She was tight, tighter than he’d expected, the walls of her sheath clutching, clamping, fisting him.
Taking him.
Lids heavy, breath coming in panting gasps, barely able to see, he was beyond all control, but so was she. This might have been unwise, but he didn’t care—and, thank God, neither did she. If he’d had any doubts, the half-moons her nails were scoring in his skin had banished them.
She was with him, urging him on even as he reached for her knees, and drew first one, then the other, to his hips, opening her to even deeper penetration. She only gasped, clung, rocked beneath him ever more evocatively, wordlessly pleading for release.
The roar in his blood grew, drowning out all but the need to have her climax. To see her surrender, to take her to the very peak of desperate sexual need, then tip her over into sexual bliss.
To feel her beneath him as he did, to sense that moment of absolute surrender.
To see her face, her expression, in the instant ecstasy took her.
He thrust deeper, faster, harder, more powerfully as he felt her rise.
Her fingers bit into his arms as she arched. She gasped into his mouth as her nerves drew that very last fraction tauter.
Then she shattered.
She came apart beneath him on a strangled cry, a sound that satisfied one of his needs. He’d expected to hold back, to take more of her, yet her convulsing sheath clamped tight, and she took him with her, pulled him over the precipice’s edge and on.
Release swept him; he couldn’t deny it. His roar muffled in the curve of her throat, he thrust deep and let go.
And joined her.
Felt her arms close around him and tug him down, wrap about him and hold him close as oblivion rolled in, over, and enveloped them.
For long moments, the heat held them, blessed and golden, a gentle sea.
Slowly, inexorably, satiation swept in, infusing them as they spiraled down, and drifted back to earth.
To the unexpected, unanticipated intimacy of each other’s naked arms.
December 14
Grillon’s Hotel
Deliah woke to a gray morning and the rattling of coals in the grate. Heart leaping, she glanced at the bed beside her—only to discover it empty.
The bed was a four-poster, and at some point in the night Del must have drawn the curtains along one side and across the end; she could see the window and the leaden sky, but the hotel maid at the hearth couldn’t see her.
Or the rumpled, crumpled disaster of the bed.
Bess would be up shortly and undoubtedly would notice, but Deliah had no intention of explaining. Indeed, thinking back, she wasn’t sure she could.
How did one rationalize something so far beyond reason?
She spent two minutes trying, then gave up.
Aside from all else, she could not bring herself to regret a single moment of the night, something Bess would detect, and that would only lead to more questions. Difficult, prickly questions given Bess knew her history with gentlemen and was every bit as protective as Del wished to be.
Would he regret—was he already regretting—the interlude, their unanticipated explosion of mutual madness? Of shared insanity.
She knew he hadn’t intended it any more than she had, but they’d clashed, kissed fierily, and that had been that.
The firestorm of passion sparked by that kiss had swept over them and cindered all caution, and reduced all inhibitions to insubstantial ash.
The result…had been glorious.
Lying in the enfolding warmth, she replayed each scintillating moment, at least those she could recall.
Quite enough to heat her cheeks, to have her shifting beneath the sheet.
Then she remembered what had happened later, when he’d woken her in the depths of the night.
He certainly hadn’t behaved like a man burdened with regrets.
If he had been, he wouldn’t have…done it all again.
Only more slowly, and with much greater attention to detail.
Her body thrummed just from the memory.
The maid had left; the fire was crackling. She heard the door open, and Bess’s quick, light steps. Tossing back the covers, she froze, then set her chin, wrapped the loose sheet about her naked self, and swung her legs out of the bed.
“Good morning, Bess.” Sheet trailing after her, she walked out from around the bed. “Have you seen my robe?”
Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t wipe the smile from her face.
Bess stared at her, mouth open, for one long moment, then simply said, “Oh, my God.”
Washed, brushed and wearing one of the walking gowns that had been delivered from Madamae Latour’s salon, Deliah strolled into the sitting room of the suite in an entirely amiable mood.
Over the matter of the gowns she’d decided not to cut off her nose to spite her face. She’d accept them for now, but later she would insist on paying Del in full. In money.
But she needed gowns to wear now. Not anticipating a prolonged halt on their journey north, she had a few carriage gowns, and not much else. She’d charged Bess with shopping for chemises, stockings and similar necessities while she was out tempting the Black Cobra with Del.
He was in the sitting room, seated at the table breaking his fast with Tony and Gervase. At sight of her, all three started to get to their feet. She waved them back. “No—stay where you are.”
While the others subsided, with a careful look, Del pulled out the empty chair between his and Tony’s. With an airy nod and a light smile, she thanked him and sat.
She looked at Tony as Del resumed his seat. “So,” she asked, reaching for the teapot, “did anything come of your watch at the tavern?”
If Del could be a man of the world and evince no telltale sign of the hours they’d spent rolling naked in her bed, then she could do the same.
From the corner of his eye, Del watched her sip tea and nibble a slice of toast and marmalade as Tony and Gervase recounted their disappointingly uneventful evening.
