At eight bells on a slightly overcast morning Admiral Graves raised his white pennant on the Preston’s yardarm for the first time. His flagship received a thirteen-gun salute from the vessels of the squadron in the harbor: the Somerset, the Glasgow, the Britannia, the Mercury, the Hephaestion; and, of course, those ships, the Diana and the Wasp, under the commands of the admiral’s two nephews, Thomas and Francis Graves.
The salute was heard as far away as Cambridge, where the students of Harvard College had been sent home from the theater of war, and the American commanders counted their powder barrels, then counted them again, hoping they might discover some hidden error in their calculations, or at least a few extra ounces hidden beneath the floorboards.
It was heard at the meetinghouse in Chelsea, where old Captain Sprague had marched his company to join Colonel Stark’s six hundred militia for a cattle raid.
And it was heard by Sarah Ward as she tried to put together an ensemble that would withstand twelve hours of dining, drinking, and dancing in the sticky summer heat. As Trent had no ship, they had been spared the early-morning salute, but they would be expected to attend breakfast on the Preston, which was intended to last all morning, and where General Gage would not appear, because his wife was not on speaking terms with the admiral’s lady.
From there they would proceed to dinner at the home of Mr. Williams on Noddle’s Island, where his wife and her cousin, Mrs. Martin, would be feting the newly arrived major generals Clinton, Burgoyne, and Howe, and the Gages, who would attend so long as Admiral Graves and his wife did not.
Once, Sarah would have celebrated the arrival of these three commanders as the other Tories in Boston did, with a naive expectation that they would, in Burgoyne’s words, “soon make elbow room,” and send the Rebels packing. But she could no longer see British military intervention in American affairs as anything but dangerous interference. Trent’s description of the officers in question did nothing to change her opinion.
“Clinton,” he said, “is a shy bitch. Awkward and unsociable. Burgoyne fancies himself a wit. He is only occasionally correct. And Billy Howe is every bit as sentimental about America and Americans—his eldest brother died at Ticonderoga in the Rebel general Israel Putnam’s arms—as Gage.”
Breakfast was lavish, served under canvas awnings on the deck of the Preston. Sarah scrutinized the cabin boys who came and went among the tables, hoping that Ned might have been detailed to the flagship for the occasion, but she caught no glimpse of her little brother. The admiral’s cook was French, and quite possibly skilled, but unused to the sticky New England summer, and the elaborate jellies and aspics decorated with bright flowers and cut fruits quickly melted into sad puddles on the silver.
There was a fracas sometime after noon on deck when word reached the admiral that Rebels were rustling cattle on Noddle’s Island. He dispatched Thomas and Francis on the Diana and the Wasp to deal with the trouble, and firmly assured the generals that their dinner on the island would not be interrupted.
It was late afternoon by the time the major generals, Trent, Sarah, and the other guests left the Preston. The little flotilla of three whaleboats waiting at the Long Wharf to ferry them to Mr. Williams’ house on Noddle’s Island had been rigged thoughtfully with sailcloth canopies, which provided welcome shelter from the slanting summer sun.
Later, Sarah could not say exactly how they became separated, she from Trent, her boat from the rest of the flotilla. It began with the suggestion that the ladies should have the boat with the cushioned benches, and that the gentlemen should embark first, as the boat intended for the ladies was last in the queue for the gangplank and the whole party would be delayed if the time was taken to reorder the little flotilla.
It was further suggested that since the gentlemen would now arrive first on the island, they could help the ladies debark, which would be the gallant thing to do. Sarah thought this idea might have originated with the boatmen. No mention was made of who would help the ladies to embark. The jug the gentlemen began passing around was definitely given to them by the rowers, and declared to be very restorative in the heat. No doubt it contributed to the agreeable mood with which the gentlemen left the ladies behind.
Sarah had no trouble maneuvering her cotton polonaise and petticoats into the boat. She had dispensed with a hip roll for the occasion, knowing they made travel in small craft more difficult than necessary. Two of the ladies had worn panniers and required a bench apiece.
General Gage’s wife, who had but lately joined them, had dressed as so many fine ladies chose to be painted, à la turque, in a purple silk robe bound with a golden girdle, and she climbed in with grace and agility.
Elizabeth Loring, “the Sultana of Boston,” known for her gambling and her extravagant costume, wore cream silk embroidered with gold wire and, true to her reputation, was careless of her riches. The beauty settled on her bench and draped one arm over the side, sleeve ruffles trailing in salt water and ruining a fortune in gold lace.
