Beguiling the Beauty

CHAPTER 4

Lexington stood at the rail and surveyed the hive of activity beneath him.

Carriages and heavy drays drove on and off the dock, their procession surprisingly speedy and orderly. Trunks and crates, hefted by stevedores with meaty shoulders and bulging upper arms, slid down open chutes into the cargo hold. Tugboats tooted at one another, readying themselves to nudge the great ocean liner’s nose around—for her to head toward the open sea.

Up the gangplank came the ship’s passengers: giggling young women who had never before crossed the pond; indifferent men of business on their third trip of the year; children pointing excitedly at the ship’s smokestacks; immigrant workers—largely Irish—returning to the old country for a brief visit.

The man in a hat too fancy for his clothes was likely to be a swindler, planning to “aggregate funds” from his fellow passengers for an “extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” The lady’s companion, plainly dressed and seemingly demure, examined first-class gentlemen passengers with mercenary interest: She did not intend to remain a lady’s companion forever—or even for much longer. The adolescent boy who stared contemptuously at the back of his puffy, sweaty father appeared ready to disown the unimpressive sire and invent an entirely new patrimony for himself.

But what hypothesis should he form concerning Baroness von Seidlitz-Hardenberg, for that was her coming up the gangplank, was it not? He recognized her hat, almost like that of a beekeeper’s, but sleeker and more shimmery. The day before, the veil had been creamy in color. Today it was blue, to complement her blue traveling gown.

Logically, a woman shouldn’t need to don a traveling gown for the two and a half miles between Hotel Netherlands and the Forty-second Street piers on the Hudson River, where the Rhodesia was docked. But he’d long ago given up trying to apply logic to fashion, the offspring of irrationality and inconstancy.

The degree of a woman’s devotion to fashion frequently corresponded to her degree of silliness. He’d learned to pay no attention to any woman with a stuffed macaw in her hat and to expect shoddy food at the home of a hostess best known for her collection of ball gowns.

The baroness was certainly highly fashionable. And restless: The unusual parasol in her hand, white with a pattern of concentric blue octagons, twirled constantly. But she did not come across as silly.

She looked up. He could not quite tell whether she was looking directly at him. But whatever she saw, she halted midstep. Her parasol stopped spinning; the tassels around the fringe swayed back and forth with the sudden loss of momentum.

But only for a second. She resumed her progress on the gangplank, her parasol again a hypnotic pinwheel.

He watched her until she disappeared into the first-class entrance.

Was she the distraction he badly needed?

A hush always descended in the final moments before departure, quiet enough to hear the commands issued from the bridge and passed along the length of the ship. The harbor slipped away. On the main deck below her, the crowd waved madly at the loved ones they were leaving behind. The throngs on the dock waved back, just as earnest and demonstrative.

Venetia’s throat tightened. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt such unbridled, unabashed emotions.

Or when she last dared to.

“Good morning, baroness.”

She jerked. Lexington stood a few feet away, an ungloved hand on the railing, dressed casually in a gray lounge suit and a felt hat that had probably seen service on his expeditions. He regarded the waterfront of New York, its piers, cranes, and warehouses sliding past, and displayed no interest in her whatsoever.

It was as if an iceberg had come to call.

“Do I know you, sir?” He’d spoken in German; she replied in the same language, surprised to hear herself sound quite calm, almost unaffected.

He turned toward her. “Not yet, baroness. But I would like to make your acquaintance.”

They’d been in greater proximity in the hotel lift. Yet whereas the day before his nearness only angered her, today she felt as if she were balanced on a high wire over Niagara Falls.

Was she ready to play the game?

“Why do you wish to know me, Your Grace?” No point pretending she didn’t know his rank—the hotel staff had not been reticent about it in her hearing.

“You are different.”

From the greedy whore you held up as an affront to decency?

She fought down her agitation. “Are you looking for a lover?”

Know the rules before you play the game, Mr. Easterbrook had always told her.

“Would that be agreeable to you?” His tone was utterly unexceptional, as if he’d expressed nothing more untoward than a desire for a dance.

After the flowers, she shouldn’t be surprised. All the same, her skin prickled hotly. Thank God for her veil—or she would not have been able to hide her revulsion. “And if I say no?”

“I will not impose on you again.”

