“And I, my dear, have enough love for the both of us.”
She turned on him, rising up on her elbows, unaware that the cover dropped below her breasts. “It is ridiculous, my lord. You cannot love me. If I have my mother’s face, I cannot help it. To love someone simply because she looks like someone else—it makes no sense.”
He kept his eyes resolutely upon her face. “I suppose that I cannot expect you to have given me your full attention our first afternoon together. I told you then and I will repeat it—the fact that you resemble your mother merely pleases me, for she was a beautiful woman. All else about you is unique. It is you I love, Cassandra, no one else. When I saw you at seventeen I was more sure about my feelings for you than anything in my life.” A sudden, rueful smile lit his eyes. “If you would know the truth, I had thought that I was beyond the age of romantic attachment, and it came as quite a shock to me, I assure you. I remember—it was not above a year ago—a dinner and ball at Belford House. At seventeen, it was your first excursion into society. You were so unlike the other girls of your age. Do you not remember dancing with me and in the most candid manner imaginable telling me that you were having a marvelous time but that your slippers were pinching your feet?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes, and you offered to lift me in your arms so I would not have to walk.”
“And I recall that you laughed delightedly and told me it was a fine idea. You also told me that you were not a featherweight and trusted that I would be strong enough to oblige you. It required a great deal of resolution, Cassandra, not to oblige you.”
A reluctant smile appeared, deepening the dimples on either side of her mouth. “I do not remember how it happened, but you escorted me to dinner. You filled my plate and I choked on my lobster patty because I was laughing at one of your stories. You called me graceless while you thumped me on the back. I thought you very nice, and terribly amusing.”
“Do you not remember what else I said to you?”
She dropped her eyes from his face, and said in a voice dulled with insight, “You told me that you would be delighted to provide me instruction, since one day I would doubtless be called upon to fill a position of importance.”
“Not precisely, but your memory is accurate enough. And the day I offered to mount you on an Arabian mare that I doubted you could handle. You coldly informed me, your eyes twinkling all the while, that you were quite up to snuff and could manage any piece of horseflesh from my stable. I recall that you would have taken a nasty spill had I not, at the last moment, lifted you off the mare’s back.”
“Have you forgotten nothing?”
“Anything that concerns you, I trust not. I think you much liked being held in my arms, though you did not guess what it was that I was feeling for you. You quite artlessly confided in me that it appeared that I was certainly strong enough to oblige you.”
Myriad other memories flashed through her mind, memories that now held new significance. What pained her most was that all the memories were pleasant, all filled with his wit and kindness. Oddly enough, she recalled now how some ladies had regarded her with suspicion, had treated her coldly; she had thought it was her youth, her inexperience. She saw now that it was jealousy, jealousy of her attachment to the earl.
“What are you thinking, Cassandra?”
“Nothing. I don’t wish to speak any more about the past.”
“Doubt it not, Cassandra, I will not change in my feelings for you.”
“Nor will I, my lord.” She saw that his eyes had fallen to her naked breasts, and she clutched wildly at the cover. His hand stayed hers.
“Leave me be. I don’t want you.”
He cocked a disbelieving eyebrow at her and lowered his mouth to hers.
Please, I don’t want to feel anything. I don’t want your passion.
She shoved at his shoulders and bucked her hips upward to push him away from her. Her mind fought him even as his body smothered hers, pressing her into the soft featherdown. His mouth closed over her breast, and his tongue caressed her. She felt her body urging her to surrender to him, to give in to her own senses, and her struggle dimmed, her mind releasing her, more quickly, more easily this time. She tangled her fingers into his thick hair, and tugged at him eagerly to bring his mouth back down to hers. She parted her lips to him and returned his kisses, frantically, urgently.
When he reared over her, she wanted to feel the power of him. He surged deep within her, possessing her, and she sobbed aloud, clutching his back. Shuddering waves of pleasure coursed through her and she could do naught but cling to him, moaning her climax into the hollow of his throat.