Lady Frankland was wearing a quilted petticoat with crewelwork, despite the heat, and required the assistance of four boatmen to lower her down. Once seated, she demanded the awning be rolled back over her bench so that she might take the sun, which she believed, against all evidence, preserved her youthful complexion.
By that time the gentlemen were well ahead of them. It seemed to Sarah that the ladies’ vessel was being rowed at a markedly slower pace, and she itched to take up an oar and propel them at greater speed.
The distance between the boats widened. Then, just as the two vessels carrying the gentlemen came within hailing distance of the dock at the Williams mansion, Sarah saw their rowers slip overboard, splashing into the water—with their oars—and swim for the marsh to the east of the house.
The gentlemen began to drift.
The ladies’ boat, rowed with new vigor, shot right, away from the Williams mansion and the dock. The gentlemen shouted. The ladies, for the most part, were dumbfounded. Within minutes their little canopied whaleboat had disappeared into a creek hidden by tall marsh grasses.
Silence closed in around them. Lady Frankland castigated the boatman nearest her and began to belabor him with her fan. He ignored her. One of the ladies in panniers started to cry. Margaret Kemble Gage leaned across her bench and slapped her. For the first time all afternoon Elizabeth Loring looked less than bored. And Sarah wished she had brought the little muff gun Trent had given her, and not worn her mother’s necklace. She was a pirate’s daughter, and she could well guess the purpose of waylaying a boatload of bejeweled women in a marsh.
The tall grass thinned, a rocky beach appeared on their right, and two men, their faces obscured by kerchiefs and broad hats, stood waiting, pistols in hand.
One of them wore a copper velvet coat. The other had tried—and failed—to hide his honey gold hair in a tightly wrapped queue.
Too late, too late. Sparhawk had come back for her, when she could not possibly go with him. When Ned’s life hung in the balance. When saving herself meant sacrificing her little brother. Trent had cautioned her the night he had proposed. She must do nothing to provoke the admiral, nothing to suggest that she might speak out against him, or attempt to reach London with her damning testimony, or Ned would pay for it. To press home his concerns, Trent had not spared her a recitation of Admiral Graves’ threats. Ned would suffer as Sparhawk had suffered as a boy. He would be lashed with the cat until he passed out, then be allowed to recover, then lashed again. Thinking of it now made her light-headed.
The oarsmen disembarked and dragged the boat up onto the rocks.
The golden-haired brigand who was her older brother tossed a sack into the boat. “Place your jewels and your purses in the bag,” he said, his voice muffled by the cloth, but familiar all the same. He would enjoy this piratical masquerade, her daring brother. But he did not know that Ned’s life was at risk. She looked away so she would betray no hint of recognition.
The ladies were more anxious and excited than afraid. The masked men—after all—were the very picture of dashing highwaymen.
“She weeps if but a handsome thief is hung,” thought Sarah.
When the bag came around to her, she put her earbobs and her purse in it alongside Margaret Gage’s diamond earrings and Elizabeth Loring’s paste, but she could not part with her mother’s gold chain, could not bear the thought of removing it from her neck.
The sack was collected.
The tall brigand in the familiar copper velvet coat shoved his pistol in his pocket and waded down to the boat.
“You ladies may row back to the farmhouse,” said James Sparhawk through his silk kerchief. Then he pointed to Sarah Ward. “But she comes with us.”
He reached for her and she shrank back. “No.”
Her name was on his lips, she could tell, even with his eyes veiled by the hat and his mouth hidden behind the neck cloth, but he stifled his impulse to speak it. “You have my word that I will return you to your friends unharmed, in the morning,” he said, echoing the words she had spoken to him when she took him prisoner on the Sally.
He addressed the rest of the ladies in the boat. “Provided, of course, that everyone stays inside the manor tonight, and no boats are sent to the fleet or to the mainland.”
If she did not go, she risked Sparhawk or Benji giving himself away, but she was determined to be back long before morning. Determined to afford the admiral no cause to punish Ned.
Sarah stood up carefully in the tiny boat and gathered her skirts to climb over the side. Margaret Kemble Gage put out an arm and held her back. The governor’s elegant wife looked up at the masked thief and said, “Shall I relay your compliments to my husband, Captain Sparhawk?”
• • •
He should have guessed that Margaret Gage was in league with the Merry Widow. They were all connected: Warren, Angela Ferrers, the governor’s beautiful wife, who sat staring up at him with a smug expression. As well she might. Angela Ferrers had been determined to maneuver him to the American side: to brand him not just a thief and a fugitive, but a Rebel and a pirate.
