Chapter Thirty-One

Lawrence grinned widely as he saw the familiar figure pass the window of the Admiral Duncan. He hadn’t seen Flora for three days but it seemed like longer.

He tucked away the piece of paper he’d been reading, took a deep breath to steady his nerve, and strode out of the taproom to meet her. “Madame Julietta,” he murmured, sweeping her an extravagant bow. “What a fine day it is today. I anticipate plenty of customers. How does our patient?”

Flora was looking positively radiant. She’d abandoned her lacy cap, and now just wore a bonnet over her flaming red hair. She’d trimmed the bonnet to match the color, and held her chin up high, her blue eyes flashing.

This was a woman ready to defy anyone who dared criticize.

This was a woman who’d rediscovered her confidence.

And he liked to think he had a hand in that.

Her brows drew together and she moved closer, setting his heart beating still faster. “Hush! We’re not to mention our patient where anyone can overhear. Let’s go into the wagon, and I’ll tell you why.”

An invitation he had no intention of resisting. Seizing her hand, he hurried her up the steps, secured the flap behind them, took her into his arms, and kissed her.

The sensation was so exhilarating, it took him several moments to realize she wasn’t responding.

Holding her by the elbows, he stepped back, scanning her face in the muted light. “Forgive me,” he said immediately. “I presume too much.”

There now, he really was beginning to sound like one of the gentry. He grinned ruefully and gentled his touch.

“You do presume too much, yes, but that doesn’t mean I’m not glad of the part you played in the major’s rescue. I assume you’ve told no one else about him?” she queried, her eyes solemn.

“Hard to believe it, I know,” he replied. “But no. I’ve been discreet. I’ve been minding my own business, doing a brisk trade, and writing my book. You’ll be so impressed, Flora. I’m quite the reformed character.”

Her dubious expression made him chuckle. What a delight she was! So open, so honest, not scheming like so many other women. She asked no more than he was willing to give. And in her case, he was prepared to give a lot.

“I never asked you to reform,” she said. “But you were drunk when you came to the door that night, however much you claim your use of the brandy was purely medicinal.”

She subjected him to a searching look, and he resisted the urge to smooth down his hair and straighten his neckcloth.

Whatever was wrong with him? He’d never cared about the disposition of his neckcloth before. He knew himself to be handsome, but only Dr. Campaign was vain. Lawrence Campion was not.

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Flora,” he said, hoping he meant it.

“I don’t think you remember anything about that night,” she said, still subjecting him to that penetrating stare. “I told you to lie low. But what did you do? You came knocking at the door as bold as brass, offering your services. And you couldn’t have chosen a worse time. Mrs. Daniell had seen my hair the previous night and had returned to ring a peal over me—again—when you knocked.”

“Would you rather I’d just left you to weather the storm? That’s not what friends do. Part of the reason I knocked on the door was to rescue you from her.”

“Friends? Is that what we are?”

“Certainly. Perhaps more than friends…?”

She tilted her head to one side. “You don’t recall much about that night, do you?”

“What am I meant to remember? I didn’t do anything…lewd, did I? I’d surely be able to bring that to mind.”

Her hands rested lightly on his forearms, a slight tremor in her fingers. Something was affecting her deeply, and he needed to know what it was.

“You said you needed me,” she replied softly.

Judas! Had he really said that? It didn’t sound like him. He was his own man—he didn’t need anybody. But there was a glimmer of hope in her eyes, and he’d been with enough women to understand exactly what it meant.

Sweat broke out on his brow.

Exhaling slowly, he took her hands in his and pressed his fingers seductively between hers. “I do need you, Flora,” he said, moving closer. “You need me, too. Don’t deny it.”

He watched her lips press together impatiently, but she didn’t attempt to escape him. When he sought her eyes, he caught her looking at his mouth, and fought the urge to smile like the wily wolf in the fables.

“You also said you couldn’t live without me,” she told him. “I assume that was because you were three sheets to the wind?”

Good God. What the hell else had he said? He couldn’t remember. This situation did not bode well. He’d either have to seduce Flora to distract her, or pretend he didn’t care for her. And then she’d be hurt.

“I can’t live without this,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her against his chest. “I need to have you here. I need to be able to do this.”

He nuzzled at her neck, then nibbled her ear, and felt her immediate response. His hands came up to her shoulders and he sought her neck again, licking and sucking gently until her bosom heaved and her head fell back.

Good. Things were moving in the right direction.

But then she stiffened and brought her head close to his, trapping his gaze as she whispered, “You said you love me.”

Devil take it! He’d just dug his own grave. Now she’d think she owned him.

“There are so many things to love about you,” he said, hoping the panic wasn’t evident in his voice. “I love the way your hair curls about your face, the peach-softness of your skin, your scent, your hidden passion. I love the way your body feels against mine, the honey surrender of your lips when I kiss you. I want to make love to you, Madame Julietta, right this moment. Every time I see you, I’m consumed with the desire to show you what it is to be loved by me.”

Her lips parted, and her expression softened. Silently, he congratulated himself on having turned the situation around. Lovemaking he understood, and so long as he convinced her that was all he’d meant with his unguarded, drunken utterances, he’d be safe from the suffocating coils of emotional love.

“I’ve tasted you now, Flora,” he said. “You’re like a fine wine. A single taste is not enough.”

“We shouldn’t act on our animal passions,” she said slowly. “It wouldn’t be right.”

“Nothing wrong with animal passion,” he retorted, then leaned down and took the end of her bonnet ribbon between his teeth. He worried it like a dog with a bone—which made her chuckle—then tugged at it until the bonnet came undone and slid to the floor. “If you’ve never tasted animal passion before,” he added, making deft work of the hooks on her pelisse, “you should try it when you get the chance. I’m offering you that chance.”