“The Cobra or his minions must have been watching from outside the inn, waiting to see if their hirelings brought a woman.” Gervase shook his head. “We thought of hunting to see if we could spot them, but in that neighborhood there are simply too many seedy characters.”
“And they all look suspicious,” Tony said.
Grimacing in commiseration, Deliah set down her empty cup. “So what are our plans for today?”
They discussed their options for drawing the cultists out.
Del had already told Gervase and Tony of the excitement following his and Deliah’s attendance at the recital. They’d been troubled, and not a little disgusted to have missed the action. They’d resolved they wouldn’t again leave Deliah and him unwatched while out of the hotel. However…
“We need to make it easier, more attractive for them to approach—to come out of hiding and make some move.” Gervase looked at Del and Deliah. “The museum’s a warren—it might appeal to them.”
They all agreed that the museum and its many rooms was worth a try.
Del stirred and shot a glance at Deliah. Tried to keep all expression from his face. “It’s too early yet to go to the museum.” He switched his gaze to Tony and Gervase. “I think I’ll take a stroll to Guards’ Headquarters. Laying more false trails can’t hurt.”
“That,” Deliah said, laying aside her napkin, her gaze on Tony and Gervase, “sounds eminently sensible. You two can follow and keep watch. I’ll wait here until you get back, then we can go to Montague House.”
Tony and Gervase agreed readily.
Del inclined his head.
And told himself he had no grounds on which to feel sensitive, let alone irritated, by his recent bedmate’s unaffected manner, by the lack of any hint of susceptibility, or consciousness in her attitude to him.
She was behaving exactly as he should want her to behave. Neither Tony nor Gervase had detected any change in the air between him and her.
Bec
ause there wasn’t any. At least, none to be detected. Even by him.
Despite all, he’d expected something—a tremble in her fingers, an almost imperceptible change in her breathing—some indication of her heightened awareness of him.
Entirely against his better judgment, he wanted to speak with her—just to jog her memory of the heated hours they’d shared last night—but all four of them rose from the table and, instead of giving him a chance to hang back and exchange those few words, with an airy wave, Deliah headed for her bedroom.
Leaving him to quit the suite with Tony and Gervase, in a distinctly disgruntled mood.
His mood hadn’t improved when he returned to Grillon’s from visiting the Guards, then taking a quick swing through Whitehall and the Home Office, just to set a few more spectral cats prowling around their pigeon.
Nothing of any moment had been achieved. There’d been no one worthwhile confiding in at any of his stops, and neither Tony nor Gervase had spotted any cultists, although they were sure he’d been followed by at least three different locals working as a team—keeping watch, but too wary to try any direct attack.
Regardless, after last night, if he was to escort Deliah on another foray in which he and she would play welcoming targets, he wanted something a little more lethal than his cane.
His swordstick would feel better in his hand.
Tony and Gervase had elected to wait outside, hanging back at the corner of the street. Although he’d known they’d been close, even he hadn’t always been able to spot them.
Reaching the top of the stairs, he turned and made for his bedchamber. He’d change his cane for his swordstick, then collect Deliah and leave for the museum.
He was still some way from the door to his room when it opened. The Indian boy who was part of Deliah’s household came out. The boy shut the door and, without seeing Del, walked off down the corridor in the opposite direction, no doubt making for the servants’ stairs at the end.
Slowing, Del watched him go, then, reaching his door, opened it and went in.
Cobby was there, folding shirts. He looked up as Del closed the door. “Any luck?”
“No.” Del tossed him his cane, which Cobby deftly caught. “I thought I’d take my swordstick.”
Cobby grinned. “By the wall beside the door.”
Del turned, saw it waiting, and grunted. Picking it up, he paused. “Did Miss Duncannon send a message?”
“No. Haven’t heard from her, nor seen her, since breakfast.”
“What was her boy doing here, then?”
“Sangay? He just looked in to see if I had anything for him to do—any errands or the like. Probably looking for an excuse to get outside.”
Del humphed, nodded. He refocused on the swordstick in his hand. “So it’s off to the museum to trawl for cultists. Wish us luck.”
“I would, only I’m not sure which way that should go. Do you want them to hang back and let you live peaceably, or come at you and try to slit your throats?”
“The latter.” Del turned to the door. “At the moment I could definitely do with engaging a cultist or two.”
Or three. By the time he and Deliah reached the museum, Del was itching for a fight. He knew the sensation well, but never before had it been provoked by a woman, a lady. And all because she was behaving absolutely perfectly.
Except….
He’d spent the short hackney ride to Montague House lecturing himself on the absurdity of wishing her to change into some different, more delicate type of female, the sort prone to displaying her sensibilities. That might make reading her, and managing her, easier, but it would conversely make his life a great deal more difficult.
And he didn’t truly want her to change. He wanted….
If she’d noticed his abstraction, she’d given no sign, but had commented happily on the sights as they’d crossed the town into Bloomsbury. Now she stood in the museum foyer scanning a board listing the current exhibits. “Where should we start? I rather fancy the Egyptian gallery. I’ve heard it’s quite fascinating.”