“Ah, Cassandra,” he whispered, his breath warm against her lips. He pulled her onto her side, and took his own pleasure.
It was nearly ten o’clock at night. The earl rose from his desk, closed the ledger book, and stretched. He gazed at Cassandra, who was curled up on the settee, seemingly absorbed by the novel she was reading.
A smile turned up the corners of his mouth. Two fingers wrapped and unwrapped a long curl that fell over her shoulder. It was a habit of long standing, one that he remembered from over a year ago. The blue silk gown she wore was cut low over her breasts, with no adorning lace to hide the expanse of rounded white bosom. He pictured her freed from her chemise, and the feel of her breasts in his hands.
He smiled again to himself. During the last several days her struggle against him had become but a nominal reluctance. Actually, he amended to himself, that was not true of the days, only the nights. During the day, she lashed out at him, her temper, it seemed, made more acid because she gave herself to him willingly at night.
He walked over to her and held out his hand. “It’s time to go to bed, Cassandra.”
She shrank back against the brocade cushions and did not reply.
“Cassandra,” he repeated softly, closing his fingers over her bare arm.
She pulled away. “I am not the least tired, my lord, and have no wish to go to bed.”
There was something in her eyes, now resting fleetingly upon his face, that held him silent for a moment.
“You like the novel so very much, my dear?”
“Oh, yes,” she said quickly, too quickly, pulling the slender volume close to her chest. “It is so very interesting, my lord, that I have no wish to put it down until I have finished it.”
“Perhaps I should provide you with a tutor.”
She stared at him, at sea.
“You have been reading the entire evening, and have managed to get only to the third page. Really, cara, with your obvious intelligence, I would expect a more believable lie than that.”
She closed the volume with a snap. “Very well, my lord, you will have the wood without a coat of paint. I have no wish to be ravished by you tonight. I will sleep here, on the settee.”
“Ravished? Good God, my girl, you know there has been no question of ravishment since our second night together. Indeed, I have sometimes felt that I am the one succumbing to you. Perhaps you fear that I will not wed you now that I have repeatedly plucked the fruit from the tree, so to speak?”
“You officious bore. I tell you again that I will never wed you. If you have a shred of honor, you will leave me be.”
“I am sorry, Cassandra, but I do not believe honor has anything to do with our pleasure. Come, my love, I would like to hear your cries of passion again tonight.”
Furious color stained her cheeks, and she blurted out, “It’s you who make me like that. I do not want to be abandoned, indeed, I never wish you to touch me again. Leave me now, I order you.”
“That is a lovely gown,” he said. “If you fight me, it will become shredded. You are a passionate, exciting woman, Cassandra, and I have yet to discover the depths of your feeling. No more nonsense. I want you in my bed and in my arms.”
She squirmed from the settee and scrambled to stand behind it. The earl cocked an inquiring eyebrow, then shrugged. He turned and began to remove his clothing. He heard
a relieved sigh, and said over his shoulder, “ Although it was I who set the rules, you will abide by them. We will live as man and wife, and that, my love, means the intimacy of the marriage bed. Now, take off that gown.”
“No.”
Behind the furious defiance of that short word, his ears detected a pathetic plea, and he turned to face her, now dressed only in his breeches. He gentled his voice. “Why, Cassandra?”
Her fingers fretted mercilessly at the pleats in her skirt. “Please,” she began, her voice barely above a whisper.
He strode to her and clasped her shoulders in his large hands. She stood rigid, even as his fingers caressed the slender column of her neck. He slowly traced the softness of her cheeks, and the firm line of her jaw.
“Why, my love? You know you will want me, you know that you forget your viscount in my arms. Let us not wrangle.”
She raised her wide eyes slowly to his face, and he saw no fear in them.
He leaned down and closed his mouth over hers. She tried to pull free of him, but he held her fast, winding his fingers in the thick masses of hair that lay unbound down her back. She cried out softly, but not with desire.
