Still his mouth explored hers as if he claimed a private kingdom. She could hardly breathe, sinking into untamed delight. She clung to his shoulders as her knees threatened to collapse. He was shaking too. If he wasn’t braced so firmly against the window frame, they’d tumble to the floor.
His hands roamed over waist and hips and thighs. She didn’t hear her dress rip, so she was startled at the sudden coolness across her chest. When his hands closed greedily on her breasts, she cried out in surrender. His long fingers plucked the beaded peaks, teased the areolas, stroked and squeezed and pinched. She’d recognized his desire weeks ago, but had no idea he wanted her so ferociously.
His hands pushed her to the edge of pain, but the agony was glorious. Never had she felt this intensity. Awe lanced through her.
Still he wasn’t tender. She was past caring. She’d permit him anything, as long as he kept kissing her, touching her, panting his appreciation into her neck. She burned to touch him. Return this bliss. Conquer him in turn.
Hesitantly she slid a shaking hand between their bodies, cupping him. He was large, vigorous, daunting in her hand. She shuddered to feel the vibrant life. The thought of all that power thrusting inside her made her head swim.
“Damn it, Pen,” he groaned into her bare shoulder and nipped her sharply.
Shock sizzled through her with the sting. His savagery appalled her, scared her, but spiked her excitement to a level where she threatened to combust.
“Should I stop?” The storm made her feel as though they were in a world of their own. She nibbled a line up his neck and along his strong jaw. “Tell me to stop.”
“Hell, no,” he groaned and drew one pointed nipple into his mouth. More exquisite pain flowed into intoxicating pleasure. To share this delightful hurt, she clenched her other hand in his tangled, wet hair.
He sucked her other nipple. Heat flooded her as every muscle tightened into a delicious coil. Through the haze, she felt his hand on her leg above her stocking. Another hitch against the ship’s movement and his fingers curled around her mound. She jerked at the intimacy.
She tugged at his shirt until her lips skimmed hard pectorals, kissed the mat of soft hair. When one long finger invaded her body, she released a sharp inhalation and sank her teeth into his chest. He jerked and returned the favor with a sharp bite to her throat.
With a stagger, he swung her from the window. Away from the embrasure, the ship’s pitching was dizzying. Or perhaps Pen was dizzy with passion. Cam tumbled her toward the luxurious bed where she’d slept alone for two weeks, tormented to know he lay just across the corridor.
Breathless with excitement, she toppled back onto the mattress. Then she was doubly breathless when Cam flung himself on top of her. His weight was unfamiliar, thrilling. The boat’s tossing rolled them together so they wrestled like puppies. Inside her, a great emptiness yearned. She ached for Cam to fill her. She grabbed his shirt and ripped it off, desperate to feel his bare skin. She was as fierce as he was. Even now when it was clear that he was mad for her, she still feared that this glory might end before she’d drunk it to the dregs.
Cam fondled her breasts, pressing them together, kissing her nipples. Response rippled through her like fire as she bowed up toward the hot rasp of his tongue.
He kept speaking, broken words of praise and encouragement. Kiss me. Touch me. Hold me. There. There. Ah, just there. You’re beautiful. I want you. That’s right. More. Harder. Tighter. Don’t stop. A feverish litany of demands that set her wayward heart pitching like the yacht.
With an urgency that stoked her craving, he slid down her body, setting his mouth wherever he reached. Throat. Breasts. Stomach, still covered by her shift. She’d had no idea her skin was so sensitive. Somewhere between the window and the bed, she’d lost her corset. She still wore her dress. Barely. Her skirts frothed around her hips.
His hands were everywhere. She jolted as he ripped her drawers away. His touch commanding, he caught her thighs and parted her. The ship gave a mighty kick as though protesting at his action.
Chest heaving as he rose, Cam caged her between his arms. “You drive me insane.”
Gasping, she hooked her hands around his neck and held on hard. Making love in this storm was like embracing on a galloping horse. “I think we’re both insane.”