She’d dealt with men wanting her favors her entire life. She could recognize feigned nonchalance from a furlong away. But there was no affectation to his dispassionate stance. Were she to turn down his overture, he would simply turn his attention elsewhere and not give her another thought.

“What—if I am not sure?”

“Then I’d like to persuade you.”

Despite the brisk breeze on the river, the veil threatened to asphyxiate her. Or perhaps it wasn’t the veil at all, but his words. His presence. “How would you do that?”

His lips lifted at the corners—he was amused. “Do you wish for a demonstration?”

She’d known only his sharp mind, his arctic demeanor, and his limitless capacity for slander. But now, with the almost playfulness of his tone, the lean strength of his build, and the sight of his fingers absently stroking the railing, she became conscious of his sensuality, her awareness dark and potent.

It was too much. She couldn’t. Not in a million years. Not if he were the last man alive. Not even if he were the last man alive and the guardian of the last store of foodstuff left on Earth.

“No,” she said, her voice seething. “I do not wish for a demonstration. And I would be grateful should I never see you again.”

If her sudden rejection took him aback, he did not show it. He bowed slightly. “In that case, madam, I wish you a pleasant voyage.”

Bridget, Millie’s maid, came back from the hotel clerk’s station with the news that Mrs. Easterbrook had not yet checked in.

“Do you think she might have gone to a different hotel?” Millie asked Helena.

Helena felt uneasy. “But Lady Tremaine’s driver said he’d brought her here yesterday.”

“I’ll speak to the clerk myself,” said Millie.

She approached the counter, Helena in tow, and made her request. The clerk checked the register again.

“I apologize, ma’am, but we do not have a guest by that name.”

“What about a lady by the name of Fitzhugh or Townsend?”

Helena could not see Venetia ever using Tony’s name again. On her calling cards she was simply Mrs. Arthur Easterbrook.

The clerk looked up apologetically. “Not those, either.”

“Did anyone here see a singularly beautiful lady arriving by herself?” Helena asked.

“I’m afraid not, ma’am.”

“Very well, then,” said Millie. “Do you have the suite reserved for Lady Fitzhugh? I am a day early. I hope that will not present a problem.”

“No, ma’am, not a problem at all. And we have a message for you and Miss Fitzhugh.”

The handwriting on the envelope was Venetia’s familiar scrawl—thank goodness. They opened the message as soon as they were inside their suite.

Dear Millie and Helena,

I have decided to take an earlier steamer out of New York. Please do not worry about me. Am in robust health and tolerable spirits.

I will be waiting for you in London.

Love,

V.

Helena bit her lower lip. If it hadn’t been for her, Venetia would not have gone to his lecture.

Before she’d taken up with Andrew, she’d considered all the possible outcomes of her action—or so she’d thought. But she had not remotely prepared for such unintended consequences.

Worry gnawed at her. Even for one who’d contemplated and accepted the likelihood of the worst, it was still unnerving just how quickly and unpredictably things could go so wrong.

Christian worked steadily through the two packets of letters that had caught up with him in New York. The sea, smooth as a tablecloth when the Rhodesia passed Sandy Hook into the open Atlantic, grew noticeably less level as the day wore on. He stopped reading reports from his agents and solicitors when the rocking of the ship made it unprofitable to continue. A walk on the decks required frequent use of the handrails, as the ship rocked from side to side. In the smoking lounge, where the gentlemen made their customary bets on the ship’s daily progress, he had to chase after his ashtray.

The rain began at tea, gently enough at first. But before long each drop slammed into the windows with the ferocity of a thrown rock. He watched the rain and thought again of the baroness.

It was possible that she still distracted him because she’d spurned him and he was not accustomed to rejection. But he did not believe so. He was concerned less with his own sentiments and more with the seething intensity of hers. She was ferociously aware of him, yet even more ferociously offended by his attention. And that intrigued him more than her identity or the reason she kept her face concealed.

A strange but not altogether unpleasant sensation, being preoccupied by a woman who was not Mrs. Easterbrook.

Too bad the baroness would have nothing to do with him.

In theory, repudiating Lexington to his face should have afforded Venetia a modicum of satisfaction.

But the truth was she hadn’t dismissed him. She’d fled from everything that was masculine, confident, and powerful in him, the way a very young girl might run away from the first boy who challenged her to do more than just flirt.