He released her mouth, and she pleaded softly, “Please, you must not, I cannot—”
“What do you mean you cannot?” He raised her chin up with his thumbs, so she could not look away from him.
She flushed scarlet and closed her eyes tightly. “Please,” she whispered, “cannot you simply leave well enough alone?”
Sudden understanding dawned upon him and, unwisely, he threw back his head and laughed.
“You beast. You braying ass.”
He grinned down at her. “However could I forget that you must needs be a woman in all ways? I could show you, Cassandra, that your womanliness is but a minor obstacle to lovemaking.” He stopped, for her face was pale with embarrassment.
“Perhaps some day soon,” he said, and walked away from her.
He retrieved a full-cut white nightgown from the bottom drawer of the dresser and silently handed it to her. “You need not say it. I do think of everything. Never would I wish to wound your maiden’s sensibilities. You may wear this garment a given number of nights each month.”
He patted her cheek, dowsed the lamps, and climbed out of his breeches. As he climbed into bed, he heard her breathe a sigh of relief. Some minutes later, she slipped into bed beside him, and as was his habit, he pulled her into his arms and gently stroked her hair.
Chapter 10
“The stop knot is too loose, madonna,” Angelo said in his soft Italian. He dropped to one knee and with light, sure tugs, adjusted the tension. He grinned as he handed it back to Cassie, shaking his dark head. “A lady as a sailor, I never would have believed the day. You’ll do, madonna, you’ll do.”
“Grazie, Angelo.” She flushed slightly at his rare words of praise.
He nodded and turned away from her at the shouted command of Mr. Donnetti. In the next moment, he was agilely climbing the rigging of the mainmast.
Cassie watched his graceful ascent. Squawking seabirds soared in wide circles above, hoping, she supposed, for some stale crusts of bread. She rose slowly and dusted her knees, an unnecessary gesture, since the deck always sparkled from the continual efforts of the Genoese sailors. She gazed to port. In the hazy afternoon sun, she could barely make out the coastline of Spain, some twenty miles distant.
“Ye can’t see much from here.”
She turned to Scargill, who was shading his eyes with his hands, looking toward land.
“Ye’ll turn dark as a blackamoor, if ye don’t have a care.” He indulgently eyed the light sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
She raised her golden-tanned face toward the sun, disregarding him. “We will put into port, Scargill?”
“Nay, madonna, it’s hardly likely.”
At the tightening of her lips, he added lightly, “If ye know yer politics, ye’ll realize that the Spanish are no friends to the English.”
“His lordship does not have a Spanish flag?”
Scargill shook his head at her ill-disguised sarcasm.
She doubted that the earl would put into port in any case, unless, of course, she thought bitterly, he were to lock her in the cabin for the duration. At least this wasn’t the case as long as they were at sea. The earl had given her free run of the yacht, though he forbade her the wearing of breeches. “I think it would be unwise,” he had said one evening, grinning at her crookedly, “to tempt my men more than they already are. The sight of you in breeches would doubtless encourage them to mutiny.”
She looked midway up the mainmast at Angelo’s perched figure and sighed enviously. Her skirts billowed in the sea breeze, and she slapped them down, her illhumor mounting.
As though he had read her thoughts, Scargill said gently, “Ye know that his lordship is in the right, madonna. To see such a figure as yers climbing the rigging would surely cause the men to forget their duties. Ye wouldn’t wish to be the cause of a man having the skin flailed off his back. It would be the lightest punishment his lordship would mete out, ye know.”
“I daresay that such a display of viciousness would well fit his character.”
Cassie bit her lip as the earl’s voice boomed out behind her. “Perhaps, Cassandra, but then I have never informed you what your punishment for such disobedience would be.”
She whirled about. “Is it also your habit to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations, my lord?”
“There’s no need to get yerself all a-twitter, madonna,” Scargill said easily, raising a placating hand. “Ye know his lordship is the captain and thus must keep himself apprised of all that goes on.”
