Chapter 7
The following afternoon, with the hem of her emerald-green, velvet-lined cloak heavy, Linnie trudged through the snow-covered grounds of Hyde Park.
Her maid, Ada, having long since abandoned keeping up with her mistress, had, at Linnie’s insistence and reassurance, returned to the carriage.
After all, this was a walk Linnie made daily. At this late hour in the spring and summer months, the park would be filled with couples walking and gentlemen riding. At the yuletide season, those same peers retired to the countryside or avoided the harsh elements altogether.
For Linnie, the winter still always brought with it a welcome solace.
That was, until today.
But then a sleepless night hadn’t helped. Not when the memory of Jeremy lived in her head.
That exchange.
As Linnie walked, her breath quickened and stirred small puffs of white clouds, not from the pace she’d set, but from those same recollections that’d robbed her of rest.
For the whole of her life, she’d dreamed of her first kiss, and in those dreams, it had always been Jeremy Tremaine to be the one to do so. She’d never deluded herself into believing that day would actually come, but then last night, it had.
And it’d been beyond everything she’d imagined.
Linnie slowed her steps and then stopped where she stood, her eyes directed on the frozen Serpentine, but her gaze inward.
He’d . . . wanted her. Yes, when he’d learned her identity, he’d been an absolute beast. But until that moment, he’d desired her. He’d done things and said things that should have scandalized. Instead, she’d been intrigued, bespelled, but had left frustrated.
Her body went hot. Her chest rose and fell.
Was he really a complete beast? Did he not see you shiver and give you the very cloak off his back?
If he’d not revealed hints of the man she knew, perhaps it would’ve been easy to hate him and bury all thoughts of him.
But Linnie had seen glimpses of her friend and hero, and that, coupled with his skilled embrace . . .
Linnie briefly closed her eyes and took in a shuddery breath.
Last night, after the things he’d done to her, there’d been such a throbbing between her legs in that place he’d palmed and stroked. Even long after she’d left the masquerade, it’d still hurt. She’d squirmed and twisted her hips in a bid to alleviate that ache.
She’d even briefly touched herself there and imagined it was Jeremy stroking her so, before she remembered the forbidden nature of what she did.
Biting her lower lip, she gave her head a shake to clear those wicked remembrances.
To no avail.
He’d imprinted on her heart and soul long ago, but now he’d branded her physical body and she would never be the same.
Tears pricked her lashes and fell, leaving a hot trail of moisture upon her cheeks.
Angrily swiping the back of her sleeve over her face, Linnie gritted her teeth and stalked off. She marched at a frenzied pace that kicked up snow in her tracks.
What was worse, given the depth of his antipathy, was that last night marked the last she’d ever see of him.
Her hem became caught in a nearby purging blackthorn, the prickly branches jerking the material of her skirts and stalling Linnie in her tracks.
Cursing, she attempted to disentangle the fabric. Several of the spear-shaped thorns punctured Linnie’s kidskin gloves and pierced her skin.
A hiss exploded from between her teeth, and she welcomed the rush of this new, distracting pain.
And here, alone in the empty fields of Hyde Park, Linnie surrendered to all the hurt, frustration, sorrow, and regret. Crying, she yanked and tugged at the branches, fighting to free herself and finding herself powerless against its snare.
Powerless.
For that’s what she was.
Her shoulders shook with the force of her weeping.
Powerless in every way, with little say in her future. With no hope of having the one and only man she wanted on God’s green—
“You know, they say the rose and the thorn, and sorrow and gladness are linked together.”
Like she’d summoned him, that deep, silky baritone she’d thought to never hear again pierced Linnie’s anguished outpouring.
She gasped.
The gentleman stood just as she oft imagined him at the helm of his ship—his legs planted slightly apart, his dark cloak whipping in the wind, and the errant strands of black hair tugged free of his queue, fluttering at his crisply angular cheek.
Her heart sped up.
Jeremy!
The gentleman quirked his lips in a small grin and dropped a flourishing bow. “In the flesh.”
She’d said that aloud?
His smile widened. “You did not say it, love,” Jeremy drawled. “I knew what you were thinking.”
That arrogance managed to ease the quixotic hold he had over her. She hated thinking about the women he’d had—and still had—in his life, such as his Ladies Featherstone and Catriona.
“Ah, yes, no doubt with all the women you have in every port,” she said archly, “you’ve quite honed the skill of reading a woman’s mind.”
Jeremy stepped closer. “I don’t presume to know any woman’s thoughts, Linnie,” he murmured, stroking a gloved finger along the curve of her cheek. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Just yours.”
