If her nerves weren’t jangling more discordantly than a peal by incompetent bellringers, Holly would have found the look on the captain’s face when he opened the door immensely laughable. His shock a triumph of female plotting and exactly the stunning impact Lady R wished her students to make on their employers. That she could have struck such a blow to a man who had must have known a whole string of exotic women from China and India to Brazil and parts north sent a surge of triumph through her. Short-lived, however, as he recovered swiftly, saying words that flew by her ears in a jumble of sound as he sauntered—yes, sauntered, damn him!—toward the bed.
No, not toward the bed. He paused by a chair, deliberately shrugging out of his frock coat and hanging it with care over the back. As if he were in absolutely no hurry at all to join her. Miserable man! He applied the same deliberation to removing his cravat and then, with surprisingly little effort, his boots. His shirt came next, followed by his tight-fitting knit pantaloons, which, even after unbuttoning both sides of the front flap, required peeling down over his well-muscled thighs and well-rounded calves before being folded and laid on the seat of the chair. By the time he straightened up, wearing nothing but his drawers and socks, her mouth was dry, blood pounded in her veins, and her female parts were wet. He was . . . everything her imagination had dreamed he would be. As gloriously sculpted as those marbles Elgin brought back from Greece. A warrior whose battles were fought against the sea.
And in the bedchamber?
She waited, strangely breathless for a woman of her considerable experience, for the drawers to follow. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest and gave her a long hard look. Not the look of a man eager to ravish either courtesan or wife. Merde! Somehow she’d bungled it. Or he’d simply weighed the situation and found her wanting. He didn’t want her any more than Charles did. Holly drew the covers up under her chin, hiding her barely covered breasts. Clearly, the captain was indifferent at best. Possibly wholly disinterested. His next move would be to banish her from the room before settling in for a good night’s sleep. Alone.
Chin high, she looked him in the eye, making no effort to shutter her outrage. Damn the man. What excuse was he going to use for rejecting her? This was far worse than Charles giving her her congé. Charles had been nothing more than a charming boy. But Captain Royce Kincade? Well, devil take the Scots saint. How dare he think he was too good for her!
The bed sagged as he sat on the edge of it, his blue eyes solemn. “Tell me, Holly,” he said, “is this gratitude? My recompense for giving you my name?”
Holly almost quailed before the sternness of his look, but nothing in her life had been easy, and she rallied swiftly. “I am your wife. You have come home after a long voyage. I presumed this is where you wanted me to be.” She shrugged. “If not, I shall leave you in peace.” In spite of her best efforts to stifle it, a small huff punctuated her words.
The captain smiled. “Annoyed, are we?” he taunted. “I do believe you’re beginning to wonder if I prefer boys.”
Wide-eyed, Holly gasped. She might have given up her virginity long ago, but some subjects simply were not spoken of. “No, never!” she shot back. But perhaps she should have considered it. She was well aware that molly men often used marriage to throw a respectable curtain over their activities. And all those days at sea with none but men about . . .
“Holly, look at me.” Slowly, she raised her eyes, which had shied away to an unseeing examination of the bedcovering, even as bile rose in her throat.
“I’m no saint, Holly, I readily admit it. I leapt at the opportunity Nick Black offered with little regard for the problems involved.”
“But you had ample time for regret during all those months at sea,” she stated in flat tones, cutting him off before he could utter the fatal words of rejection.
The captain held up his hand, palm out, pausing that thought. “Yes, but I also had time to dream, to fantasize if you will. And eventually the fantasy overwhelmed the doubts, and I came rushing here this morning without so much as a thought of giving you a warning. And for that I am sincerely sorry. I realize I should have stopped, drawn breath, and asked myself if you regret this marriage? Are you here at this moment solely out of duty? Or is there hope you might want what I want—a proper home, more children, a future in which we are true to each other as we promised when we were married?”
“Oh dear God, you are too good to be true,” Holly cried, half angry, half confused. “How can you possibly wish to acknowledge marriage to me?”
“But I am married to you,” he returned simply. “And I am a God-fearing man who takes his vows seriously. And enough of a human being to give thanks my wife is not only a beauty but has already given me a start on the family I desire.”
“Good God, Captain, you deserve an angel, not a fallen woman.”
He cocked his head to one side, his overlong blond hair dangling almost to his shoulder. “I do not think I would care to be married to an angel. Very likely boring and unsatisfying.”
“My parents own a tavern,” she cried, her voice rising perilously close to a wail. “In Kent. You are likely descended from Scottish lairds.”
“Aye,” he agreed, “but a good dash of commoner’s blood never hurt anyone’s ancestral line. Invigorates it, more like. Look at the great houses of Europe, as well as England. Too much intermarriage by far.”
“You’re mad,” she whispered. “I’ve known it from the first.”
