Chapter Nineteen
To say that she was inconsolable was the understatement of the century. He had never witnessed a woman cry so hard and so much in his life—and he had grown up with the overemotional and theatrical Flora, who could cry at the drop of a hat over nothing. “It’s all right.” Because it was.
And it very definitely wasn’t.
As much as his heart bled for her, and as much as he was prepared to do whatever it took to get her to realize that she wasn’t to blame, the last thing Harry wanted to be doing at this precise moment was holding the siren in his arms. Yet here he was, holding her tight and trying his hardest not to enjoy the way her petite but curvy body fitted so perfectly against his. “Nobody died. Nobody was seriously hurt and certainly, nobody needs to resign.”
As none of his words seemed to be penetrating her guilt, he gave up trying and simply held her for as long as it took for the worst of her tears to subside. It was every bit the hellish torment he had known it would be, but it couldn’t be helped. He couldn’t leave her like this. It really was breaking his heart.
As the sobs finally turned to sniffles, she stiffened in the cage of his arms and lifted her head, but flatly refused to remove her hands from her face. “I’m sorry for… carrying on so. I am not usually one for tears.”
Somehow, he knew that was the case. Just as he knew she was now hideously embarrassed to have shed any. “It’s quite all right. It has been a particularly trying evening.”
“It’s all your fault that I cried—you were too kind.”
“It’s a dreadful flaw of mine.” He chuckled at her reprimand, relieved that she was more her tart self again. Yet he was still reluctant to let go of her, even though holding her wasn’t the least bit sensible. “You have my solemn pledge that I shall behave like a beast the next time my idiot nephew decides to disobey orders, get himself lost, and make you upset.”
“Thank you.” He could hear her smile, even if it was still hidden behind her hands. “I’ve always fared better with shouting and insults and blame.” Unaware that in one sentence, she had told him something unsettling about her background which he knew he would not be able to forget, she wiggled the fingers of one hand slightly. “If I could trouble you for that handkerchief now, it would be much appreciated.”
Harry released his arm only enough that he could pass it to her, then hugged her close while she blew her nose into the linen and dried her eyes. So proud, and yet still so clearly riddled with guilt, it physically pained him to witness it.
“If anyone needs to do better, going forward, it is me.” It wasn’t fair of him to allow her to carry the burden of guilt, and it definitely wasn’t fair not to acknowledge his own. “I am the one who dragged the children on this trip. And while I did my best to convince myself that I was being an excellent uncle for putting their needs first, I am also aware that I didn’t so much delegate the responsibility of looking after them to you on this arduous journey, as abdicate all my responsibility to them to you too.”
She glanced upward, blinking, and he couldn’t even bring himself to spend longer than a moment looking in her red-rimmed, tear-swollen eyes because he had had a big hand in putting those tears there. “I’ve forced everyone into the carriage at dawn every single day, then pushed through on the road for longer each evening than was either reasonable or necessary, and left you to entertain my charges and suffer the consequences. When I know that Grace gets fractious cooped up inside for more than two hours at a time without a decent opportunity to expel some of her boundless energy. When I know that Marianne gets sick with the constant motion of the carriage, especially after luncheon. Just as I also know that Felix needs to be outside almost as much as he needs air and water. Not only did I purposefully ignore all that, not once in the last six days have I joined you in the carriage to help. I am heartily ashamed of myself.”
“But that is silly.” He did not dare look at her, so rested his chin on her head instead, trying not to enjoy how well it fit there. “You hired a governess, Captain Kincaid, at great expense I might add, to take care of the children, and despite all your doubtless justifiable reservations about me, you still gave me the choice to accompany them. Please do not feel guilty for expecting me to do my job.”
“Now you are being too kind, Miss Rowe, but I will not let you.” If an apology was due, he might as well do it properly. That meant some honesty was required, although not complete honesty for obvious reasons, and some humbleness would not go amiss either. “When we both know that I haven’t merely left you to do your job, I haven’t done more than say good night to my nieces and nephews since I left them with you to go to Portsmouth, and for all their many faults and foibles, you are right, they adore me, so they do not deserve that. I am their uncle. Their only uncle, and I used to be a really good one. I still am because I adore them too and should have tried harder. Especially in Flora’s absence. Yet I have gone out of my way to give three innocent children—my own flesh and blood—the cold shoulder for weeks now, and all to indulge my own pathetic and selfish desire to wallow in my own deep well of irrational, miserable self-pity.”
