"Then you kept your promise?"
"Actually, I told you the truth when I said I hadn't been able to think of anyone but you since my eyes first beheld you. There still hasn't been anyone else, Shahar—only you."
She looked up, eyes sparkling, and then she kissed him. He didn't let her stop there. It had been weeks since she had let him get this close, weeks of his worrying about her reaction to the truth. He certainly hadn't expected it to be like this.
He scooped her up and carried her to her small bunk. She helped him to remove her clothes and his as well, and then he was lying beside her and doing all the things to her that he had only been able to dream about recently.
Chantelle reveled in the sweet promise of his touch. He knew her body so well, every sensitive place that made her burn for him. How she had missed this, and how blissful to know that she need never deny herself again. He had been true to her. He must love her. Deciding that gave her more joy than she had ever imagined possible.
"I should have told you sooner," Derek said between nibbles at her throat and breasts.
"Why—didn't—you?" she asked breathlessly.
"I was afraid you would be angry."
She caught at his face and showered it with kisses. "That you're not Jamil? That you kept your promise to me? That you're taking me home? You are taking me home, aren't you?"
"Yes." He grinned. "Home with me. You don't think I'd bring you all this way just to let you go, do you?"
As he said this, he pinned her to the bed, coming home now to the warmth he craved. She was ready for him, welcoming him inside with a passion made more powerful by her love for him. God, it was so nice to finally accept it, to have no doubts about his worthiness, to give her heart into his keeping. It made all the difference in the world, which she discovered when their bodies joined in climax to achieve a pinnacle of pulsating ecstasy never reached before.
Chapter Forty-eight
Dawn was slowly creeping through the porthole when Derek finally rose from the bunk. He had spent the night, but not to sleep. Chantelle stretched luxuriously as she watched him dress and splash cold water on his face. He was tired, while she felt smug that she wasn't. Not yet anyway.
"Are you certain you wouldn't like to stay just a little longer?"
Derek glanced over his shoulder to find her leaning back on both elbows, her uncovered breasts thrust provocatively forward. He groaned and looked away.
"A man has his limits, Shahar," he said in an aggrieved tone.
"Are you begging for mercy, my lord?"
"Yes," but he quickly amended, "Until tonight." He came back to sit on the edge of the bunk. Those sweetly thrusting breasts were almost his undoing. "Then you can be as merciless as you like. I will insist upon it."
She laughed throatily. "It's your own fault for ignoring me for so long."
"Me?" He mustered up some indignation in his tone. "You had me practically on my knees."
She turned on her side so her pelvis pressed against his hip. She trailed one finger slowly up his arm.
"You would never grovel, my lord. You're too used to getting your way and relying on your seductive powers."
"None of which did me much good recently."
"Oh, I don't know. It wasn't easy trying to ignore you, especially when I adore this fine strapping body of yours."
"Minx," he said as her hands slipped inside his open shirt.
"Give me a kiss and I'll let you go without further protest."
He did, but when her tongue thrust inside his mouth and one hand started a slow descent down his chest, Derek turned the aggressor. "I wouldn't have believed it was possible, but I'm not going anywhere."
"What a shame. You kept me up all night, you know, and I'm suddenly feeling quite—" At his growl, she giggled. "Well, when you put it that way, I suppose I can stay awake for another hour or so."
It was nearly an hour later when Chantelle again watched Derek dress, but this time she yawned, sleepily content to make no protest. Tenderly, he bent over to give her a last kiss.
"I'll see you this evening, little moon."
"You'll see me sooner than that," she replied dreamily. "Or don't you think it's time I had a little fresh air and exercise up on the deck?" When he didn't answer, she opened her eyes to find him frowning. "Well, don't you?"
"Actually," he replied hesitantly, "I would rather you continue as you have."
She was fully awake now. "Locked in? You must be joking." But at his deeper frown, she exclaimed, "You're not joking! Why?"
"It would be better all around—"
"For who? Not for me, so it must be for you." And now she was frowning. "Is there something you haven't told me?"
"Why do you say that?" he hedged.
"Because you obviously don't want me talking to anyone else on the ship. And as I recall, you mentioned something last night about thinking I would be angry. What exactly was I supposed to get angry about?"
"Very well," he said tightly. "The captain and half the crew know that I have a fiancée awaiting my return to England. She was with my grandfather when he made the arrangements for this ship to pick me up in Barikah."
"I see," she replied with admirable calm. "A fiancée. Now tell me you intend to break the engagement."
"Break it? You just don't break an engagement to the daughter of a duke."
"You could," she said angrily.
"No, I couldn't," he snapped back.
"Why? No, don't answer that. You love her, don't you?"
"Of course I love her! I've known her most of my life!"