Margaret Gage had succeeded. Her pronouncement, to a boatload of wealthy beauties and an old woman sure to live on scandal and gossip, meant that he was no longer James Sparhawk, the naval officer who had fled court-martial, his guilt an open question; but by virtue of committing robbery in the waters of Boston Harbor, he was now James Sparhawk, pirate.
Later, he would have to consider what argument could be made to the Admiralty about the necessity of waylaying a skiff full of aristocratic Boston ladies in a marsh.
Just now he had to get rid of said boatload of aristocratic ladies so he could talk with one pirate’s daughter.
“You may tell your husband whatever you like, Mrs. Gage,” said Sparhawk, removing his kerchief and his hat. “It will not get you your diamonds back.”
He lifted Sarah out of the boat and carried her to a path above the beach. The militiamen who had rowed the boat pushed it back into the creek, and the ladies began paddling furiously, the old besom in the bow urging them on. They were soon out of sight.
Benji’s vigor had lasted long enough for the show, but now he was sitting on the ground looking pale. Sarah knelt beside him to examine his bandages.
She looked up at Sparhawk. “His stitches have pulled out. He needs to lie down and rest.”
“Not here,” said Sparhawk. “We are too close to the house. The Sally, though, is not far.”
Sparhawk dismissed the militia, who had muskets and powder horns hidden in the grass—but not before he fished Sarah’s earbobs out of the bag and tossed the remainder of the loot to Captain Sprague’s equally elderly lieutenant. “By way of a thank-you,” said Sparhawk.
“You are supposed to keep the jewels,” grumbled Benji. “You have no talent for this at all.” But after that, on the path through the field to the cove, with Sarah and Sparhawk supporting him, he was silent.
Mr. Cheap was waiting for them on the white beach, armed with his sword pistol, brass knuckle rings, two hangers, and something quite like a sickle hanging from his sash.
“Miss Sarah,” he said, “in you go first”—he gestured to the boat—“with your pretty white skirts. Then I’ll push her out.”
“Benji first,” she said. “He needs stitching back up, Mr. Cheap.”
Sparhawk watched, astonished, as Mr. Cheap nodded and picked up all six feet of Benjamin Ward and lifted him into the boat as if he were a newborn. Next he beckoned Sarah, but this time she shook her head and stepped back.
“I’m not going.”
Cheap looked from Sarah to Sparhawk, uncertain what to do.
James had parted badly from her at the house in the North End. Her reluctance was natural, but untimely. “We must go now, Sarah,” said Sparhawk.
She turned to him. “You should not have come back,” she said. “Micah Wild has switched sides and received letters of marque from the admiral. He has six four-pounders and twoscore men.”
“On what?” scoffed Mr. Cheap.
“On the Roger Conant,” said Sarah.
“Ah,” said Mr. Cheap. Apparently the Conant was a ship to be reckoned with.
“I am not afraid of Micah Wild,” said Sparhawk. He would manhandle her into the boat if he had to. “We can talk on the Sally.”
He reached for her.
Mr. Cheap cocked his pistol. “I have grown to like you, Captain,” said Cheap. “Truly I have. But Sarah comes of her own free will, or not at all.”
Sparhawk should have considered that. It was the first thing he had observed about Lucas Cheap: his loyalty to Sarah Ward. There was no arguing with it. “Very well, Mr. Cheap. Take Benji to the Sally. I’ll signal for the boat when we are ready.”
Sarah’s expression told him there would be no “we.”
They watched Mr. Cheap push the boat out into the water and climb in.
Sparhawk turned to Sarah Ward. He had never seen her face so bleak. It was his fault. A lifetime of avoiding entanglements, of keeping the women he bedded at arm’s length, had left him ill-equipped for this moment.
“I love you,” he said.
The words did not banish her despondence. They did not light her eyes with the fire he remembered from the deck on the Sally, when she had leveled her pistol at him, or kindle the excitement she had betrayed in her father’s keeping room before Micah Wild’s untimely interruption. But there was nothing keeping them apart now, if only he could express himself with some eloquence.
“I am sorry. My education was cut short at an early age and I have spent much of my life among seamen, and very little of it in salons. I do not have the wit to do your qualities justice, the poetry to describe what I feel when I watch you walk across a deck or sheet a sail or, God help me, aim a pistol. I should have said all this before we parted, but I was determined to give you up, to cut you loose from this mess I am in and see you safe in another man’s keeping. You possess every quality I admire in a woman, or for that matter in a man, and I will find no happiness on this earth without you.”
