My Lord and Spymaster

Twenty-four

LOTS OF PEOPLE SOBBED DOWN THE FRONT OF Eunice’s dress. Fluffy—Flora, her name was—started doing it the minute she saw her. How did they know?

The Captain fumed the whole way back in the hackney. The minute Flora disappeared upstairs, with a maid helping her on one side and Eunice on the other, Sebastian shoved Jess out of the black and white foyer, into the library. Nice and private, the library, but Lord, it was cluttered. Old books lay everywhere and broken pots wherever there weren’t books. She hadn’t bothered to look for secret papers in here, it being what looked like a lifetime career sorting through that, not to mention nobody would keep his secrets where Standish puttered around all day.

Sebastian pulled her inside, and found the only piece of bare wall in the place, and backed her into it, and began kissing her.

“Captain . . .”

“Be quiet.”

It was glorious. He was a lot better at kissing than Ned had been. Realms better. Guess he’d had about ten thousand times more practice. With Ned, kissing had mostly been bumping teeth, all clumsy and not quite fitting together. Kennett knew what he was about. He kissed her for a while, showing her a whole new way of doing it. There were depths and complexities she hadn’t known about. There was this business of doing things with your tongue, for instance.

Sebastian couldn’t be Cinq. Couldn’t be. Couldn’t be.

She said, “Look, I think—”

“Just . . . bloody . . . stop . . . thinking.”

Shivers took over her body. Hot shivers that jostled and quivered under her skin and tried to jump right out. Nothing helped but getting closer and closer to him. He’d been waiting for that.

He couldn’t be Cinq. Cinq wouldn’t come to the padding ken to rescue her. Wouldn’t face Lazarus to buy her back. That had to be proof. Had to be.

Kiss by kiss, her mouth got more numb and tingly. He tasted like wine. She held on and kissed back and it felt wonderful. Felt wonderful with her whole body. Felt like being rubbed with velvet over every inch of her.

His boots shoved her feet wide. Wider. Ready for him. He treated her like someone he was about to make love to. He ran his hand all the way down her stomach. Stroking. Assessing. It was a shock, feeling him touch her there, between her legs, vulgar and confident.

“I don’t . . .” She had something she wanted to say.

When he pulled her against him, he was ready and hard, pressing eagerly. Feeding hunger and heat into her. He wanted this swaying back and forth. Wanted her rubbing herself against him. His hands told her what to do. This way, then back again. Till she was doing what he wanted. By this time, it was what she wanted, too.

There was a glow on him, he was so alive. It was like there was lightning under every inch of his skin, striking at her in tiny sparks. Made her twitch and jump every time he touched her.

Then he stopped and held her tight. Held her wanting and aching, open against him, and not able to get to him because they had too damn many clothes on. “I didn’t mean to come this far.” He stroked her hair, which seemed to have come undone all on its own. “You don’t know anything at all, do you? None of it. I should have been gentle.”

“I’m not a damn virgin.” She was embarrassed all of a sudden. He had her wedged in between one lot of dusty old pots and another. No room to move. She was halfway to making love with him right here, and there wasn’t a square inch for it.

He said, “We’ll go slowly. I promise. Much, much more slowly. I’ll go slow as grass growing with you, Jess.”

She didn’t want to hear that. Didn’t want to think about it.

“I can always tell when you’ve been to the warehouse. You come home smelling of spices.”

“Not always. Sometimes I go look at wool cloth and come home smelling like sheep.”

She reached up and ran the edge of her thumb along his cheek. Scratchy. This was where he shaved. His face was darker, here on his jaw. She touched the corner of his mouth. Smooth there. That was what had been giving her so much pleasure—his mouth. It was the color of madder, the shade they made in Lyon, in that silk factory where they dyed it twice. That was the color of his mouth. A dark undercoat with a sheen on top, just a shade lighter.

He turned toward her hand and set his mouth against her knuckles. Disconcerted the hell out of her. While she was wondering what to do next, he pulled her hair forward, around her face, and kissed it. She couldn’t feel his mouth there, but it made her tremble anyway. Someone kissing her hair. So strange.

He said, “I like your hair.”

“I like yours, too.” Those Greek boys who dived in the sea and brought up sponges had the same jet black hair. It was soft when she put her hands up in it, the color and texture of Russian sables. If Badger had stabbed her this afternoon, she would have missed all this—the feel of a man’s harsh shaved chin, the black hair slipping through her fingers.

He played with his mouth on her earlobe. So damned skillful. It was all meant to be enjoyed.

There’d never been a man who made her want to close her eyes and let him take over. Not ever. Not even Ned. But here she was trembling, letting Kennett wash over her like a wave, drowning her in pleasure. If she let go, he’d pull her under. The pleasure would be worth it. To forget for a few minutes . . .

So much she wanted to forget . . .

She pushed away from him. About an inch away. “Bloody damn cripes. I can’t do this.”

It was the right thing to say. Instead of trying to convince her that she could, indeed, do this, Sebastian threw his head back and laughed. “All right Jess, then you don’t have to.”

He didn’t let her go. Whatever he planned to do with her next, having her backed hard against the wall seemed to be the starting point. “Why did you walk into that place? You almost got yourself gutted in front of me. Do you want to die?”

“It was one of those calculated risks.”

“Calculated madness. Did you really kill somebody for him when you were eight?”

