The Admiral's Penniless Bride (15 page)

‘I don’t know. Let’s close up the house and ship out to Capri.’

‘I think you’re restless on land.’

‘I know I am, Sophie dear. I’d give almost anything to walk a quarterdeck about now.’

So that was it. She moved her leg slightly and he remem
bered where his hand was. ‘Excuse me. You can overlook that, can’t you?’

She nodded. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have retired.’

‘It was time. Finished with that?’ He hooked the cup handle neatly out of her grasp and set it back in its saucer. ‘I had seen all the blood flowing from the scuppers, eaten all the mouldy bread and gelatinous water, and smelled all the bilge I ever wanted to. After twenty years of war, and a total of almost thirty-five years in the Royal Navy, I was sick to death of it.’

‘Oh, my,’ she said. ‘But you still bought a manor that juts out into the water. I don’t believe there is a room in this house without a sea view.’

‘I made sure of that sea view from every window. I still love the ocean. I always will. Maybe I’m more full of contradictions than a tightly wound woman.’

She had to laugh at that. ‘No you’re not! You just need to figure out what to do with the rest of your life.’

‘True.’ He got off her bed and went to the window. He looked at her for a long while, then returned to sit beside her. He took her hand. ‘Sophie, I never thought to survive the war. I doubt any man in the fleet did. Do you realise that we officers and men sleep in our coffins at sea? If I had died in action, they would have weighted me down with cannonballs, sewed me into my sleeping cot and chucked me over the side.’ He put her hand to his cheek. ‘Only Nelson was small enough to fit into a butt of brandy and return to land!’ He smiled. ‘We will agree he was a bit more of an icon, too.’

He looked at her hand, but did not let go of her. ‘Well. Something works in a man’s mind, when he sleeps in his own coffin and spends every livelong day in the tension of battle.’

‘Every day?’ she asked, keeping her voice soft, not
wanting to interrupt the flow of his thoughts. Andrew had never been one to open up with problems and she found herself deeply moved by this practical stranger. Except that he was no stranger. Maybe from the moment he sat down in that pew at St Andrew’s, he was no stranger to her. ‘Even during the slow times at sea?’

‘Even then. We sent men up into the crosstrees to watch for foreign sails, but I don’t know a commander worth his salt who was not always looking, too. Oh, God, wife, when you command a whole fleet, that vigilance is magnified exponentially. My mind is tired and I still pace. How can I forget?’

Sophie knew she would never question what she did then, if it was to be the only time or the first of many.
Rivka said I should think with my heart
, she told herself, as she gently extracted her hand from his and got up. She saw the disappointment in his eyes, but she knew it wouldn’t last, not when she crossed to the door and turned the key in the lock.

She could hardly feel her bare feet on the carpet as she walked back to the bed, unbuttoned her nightgown and slowly dropped it. She could feel her face begin to flame, but she kept her eyes on his, noting how they took in her nudity. He began to breathe more quickly. She touched his head and moved close to him. He rested his cheek against her bare belly. She felt his eyelids close.

‘There now,’ she murmured. ‘There now.’
I wish I weren’t so thin
, she thought.
I wish a lot of things right now.

After a long moment, he opened his eyes and looked up at her. His hand went to the buttons of his shirt and then to his harness. ‘Help me out of this,’ he ordered, his voice sounding almost rusty.

She did as he said, sitting beside him, helping to free
him of his shirt and then undoing the clasp at his neck, which held the harness together.

A modest woman, Sophie had never done this in broad daylight. As she helped Charles undo the buttons on his already bulging trousers, then climbed back into bed, she thought of all the times in the last year of his life she had wanted to comfort Andrew and he had rejected her. When her head was pillowed on the admiral’s arm, and his fingers were gently tracing the outline of her breast, she didn’t think about Andrew any more.

C
harles had one rational thought, before instinct reigned.
Was I playing on her sympathies?
he asked himself, as he familiarised himself with his wife’s body. Maybe he had worked on her kind heart. He needed what she obviously wanted to do; more than that, he wanted her.