"What has that to do with it?"
"What has—" he started to shout, but thought better of it, lowering his tone to a persuasive level. "The point is, this has nothing to do with us, Shahar."
"Don't call me that! Your brother gave me that name and I always hated it. And there is no 'us,' my lord, nor will there be if you marry your Duke's daughter."
"You expected me to marry you?"
"After you said you were taking me home with you, yes, I suppose the thought did cross my mind!"
He stared at her for a long moment. "Then I'm sorry, but that wasn't the arrangement I had in mind."
Chantelle's eyes flared wide as it dawned on her what he did have in mind. "You wanted me to be your mistress?''
"You needn't say it like that. A mistress is perfectly respectable these days."
"That's the best I can hope for, is that it? You ruin me for a decent marriage, then hope to benefit—" It hit her suddenly what she was saying, and her eyes flared even wider. "My God, you were in a position to . . . you could have obtained my freedom without . . . you bloody bastard! You didn't have to make love to me. You could have left me untouched as you did Jamila."
"That wouldn't have gotten you your freedom, Shahar."
"Don't—call—me—that! And don't lie to me."
"I'm not lying. Jamil owned you. You got your freedom as a reward for helping him. Otherwise, he was within his rights to keep you."
"He never wanted me. He bought me for you. He would have let me go if you had asked him. All you had to do was ask him. He was your brother, for God's sake. Don't you dare tell me he would have denied you anything after you had traveled all that way and risked your life for his sake!"
"Perhaps not, but I couldn't take the chance. I couldn't see you buried in that harem forever, just one of so many women, especially when his love was already taken. I thought at first to insist you be married to a man with no other wives. I felt you deserved to at least be a first kadine. But that couldn't be arranged unless I bedded you first."
"If you're trying to tell me you did it for my sake, I’ll—I’ll—"
"All right!" he angrily interrupted her sputtering.
"That was just an excuse to salve my conscience. The plain truth is I couldn't leave you alone. I wanted you too much and I still do. And, by God, you are going home with me, woman. I'm keeping you, one way or another. If I have to turn this ship around and
live out the rest of my days in Barikah so I can keep you locked in a harem, I'll do it."
"I won't be your mistress!" she screamed at him as he stalked out the door. She got no reply other than the key turning in the lock. "I won't," she added softly for her own benefit. And then she started to cry.
Chapter Forty-nine
In the end, Chantelle did let Derek take her to the Huntstable estate with him, but only because she had finally recalled the dilemma she had left behind in England. It was not that she had agreed to be his mistress, though he steadily worked on changing her mind. It was simply that he could help her locate Aunt Ellen and assess the current situation much easier than she could, and he owed her that much.
He wasn't too happy about learning who her father had been, especially when he learned his grandfather had been acquainted with him. Nor did he listen to the rest of her story calmly. That he was angry for her sake surprised her. That he agreed to help her without having to be coerced into it surprised her even more.
She met Caroline the first day of their arrival. It was an uncomfortable ordeal in every way. Even the new clothes that Derek had purchased for her in Dover didn't give Chantelle the confidence to face up to this beautiful, and splendidly attired, woman. She was wearing plain blue linen. Caroline was adorned in Chinese red silk.
The seamstress who had relinquished the two already finished outfits that needed only a few minor adjustments to fit Chantelle was upstairs waiting to fit her for the complete wardrobe she had agreed to let Derek order for her, but that didn't help her now. Seeing Caroline and Derek together was like watching long-lost friends reunited. They didn't seem at all like lovers, yet Chantelle still hurt to see that Derek really did have true feelings for this woman.
What he told Caroline about her after their brief introduction, she didn't know. She didn't care to stay and watch this reunion any longer than she had to, and quietly slipped away unnoticed—or thought she did.
Derek watched her leave but didn't try to stop her. Seeing her with Caroline, he was more confused than ever, and he had been in a state of continuous confusion where his feelings were concerned ever since he had had the expected row with Chantelle on the ship.
He was glad to see Caro, delighted in fact, having missed their special closeness. He very nearly blurted out his dilemma with Chantelle, as he would have done before their engagement, to ask her advice. It was then that it hit him, the differences in his feelings for the two women. He loved Caroline. He adored her. She would make an ideal wife in every way but one, and it was that one factor that he had never considered before. He had no real desire to bed her. He could do it if he had to, but the simple truth was he would rather not.
Christ, how had he missed it before? They were too close, more like siblings. In fact, what he felt for her, he now realized, was distinctly brotherly.
What he felt for Chantelle, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. He couldn't keep his hands off her. She exasperated him, frustrated him, made him crazy. She also fired his desire with just a look or a touch. He not only wanted her in his bed, he would be perfectly happy if she never left it.