“Not exactly. Look, I don’t want to talk about that.” There didn’t seem to be any pins left in her hair. She shoved him away some more and bundled her hair back over her shoulder. “I’m cautious, generally. Ask anyone. You barging in there and asking Lazarus for me—now that was daft.”

She’d watched the two of them, Lazarus and the Captain, trading for her. Dickering. Somehow, Sebastian said the right words and she walked out of there. There wasn’t another man in London who could have managed it. Only the Captain.

She’d never meet another man in her life like him. It hurt, how much she wanted to make love to him.

“If you’re going to look at me like that, we might as well get back to what we were doing.” His hands just took up where they’d left off. He started kissing her eyebrows, for pity’s sake. Whoever heard of someone kissing eyebrows?

It worked, though. He went back and forth across her with his lips and his fingers, and it was like he was weaving some complicated spell with her flesh. When she said, “I think I want to stop doing this,” he sucked the words right out of her mouth as she spoke them. She might as well have kept quiet. She shook her head back and forth. It didn’t budge his hands any at all. They just played across whatever was going by—cheek, lips, hair. It all worked fine for him, whatever part of her he touched. “It’s not going to work. I’m not going to make love with you.”

“Some people enjoy just kissing.” He breathed it warm into her ear, casual and innocent, as if he didn’t know how that felt to her. He was going much, much more slowly, just like he said he would.

“I don’t want to enjoy it.”

“You are, though, aren’t you?”

She was meshed up in what he was doing to her. Burning, every place he put his hands on her. He was so wise with her body, there didn’t seem to be any way to stop him. He must have done this to a hundred women. Velvet, his lips were, all over her face.

“I’m a damn fool.” She said that because she was sucking on his hand, where he’d set it to her lips. That was worse, somehow, than kissing him, this wanting to know what his hands tasted like. “I’m not going to bed with you, Sebastian, no matter how well you’re seducing me. Remember that.”

“I’ll remember that.” He spoke down into her hair.

“You didn’t expect to get me all the way upstairs like this, did you?” she said. “I’d have got my senses back somewhere in the front hall probably. Or on the stairs at the latest.”

“Certainly on the stairs.” His smile sank into her bones. He did it on purpose. “My very dear Jess, I’m not trying to get you to my bedroom. We have all the time in the world. There are many, many things to do before we go to bed.”

“I don’t want to do any of those either.”

“You don’t even know what they are. You don’t know anything.”

She shivered for him. He watched her do it and his eyes turned to black, hot lava.

“You liked seeing me do that, didn’t you?”

“Immensely. Don’t be so nervous. When we go to bed together, you’ll want it as much as I do. I don’t take anything by force from women. Not even a kiss.”

“You talk them into it. It’s more fun that way.” He’d ask nicely. So very nicely . . .

“Much more fun.” He said it like it was an old joke between the two of them. “Since you’re not going to end up in my bed tonight, you can just relax and see what happens next.”

“I don’t want to relax. Can’t anyway.” She wanted to unbutton his shirt and put her cheek on his chest and smell his skin. She wanted to taste him. That was what came of not being innocent. If she’d been innocent, she wouldn’t know about naked chests.

“You’re waiting to see what happens next, aren’t you?” He ran his hands up and down her back, all friendly. “Maybe you’re curious.”

“I doubt that’s it.” She swayed into him, where he was touching her. Sort of putting herself into his hands. It felt wonderful. “Dunnoh why I’m letting you do this. Generally I have more backbone. I think it’s being terrified for an hour straight. Loosens you all up inside, somehow. Makes everything hit harder afterwards.”

White teeth flashed in his dark face. Oh, but she was amusing him, wasn’t she? “When you brush up against death, you want to couple afterwards. I found that out years ago. I didn’t know it worked the same with women. Does it?”

“Does this time,” she said frankly. “Mostly I was real young. And the last couple times I was so seasick I didn’t want to do anything but curl up and die. I’m glad Lazarus didn’t kill you.”

“I’m glad he didn’t kill either of us.” The Captain seemed to find that funny, too. Outside, in the hallway, somebody clopped rapidly down the stairs.

“It would have been a great waste.” She slipped her hands under his jacket, on his shirt. “Do you know, you are the most alive person I’ve ever seen. I can’t explain it. I was looking at you back there when I thought I might be going to die, and it was like there was fire everywhere inside you.” Wherever she touched his body, the fire crossed through their flesh, till she was burning with it.

She didn’t drop her hands away. She held on.

He must have seen the pleading in her eyes. He kissed her then, giving her what she’d wanted. When she kissed back, her lips and tongue scraped on that stubble of beard along his jaw. She got rubbed sensitive by it. He ran his tongue over her lips then, and there was hardly any skin between them. Just feelings brushing against each other.

She’d go upstairs with him in a few minutes and they’d make love. When they couldn’t stand this kissing anymore, they’d stop lying to each other and get into bed. That was where this was leading, and they both knew it.

“Ah, there you are.” Standish stood in the doorway, looking pleased to have found them.

The Captain’s mouth lifted from hers. “Yes. Here I am.”

“I wish you’d be more careful of the pots, Sebastian. That’s a Minoan dolphin beaker next to your elbow. Eunice says, will you please go get the midwife for . . . Dear me, I’ve forgotten her name.”

“Oh my God,” Sebastian said.

Had to happen sooner or later. “Flora. That’s her name. Lazarus must have really liked her. He cut this one close.”