Tears brimmed in her eyes. It was not the reaction he was hoping for.
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now. Admiral Graves has Ned hostage aboard the Diana. I have to marry Trent, or the admiral will have Ned lashed and then he will arrest me.”
“Sarah, you cannot marry Trent. He is my father.”
• • •
For a moment the world spun around her. Then Sparhawk’s arms were steadying her and he was lowering her to the ground, the coarse sand and small pebbles rough against her back.
“Wait here, Sarah,” said Sparhawk. “I’ll send for the boat.”
She sat up carefully and shook her head. “No boat.” She tried to fathom what he was saying. “It cannot be. Trent is—”
“Trent is forty-four,” said Sparhawk. He ran to the water’s edge to dip his kerchief in the surf and returned to drape it, cool and soothing, around her neck. “I am twenty-eight,” he continued. “Trent was fifteen when he married my mother, sixteen when I was born.”
It had to be a mistake. Sparhawk’s father had been a monster. “He cannot be the same man. Trent is everything kind and generous. He has fed and clothed my family. He shielded Ned and me from the admiral. He has offered me marriage.”
“He is very good at making himself agreeable to women. Much like Micah Wild.”
“Trent is nothing like Micah Wild.”
“Past experience indicates that you are not the best judge of character.”
“No,” she said coldly. “Apparently I am not.”
“Sarah, even if you will not have me, you cannot return to Trent. In Salem I did not tell you everything he did. Some things were too painful to speak of, but I will speak them now, even the ones that shame me, because I cannot bear to see you in his power. You have felt the scars on my back. That is what Slough did, when I refused to service him. He broke me, so that I got on my knees willingly for him, to be spared the lash. That was Trent’s doing. My mother suffered worse. When she was in jail, she begged her guards to take a message to the island parson who had married her to my father. The guards held her down and poured lye down her throat so that she might never tell her story again. The magistrates declared her a debtor and an indigent, and they sentenced her to indentured servitude on a plantation, where she died from abuse and neglect. This is what Trent did to the woman he loved, whose only sin was to refuse to collude in bigamy with him. Imagine what he might do to you if he learned of our connection.”
Sarah’s whole life had been a succession of happy worlds stolen from her. The freedom and adventure of the Sally had been exchanged for the constrictions of the dame school. The heady thrill of her engagement to Micah Wild had been traded for the liminal status of a half-fallen woman, used goods. The promise of Sparhawk’s little house in the North End had been exchanged for the secure certainty of marriage to Trent, which now appeared far less safe. “You were abducted on an East Indiaman. You were half a world away. How do you know what happened to your mother?” asked Sarah.
“Once I had my own ship, I requested service in the Caribbean, and tried to find her. I was naive enough to think she might still be alive. The cleric who married my parents had long since left the island, but the Spaniard who taught me swordplay and the Jewess who tutored me in Hebrew were still there, and I was able to piece together some of the story. Trent, though, covered his tracks well. The magistrates who tried my mother were dead. Killed in duels manufactured by my father. Along with the plantation owner who had bought her indenture. Two of the slaves remembered her and how she had died, and, in exchange for their stories, I bought and freed them.”
Sarah took a step away from him.
It was too neat. It had the elegant simplicity of one of Ned’s stories, of a hero and a villain locked in mortal enmity. And life, as she knew from her experience with Micah Wild, was not like that. The man who had jilted her was no stage villain. He had not climbed in her bedroom window, had not, like some rake’s progress, made fast the lock upon the door. She had gone to him, been complicit in her own seduction. She had flung her innocence at his feet to bind him with obligation when their mercantile ties unraveled. When it all went wrong, she had hidden behind the mask of victim, held her father and their fortunes ransom to the narrative of the scheming Rebel villain, and the cost—their home, the Sally, Ned’s freedom—had been too dear. The cunning rake and the naive virgin might make a better story, but that did not make it true.
“I do not doubt that these things you experienced happened,” she said. “That you have suffered and that an injustice has been done you. But you were twelve years old when all this occurred. Younger than Benji is now. Your understanding was not that of an adult. The testimony you heard was second- and thirdhand, and in the case of the slaves on the plantation, bought from desperate men who would say anything to escape their servitude. Even if everything you believe is true, even if Trent is a murderer, I will marry him, and gladly, to keep Ned from suffering as you did. I should go now,” she said. “I do not think Trent will be content to wait for my return, no matter what threats Mrs. Gage repeats. And they must not find the Sally and Benji.”