Lightning flashed again and again, turning the room continually bright. He looked desperate, as she’d never seen him. She thrilled to think that she, Penelope Thorne, did this to him. He dipped his hips until he rubbed against the place where she wanted him.
“I need more than this.” Urgency made him sound angry.
“Don’t talk.” She pressed higher into that intriguing hardness, gathering her courage to unbutton his breeches. Above, there was a deafening crash as if a mighty tree fell. The yacht plunged, setting Pen bouncing. If Cam had been naked, he’d be inside her.
His hands on her waist were insistent, holding her firm against the shifting mattress. “Say you’ll give me more than this.”
What on earth? She frowned at him, struggling through her lunatic arousal to understand what he asked. “Of course I’ll give you more than this.”
“Having you once isn’t enough. Give me a month.” He pressed his face to her naked breast. “We’ll go somewhere. Somewhere nobody knows us. Cornwall. The Highlands. France. A month will make no difference to your aunt’s bequest.”
Bewilderment, passion, recklessness vanished within the second. Like freezing seawater, stark reality crashed down. “A month,” she repeated flatly.
He didn’t notice her tone or that her body no longer curved toward his in welcome. Instead, she lay stiff as the planking on the deck.
“A month. Say you’ll give me that much.” He shifted to cradle her face in his elegant hands. “I promise you more pleasure than you’ve ever known.”
Quickly and thoroughly, he kissed her. There was still no tenderness. Minutes ago, she wouldn’t have minded. Stupid, brainless, needy little fool she was. Even now, her heart raced, her skin yearned for his touch.
“What’s wrong?” He raised his head and stared at her in concern. “Is it the storm? This is hardly the best place to start an affair, but I see you and I can’t keep my hands to myself.”
“Apparently.”
This time, he noted her tone. Slowly he sat back on his knees and she stole the chance to scramble up against the bedhead. She curled one hand over the carved top while the other clumsily struggled to restore her dress.
Lightning revealed Cam’s wary expression. The flash also showed her how she’d devastated his clothing. How mortifying. His shirt hung in tatters over his powerful shoulders and chest. She struggled not to glance at his breeches, after a nervous glance revealed that he was still mightily aroused.
He ran a hand through his hair and his lips twisted in self-castigation. “You told me not to talk.”
“You should have listened.” She blinked back corrosive tears of anger and frustration. And hurt. When would she learn to keep her distance? Venturing closer to Cam always shredded her into bloody gobbets. But never so agonizingly as today when he’d asked her to be his temporary mistress before he married another woman.
“What did you think I offered?” He no longer sounded like her ardent lover, but like the authoritative man who had escorted her through the Alps.
“I didn’t think,” she admitted grudgingly. She still had trouble making her mind work. Anger and pain had doused passion, but her blood still pumped hot and ready.
“What in Hades is this, Pen?” Cam growled low in his throat. “You don’t want to marry me. You made that clear nine years ago. I can’t believe you’ve changed your mind.”
Had she changed her mind? The awkward truth was that if he loved her, she’d swim a mile through the heaving ocean outside to marry him. With one arm tied behind her back.
The even more humiliating truth was that if he loved her, she’d sneak away in the blink of an eye to his love nest. If he loved her, she�
�d give up her last drop of blood to make him happy.
But the sad and unalterable reality was that he didn’t love her. He’d never allow himself to love anybody.
He suffered a bad case of unsatisfied desire, a stronger reaction than she’d expected from phlegmatic Camden Rothermere. But love had never been part of the equation.
She spoke stiffly. “No, I don’t want to marry you.”
Another crash from above, violent enough to shake the deck. It sounded like a herd of elephants thundered up and down playing football.
“If you don’t want an affair, what the hell do you want?” Because of the noise, his voice emerged more aggressively than perhaps he intended.
A fair question. So fair that it made her lash out in disappointment. “I don’t want you to relieve your itch for me in some shabby little hideout before you go straight to Lady Marianne.”
Lightning revealed him looking particularly ducal, all supercilious lowered eyelids and lips curled in aristocratic disdain. “My dear girl, you do me an injustice. There would be nothing shabby about our retreat. My mistresses never complain of my generosity. You won’t surrender your doubtful virtue for a mere shilling.”