She deserved that much honesty. “I was wallowing in it up to my neck when Felix wandered off, when I could and should, as an officer or a gentleman or an uncle or, most especially, a decent human being, have taken him to walk his dog while you dealt with his clearly distressed sisters. And for all of that, I am truly sorry.” From this day forth, he was going to do better. Much better. His solemn pledge to her. To the children. To himself.
Miss Rowe had gone still in his arms, and as the silence stretched, both things gave him no choice but to look down at her to see what she thought about his confession. But where he expected irritation or judgment or, miraculously perhaps, even some forgiveness, all he saw were two furrowed ginger eyebrows, a much-too-pretty tearstained face, and the wrinkled, perturbed nose that never failed to charm him.
“Why on earth are you wallowing up to your neck in a well of self-pity, Captain Kincaid?”
“Well, I…” Her green eyes were stormy, concerned, and so compelling, he answered before he had the wherewithal to censor himself. “I know that I should be ecstatic about this promotion but… I am not and I do not know why.” Any more than he knew why he couldn’t seem to let go of her.
Apparently, content to remain in his arms, she gave his response some thought and then searched his eyes again as if they held the answers he could not find. “Could it be because you prefer the work you do at the Admiralty over sailing the seven seas in search of trouble?”
He shrugged, then reluctantly let his arms fall to put a sensible foot of distance between them. “My dissatisfaction began at the Admiralty, and I’ve always loved the sea but…” Harry threw up his hands. How to explain something he didn’t understand himself? “I feel ambivalent about going back there.”
“An ambivalent man doesn’t look as miserable as you have this past week. You’ve resembled one headed toward his own execution rather than one looking forward to his next great adventure.”
A perceptive comment that was likely closer to the truth than he was comfortable admitting, even to himself. “Perhaps I looked miserable because I loathe Plymouth and all its environs with every fiber of my being?” He tried to smile but couldn’t when he knew Plymouth was just one of the symptoms of his current malaise and not the root cause.
“What’s wrong with Plymouth and all its environs?”
“I grew up there.” As much as he seemed incapable of not revealing his ludicrous and self-indulgent disquiet to the vixen this evening, he had no intentions of telling her everything. Certain uniquely Plymouth-based things, like all the bailiffs and Elizabeth and the rescinding of his first captaincy, were too private and painful and humiliating to admit aloud. “And found it… suffocating.”
“Ah,” she said as if she understood that cryptic answer entirely. “I only have to hear the dreaded words Ipswich or Preston or, heaven forbid, Newcastle, and a part of me dies.”
“Army postings?”
She nodded. “A barracks is, in my humble opinion, the most depressing place to live if you are not a soldier. There is nothing to do but read and the reading available is deathly dull. There is only so much military strategy a compact girl can read about before she wants to burn it all.”
Harry wanted to step forward and trace her ironic smile with his fingertip. Instead, he folded his arms in case he gave in to the urge. “I did wonder how you were so well informed about Sun Tzu.” Just as he now wondered how much shouting and insults she had endured in those barracks—and by who.
“But, spared the dratted prison of the barracks, I am sure none of those places are truly as bad as I remember them.” As if she sensed he was about to ask that deeply personal question, she pivoted the conversation back to him. “And perhaps Plymouth won’t be as awful as you remember it once you see it again from an adult’s perspective. Then maybe you will also find your smile again.”
“And if I don’t?” Because that was what was at the crux of it all.
“Then I suppose you will need to do some serious thinking, Captain, to work out exactly what it is you want before the navy sends you somewhere else that you do not want to go.” There was no arguing with that simple but concise logic. “What do you think you want?” She folded her arms, too, and leaned against the wall of the dim, narrow landing, awaiting his reply.
He shrugged again as if he had no clue, which was only partially true because there was one thing he knew he wanted—even if it was the one thing he shouldn’t. “I know what I am supposed to want—this promotion. More promotions.” He spread his arms. “All the promotions it takes until I reach the top of the mast. That is what I was trained for.”
“And what do you find yourself wanting instead?”
He wasn’t sure if it was the question, or their location, or the fact that they were all alone.
If it was tiredness or despair or the constant yearning which he couldn’t conquer.
He wasn’t sure if it was the honesty, or her concern, or her smile, or the fact that she had only just left his arms and they missed her. Or the way the lamplight set fire to the copper in her hair, or the way her smile was like a balm to his soul.
He knew without a doubt that it was madness.
The most assured path to his own self-destruction. That he should say good night and put as much distance between them as was possible for the short time she would be in Plymouth with him. However, the masochistic devil inside of him had apparently taken control of his mouth, so he answered her question in the only way he could in this intimate and charged moment.
With the truth.
“You.”