“Sarah.” Sparhawk’s voice was tinged with panic. “If I could get Ned off the Diana, if he was safe, would you leave Trent?”
“Please don’t try,” she said. “Take the Sally and Benji and leave. Ned is safe for the moment, and Graves will not be able to touch him or me if I can marry Trent before the admiral learns of our plans.”
“I cannot sail so long as you remain under that man’s roof.”
“He has not touched me,” she said. “Not once. Though he has had every opportunity. He saved me from a gang of soldiers the night we came to Charlestown, when we were looking for you at the Three Cranes. Mr. Cheap and Benji had been gone for hours. We were tired and hungry, and my father was at the end of his endurance. I would have given myself to Trent out of gratitude, and he knew it, and he did not press his advantage.”
Sparhawk shook his head. “If he spared you, it was only because he plays some deeper game. Do you know how many men he has killed in duels?”
“Seven,” she said. “He almost fought one to save me. I tried to pick a Redcoat’s pocket, but I was not so deft as on the day I picked yours on the Sally. The fusilier caught me. And his friends wanted to have their pound of flesh. They would have done too, but Trent stopped them.”
“That makes him fastidious, not noble,” spat Anthony Trent’s son.
“If you will not see reason, then leave,” she said. “You endanger Benji’s life by staying. Mr. Cheap’s as well.”
“If you know your family, then you will realize I did not have the power to delay the Sally’s sailing on my own. Mr. Cheap and Benji both voted to come back for you.”
“But they will not make me come, and they will not let you force me to come.”
“No,” he said. “They will not, but chances are they will be all for rescuing Ned. The Diana sailed past Noddle’s and up the creek this afternoon. If she engages with the Americans, there is a chance we will be able to get Ned off.”
She hesitated, then said, “If you can get Ned away from the Graves family, I will have more freedom to consider my course of action.”
“That is not the assurance I was hoping for,” he said.
“It is the best I can give you under the circumstances.”
He did not try to stop her from leaving. She took the path he showed her, up over the headland. She could smell smoke on the air, thought she might hear guns firing, but the dense growth on the island muffled sound and confounded her ability to decide where it was coming from. North, perhaps. At least if the Diana was involved in a skirmish with cattle rustlers, Ned would be relatively safe. The Americans did not have ships that could match fire with a British man-of-war.
She had wanted to go with Sparhawk so badly, her chest hurt. It felt as if a line were wrapped around her ribs, growing tighter every second, tied with a clove hitch knot to the Sally.
I love you. Too late. He had not said it the night they made love, but even then, she had been prepared to go with him. His company, his wit, their mutual attraction, would have been enough for her. She had already resolved in Salem to take what life offered her, to put aside the dream of that elegant brick house and the status it would have accorded her, all false lures and vanity. With Sparhawk she might not have had the respect of her neighbors, but together they would have shared all the things that really mattered, and devil take the gossips.
Now that was impossible. And she had only her pride to blame once more. She could have argued with him that night, and if that had not worked, begged, or broken down into tears. She could have simply demanded to be taken aboard the Sally, and Mr. Cheap and Benji would have obliged. But she had not, because she would not allow Sparhawk to see how much he had hurt her.
The manor house was brightly lit, with candles blazing from every window. Music floated on the air, and the smell of food—more appetizing than the admiral’s breakfast—drifted through the night. She had not eaten, she realized, all day. She reached the manicured lawn just as the sun was setting, and she discovered an old-fashioned, formal knot garden and a long parterre, which led to the steps of the landside façade.
The house was old and stoutly built, part fieldstone fortress and part country manor. The doors were open, and she entered the starburst marble hall and surprised two sleepy footmen who did not expect guests to come from that direction. Sarah hesitated on the threshold of the dining room when she saw her hosts seated in the place of honor at the center of the broad polished table: Mr. Williams, Mrs. Williams, and their cousin, “Mrs. Martin,” who was, without a doubt, Angela Ferrers, wearing pale blue silk, the pearl-crusted mourning rings on her long elegant fingers sparkling in the candlelight.
One of the ladies in panniers looked at Sarah and shrieked. Mrs. Gage got up smoothly from her chair and emerged from the room to sweep Sarah up the stairs and into the chamber where Trent was closeted with Generals Gage and Howe.