‘This is going to be a hard action to overlook,’ he told her, his lips against her ear.

‘Please.’

He could have resisted nearly anything except please, spoken so softly in his ear, but with an undercurrent of desire and demand that he didn’t know women possessed. What an ignorant man he was! He had bedded women in many ports, some of low degree, especially when he was a young lieutenant, and others of more exalted pedigree, as he ascended in rank and power. They had all been willing—he was not a man to force an issue—but he couldn’t recall one who had initiated lovemaking.

Sophie was different in all ways. As she began to stroke him, and murmur words more like music than words, he
knew she wanted to soothe his agitation, and was ready to do it in time-honoured fashion, probably ever since the first man had gone to sea, suffered and whined to his wife on returning. At the same time, he sensed her own needs, a widow of five years with little outlet for her own passion. She knew precisely where to touch him; for one small moment, he envied her late husband for all his years with her.
I have come late to this party
, he thought, as he put her lips on her breast and felt her heart thundering against her ribcage.
Better late than never.

He knew there should be niceties, but this was different. Even as he prepared to kiss his way around her breasts, Sophie was already trying to squirm under him. Fine, then. He was totally ready, barring any last-minute reservations on anyone’s part.

When he entered her, Sophie let out a breath she must have been holding for months, so long it seemed to go on. Her arms and legs were tight around his body, her legs crossed high on his back as she moved in perfect rhythm with him.
Flexible
, he thought, as he held her close. He thought she might object to how tightly he held her, until she murmured ‘so safe’ in his ear, and he realised how terrifying her life had been for years. If a man covering her took away a few of her own demons, then he could hold her that way.

She had lashed herself to him, leaving him with a feeling of such relief, and he hadn’t even climaxed yet. It was as though she was trying to exorcise years and years of war with her body. Considering the length of the war and its intensity, his mind told him this was an impossible task. But as she began to breathe deep and run gentle hands across his shoulders, he felt crusty layers of sorrow and terror, dished out in equal measure, begin to slough away.

He wasn’t as gentle as she was, and he knew it, but his only qualm was for her fragility. She was too slim for his liking, and he hadn’t even had time to begin a campaign with Etienne to pack a little more substance on to her frame. He tried to rise up on his elbows a time or two, but that only brought a tighter grip on his back. So be it, then. She wanted to bear his weight and he swallowed his qualms as he drove into her relentlessly and was rewarded with a moan she made no effort to stifle, as she tried to turn herself inside out in her climax.

A man of considerable patience, he bided his time until a second shudder shook her slender body, then he bowed over her for his own release, so sublime a surrender that he felt tears starting behind his eyelids. It was as though his wife had drained every ounce of weariness from him, taking it into herself and welcoming him with her own release.

She had not released him with her legs. He had no objection to kissing her hair at her perspiring temples, then her open mouth and then burying his face in the curls that tangled around her neck. She smelled faintly of talc, a scent he discovered he quite fancied.

‘Sophie, Sophie,’ he murmured. ‘Kindly inform me if I am hurting you.’

She was too busy to answer him, continuing her movements, slower now, but no less imperative. He was diminishing, but made another effort, which was rewarded with a groan, and then complete relaxation of her legs, as though someone had tugged out all her bones, leaving her a soft pile. She opened her eyes and he was again smitten with the depth of them, as brown as good coffee. He kissed her again, tickling her tongue with his, which brought a low laugh to Sophie. She gently bit his lip and tried to shift her
legs, which he took as a signal to move so she could draw a substantial breath.

Sophie settled herself next to him, still tucked close to his side, her cheek against his chest. After a moment, he felt tears on his chest. He raised up on his elbow and put his palm under her chin. ‘Hey, none of that,’ he said softly.

‘I don’t know what got into me,’ she said finally.

‘I did.’

He had hoped she would think that bit of ribaldry funny, but she put her face down into his chest again, so he could not see her eyes.