He hadn’t had a woman in months—none, in fact, since he’d met Flora again. Little wonder his body had roused up so rapidly. He pressed his hips suggestively against her, pinning her with a gaze filled with—he hoped—promise and temptation.

“You’re deplorable, Lawrence,” she said. “I can’t believe the things you’re saying to me. My sister would skin you for a marching drum if she knew what you were up to.”

“Thankfully, she doesn’t, and there’s no reason for you, or the appalling Daniell family, to tell her. Now, sweet, desirable, Miss Hartington, are you determined to make me suffer?”

“Fiddlesticks! You bring your sufferings upon yourself!”

Oh, to hell with it. He was tired of talking. In one swift movement, he stripped off her pelisse, and slid his hands to her buttocks, drawing her up hard against his erection.

She gasped, but his demanding lips covered hers, destroying her defenses in an instant.

She was kissing him back.

Yes! She wanted this too!

He made a growling noise deep in his throat, swept his tongue over her lips, then plunged it into her mouth, licking and tasting in a frenzy of exploration. She responded in kind, her hands clutching his hair, pulling his head down to hers, increasing the pressure of their kiss.

When she cupped his face, he gloried in the feel of her hands’ silken warmth against his skin and knew a desperate need to have them touch other parts of him.

He broke the kiss and took her hands between his. “Enough of the barriers that are between us,” he rasped. “I want to feel your body on mine, naked, flesh against flesh. Are you shocked?”

“No,” she replied, and to his delight, she pulled her hands from his and undid the buttons on his waistcoat.

This was positive, indeed! As soon as he’d shrugged off his jacket and waistcoat, he returned his hands to her delicious posterior, stroking, squeezing, and giving small groans of appreciation. His mind painted him a picture of her sprawling on top of him, completely naked, while he pressed his manhood up between her legs, his hands on her buttocks as she slid back and forth, squeezing him, releasing him, then squeezing him again.

The image was so vivid he almost came then and there.

He was about to kiss her again when something nagged at the back of his mind. He shoved the thought irritably away, losing himself in another burning kiss, but it thrust back at him, more savagely now.

The church clock was striking eleven. He had a meeting with Nathaniel Pryce. The man was bringing him some fine fabrics and lace from the recent wreck to fence and might be spooked if Lawrence was late.

“Oh, God.” Releasing Flora, he tried to control his breathing. “The clock chimes!”

“What about them?”

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I have to go. I’ve a patient in dire need. I was to be with him by eleven. Your arrival put it quite out of my head, my darling. Alas, I cannot tarry.”

He moved about like a sleepwalker, picking up his clothes, restoring order to Flora’s appearance, all the while murmuring words of apology and consolation.

Only when he settled the bonnet back on her head did he feel ready to meet her eyes. He’d feared to see disappointment there, but instead was met by a look of phlegmatic resignation.

“I understand,” she said. “Your patients matter to you. You’re not a mere showman, but a healer, as your success with Major Wilberforce has proved.”

“Ah. Good.” He didn’t want to talk about Wilberforce now. His body was in one world, his thoughts in another, and the major had no place in either of them.

“He’s decided to stay in the locality,” Flora went on. “For he wants revenge.”

“Indeed.” Lawrence took some bottles at random and put them into a bag, anxious to give credence to his lie. Why was she talking about this? Was it just nervous chatter, to stop herself dwelling on what had happened between them? And on what hadn’t happened, but should have?

“He’s making his plans even as we speak. But you mustn’t tell anyone.”

“A secret plan, eh?” Lawrence pretended interest. He plucked a few stems of wormwood from a hanging bunch and added them to the bag. “So, on what mission of vengeance is he bound? Something to do with the military?”

“In a sense. You know the wreckers operating hereabouts? The men who put out false lights and lure sailors to their deaths so they can steal cargoes? Of course, you do. You saved him from these men. He’s going to work with the soldiers at the fort to bring them down and make them face justice.”

The bag slipped from fingers suddenly frozen and clattered to the floor. He made a great show of bending over to check the bottles, while his mind worked frantically. He couldn’t trust himself to look at Flora right now. His fear and his guilt would surely be written all over his face.

There was only one gang of wreckers locally. The one with which he was in cahoots. And if they swung from the gallows, he could easily swing with them.

How ironic, that the man whose life he’d preserved now threatened his. Men like Pryce would want Wilberforce dead to save their own necks. If he had any sense, he’d want him dead, too. If he’d known the major was going to cause trouble, he’d have let him take his chances on the storm-scoured beach that night.

Probably.

Curse the man! Lawrence would have to find out where he was and try and call in the debt the major owed him. But was it too much to ask him to turn a blind eye to a rabble of felons?

There was only one way to find out.

Clutching his bag in one hand, he pulled Flora toward him with the other, and kissed her thoroughly. He smoothed her hair back from her face, struggling to keep the regret from his voice as he bade her farewell. He gave her enough time to vanish from view before he stepped down from the wagon, hurried across to Belle’s stable, saddled her up, and turned her head in the direction of Dorchester.

A fifteen-minute ride would take him to the Portsmouth milestone, his rendezvous point with Nathaniel Pryce.

And in that fifteen minutes, he needed to make a decision that would be a matter of life and death.

For if he couldn’t stop Major Wilberforce, he himself—and a dozen other men—would have to explain themselves at the next county assizes.

And, chances were, their audience wouldn’t be very sympathetic.