Regency High Society Vol 2: Sparhawk's Lady / The Earl's Intended Wife / Lord Calthorpe's Promise / The Society Catch. Miranda JarrettЧитать онлайн книгу.
when we free him, white mull—oh, Jeremiah, I left my bundle on the deck!”
“Whatever was in it is gone now,” he said. “You might be too fine a lady to steal from your fellows, but believe me, they won’t feel such scruples about you.”
Hoping to retrieve her belongings, she tried to squeeze past him. “But if I went and asked—”
“You really don’t understand, do you, Caro?” He blocked her path, his body filling half the cabin and his fury the rest. “What’s different isn’t the rags on your back. It’s that you were alone, among strangers who’d sooner do you harm than blink. Can you guess what kind of mercy you’d have found from that crew on deck if I hadn’t come to vouch for you?”
Jeremiah could, all too vividly, and the horror of what might have happened to her, either on board the Colomba or wandering about the Neapolitan waterfront, fueled his anger at how much she’d foolishly risked.
“Damnation, Caro, this isn’t some little masquerade for your amusement! Why the hell didn’t you stay in Naples where I’d know you’d be safe?”
“Oh, yes, and Naples is such a fine, safe place!” Her own temper flaring, Caro shoved at the hard wall of his chest. “Have you ever considered what would happen to an English lady if Bonaparte’s army returned? Why do you think Frederick’s mother is so eager to make peace with me so she can go home to England? She told me that I—”
“Why are you suddenly so thick with a woman who despises you? How can you trust a blessed word she says?”
“At least she believes that I can do things for myself!”
“Don’t argue with me, Caro,” ordered Jeremiah, his voice as stern as if he stood on his own quarterdeck.
“And don’t give orders to me!” Furiously Caro lashed out at him, her hand nearly reaching his cheek before he grabbed her wrist.
“Stop it, Caro,” he said, more softly this time, but with the same commanding tone. “Do you want that whole pack of jackals topside to believe you’ve lost your wits?”
“I don’t care a fig what they believe!” With a cry of wounded frustration, she struggled to pull free and try to strike him again, but he held her as tightly as if they’d been bound together. He was so much larger, so much stronger, and in that moment she hated him for it. “And you don’t care, either, not about what they think or whether I’m safely left behind in Naples! All that matters to you is that I obey, like some well-trained little dog, so that you can feel free to go off alone and get yourself killed with a clear conscience. That’s it, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”
“How can you say that after all we’ve done together?” he demanded, his eyes glittering like green fire. She’d never guess how deeply her words cut into him, as surely as any knife. Didn’t she realize how much he’d changed for her? The man he had been a year ago would not be here now, risking his life to save an English lord because his wife had asked him. For Davy, yes. He’d do anything for a friend like him.
But not for a woman. And never for love.
“I can say it because it’s true!” she cried, her words shaking with emotion. “Whatever you do, you do for yourself, because you’re the blessed American Captain Jeremiah Sparhawk!”
“Damnation, Caro, I’m doing this now because I love you!” His mouth crushed down on hers, stopping her words as he kissed her long and hard and deep. He felt the instant when her struggles subtly changed, when she stopped struggling to free herself and instead clung to him, when her anger, too, was channeled into the same desire he felt racing through his body. He let her hand go and she curled it around the back of his neck, her fingers tangling in his hair as she drew him closer.
He pushed her back the last few inches against the bulkhead, lifting her higher until her hips were level with his. He held her there with the pressure of his body, suspended, her toes grazing the floor as she steadied herself with her hands on his shoulders. The lacing of her bodice snapped through the eyelets as he hooked his fingers in the bow, tugging the neckline lower over her breasts.
She gasped as his open lips found her nipple, drawing it deeply into his mouth and suckling hard. Even through her petticoats she could feel the heat of his arousal, and instinctively she rocked her hips against his, her back arching against the rough timber of the bulkhead and thrusting her breast more deeply into his mouth. As much as he gave her, she desperately craved more, more that only he could offer.
His hand plunged beneath her petticoats, following the sleek length of her thigh above her garters to her bare hip, and she whimpered as she moved against him. Rapidly he unfastened the fall on his trousers, freeing himself as he swept away the last barrier of her skirts and shifted her long legs around his waist.
She was open and ready for him, her need shameless, and when he guided himself into her aching flesh, she raggedly cried out his name. With her legs crossed over his back she drew him in deeper, intoxicated with the way he filled her as he drove into her so powerfully that he lifted her against the wall.
She didn’t care; she didn’t care about anything except the feverish, spiraling ecstasy that was coiling in her body, making her limbs shake and her heart pound, her breath hot in his ear. Passion swept them both beyond sense, beyond reason, until at last their self-made world of pleasure exploded, and with a final sob of release she melted in his arms.
They stayed there joined together as their heartbeats slowed and their breathing grew more regular, her eyes closed and her cheek resting against his shoulder, his face buried in the damp silk of her hair, relishing the languid, animal fragrance of her satisfaction.
Finally, slowly, he lowered her to the deck, but even as her skirts dropped between them he still could not bring himself to let her go, touching her gently, caressing her, kissing her eyelids and the little dimples that framed her smile.
“You are so precious to me, love,” he murmured. “Can you wonder that I’d want to keep you safe?”
She smoothed his dark hair back from his forehead. “But not if it means being apart from you. As soon as you’d said goodbye, Jeremiah, I thought I’d go mad from missing you.”
“Ah, sweetheart,” he said sorrowfully. “Did you think it was any easier for me?”
“Then you will understand.” She reached up to brush her lips across his. “I followed you because, inside, I had no choice. I loved you too much for that goodbye.”
He sighed wearily. “I’d still send you back if I could.”
“But you can’t.”
“No.” With one finger he traced the bow of her lips, thinking how she was at once both impossibly fragile and strong as steel. “You must promise me that you will do what I tell you.”
She opened her mouth to protest, and he laid his finger across it. “Hush, and hear me out. You must do as I say because to stop and argue with me may cost both of us our lives. This isn’t England, or even Naples.”
“I could help you,” she offered eagerly. “The way we fooled the captain of the French frigate.”
“Don’t even consider it, sweetheart,” he said firmly, though touched by both her offer and the innocence behind it. “I admit that I’ll be inventing this as I go along, but I won’t expect you to exercise your charms on my behalf. In Tripoli, it plain won’t work. You’ll be a heathen, an infidel. Nor will anyone give a damn about you being a countess, except, perhaps, if they stop and consider how much of a ransom they could ask for you.”
“I’m not sure there’s enough money in Frederick’s coffers to redeem us both,” she said, striving to be playful and failing. With a troubled sigh, she searched Jeremiah’s face as her own expression became uncharacteristically serious. “Tell me truthfully,” she asked. “Do you still mean to find Hamil?”
“I must, love,” he said softly, cradling her face in