‘What you must think of me,’ she said. ‘I’ve never done anything quite that forwards before.’

‘I didn’t think you had,’ he told her, kissing the top of her head, ‘and I’m the one who suggested a marriage of convenience. What must you think of
me
?’

She opened her mouth to speak, but a knock on the door closed it. Her eyes went wide and she sat up, grasping a sheet to cover her. ‘Y-yes?’ she said tentatively.

‘It’s Miss Thayn. The post chaise is here for me now. You’ll need to tell me precisely what you want, Lady Bright.’

Mostly I want all of you servants to disappear
, Charles thought.

‘I’ll be downstairs in just a minute, Thayn,’ Sophie said.

‘May I assist you in dressing?’ she asked through the door.

‘No! No!’ Sophie said quickly. ‘I mean…I’m quite capable. Just wait for me downstairs.’

She had to look at him then, and he saw the misery in his wife’s eyes replace the pleasure in what he had done for her. She kept the sheet high, which would have seemed ludicrous to a cynic, which he was not. The gesture touched
him and gave him the tiniest bit of insight into the character of women, this one in particular. Sophie Bright—he could think of her as no one but Sophie Bright now—was a modest woman. Just because he knew that she could burn like straw, she was still a modest woman.

Maybe that was the contradiction of women. He was a worldly enough man, but this sudden knowledge was a priceless glimpse into the depth of another person, one growing more important to him with each breath she took. War had put him in the grip of powerful emotion nearly all of his life. He thought he could imagine nothing more compelling. He looked at his wife, truly bone of his bone now. Even though he could see there was some rough weather ahead, he found himself nearly giddy with love, the most powerful emotion of all.

This was obviously not the time to divulge such a statement. She would not believe him, or think he was merely trying to placate her and soothe over what had been as shattering a release to her as to him. Truly, how it was possible to plunge into such intimacy in so short a time would have baffled him, too, as it obviously did her, except for one thing—he knew the full power of strong emotion. War had been his tutor. How much better was love, than war. He could tell her later.

‘Sophie, be easy about this,’ he said.

She sat still, probably listening for Miss Thayn’s footsteps to recede. She couldn’t meet his eyes. ‘My late husband used to tell me that my abiding fault was an impulsive nature.’

Well, damn the man
, Charles thought, feeling a real spark of anger at the wretch who had rendered Sophie’s life a misery by one monumentally selfish act.

‘Please believe me, I never thought beyond the moment I dropped my nightgown.’ She put her hand to her face,
still keeping that grip on the sheet. ‘I shouldn’t be so impulsive.’

Think carefully
, he ordered himself. ‘I know precisely why you did it, Sophie,’ he said. ‘You didn’t think one moment beyond my comfort. Thank you for that. I needed what you gave me.’ No need for her to know—and maybe she didn’t even really know—how great had been her own need. ‘I do feel better.’
By God
, he thought,
even a suit of armor would have felt release. Sophie is more powerful than she has any clue.

She looked at him then, her face rosy. ‘I think I need to know you better before I…’ She faltered, unable to continue.

‘Do that again?’ he asked simply.

She nodded. ‘Only a drooling fool could overlook it,’ she told him.

He smiled then, pleased with even this tiny return of her good humour. ‘Sophie, go get dressed. You already know I can button you up the back as good as Miss Thayn. And you’d better re-harness me before you go belowdeck.’

Respecting her modesty, Charles turned his back to her, giving her an easy escape to her dressing room in her nakedness. When the door closed quietly behind her, he rolled over and searched for his smallclothes and trousers.

He was buttoning his trousers when she opened the door, dressed but still flushed. ‘I got all of them except two,’ she said.

She came to the bed, and for one moment he hoped she would drop her clothes again. Instead, she turned around. He rested his handless arm against her back and pushed in the buttons with his fingers.

‘Your turn,’ she said. ‘Now, where did I…?’

She got down on her knees and looked under the bed.
It was all he could do not to run his hand across her hips. ‘My goodness, how did it get there?’ she said, pulling out the harness.

