Chapter 5 #2
“So,” said his beautiful companion with a sly smile. “Now that we have delved into my own darkest secrets and revealed why I have taken this voyage across England, I think that it is high time that you revealed your own secrets.”
James started, and stared at her with a slight frown. Surely, she could not know – there was no possibility that she could know.
The clatter of plates and knives around him seemed to fade into the background as he stared into her deep brown eyes.
“You have been so interested in my own journey that we have not really investigated your own,” said Rebecca with a smile.
James returned it, but hesitated. True, he felt very close to her – closer than he had done to anyone, now that he came to think about it – but that did not mean that he could speak freely.
“I wonder when the food will be ready,” he said, avoiding the subject entirely. “I hope that whatever is being made is to your liking. If you sampled the same stew yesterday that I had, you must be – ”
“I do not like dishonesty,” she interrupted, eyes unwavering. “And I expect equal honesty, James. I have shared my secret with you – is that not fair?”
James hesitated and was relieved that the moment was broken by a serving boy laying down two large plates before them, with what looked like finer fare than he had previously been served.
“Ah, good,” he said vaguely. “This looks…” His voice trailed away as he saw the look on Rebecca’s face. Sighing, James said quietly, “‘Tis not really my secret to tell.”
If he had hoped that the suggestion that she was prying into another person’s private business was going to dissuade her, he could not have been more wrong.
Rebecca’s eyes alighted with intrigue, and as she leaned forward to speak in a low voice her hand brushed his own – and fierce sparks of heat, attraction, desperation rocketed through his body.
By God, he wanted her.
“I will tell no one, you can be assured of that,” murmured Rebecca, and James tried to concentrate on the words she was saying, rather than the way that her lips curled around them.
“And as I am almost sure that you did not tell me your true name, there is no way that if I did decide to betray your trust, it could ever mean anything to that person in any case.”
It was impossible to prevent his eyes widening, to stop his jaw dropping, to control the look of shock that covered his face.
“Why do you think that?” He asked quickly.
She grinned. “Because I did not give you my true name either.”
For a brief moment, James considered pushing aside the plates, tipping them onto the floor, ridding the table of everything so it was ready for him to pull this startling woman up onto it ready for him to ravish her.
The desire did not fade but his sense did return to the surface. They were surrounded by other travellers, and despite her elopement, this beauty was still a virgin. Her first time deserved to be something special – no matter his deep desire to teach her exactly what she had been missing.
Instead of growling his demand that she accompany him to their room, James laughed jerkily. “I should have known.”
Rebecca – or the woman that he had known as Rebecca for the last two days – smiled. “Am I right?”
James nodded, took a bite of his roasted meat and vegetables, and swallowed before he continued. “Partly, I suppose. My name is James, and I often go by the name of Paendly. But it is Viscount Paendly, not Mr Paendly, in the circles I mix in.”
He had hoped, and it was a slightly embarrassing hope at that, that she would be impressed by his admission. His title had never failed to widen eyes or cause deeper curtsies before.
But all his companion did was laugh. “Are you telling me that I am on a voyage with a viscount?”
James shrugged as he grinned. “I suppose you are, Miss…?”
It appeared at first that she was not going to give him her real name, those brilliant eyes staring at him suspiciously. Eventually it appeared that he was to be trusted.
“Rowena,” she said quietly, turning to her own food. “Rowena Kerr.”
As soon as she said the words, James could not help but smile at her. Rowena. Yes, that suited her far more than Rebecca: there was a strange mysteriousness about Rowena, a sort of mythic magic.
“Rowena,” he murmured, and it sent a chill through his spine, almost like a premonition. He had a feeling that the name Rowena was going to be very important to him for the rest of his life.
“Now, it is self-evident why I hid my identity,” she said quietly as she played with her food. “What I am unclear of is why you felt the need to lie?”
James shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He should not even consider discussing this with her: a woman he had met not three days ago? But she had shared her secret with him – a secret that, if he chose to, could be the ruin of her.
“I only hid who I was because…” It was difficult to get out of, this habit of secrets and lies. “Because I was on an errand for a friend who found themselves on the wrong side of the law.”
He knew Rowena well enough by now to hear the scoff in her tones as she said, “Wrong side of the law.”
“I have no desire to persuade you,” he said with a smile after another mouthful of the delicious meal. “Please do feel free to disbelieve me.”
His nonchalance was evidently far more intriguing than if he had attempting to argue with her. Rowena’s eyes glittered with interest and as she leaned forward, James attempted not to notice the swell of her breasts.
“Tell me more,” she whispered.
Now struggling to manage the hunger in his stomach with the hunger in his loins, James dropped a little of the meat from his fork as he tried to eat. This woman was consuming him from the inside out, and James was finding that there was nothing that he would not do for her.
It was frightening, to have so much of your control taken from you, but he found that he would give it to her willingly for just one kiss.
Rowena was watching him expectantly, and after swallowing his food, James spoke in a low voice. “My friend is from France, from a noble family, you understand. He is hunting down a French spy.”
“A spy!” Rowena gasped with a smile. “What – ”
But she broke off before she could speak as the serving boy returned to their table.
“A bottle of wine, sir, m’lady?”
“No!” They both spoke together, and the lad disappeared sharply from their table. They shared a look, and James’ heart glowed with warmth.
“What is he doing in England?”
James raised an eyebrow. “My friend?”
Rowena shook her head irritably. “No, the spy! You said that your friend had followed him, the spy, to England and – ”
“Who said that the spy was a gentleman?”
He could have crowed aloud at the look of astonishment on Rowena Kerr’s face.
“But – but you said…a woman?”
James nodded impressively, and lowered his voice even further – partly to ensure that no one could overhear them and partly, he admitted to a secret part of himself, to encourage her to lean forward to and give him another stupendous view of her breasts.
“I cannot name names, obviously under the circumstances, but I can tell you that my nobleman friend escaped France but two weeks ago, and is now looking for his sister, who has been on the run, here in England, for over a year.”
It was impossible not to preen, James found, as he watched Rowena stare at him, impressed beyond words.
“I am a friend of both since childhood,” James whispered.
“I know that…my friend would do anything to find his sister. What he does not know is that I have been tracking her movements for the last six months. When you met with me, I had just been to see her, to tell her the news that her brother, too, had escaped from France.”
Rowena placed down her knife and fork, and looked up at him with an emotion that he could not quite read: was it devotion? Was it desire?
“You must have a taste for danger,” she said lightly, her fingers playing with the stem of her glass. “Does your appetite for such things apply to…to all areas of your life?”
James’ mouth went dry. He knew women. He knew what they wanted, and how they indicated that they wanted it, and when he had one to himself he knew exactly how to pleasure her.
Rowena Kerr wanted him.
“I generally find,” he said in a low voice, not taking his eyes away from hers, ready to lose himself within her, “that I know danger when I see it, and I have never run from it yet.”
She hesitated for a moment, and then a smile, almost shy, but unwavering, crept across her face. “‘Tis a shame for you to spend another night cramped in a carriage. I have no objection to sharing a chamber this night, if you do not.”