Regency High Society Vol 2: Sparhawk's Lady / The Earl's Intended Wife / Lord Calthorpe's Promise / The Society Catch. Miranda JarrettЧитать онлайн книгу.
play?” He stared at her, appalled that she would even admit such a thing. “All that ‘darling husband’ claptrap was from some damned play?”
“It worked, didn’t it?” she said stubbornly.
“Listen to me! They would have kept me at the press house for an hour or two at most, then let me go!”
“You trusted them too much! This is England, not America!”
“Oh, aye, my fine Lady Byfield, as if I’d forgotten! I don’t need you to tell me that. I don’t need you for anything!”
“Don’t you go making any of this my fault!” She felt tears smarting behind her eyes and she didn’t know why. “You’re not being fair. You were the one who forced your way into George’s house to rescue me. All I did was try to return the favor, and now you’re free.”
“I’ll never be free, you damned selfish bitch!” Tormented by a pain she couldn’t understand, he slammed his fist into the post beside her. “You claim fair play. You turned my private life into a penny curiosity. What of you, eh? What if I took you back in there before the others and told them all your shame, your sins? Would that be fair?”
“You wouldn’t dare.” She shook her head wildly. “You can’t!”
He tore the kerchief from her bodice, and with a frightened gasp she pressed her hands over her neckline, striving to cover herself with her spread fingers. Instead he caught her wrists and pinned them high over her head, mercilessly forcing her back against the rough planks of the stall. She was painfully aware of how she stood trapped between the rough stable wall and the equally unyielding barrier that was Jeremiah Sparhawk.
Yet her body sensed the difference between the two, her softness matching and melting against the lean, muscled planes of his, warm with the heat of his anger. It had been this way the one other time he’d held her in his arms, and she shivered with an anticipation she desperately wanted to suppress. Long, long ago her mother had told her of such feelings between men and women, and their inevitable result. No wonder Captain Sparhawk could taunt her about her sin and shame when her body betrayed her like this!
When he bent his head over hers, she knew he meant to kiss her, just as she knew too late how wrong she’d been to trust him. By trusting him she had made herself vulnerable. She squeezed her eyes shut, the last defense she had.
“I thought you were different,” she whispered rapidly, her voice barely containing her tears of fear and disappointment. “When I saw that scar and guessed what you had suffered, I thought you were the only man who could help me, the one who had fought Hamil Al-Almeer and survived. I believed you were strong and brave, but I was wrong, wasn’t I? I was wrong! You’re a coward, just like you fear. A coward!’
She felt him go still, his ragged breathing matching hers, the only sound between them. Though by infinitesimal degrees his grip on her wrists relaxed, she kept her eyes closed, both unsure of what he’d do next and unwilling to break the strange spell between them.
Gently his fingers caressed the narrow bones of her wrists, his thumbs sliding along the inside of her upstretched arms as he traced the pale blue veins that ran to her heart until, at last, he eased her arms down to her sides. Gently, so gently, he cradled her jaw in his hands, his breath warm on her forehead, and she felt the roughness of his beard on her skin as his lips feathered across the loose wisps of hair near her parting.
“A coward, you say,” he said so softly she nearly didn’t hear him. “Dear God, I never wanted to hurt you.”
Then his hands, his touch, were gone. Bereft, she opened her eyes and saw he’d retreated across the stable, his back against the slatted boards of a stall as he crouched down in the straw, his arms folded tightly over his bent knees and his chin resting on his arms. The light from the lantern hanging overhead was harsh, sparing him nothing. His jaw was bruised from press-gang’s beating, already swollen and mottled, and in his eyes was the same empty, haunted look Caro remembered from that first night.
The nightmare, she thought miserably. Something that she’d said or done had brought it back.
“I didn’t mean that about you being a coward,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You believed it when you spoke, and God knows it’s the truth.” He sighed and rubbed his fingers into his eyes. “So let me guess. Hamil has your precious Frederick prisoner, and you wish me to go fetch him home. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Only to Naples, to his mother,” said Caro eagerly. “She is the one who has heard through the Neapolitan court—they maintain diplomatic relations with the Pasha of Tripoli for their trade, you see—that Frederick still lives, and that Hamil would consider a ransom for him and your friend Mr. Kerr, too. I thought that because you’d fought Hamil before you’d like the chance to meet him again. Not as a friend, of course, but as men do, you know—oh, dear, that’s not coming out at all how I intended!”
“You mean would I like another crack at killing him the way he nearly did me? A bit of bloodthirsty revenge amongst the savages, with a nice little errand delivering dear Frederick’s ransom on the side? Is that what ‘men do’?”
Caro winced. “That makes it sound vastly foolish, doesn’t it?”
“Men are vastly foolish, sweetheart, though I’ve never had reason to judge women much better.” He plucked a piece of straw from the floor and twirled it absently between his fingers. “So to make all this work, you must rely on the promise of a heathen pirate, the good will of an old woman who despises you, and the vengeful wrath of a coward you scarcely know?”
“I told you I don’t truly believe you’re a coward!”
“Ah, but Caro, I do.” He tossed the straw away and slowly stood. “You’ve chosen the wrong man to be your hero.”
She looked down, unable to meet his eyes. “It wasn’t a choice. There were no others. You were all I had.”
“Damnation.” He didn’t want to do it, and he’d be ten times a fool to agree. He didn’t trust the old countess in Naples or George Stanhope here in England, the Pasha of Tripoli or Hamil Al-Ameer; any of them could play Caro false in a minute. And God in Heaven, what he himself could do to her hopes without even trying, a pitiful battered Yankee who was afraid of the dark!
Yet there was Davy, and maybe others. To turn his back on them would be to admit far worse of himself than cowardice alone.
And then there was Caro herself, waiting for his decision there by the post like some poor felon in the dock. An exhausted, bedraggled countess in secondhand clothes who’d tried to do her best to save him just as he’d saved her. A beguiling, unpredictable creature who mixed world-weary airs with unstudied innocence. A luscious, desirable woman who melted in his arms and tempted him with lips redder, plumper, sweeter than summer berries on the vine.
A woman who expected him to risk his life for the husband she loved.
Damnation, indeed.
Chapter Seven
“You’ve gone too far this time, Jeremiah,” declared Desire furiously, “too far by half!”
“Oh, hush, Des, ‘tis not so bad,” scoffed Jeremiah, standing beneath the rack of polished pans and kettles in the grand kitchen of his sister’s house. He sipped coffee from the cup the scullery maid had brought him with a curtsy and a giggle, and enjoyed the fuss as the staff pretended to go about their preparations for tea, their collective ears straining to hear what their mistress and her brother said. “Considering some of the scrapes you’ve gotten yourself into over the years, I’d say that drinking coffee stands pretty far down the list of offenses.”
“That’s not what I mean, as you know perfectly well!”