She still had difficulty looking him in the eyes. She concentrated on putting the leather straps together and anchoring them with the clasp. He quickly slipped the hook and socket in place, second nature to him, and raised his arms so she could lower his shirt over them. The cufflinks went on quickly. As he watched her, she went to her dressing table and shook her head over the tangle of hair.

‘Just run a brush through it and pull it back with a tie,’ Charles suggested. ‘In fact, if that was all you ever did with it, I’d be happy. You look good that way.’

She looked at him in the mirror. ‘Men.’ It said the world.

She went to the door, but he stopped her with a question, something he’d wanted to ask, maybe for years before he knew her. He almost felt shy asking.

‘One thing, Sophie.’ He held up his hook. ‘Does it disgust you to look at my arm?’

She frowned at him, as if wondering how simple he was. ‘Of course not, Charles. Makes you look distinguished. So does that grey on your temples.’ She leaned her head against the door, giving him that solemn appraisal he felt inclined to enjoy, because it was so flattering. ‘You’ll always look like a hero.’

Then she was gone, hurrying down the stairs. Charles lay back in her bed, enjoying the fragrance she had left behind. The sheets were probably a disgrace. If he bundled them up carefully, the upstairs maid wouldn’t be any wiser. He listened, heard no one stirring and quietly let himself out of Sophie’s room and back into his own, across the hall.

Charles hadn’t reckoned on Starkey being so silent, even
though he had known his body servant for years. Was that accusation in the man’s eyes as he sat so primly on a straight-backed chair by the door? Good God, what had Starkey heard of the sexual tumult across the hall?

Not a word passed between them. Starkey gave him a cool, measuring look just skirting the boundaries of insolence. Starkey’s gaze broke away first, so determined was Charles not to yield the quarterdeck to a servant.

Charles said only one thing. As he reflected on the matter later, only then did he realise it was most certainly the wrong thing.

‘As you were, Starkey,’ he said sharply.

Starkey left the room in total silence, head high and without a backwards glance.

Sophie remembered to watch her head in the corridor, which was now in the hands of the painting crew. She watched them a moment, until her heartbeat returned to normal and the high colour in her face subsided.

As she waited for calm, Sophie decided to rationalise the earlier event of the morning. Heaven knew the admiral seemed willing to do precisely that. She closed her eyes as she remembered Charles’s body so heavy and comforting on hers, more welcome than rain to a parched land.

She squeezed her eyes even tighter shut, thinking of her abandonment in his arms, her disinclination to silence, her groans as he so effortlessly brought her to climax, not once, which at least toyed with marital decorum, but three times, which painted her as a wanton, almost.

She opened her eyes. Charles had in no way indicated any disgust at her behaviour. She knew she had refreshed him completely. The softening of his face when he left her body, and the way he had wordlessly encouraged her to
nestle under his arm and rest her head on his chest, spoke of nothing but his own relief and great heartedness.

I tried to nurture and was nurtured in turn
, she thought, as she smiled at the painters on their scaffolding and ducked into the sitting room, where Miss Thayn waited.
Charles is right; we should just leave it at that for now.

Almost like a young bride, Sophie wondered only briefly if her own sexual ease showed. Surely not. There was no way Miss Thayn could see beyond what Sophie hoped was her calm demeanour. Still, Sophie knew, deep down in the core of her body, that she had never offered herself so eagerly, not even with Andrew, and been so amply rewarded.

After exchanging a few pleasantries with Miss Thayn, Sophie decided on a course of action that, if peculiar, seemed to suit them both.

‘Thayn, I want you to go to the workhouse and acquire us two more orphaned girls. I believe we can find enough employment of a light nature to occupy them.’

‘I am certain we can,’ Miss Thayn agreed. She hesitated only a moment. ‘Thank you for hiring me.’

‘I could do no less,’ Sophie replied. ‘As you well know, I have sat on hard benches in employment registries.’ She looked down, wondering how much more to say. ‘I will explain more of this to you later.’