“And just what would my punishment be, my lord?” Cassie demanded coldly, ignoring Scargill.
“What do you think would be just?”
“I would say, my lord, that the punishment I have received already at your hands is sufficient for anyone’s lifetime.”
The earl waved Scargill away, a signal that the valet obeyed with alacrity. He took a step nearer to Cassie, and she held her ground, her expression forbidding. His voice dropped to a caressing murmur. “It is no way my fault, Cassandra, that you have felt punished for our four days of abstinence.”
“How dare you?” Angry and embarrassed color mounted her cheeks.
“How dare I what? Remind you that you are a woman and not a sailor to be climbing over the rigging dressed in breeches?” As the gleam of fury did not abate, he added placidly, “If we have another storm, I will approve the breeches for its duration.”
“How very kind you are.”
“Remind me to hide your dinner knife, cara, since you are in such a foul temper.” She turned away from him, and he stood quietly for several moments watching her walk quickly to the forecastle deck where several of his men were working.
“’Twould appear to me that ye make little headway, my lord,” Scargill said pensively, walking into the earl’s view. Out of habit, he smoothed down the coarse lock of red hair that fell over his forehead.
“It has been but two weeks,” the earl said coolly, shifting his gaze toward the distant Spanish coastline. “If I do not despair of the outcome, why should you?”
Emboldened by the earl’s direct question, Scargill said quickly, “Ye have the habit of twitting the girl mercilessly, my lord, and though the madonna is sharper in her wits than most ladies I’ve known, she has no chance with ye, what with ye being so much older and experienced. Hardly loverlike ye be, my lord.”
The earl laughed. “The madonna, as you and the men persist in calling her, despite her tender years, is quite able to cross swords with me. Verbally that is. And as to my not being loverlike, I doubt that you or anyone else is qualified to judge. Now, if you have done with dissecting my character, I suggest you speak with Arturo. I require a special dinner this evening for my lady, something very English for her waning appetite. It will be in the nature of a celebration. You might even call i
t a monthly celebration.” Grinning to himself, he turned away, his destination the helm and Mr. Donnetti.
As he strode along the highly polished deck, his eyes strayed toward Cassandra, who was sitting cross-legged, her skirts modestly tucked over her ankles, listening with avid attention to undoubtedly outrageous tales spun by Joseph, a rotund little Corsican once in the employ of the Barbary pirates. Hie men had taken to her, no doubt about that. A lady to her fingertips who did not lord it over any of them, and a lady whose sailing skills bettered those of many a man. When it became common knowledge that she spoke Italian, he had noticed with a rueful smile that the habitual foul language his men used all but disappeared.
The earl paused a moment and gazed up at the wind-bloated sails, estimating their speed. Since the storm in the Channel, the weather had turned glorious and warm. Though it was the end of June, the Atlantic was not famed for such a continued spate of good weather. If it held, they would reach Genoa a good week beforetimes.
Cassandra was standing now, and the wind flattened her skirt, outlining her hips and thighs. It was just as well that the weather was so mild, he thought, for she held all his attention. He felt a growing ache in his loins and turned away. Tonight he would possess her body, just as she would possess his. He did not believe that she would fight him, for he had unleashed the woman in her, and their four nights of abstinence had likely made her physical need as great as his. He suspected that she desired him, despite her monthly cycle, but he had not pushed her. He wanted her to accept him as her companion as well as her lover. They had passed hours on deck in the evenings, gazing at the brilliant constellations, and he had spoken softly of the past that he had known with her.
“Captain.”
The earl wiped the placid smile from his mouth and brought his attention to his first mate. “Yes, Mr. Donnetti?”
“There is a ship closing off port. She’s likely Spanish.”
He handed the earl a spyglass.
“It’s a Spanish frigate, two gun decks. Keep us windward, Mr. Donnetti. The Spanish captain is a fool if he thinks to engage us.”