For the rest of the day, instead of congratulating herself on knowing when to cut her losses and abandon clearly demented goals, she stewed in frustration. Was she truly so useless a woman? Had Tony been correct when he’d told her that everything she was, she owed to her looks? Without the advantages conferred by her face, did she have no hope of holding her own with Lexington?

She stared at herself in the mirror. The stewardess she’d selected to help her dress for dinner, Miss Arnaud, had coiffed her hair into a sleek chignon that left her face quite bare. “It’s better this way,” the girl had said. “Madame is so beautiful; nothing must interfere.”

Venetia could not judge. She saw an assembly of features that were often a little odd: Her eyes were very far apart; her jaw was rather too square for her own taste; her nose was neither diminutive nor pert—it went on and on, in fact.

But none of it mattered here. To conquer him, she would have to wage her campaign with an arsenal that did not include beauty.

If, that was, she had the guts to go back to him.

The thought of his hands on her—she shuddered. But not entirely from revulsion. As much as she despised him, he was a handsome man. And a part of her found his nerve and sangfroid utterly riveting.

She must come to a decision soon. She’d dismissed Miss Arnaud a long time ago. In the dining saloon they would be serving the final courses of dinner now. If she missed him tonight, quite likely by tomorrow he’d have found himself another lover.

She shuddered again, a mixture of fear, loathing, and a fierce, perverse need to bring this man to heel.

Her hand reached toward her veiled hat.

Her decision, it appeared, had been made.

The going was more difficult than she’d anticipated.

She knew, of course, that the Rhodesia had run into a fairly significant storm. But sitting in a bolted chair, alternately questioning her sanity and raging at her cowardice, had not given her a proper appreciation of how animated the Atlantic had become.

But out in the mahogany-paneled corridors, she tottered as if drunk, lurching from bulkhead to bulkhead. It wasn’t so bad when the floor rose to meet her. But every time it dropped away, there was a moment of disconcerting weightlessness.

The ship’s lights flickered. It plunged at an angle that would have served for a young children’s slide. She gripped a nearby doorknob to keep her balance. The Rhodesia, reaching the trough of the wave, began to climb again. She grabbed onto a sconce so she wouldn’t tumble backward.

The dining saloon was reached by a grand staircase adorned by a frieze of Japanese gold paper. There were also carved teak panels, but she could not see them very well, for the steps were packed with ladies in feathers and gentlemen in tails heading out, everyone hanging on to the banister.

Panic assailed her. Had dinner already concluded? Was she too late after all? But Lexington was not among the departing diners, so she pressed forward, descending the stairs against the exodus of passengers, ignoring their stares of curiosity and disapproval.

The dining saloon was a hundred feet long and sixty feet wide. The ceiling opened at the center into a rectangular wall that rose two decks to a glass-covered dome. On a clear day, sunlight would spill down this well and illuminate the rows of Corinthian columns and the four long tables that ran nearly the whole length of the room, each capable of accommodating more than a hundred diners.

On this stormy night, a bright if quivery light still cascaded from the well, its source the large, silver-branched electric chandelier that swung with the pitch and roll of the ocean liner. Had Venetia arrived an hour earlier, the sound of silverware and muted laughter would have greeted her, the familiar murmurs of privilege and satisfaction. But now the dining saloon was largely deserted. Two of the long tables were completely empty, all the dishes and cutlery cleared, all the bolted chairs turned out. A few hardy passengers still lingered, their plates and glasses held in place by a special wooden frame set on the table. A middle-aged, robust-looking woman loudly discussed her experiences with past nor’easters.

Lexington, in evening formals, sat by himself near the windows, a cup of coffee before him, his gaze on the storm outside. She prayed for no abrupt changes to the rhythm of the Rhodesia’s movement—she did not want to stumble along the way, but cut through like a shark, sleek and dangerous.

He glanced in her direction. With her veil on, it was difficult to judge his expression, but she thought she caught a flicker of surprise.

And anticipation.

Her stomach tightened. Her face heated. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears.

He rose as she approached the table, but offered no greeting. A waiter emerged from nowhere to help her with her chair, another presented her a cup of coffee.

Lexington retook his seat. Without taking his eyes off her, he lifted his coffee and drank. It would seem he had no intention of making this easy for her.