Trent’s relief was evident on his face. They all asked her, of course, if she had been hurt. Howe thundered something about getting horses and chasing down this devil, Sparhawk.
“They are gone,” said Sarah. “And Mrs. Gage’s earrings with them.”
Trent’s eyes, she saw, settled on her neck, where her mother’s gold chain still circled her throat.
Then General Gage asked gently if Sarah wouldn’t like to speak alone with Mrs. Gage about anything that might have happened, and Sarah thanked him for his kindness but said plainly that she had not been offered any insult.
Howe was all for action, but Gage soothed him. If the rascals had a schooner, they would be well away by now. No one had been hurt, little of value had been stolen, and because the ladies had been waylaid, however briefly, turning a supper party into a manhunt would suggest that something far worse had happened to them.
The point was moot, because Sarah was not able to remember which direction she had come from, nor where the schooner was anchored. And just in case Billy Howe could not be dissuaded from riding into the night, she added, “I saw smoke and heard fire coming from the north.” Which would take pursuit in the opposite direction from the Sally, away from Sparhawk and Benji.
Billy Howe’s ears perked at this, but Thomas Gage shook his head. “It is a cattle raid by the Rebels. Nothing more. They want the beasts and hay off the islands, and it is, after all, their property. Admiral Graves lays some claim to the cattle, but has not paid for them yet, and he keeps his naval stores here, without paying rent to the landowners, so it is his responsibility to pursue the thieves. I warned him of their intention two days ago when Margaret’s brother got wind of it.”
Howe pointed out that warships did not have the men to chase cattle raiders across miles of territory.
“Then the admiral,” said the governor, “should take care not to become involved in disputes over livestock. I have kept the peace in Boston,” said Gage wearily, “for nigh on a year. Parliament will not send troops, only provocation. Bills and acts designed to drive the mildest yeoman farmer into open rebellion. They play into the hands of Warren and Adams and the demagogues who hunger for war, and try to taunt us to rash and bloody action. They had their day at Lexington, their ‘Bloody Butchery.’ I will not give them another excuse to expand this rebellion beyond the Massachusetts Bay.”
Mrs. Gage voiced her agreement. Billy Howe appeared shocked to discover she had a voice at all. Until she said something he liked, which was that Mrs. Loring had been asking for him. She made no mention of Mrs. Loring’s husband, who seemed an unusually broadminded gentleman. Howe decided that perhaps the best thing—for Sarah, of course—was that they should continue on with the evening.
The Gages and Howe rejoined the party, leaving Sarah alone, for the moment, with Trent. Somehow, with only the two of them, the chamber seemed smaller.
“Are you really all right?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I should have spoken with you earlier, but I have secured a license, and a willing parson, albeit a radical one, from the college. I am arranging the passes now. He will not enter Boston, for fear of arrest, so I have suggested that he meet us in Charlestown, and perform the ceremony at the Three Cranes.”
I will marry him and gladly. Here was abstraction become reality, and she found she was not glad of it, not with Sparhawk so near, but out of reach. “How do you know a radical divine?”
“He married my first wife and me, and he took an interest in her and my son when I was away at sea.”
This, then, was the cleric Sparhawk had come to Boston to find. That he was willing to perform another marriage for Trent argued that Trent could not have arranged the arrest of his first wife and murder of his son.
He crossed the room to her, and she took a step back. Her shoulders touched the door behind her. Trent stroked her neck where the fine gold chain lay close against her skin.
“Sarah,” he said, continuing to stroke, his hand moving lower now with a practiced, skilled sensuality. “Have I made a mistake with us? Left this”—he dipped his head to press a kiss against her neck, making her skin tingle and her nipples tighten—“too late?”
His hand dipped into her stays, found a nipple, squeezed it into a tight bud. His knee pressed into her skirts and up until it met her sex through the silk, and friction kindled the inevitable response.
He was Sparhawk’s father.
“Please don’t,” she said.
He stilled immediately and stepped away.
“I am sorry,” she said. “It is nothing to do with Sparhawk.” It was everything to do with Sparhawk. “My brother was with him. They came back,” she lied with near-convincing smoothness for the first time in her life, “so that I would know Benji was all right.”
Regret played across Trent’s handsome features, so very like Sparhawk’s, now that she looked for the resemblance. But she had always known he was a seducer. It did not mean he was a murderer.
“I am sorry,” he said.
But it was her fault. It was not his touch that had unnerved her, but her unsettling—and unexpected—response.