She slapped him hard enough for the impact to echo over the wailing wind. Glaring, she rubbed her palm. It stung like the devil. She hoped his cheek felt worse.
Despite the noise, a vibrating silence descended.
When lightning streaked through the sky, she clearly saw the imprint of her hand on his face. He looked ready to murder her.
Good. She felt the same. If she could arrange it, she’d happily push him into the ocean and laugh while he drowned.
She should feel horrified at hitting him. But outrage still writhed in her stomach like a cobra, making her feel sicker than the rolling ship ever could. She’d never imagined him addressing a woman of his own class like a courtesan.
Damn Camden Rothermere to hell.
Another crash from above shattered his paralysis. He rolled off the bed to stand, clinging to the base of the bed. The rage drained from his expression, leaving him tired and unhappy. She told herself she didn’t care.
“I’m sorry, Pen.”
Pen wished he’d go, then realized that he awaited absolution. He could wait until hell turned into green meadows. “There’s no excuse.”
Her uncompromising response flattened his lips. “I haven’t acted as a man of principle.”
“And that irks you,” she snapped.
He looked surprised, although to do him credit he didn’t sidle away from responsibility. “Yes, it does. You know how I’ve struggled to prove that a Rothermere isn’t necessarily a scoundrel.”
She sighed, suddenly deathly sick of it all. “Cam, grow up and accept that you’re not perfect. You made a mistake.”
He knew he wasn’t off the hook. “Around you, I make nothing but mistakes.”
“Then perhaps it’s better that we never meet again,” she said dully.
“That might be best.”
His ready agreement shouldn’t sting. Of course he wanted to be rid of her. She’d been nothing but trouble, and now she’d teased him into a lather, then clouted him for good measure. “So get out of my cabin.”
A lurch of the ship had him grabbing for the bedpost. Fortunately the furniture was nailed down. “You said you were frightened.”
“Now I’m frightened of you,” she said with a spite that later she’d regret.
He paled and his hand clenched on the carved column. “Pen, I—”
She stared blindly at the paneled wall, hoping he’d take the hint. Still he didn’t go. Couldn’t he tell that she didn’t want to see him?
A splintering sound rent the air. A more fanciful woman might say it marked the splitting of her heart.
“Pen, I never meant it to be like this. Please forgive me.”
Cam sounded like the boy she’d grown up with. She’d fallen in love with that boy. She’d trust her life to that boy. She turned ready to scream like a harpy, then stopped astonished as the door behind Cam slammed open and an oilskin-covered Goliath barged in.
“Your Grace, Your Grace, come above. The lady too. Cap’n says the Windhover’s about to founder on Goodwin Sands. The mast’s gone and we’re taking water. We must man the boats if there’s hope of saving ourselves.”
For a burning instant, Pen stared into Cam’s eyes. “Cam, are we lost?”
“Never.” The mad courage in Cam’s response made her heart surge, despite all the anguish and hatred of the last hour. “Give me your hand.”
Then the world turned to chaos as the yacht slammed into a solid obstacle.
Chapter Eleven
Leath House, London, late March 1828
By God, Leath’s butler was a superior bugger. Harry fought the urge to stick a finger in his neckcloth to loosen it. He stalked through the door that the haughty fellow held and into an extravagant library.
The tall man who rose from behind a vast mahogany desk bore an expression even more forbidding than the butler’s. By the hard set of his jaw and the shuttered eyes, he looked ready to boot young Mr. Thorne back into Berkeley Square. Harry gulped to moisten a dry mouth, then told himself to buck up.
“Thorne.” Leath’s voice was particularly deep and resonant.
Only with difficulty did Harry stop himself from jumping like a nervous cat. He’d heard innumerable stories of the marquess’s lethal tongue and razor-sharp brain shredding any members of the House of Lords rash enough to set themselves against him. “My lord.”
No invitation to sit. Instead Leath prowled around the desk to prop his hips against the edge. Harry supposed Sophie was upstairs. He hadn’t informed her of this afternoon’s call.
