Page 56

He threw himself down on the bed between her thighs and lifted up her legs so that they wrapped across his broad shoulders and down his back, then began pulling at the knots of her garters with his teeth, first one and then the other.

When they came free, he flung them aside impatiently too, and pushed down her stockings, kissing the tender skin of her inner thighs where the ties had marked them.

She closed her eyes and forgot the room, the house and all the people in it, losing herself in the sensations his lips, his mouth and his clever fingers were teasing from her.

He slipped his big hands under her buttocks to hold her tightly, and kissed his way up towards the dark curls where her thighs met.

Once there, and armed with the knowledge of exactly what pleased her most that he’d gained last night and the night before, not to mention in a couple of highly enjoyable snatched encounters in the week before their wedding, he began licking and kissing her most sensitive places with a fierce focus that soon had her gasping and clutching at the sheets, digging her heels into his back, raising her body eagerly to meet him.

She felt gloriously wanton as he lay between her legs and devoured her with the savage, passionate attention she was coming to crave.

This was her new addiction and she could not imagine tiring of it.

She hadn’t known a few days ago that men and women did this sort of thrillingly wicked thing to each other; now, she wondered why they ever used their time to do anything else.

He freed his right hand from beneath her body and slid a finger inside her and then out again, and her electric jolt of pleasure and the incoherent cry that accompanied it had him smiling against her – she could feel his cheeks curve – but did not make him stop.

She would have been most annoyed if it had; he’d scarcely begun.

A second finger joined the first, and found the particular place that made her arch her back and open herself to him wider still, the edges of her vision darkening as the urgent desire for release built within her.

And still his mouth worshipped at her altar of Venus, but now suddenly she wanted more, more of him, a deeper union; she was moaning his name in a confused plea she hoped he could understand.

He moved away from her and she whimpered at the sudden absence, cold on her exposed skin, but he was unbuttoning himself, leaping free, pulling her closer, slipping his hardness inside her where it belonged, finding a rhythm, and that was even better, that was what she needed now.

‘It’s when you do that,’ she gasped as he thrust into her and slowly, tantalisingly withdrew a little before thrusting once more to fill her again.

It was so good it was almost unbearable.

‘I know, my love,’ he said. ‘I know.’ He was standing tall and powerful at the foot of the bed and holding her hips just as tightly as she liked, and she locked her legs about him and moved with him, passing beyond rational thought into a place where there was only sensation, and that sensation was the most intense pleasure she had ever known.

She climaxed before he did, her release prolonged beyond what she would have thought possible by his continuing, powerful thrusts and by his cries as he came and gasped out her name, and fell into her waiting arms.

A short while later, they lay naked together, idly caressing and kissing, talking or being silent and, most of all, revelling in the time alone that was so new and so precious to them both.

Amelia said lazily at last, ‘So your sister-in-law and her entire family are gone from England…?’ She didn’t want to say her name, not here and now, but there had been no time before the wedding to ask, and afterwards, she had not found the right moment till now.

‘They are,’ he told her easily enough. ‘Pennyfeather tracked them without difficulty to a disreputable ship that left on the early-morning tide, supposedly bound for Ireland but, he thinks, bent on running the naval blockade and heading for Boston. At any rate, they are beyond his reach, and I cannot say that I am sorry.’

Was it still, despite everything, delicate ground over which she must be careful? Would it always be? ‘You do not wish to see your brother’s killer brought to justice, Marcus?’

He took her hand and kissed it, then held it against his cheek.

‘It will not bring him back, will it? I can see that you hesitate to say her name, my darling, but let us have no secrets between us, no places where we fear to tread. I think the outcome of justice is always uncertain in this world, and even though I do not love Lavinia, and ceased to love her long before I met you, no person of any sensibility could wish to know that someone he once cared for was to be put to death. To have a child learn one day that that was her mother’s fate, for killing her father.

A trial would have mired us in the sad past again, and I am more than content to put that past and all its pain behind us where it belongs and look to our brighter future together.

Not least because – and perhaps this is selfish and discreditable, but I hope you will be understanding if it is – I would feel obliged to go and watch if Lavinia were to climb the gallows steps at Newgate, and I would wish to spare myself that. Those images in my head.’

She shuddered, and held him more tightly. ‘You’d feel you owed her that? I suppose it is natural, but it would be terrible to see. I am sure you have thought of the crowd too, clamouring for the best view. I don’t think it’s selfish to wish to avoid such a dreadful experience.’

‘I do not know if I’d owe it to her – she is a murderer and cares nothing for others – but I would have that debt to my brother and my mother. To see an end made, however hard it would be. To say, “Yes, it is done,” rather than rely on the reports of others.’

‘To bear witness.’

‘Exactly. But I shall be spared that because it will not happen, and if it is weak to be glad, then so be it. Lavinia, dead or alive, here or abroad, is no threat to our happiness – I hope you know that. But before we leave this dark topic, I must make you smile. Pennyfeather knew details of the ship and its ultimate destination already, I strongly suspect, because he had previously arranged for another to take clandestine passage on it. He hinted as much, though he did not say so in plain words. I wonder if America is ready?’

Amelia gasped and choked with laughter, sitting up to stare at her husband.

‘My stepmother!’ she cried. ‘Rosanna did say that she was toying with the idea of going to New York or Boston and taking the stage by storm, which I’m quite sure she would.

But she has betrayed Lavinia and taken her money for nothing, Lavinia knows it, and they will meet on board ship, with no escape possible for either of them! ’

Marcus grinned. ‘You have met and talked with the lady, and I have only seen her perform, so you will know best, but personally I cannot doubt that she will be more than a match for Lavinia. Probably she already has been, since over a week has passed since the Spruce Wench left port. They will have had their confrontation, though we may never know the outcome, but are forced to imagine it.’

‘That is a much more enjoyable picture to have in your head,’ she said, leaning forward to kiss him.

‘Lavinia icily furious, Rosanna defiant and amused, and Sir Lionel and Lady Hall obliged to acknowledge Rosanna as Lady Wyverne, their social superior. Perhaps she will try to ensnare Sir Lionel out of pure mischief.’

‘All this with an audience of highly interested sailors,’ Marcus added.

‘It was not a large ship, Pennyfeather said, nor a well-appointed one. And they will be obliged to dodge the navy, and be ready at any moment to flee, which sounds most chancy and uncomfortable. I hope they are all good sailors, including poor Priscilla. I am not, and have vivid and unpleasant memories of my own sea voyages. I do not envy them in the slightest.’

‘I should hope you do not, sir!’ she said, laughing as he pulled her down to kiss her.

They had been far too intent on each other to think of closing the curtains.

The moon, almost full, sailed across the star-studded dark velvet sky and painted a silver pathway across the floor, still strewn with discarded clothing, and up to the big bed, where Marcus and Amelia fell asleep at last, dreaming of a vessel tossed in the vast, unfriendly Atlantic and bound for an uncertain destination, while they lay safe and warm in each other’s arms.