Even out here amidst the wilds of London’s grandest park, the air grew sparse between them.
Jeremy winked.
“Who says that?” she asked, her voice breathless.
He arched a quizzical brow.
She clarified. “‘The rose and the thorn, and sorrow and gladness are linked together’?”
“Ah.” He angled his head back. “Saadi. He was a great medieval Persian poet—perhaps the greatest poet of all time. He’s lauded for the depths of his social and moral thoughts.”
“Saadi,” she silently mouthed, practicing the unfamiliar name.
After this interlude with Jeremy, she’d never again forget that name. For Linnie, Saadi would long live greater than Shakespeare and all the romantic poets combined.
Jeremy dropped to a knee.
Startled, Linnie glanced down.
Like a great knight of old, Jeremy knelt before her in the way she’d yearned for him to do. In that fantasy, he professed his love and pleaded for her hand in marriage.
Her heart continued to race at dizzying speed, while her brain struggled to keep pace.
Belatedly, she registered what Jeremy was doing.
In a few quick movements, he’d managed to free her from the brambles. “Here we are.”
You dolt.
Did you truly expect, after the hate that poured from him last night, that he’d somehow . . . what? Gone and fallen in love with you?
Jeremy straightened. He held out a hand.
She stared at his black glove–encased palm and then slipped her fingers into his, giving a shake.
He covered their joined hands with his spare one and stayed that movement.
His lips twitched. “That is quite a firm shake. Whoever schooled you in the gesture did an admirable job with your instruction.”
“Oh, hush, Jeremy Tremaine. You know you were the one to do so.”
As soon as those playful words left her lips, Linnie balked. “P-perhaps you d-don’t remember.” Mortified at revealing her keen remembrance of him, she stammered, “But you d—”
He pressed a finger against her still-moving lips and put a halt to the remainder of her humiliated ramblings.
“I remember,” he murmured, the soft sough of his breath warm upon her cold cheeks.
“You do?” she whispered.
He nodded.
The thick fringe of his black lashes fell, and the small circle of gold around his irises glowed luminescent within his serious and steady grey eyes.
His gaze slipped to her mouth and lingered there.
Under the intensity of that focus, her lips slipped open a fraction.
For he wore the same look he’d had right before he’d taken her mouth under his in a soul-searing, earth-shattering kiss.
Of their own volition, Linnie’s lashes fluttered. She tipped her head back to take his kiss.
“Why are you here alone, Linnie?” That stern, big-brotherly question broke the spell he’d cast over her.
“Why are you here alone?” she shot back.
He chuckled.
At his droll humor, Linnie bristled. “You find it somehow funny that we are held to very different standards?”
“Oh, I’ll not debate you on the unfairness of the ways men and women are treated,” he said. “I’ve met capable, skilled women who’ve captained their own ships.”
Had he loved one of those daring adventuresses? Certainly, he’d taken them as lovers. Thinking about him with a stunning beauty who understood his world and shared it sent fiery pangs of jealousy sinking into Linnie.
“Do you know what I find amusing, love?”
Love. The ease with which that warm endearment spilled from his lips made it so she could forgive him any slight.
Through the mesmerizing haze, she made herself shake her head.
“The difference between us being, Linnie, that just one of us is strikingly beautiful and prey for those with lecherous intentions.” He scraped a rakish gaze up and down her body. “And it certainly is not me,” he said harshly.
Given the way Linnie and every other lady in London longed for Jeremy, she’d beg to differ with him on that score.
“Men don’t desire me, Jeremy,” she said softly. This man, however, made her feel coveted.
At her humbling admission, Linnie’s toes curled reflexively into the soles of her boots.
A wolfish grin tipped his lips up. “Oh, they do, my treasure,” he whispered. “The real men do.”
Real men.
Knowledgeable, worldly, sophisticated men . . . like Jeremy Tremaine, captain of the high seas.
Desire quickened in her belly and that place between her legs grew damp.
Her breath hitched.
The glint in his eyes turned icily murderous.
“Who do I have to kill?” he murmured, his voice so silken, so tender, that it was a moment before the lethality of his question penetrated the spell he’d cast over her.
Jeremy ran the pads of his thumbs over the chilly tracks her tears had left. “You were crying when I came upon you.”
Her mind raced. Jeremy wouldn’t settle for a nonanswer, but how to explain while omitting the fact that he was, in fact, the ultimate source of her sorrow?
“How long were you there?” she asked, stalling.