Harry swallowed again and struggled to keep his voice steady. He felt colder inside Leath House than outside in the squall slapping rain against the windows. “I’m sure you’ve guessed why I requested this appointment.”
The marquess’s expression remained discouraging. “Perhaps you should tell me.”
Harry had devoted the last week to planning his campaign. He’d arrived dressed in his best and armed with an array of arguments to melt a bronze statue’s heart. Now he stared at the man he hoped would become his brother-in-law and couldn’t recollect a word.
Impatience drew the marquess’s fierce black brows together. “I’m a busy man.”
The world accounted James Fairbrother a handsome fellow in the brawny, saturnine fashion. Right now, Harry just thought he was terrifying.
Harry drew himself up and spoke from the heart. Which was the last thing he’d intended. He’d long ago realized that no appeal to sentiment would win over the marquess. “I’m here to ask permission to court Lady Sophie. I love her and I’m sure I’ll make her happy.”
To Harry’s mortification, the marquess laughed. He folded his arms across his dauntingly wide chest and bent his head and snickered fit to send a man mad.
“My lord, I see nothing amusing in my request.” Harry cursed himself for sounding like a pompous blockhead.
Abruptly Leath stopped laughing. This time Harry couldn’t mistake the animosity in his eyes. “When I got your note, I wondered if you were moronic enough to declare yourself. Surely even the stupidest member of England’s most imprudent family couldn’t be that foolhardy.” Another snide laugh. “I overestimated you. Although nothing I’ve seen since you started sniffing around my sister indicates that I should have.”
“You’re offensive, sir,” Harry said coldly, before remembering that umbrage wouldn’t forward his cause.
“I’m offensive?” Leath didn’t raise his voice, which made his contempt all the more powerful. “I’m not a useless fribble of a spendthrift who imagines he’ll win a great heiress just for the asking. An heiress who happens to be the sister I love. On his deathbed, I promised my father that I’d look after Sophie. Entrusting her future to a wastrel would make me a vile liar.”
Harry struggled not to retreat under this tirade, all
expressed in a basso profundo that set his teeth vibrating. “You need to give me a chance to present my case, my lord.”
Leath’s fist banged hard upon the desk behind him, setting the inkwells rattling. “The devil. I do not need to give you anything, except an order to leave my house and stop bothering my sister.”
Every rule of politeness insisted that when a man requested a guest’s departure, the guest was duty-bound to depart. But Harry was angry enough and desperate enough to defy the marquess’s decree.
“There is some justice in your accusations, my lord,” he said through lips so stiff that they felt made of wood. Nobody had spoken to him like this since he was an unpromising schoolboy at Eton. He squared his shoulders and stared directly at Leath. “I won’t make excuses for my behavior or my family.”
“There are no excuses,” Leath snapped.
Harry told himself that he couldn’t close this interview by punching the overweening coxcomb in the nose. “I am a young man who until now has had no call on his talents. I’ve done no harm to anyone. My vices are those of any sprig about Town. If you inquire, you’ll discover I’m addicted to neither the bottle nor the gambling tables. I’m not in debt.” Barely. “I love your sister sincerely. I believe I can make her happy.”
Leath regarded him like a cockroach that had crawled from beneath the rich Turkey carpet. “And I believe that you’re a rake without income or prospects who intrigues to set himself up in luxury, courtesy of my sister’s fortune.”
Harry flinched before he recalled that any display of vulnerability placed him at the marquess’s mercy. Not that mercy seemed part of the man’s repertoire. “I’d take your sister in her shift, sir.”
“Gallant words, Mr. Thorne. Ones you’ll never need to prove.”
“She ought to marry a man who adores her.” Harry retained enough grip on strategy to know that mentioning Desborough would only infuriate Leath.
“She ought to marry a man who offers steadfastness and care.”
“I am that man, sir.” Harry straightened his spine, although he knew nothing would help him. Damn it, Sophie had been right. He should have listened. She’d be furious when she discovered that he hadn’t. “We should ask Lady Sophie’s opinion.”