“Aye, that too.” He nodded. “But it’s a glorious madness. I don’t claim I’ll never have moments of doubt. As will you. But since we’ve gone to all the fuss of a wedding and setting up housekeeping . . .?” He raised his blond brows, his expression quizzical.
Holly, determined to be as rational as her husband, fought for control of instincts that urged her to throw back the covers, hold out her arms, and . . .
Devil a bit, but his arguments made sense by candlelight. But how would they resound in the morning? Could such calm compromises ever transform into something even remotely resembling affection, let alone the remote possibility of love? She had expected a swift and passionate tumble from a man who had done without for weeks at sea. (Though she had no doubt the West Indies had provided an exotic choice of companions.) Instead, he had countered her attempt at seduction with rational thought, cool argument, and not a drop of overt interest, let alone the instant lust she had expected to unleash.
She was a failure. Lady R would be horrified.
No. The Dragon Lady had always known Holly Hammond was her least likely candidate for a courtesan worthy of gentlemen of the haut ton.
“Holly?” She looked up, mortified as she realized her well-schooled features were wide open, revealing her chaotic thoughts. “You were right. It’s high time we began our marriage. But in all my dreams, you see, I never expected you to come to me. You have tilted my world, and it’s taken me a few minutes to catch up.” He further stunned her as his rugged features transformed into an almost shame-faced boyish grin.
Among the succeeding waves of surprise, doubt, questions, gratitude, and waves of relief surging through her, Holly failed to snag one coherent thought. Except . . . he was not rejecting her. Not slamming out the front door, never to return. Though the why of it was something to be discovered at a later time when her brain was functioning once again.
Slowly, she pulled down the bedcovering, revealing her rosy peaked nipples pressed tight against the sheer white lawn of her nightwear. He stared, as she expected him to. One long finger reached out and gently tweaked a nipple. Lightning shot through her. Impossible! She was reacting like a seventeen-year-old virgin. But it wasn’t fear or ignorance that had her head in a muddle.
He slid closer, a tiny smile playing about his lips as his index finger touched her mouth, trailed down her chin, her neck, and kept on going, until a very large hand closed around her left breast and squeezed. Holly felt his touch all the way to her womb, but even that sharp reminder of childbirth wasn’t enough to cool the sensations shooting through her.
It was just physical, she told herself, her body’s reaction to being so long without. And the fact that he was a handsome devil, in spite of his strict Scots Presbyterian soul. If he could put aside his distaste for her past, then who was she to quibble? Except she had long ago learned to take charge of her sexual encounters, and that wasn’t what was happening here. She was sitting here like some great lump, letting him put his hands on her—both breasts now getting his undivided attention. Squeeze, tweak, glide. Once again her womb answered the rhythmic pulse of his hands. His lips bent to one nipple, seizing it in his mouth, cloth and all. The jumble in her mind fell away, as passion exploded and, quite incredibly, she hung on the precipice, coiled and ready to come.
He pulled away, leaving her chilled. Alone. Confused. Until a warm gleam lit her dark eyes as she saw what he was doing. This time his disrobing was not leisurely. His stockings were whipped off and cast aside with alacrity. A wiggle, a twist, and his drawers followed in their wake. Were the harsh panting breaths cutting the cool night air his or hers? Probably both.
And there he was. An imposing figure of a man when dressed—stark naked, in full erection, even Spartan warriors couldn’t compete with Captain Royce Kincade. He was magnificent. And all hers.
Holly had known lust before, but never like this. She had to fight to breathe. Her head whirled. He—Royce, she must remember his name was Royce—stalked the few steps back to the bed, ripped off the bedcovering, skimmed her nightwear out from under her and over her head, tossed it away. Once again, the precipice yawned, threatening to engulf her before they’d scarcely begun. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. In bed she was always in control. She seduced, she gave of herself—always deliberately—giving satisfaction for money paid. But this . . .? This was raw, untamed. With no relation to what had gone before, whether the fumbling sex of her first encounter back in Kent, the swift, hole-in-the-corner couplings she’d known in London before she met Lady R, or her smoothly skilled joinings with Charles.
She was a novice, an innocent. As if she had never done this before in her life. He stood beside the bed, his gaze raking her from head to toe and back again. She could feel moisture flooding her sex, but nothing was going to happen because for the first time in her life she thought she might faint. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t think . . .
And then his two hundred pounds dropped onto the bed, he shoved up her knees and entered her, all in one swift lunge as if his control had also snapped, giving way to the overwhelming demands of lust.
Although Holly would likely never believe it, the captain had also been celibate since his marriage. Their pent-up passions could not outlast the first few thrusts. Waves of sensation crashed over them, shaking the bed enough to feel as if they reverberated through the bedchamber and out the window to encompass all of Bloomsbury. A physical explosion that shook them to the core but blew away within moments, leaving only a lingering hope of more and better to come.