She spoke before she could change her mind again. “I have reconsidered your proposition, sir.”

He made no response. The air between them all but crackled with charge.

She swallowed. “And I’ve come to the conclusion that I am open to persuasion.”

The steamer heaved. Her hand shot out to protect her coffee cup; his did the same. His finger wrapped around hers. She felt the shock of it deep into her shoulder.

“I was about to go back to my rooms,” he said. “Would you care to join me?”

For a long second, her voice refused to work. Her lips trembled. The thought of being alone with him squeezed the air from her lungs.

“Yes,” she rasped.

He set down his cup and came to his feet. She bit her lip and did likewise. Their exit garnered inquisitive looks from the remaining diners. Lexington took no notice of them. Strange how on her way to him, she’d been equally heedless of the unwanted attention she’d attracted. But now she felt as if she were about to be pilloried.

She preceded him up the grand staircase. The ship listed sharply. His arm was instantly about her waist.

“I’m quite all right, thank you.”

He let go of her. She grimaced at her tone—she sounded nothing like a woman with lovemaking on her mind. If she were any severer, she’d be leading the temperance movement.

The Victoria suite was several decks above the dining saloon. For the rest of the way, they said not a word to each other. At the door of the suite he glanced at her—an unreadable look—before he turned the key.

The parlor was dimly lit. She could only make out the location and general outline of the furnishing: a desk and a Windsor chair before the window, a chaise longue to her right, two padded chairs opposite, shelves that had been built into the bulkhead.

He shut the door.

A surge of panic made her blurt out, “You will not ask to see my face.”

“Understood,” he answered quietly. “Would you care for something to drink?”

“No.” She inhaled hard. “No, thank you.”

He walked past her, deeper into the room. It was not until he reached out a hand that she realized he was extinguishing the light. Shadows enfolded her, alleviated only by flashes of lightning.

He drew the curtain, the slide of rings on rod quick, metallic. The unbroken darkness pressed against her sternum. The din of the storm faded. Even the slant and toss of the Rhodesia seemed to happen elsewhere. Her body knew how to brace itself for the volatile swells of the sea, yet the very predictable course Lexington set was a maelstrom, threatening to tow her asunder.

“Would you agree that I can’t see anything now?”

He was right in front of her, just on the other side of her veil. Her fingers clutched the folds of her skirts. “Yes.”

He removed the veiled hat. Her breath caught. She had never felt more naked in her life.

He slid the back of his hand against her cheek. It was as if a torch caressed her. “The door is unlocked. You may leave at any point.”

The scene crashed into her head: Lexington wedged inside her, and she, overcome at last, begging to be let go.

“I won’t.” Her voice was small but defiant.

He made no reply. Her shallow, erratic breaths drowned out the waves battering the Rhodesia. He touched her again—the pad of his thumb grazing her lower lip, leaving a burning trail in its wake.

“You don’t want to sleep with me. Why are you here?”

She swallowed. “I am not unwilling, only afraid.”

“What do you fear?”

He kissed her just below her jaw. She shuddered. “It—it has been a very long time.”

His hands were on her arms, their heat scorching her through the satin of her sleeves. “How long?”

“Eight years.”

He wrapped one hand around her nape and kissed her, parting her lips without hesitation. The kiss tasted of Arabian coffee, as pure and potent as his will. And she felt that will deep inside her, in places that had lain dormant for nearly a decade.

All too soon he pulled away. The ship staggered. But the violence of the sea was nothing compared to the turmoil inside her: She wished he hadn’t stopped.

“Where is the door?” she asked, her voice uneven.

He did not answer immediately. Into the impenetrable night came the sound of his breathing, less quiet, less controlled. “Five paces behind you.” He paused a second. “Would you like me to walk you there?”

“No,” she said. “Take me in the opposite direction.”

The bedroom was, if possible, even darker than the parlor. Christian stopped when he reached the bed. Under his thumb, the small vein at the baroness’s wrist throbbed wildly, one beat indistinguishable from the next.

He spread open her tightly clenched hand. She was as tense as a full-blown war. Yet beneath all the rigidness, all the reluctance, pulsed an arousal made audible by every one of her ragged breaths. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman so incited him.