“The Egyptians it is.” He waved her on.
Discreet signs directed them up the stairs. As they climbed, she glanced at him, then asked, “How did your visit to the Guards go?”
It was the first she’d asked of it—which, now he thought of it, was unlike her. Perhaps she wasn’t as unaffected—as undistracted—as he’d thought?
“I found a few friends to chat to, but it was all for show. I didn’t even mention the Black Cobra.”
At the top of the stairs, he touched her elbow and indicated another sign down a corridor. They started toward it.
“I know you’ve resigned your commission, supposedly permanently, but was that merely for this mission? Will you rejoin when it’s over, perhaps serve in some other capacity? Or are you truly retiring from the field?”
He thought as they strolled. “The latter was my intention, and still is. Talking to the others today only confirmed that—the reasons for that.”
“Which are?”
An interrogation again, but gentler. He sensed she truly wanted to know. And after last night…“I’m thirty-five. My service has shown me much of the world, and also brought me significant wealth. Militarily, there are few challenges remaining—not for field officers such as myself. It’s time I came home and tried my hand at new challenges.”
“In Humberside?”
He felt his lips curve. “In Humberside, strange as that may seem.”
Her nose tipped upward. “It doesn’t seem strange to me.”
And that, he thought, was interesting—revealing. Despite her travels, it seemed she, too, had a special place in her heart for the county of her birth.
Before he could turn the tables on her, she asked, “So what form do you imagine this Humberside challenge will take?”
They’d reached the Egyptian gallery; side by side, they turned into it. A succession of smaller connected rooms opening off a central hall, it was tailor-made for an ambush. The silver head of his swordstick felt reassuring in Del’s hand. Taking Deliah’s elbow, he steered her toward the first of the large statues in the hall, one of Isis that towered some eight feet tall. “Let’s examine the statues in this room first, going down this side, then up the other. That’ll give them a moment to find us. Then we can go through the smaller rooms and see if we can tempt them to make a move.”
She nodded. Dutifully considered Isis, and read the description inscribed on a plaque beside it.
“So,” she said, as they moved to the next statue, “what do you plan to do on your return to Middleton on the Wolds?”
His lips quirked. “You’ve missed your calling—you should have been an interrogator.”
Her brows rose haughtily. “I take it you don’t know the answer.”
“Not entirely. I’d toyed with the idea of resigning for some time, but beyond going home to Middleton on the Wolds, I hadn’t got to the stage of making more detailed plans, then this mission arose, and as part of it I resigned. So no, I haven’t any fixed intentions beyond going home.”
“But it’s your house, isn’t it?” She glanced at him. “Delborough Hall, where your aunts live?”
“Yes.” He steered her on. “They’ve been keeping the place—house and estate—running while I’ve been away, more or less since my father’s death. But from their letters I gather they’re eager for me to take up the reins, something I did wonder about.”
“Indeed. They’ve been mistresses there for decades. They might not have wished to surrender control.”
“Apparently now peace has been established, they’re keen to travel and see all the sights the wars prevented them from seeing.”
She smiled. “From what I remember of them, they’ll thoroughly enjoy harassing some poor courier-guide.”
The notion made him grin.
They’d reached the end of the main hall. Glancing up the long room, he saw a number of other people, including two men who didn’t seem the sort t
o spend their hours studying ancient statuary. “I believe”—he turned back to Deliah—“that we’ve collected two watchers, but sadly, they’re not cultists.”
“But they might be…what’s the term? Scouting? For the cultists. Mightn’t they?”
“They might. Let’s go back along this side—we’ll pass them as we go up the room, then we’ll turn into the first rooms on our right.”
She nodded, and obligingly glided beside him as they perambulated up the room, stopping at every statue to admire and exchange comments.
As they left the main hall for the minor rooms, she returned to her earlier interrogation. “You don’t seem the sort to be a gentleman farmer.” She glanced at him. “Or at least, not to be satisfied with being only that.”
Very true. “I’ve been thinking, what with Kingston so close, and York and Leeds not that far away, that I might look into investing in manufacturing. Manufacturing what, I’m not sure.” He glanced at her. “Textiles, perhaps.”
She dipped her head. “There are all those mills about Leeds. I had wondered if there might be a market for cotton there.”
“And silk.”
“Actually, there are a number of combinations of silk and cotton that are quite valuable commercially.” Her skirts swished as she paused by a glass case housing pieces of pottery. “Are they still following us?”
“Yes. And they’re drawing closer.”
“Hmm. Then again, these rooms are smaller.”
“True.”
They continued ambling, and their watchers continued to follow, close enough to observe them, but not close enough to pose a physical threat. They seemed intent on watching only, thus giving Del no excuse to react.
Whether it was the possibility of impending danger abrading his protectiveness, or the airy nonchalance of her replies, or, loweringly, that he remained acutely aware of her, of the body he’d spent hours possessing thoroughly through the night that now seemed so elusive, drifting close yet beyond his reach, he didn’t know, but her continued apparent imperviousness, her insensibility to his nearness, his presence by her side, pricked him, increasingly on the raw.