Georgie knew that the captain was going to kiss her well before he did, because he didn’t pounce or grab or even gather her close first. Instead, he slowly dipped his head, then paused scant inches from her face to give her ample opportunity to say no.
In truth, and she did not know why she knew it, his eyes were begging her to do so as he hesitated. Then hesitated some more. Their faces so close that she knew he was holding his breath just as she was holding hers.
She also knew that he would respect that no if she found the strength to utter it. Would immediately step back and apologize and then would probably never ever try to kiss her again. Which, in that precise moment, felt like a tragedy. Especially when the air crackled around them and being kissed by him, right this second, seemed like the only thing she wanted to do.
So instead of shaking her head, she tilted it upward. Instead of running away and then locking her bedchamber door, as any sensible governess would do when their employer wanted more from her than the job she was paid to do, Georgie stood on tiptoes to close the distance. Then, so eager to experience her first kiss with a man she was beyond eager to be kissing, sighed when she pressed her mouth to his.
What followed was a revelation. One that absolutely made all of Lottie’s claims about the right sort of kiss correct.
Captain Kincaid’s started gentle, but she still felt it everywhere. His lips whispered over hers as if she were something decadent and luxurious he was in no hurry to rush. When he finally touched her, that was reverently too. He used the tips of his fingers to trace her cheek, which awakened all her senses and every single nerve ending.
He smelled like the fresh, crisp, earthy night air of the woods.
Tasted like home.
Like fate.
Like sin.
Perfection.
Ready for more, Georgie stepped closer, tugging him by the lapels in an invitation to continue, but for a moment, he hesitated again. Then, on a surrendering sigh, snaked his arms around her waist as he deepened the kiss while she welcomed every new sensation. Her entire body simultaneously floating and so ripe with wanting that it felt like the most natural thing in the world to let it.
When her hands begged to go exploring, she took them on a bold journey beneath his coat. Over his chest. His shoulders. Down the wide and solid plain of his back. When his went exploring in return, she heard her own moans of appreciation, barely recognizing herself as she welcomed his caresses.
Because she had never been like this.
Never imagined she could be. Not when Miss Georgina Rowe was the sensible but uninspiring sort. The unsentimental, unromantic, not-easily-impressed sort. The sort who had long resigned herself to the life of passionless servitude and spinsterhood she had been trained for and wanted to be grateful for. Yet here she was, transformed into a passionate woman who craved seduction.
Thanks to his talented mouth, her level head no longer ruled supreme. Instead, it was her body that controlled every inch. Nothing existed beyond her new needs and this potent kiss she wanted to last forever.
Except it didn’t, because he suddenly wrenched his mouth away.
Stared at her wide-eyed. Panicked and uncertain as though he wanted to run far away—yet he seemed incapable of letting her go.
His breath sawed in and out. His heart raced beneath her fingertips. And his eyes—his mesmerizing dark-brown eyes—were heated with desire. “This is madness.”
Georgie nodded as she held on tight—because it was. Glorious, unfettered, and addictive madness that she didn’t want to stop.
His arms loosened. Unlocked themselves from behind her back. Found their way to her hips instead while he tried to calm his breathing. She was sure he was going to step well away until his gaze dropped to her lips and he scrunched his eyes closed, but before they did, she saw the war in them. All the desire.
All the need.
All for her.
Her!
That really was the maddest thing of all. That this intoxicating man, who could have his pick of women, currently wanted her.
He swallowed. Hard. And when his eyes opened, his heated gaze latched immediately onto her mouth and he growled in frustration as he tugged her hips back to his. So close that she was left in no doubt of his desire for her as it throbbed hot and hard against her belly through all the layers of their clothes. His mouth found hers again, then feasted. As if he wanted to gorge on her now rather than take his time. Every hot, fevered, and gloriously intimate kiss sent all those fizzing champagne bubbles within her tummy ricocheting everywhere until she was drunk on him.
At some point, her back found the wall and her leg wrapped itself around his hips to anchor him. By then, she was witless and practically boneless and so desperate to have him inside her that all propriety had flown out of the window. Shamelessly in pursuit of her own pleasure and so caught up in the kiss that nothing else mattered. As he began to hike up her skirts, she wrestled with the falls of his breeches. Both in such a hurry to finish what they had started that Grace’s cry brought them both up short.
Still panting with unslaked lust, they were both barely decent when the little girl emerged from her bedchamber rubbing her eyes, oblivious of the passionate, carnal insanity she had just interrupted.
“I had another nightmare, Miss Rowe.” Then she held out her little hand. “Will you sleep with me in my bed again tonight?”