t on the boat, they were making love in his hotel room or hers, and talking about anything and everything.
Though they never discussed the future beyond the week’s end.
Of course Martin had to prepare for the race as well, so on the fifth day, he and his crew took the
Orpheus
out, while Evelyn spent time with Lady Radley, browsing in the shops and socializing on the back lawn of the yacht club. They talked and gossiped, but she avoided questions about her whereabouts on various occasions when she was otherwise “occupied,” as she did not wish to share the details of her intimacies with Martin. She was hiding the particulars in the very deepest places in her heart. Not even Lady Radley would be privy to them, even though the sweet woman would undoubtedly applaud Evelyn for her choice to enjoy herself this week.
Although to imply that she was merely “enjoying” herself was not entirely accurate, for her
feelings went far deeper than that. These days with Martin had been the most exciting, passionate of her life, and she was quite sure she had fallen hopelessly, irreversibly in love with him. She had come to know his heart and soul and understood his joys and desires as well as his sorrows, and she longed for him to be happy.
And that night, when she saw him at the ball on board the steamship
Dartmouth
, after being away from him all day, it was the best she could do to remain on the other side of the room, sipping champagne while anticipating the moment he would ask her to dance. At last it came. He approached, looking devastatingly handsome in his black-and-white formal attire, his dark hair thick and wavy about his shoulders. He had attracted the gaze of every woman in the room and had charmed everyone he spoke to. She felt fire in her blood when he requested a spot on her card, along with a spot on Lady Radley’s and also on Mrs. Studebaker’s, who was a distant cousin of the host. The two ladies giggled and fanned themselves after he left, while Evelyn merely sipped her drink, masking her true feelings with cool composure.
Meanwhile, Lord Breckinridge and Mr. Hatfield remained on the opposite side of the room. They did not speak to Martin, nor did he speak to them, and if anyone was still chattering about the near collision, they did not speak of it openly, at
least not in front of Evelyn. Perhaps all was forgotten. She hoped it was. She hoped it had truly been a misunderstanding.
Later, after a number of lively dances, the moment arrived. Martin found her and led her onto the floor to claim his dance.
They behaved as if they were nothing more than polite acquaintances, even though Evelyn became feverish from the mere touch of his hand upon her back. They danced the entire piece with gazes locked, never speaking a word, until the very end when he escorted her back to the Radleys.
“I will knock on your door later,” he said, leaning so close, she felt the heat of his breath in her ear and shivered with anticipation.
“I’ll be waiting,” she replied, before she thanked him at the edge of the dance floor. He bowed respectfully and left her with her companions.
Strangely, at that moment, something prompted her to look toward Lord Breckinridge. He was watching her with a frown. As soon as their eyes met, however, he smiled and raised his glass to her, and she nodded in return. Later, she danced with him as well, and he behaved as he always did. He was meticulously polite.
That night in bed, Martin made love to Evelyn in the balmy heat of summer, losing himself completely in the sweet lushness between her thighs
and the delectable flavor of her lips. He simply could not get enough of her, and there were moments—moments like these, when he was deep inside the soft warmth of her flesh—when he actually forgot why he had come to Cowes in the first place. He had to remind himself that he was here to defend his title as champion of the race. He was not here to have sex every hour of the day and become sleep-deprived, which was exactly what was happening. His speech had been slurred that afternoon when they’d rounded the northeastern point of the island because he’d been up all night with fire in his blood and an angel in his bed.
God help him, if he had to skipper a boat right now, he’d run it aground, because his brain was throbbing with nothing but the need to drive himself home, to grind himself up onto Evelyn’s shore with the thrust of a fierce, foaming rogue wave. It was madness, complete and utter madness, and it had commandeered his brain—for on top of his negligence as a competitor in the race, he was in danger of taking another chance tonight, for he did not want to withdraw.
Just then, the headboard began to bang against the wall. He stopped what he was doing and shoved a pillow down between it and the wall to stop the racket, and immediately resumed his pace.
Beneath him, Evelyn’s tiny moans brought him
closer to the brink, until he felt the first squeezing pulsations of her orgasm. She arched her back and cried out, and he tried to hold off just a few seconds more, but couldn’t. All at once, his own climax loomed. His body hummed and quaked, but before he spilled into her, he heard the ever-present voice of caution in his head. He pulled out at the last second and climaxed so explosively, the product of his pleasure hit the headboard.
“God in heaven!” he ground out, his body convulsing.
“God in heaven is right! The driving force of that would have put a child in my womb for sure.”
She was joking, he knew, but he could not laugh. Her words sobered him, made him realize how many chances they had taken this week, even though it was supposed to be a safe time. He had been careless too often and feared he was losing control.