Bloody hell. What did that tell him? Just that he had deluded himself too long. He was marrying the wrong woman, and there wasn't a thing he could do about it except hope that Caroline would call it off herself. He couldn't. He had tied her up for nearly a year with this engagement. And at twenty-five, she was considered quite on the shelf. He couldn't hurt her like that, even for the sake of his own future happiness.
Four days later Aunt Ellen arrived, thanks to the efforts of a dozen servants sent out to locate her. Chantelle was so happy to see her she cried for twenty minutes without getting a single word out. Ellen was only half as emotional. She managed to tell her news first, that their cousin Charles was dead, challenged to a duel after having been discovered cheating at cards. The bad news was that his son, Aaron, now had guardianship of Chantelle.
"And if you felt the need to hide from Charles, you can be sure it is much more imperative that you stay out of Aaron's hands. He wouldn't marry you off, my dear. He would keep you an old maid and permanently under his protection, if you know what I mean."
Chantelle did, and that left her in the same predicament, exchanging one rotten apple for another. But she wouldn't think of that now. Derek had promised to help her, and she would wait and see what he had to say after he finished his investigation into the American Burke's affairs.
Right now Chantelle had her own story to relate, and she did so with a lot of missing pieces that she couldn't bring herself to confess to her aunt. Unfortunately, her abridged story left Derek smelling like a rose. Ellen saw him as nothing less than a glowing hero, and after she met him, she couldn't sing his praises loud enough. It made Chantelle positively sick.
She met Derek's good friend Marshall Fielding that evening, but when Caroline showed up for dinner, too, Chantelle managed to drag Ellen away shortly afterward with the excuse that they hadn't caught up yet on everything that had happened over the summer. Ellen knew Chantelle well enough to discern immediately what was wrong, and when they got upstairs and Chantelle pleaded tiredness suddenly, that confirmed it. But she also knew Chantelle wouldn't talk about it until she was ready. She wouldn't press her.
Downstairs, Marshall rudely requested a private word with Derek, leaving Caroline abandoned to the Marquis's company in the drawing room. That he and Marshall hadn't had a chance to talk since his return wasn't the only reason Derek agreed. He was uncomfortable in Caroline's presence now. It was absurd, but nonetheless true.
Derek filled two snifters with brandy before taking the chair opposite Marshall in the small library. "Did Miss Woods get back to her people all right?"
"Yes, and is giving out some ridiculous story about having escaped from the corsairs and finding succor from some Christians until you rescued her."
Derek chuckled. "If that's what she says . . ."
Marshall made a face. "She's not a very pleasant young woman, is she? Too prim and starched for my tastes."
"You should have met her before she found out she was going home. A more charming and agreeable girl you couldn't ask for."
"And your guest? What's her background?"
"The same as Miss Woods'." Derek grinned. "After all, I found them together."
"Beautiful girl," Marshall remarked. "Stunning, really."
"Yes," Derek agreed tightly. He thought so, but damned if he liked Marshall's noticing.
"And you traveled all that way with her?"
"You could say she was as unpleasant as Miss Woods once she realized she was free."
"Really? Strange reaction, that. But you've done your part, more than was asked of you. I'll take her off your hands, if you like."
Derek sat forward, his humor gone. "Chantelle Burke is not your concern, Marshall, so stay out of it."
"Touchy, aren't you?"
"It's none of your business."
"I beg to differ. Caroline can't be too happy that you've brought another woman home with you."
"Caroline understands perfectly, and what the hell has this got to do with you?"
Marshall backed down. He hadn't expected to get into an argument with Derek over it. He thought he would be relieving a ticklish situation by offering to help. What the devil was Derek so touchy about?
And then it occurred to him. "Is there something going on between you and this girl?" But at the storm gathering in Derek's expression, he again backed down. "Forget it. I just don't want to see Caroline hurt, is all."
"She won't be," Derek replied curtly.
"Good, good, delighted to hear it." A change of subject was definitely in order. "Now, about your activities in Barikah—"
"Didn't you read my report?"
"Come on, Derek, you call those two sketchy pages you sent round to me a report?"
''I summed it up rather nicely, I thought. The problem was internal and has been taken care of. England can enjoy Jamil Reshid's reign without
further worry.''
"That's putting it mildly. According to a report that arrived from Sir John just this morning, in the first few days of Reshid's return to normal business, he granted us six concessions, two of which the French previously had exclusive rights to."
"So he was a little grateful—"
"Don't be so bloody modest. A little grateful? You must not have heard yet about the Barikahian ship that arrived a full week before you did. It was filled to the brim with exotic gifts for His Majesty, gems to put the crown jewels to shame, silks, brocades, parrots, ostriches, two live panthers—"