Cupping her face, he kissed her again. She tasted impossibly clean, of rain and snow and spring water. The scent of her was equally spare, no sultry musk or sweet flowers, only the fragrance of freshly laundered hair and skin, underpinned by the warmth of her body.

She made small whimpers in her throat. Lust shot through him. His fingers were impatient, almost unsteady, as he undid the top of her bodice, peeling back the layers that imprisoned her.

He was more interested in her reactions than her flesh, yet the sheer smoothness of her skin made him light-headed with desire. He took her mouth once more, invading it thoroughly. His body pressed hers into the footboard of the bed.

She trembled. Did she feel him through everything they still wore? He was hot and hard, almost senselessly so. Then she did something that poured fresh fuel on the fire of his lust: She helped him with her corset, her hands and his working the busk closures together.

The corset was the castle gate. Once it had been undone, everything else was but formalities. He pulled the pins out of her hair and rid her of the rest of her clothes, touching her as little as possible in the process, not quite trusting his own usually ironclad control.

When she was naked, she asked, “Can I still leave?”

“Yes,” he said, pressing her down onto his bed. “Anytime.”

“What would you do, if I left now?”

“Sulk.”

He kissed her chin, her throat. She was delicious everywhere. And still so wound up, her fingers gripping the bedspreads as if she might fall off the bed otherwise—a real possibility, with the Rhodesia reeling every which way. But he doubted she noticed. What she feared was not God, but man.

“Why don’t you want to see my face?” she murmured.

“Did I ever say I do not want to see your face?” He palmed her breast, a most tactile handful, and grazed its underside. “But if you don’t want me to, I will learn to recognize you by the texture of your skin.” He rolled her already erect nipple between his fingers, eliciting a trembling exhalation from her lips. “By your voice,” he said, taking the nipple into his mouth. “And by your taste.”

She moaned and undulated beneath him. He’d always been a meticulous lover—it was only fair that he should repay the lady for his gratification. But her he wanted to overwhelm with pleasure, to have her bask in it, wallow in it, revel in it. He wanted to make her forget that she’d ever been anxious and afraid.

She’d never been more anxious, more afraid.

That he was the one to give her such pleasure frightened her. But she had no one to turn to, except him. The next time he kissed her, she gripped his shoulders and kissed him back, because she didn’t know what else to do.

His response was fierce. He removed his own clothes, slid his hand under her bottom, and came fully inside her.

She sucked in a breath. Yes, she’d been another man’s wife. Yes, Tony had been a competent lover in the early days of their marriage. But had the sensations ever been this sharp, this white-hot, as if lightning had struck?

“Can I—can I still leave?” she heard herself ask.

He withdrew and drove into her again. “Yes.” Another long, infinitely pleasurable stroke. “Anytime.”

She panted. “What would you do if I left?”

He ground into her. “Weep.”

She could not help smiling—just a little.

He gripped her hair and kissed her. “But you are not going anywhere.”

He did dirty, delicious things to her. Fanned the flames of her desires until she was nothing but fever and need. Her pleasure gathered into such an immense, pressure-filled mass that the only way to relieve the pent-up tension was to convulse and scream.

“It really has been eight years,” he murmured.

His hand caressed her where their bodies were still joined. How good it felt, how exquisite. She writhed, whimpering.

“It’s only been a few months for me, but I begin to be convinced I must also have gone years without.”

He withdrew and pushed slowly, ever so slowly, back into her. Her breaths shuddered. It dawned on her that he had not yet reached his resolution.

His fingers stroked her again at the juncture of her thighs, arousing fresh, hot desires. But it was his lips at her ear that thoroughly reignited her. “You are so tightly strung,” he whispered, with a bite to her earlobe that she felt all the way in her toes, “the least touch makes you vibrate.”

After that, there were no more words. He calibrated and fine-tuned her until the merest contact between their bodies was a crescendo of sensations. When his control broke, he pushed her over the edge again. She was deafened and blinded by pleasure. Drowning in it, clutching onto him as her only salvation in the maelstrom.

They stilled. He was solid and heavy above her. She listened to his tattered breathing and felt strangely raw, the way a patch of skin that had been bandaged for a long time did when it was at last exposed to air, light, and touch.

Don’t think, she told herself. Don’t think of anything. For as long as you can.