Chapter 12 #3
Jeremy removed his fingers from inside her and reached into his greatcoat.
He withdrew a handkerchief and gave it a light snap. Then with a tenderness that threatened to break her, Jeremy cleaned between her legs.
After he’d finished that intimate act, he held her gaze and licked the remnants of her climax from his fingers. “You taste delicious, love.”
Suddenly shy, when she’d never been shy around him, Linnie ducked her head.
“Tsk, tsk.” He sucked lightly on the lobe of her ear. “My Linnie is not timid.”
Desire stirred anew.
He’d called her . . . My Linnie.
A buoyant lightness spread through.
“Your Linnie has never been touched this way,” she somehow found the courage to say.
Against her side, she felt Jeremy tense.
She’d said something wrong. Heat hit her cheeks, and she pulled away. “What did I say?” Wrong.
“What did you say?” he repeated in guttural tones. “Only the thing that nearly pushed me over, Linnie.”
Confused, she shook her head.
Instead of answering, Jeremy kissed her once more on the lips and then straightened. He made quick work of righting his garments. He first adjusted his cravat and cloak and then drew his hair back into its familiar queue, taming those longer midnight strands.
Then he saw to Linnie; he did so with greater care and attention than he’d shown himself.
Until he’d finished and they both stood staring at one another.
Linnie, dazed, wore a silly smile she feared would be there forever and reveal all the things she’d done with him this day.
And Jeremy . . .
Her smile teetered.
Jeremy’s grey eyes bore the turbulence of the most unforgiving Highland storm.
Oh, God.
“You regret it,” she said weakly. “You r-regret what we did—”
Jeremy sluiced a dark, penetrating gaze on Linnie. Her words disappeared.
“I don’t regret what we’ve done,” he said sharply. “I regret how we’ve done it.” A muscle jumped at the top right corner of his mouth.
Askance, she shook her head.
“In a bloody poultry shop, Linnie, not in a bloody garden or terrace or even a stolen parlor befitting the first time you climaxed.” Self-disgust seeped from his furious eyes.
“I don’t care about those things, Jeremy.” She spoke with a quiet earnestness.
“You should. I do.”
Hating that he should end the most wondrous moment in her life like this, all guilt and self-flagellation, Linnie glanced about. “Why, this place is perfectly romantic.”
Jeremy gave her a look.
“What? It is!”
Her gaze alighted on a peculiar cage in the corner, one that’d gone unnoticed until now.
She widened her eyes. “Look!” Linnie pointed past him. “Lovebirds!”
Bemused, Jeremy followed her finger.
He narrowed his eyes. “Those are chickens,” he said flatly.
“No! I know, but it is not two chickens, Jeremy.” Excitedly, she dashed across the room to the pair of birds. “One is a chicken and the other is a rooster. Why should they be here alone when all the other chickens are caged together?”
“Both awaiting execution,” he said dryly. “If that isn’t the height of romanticism.”
Linnie’s face fell.
“Jeremy!” she chastised. “You would turn it into a tragedy.”
“And you, Linnie, would make something romantic out of something that is ugly and dark.”
His cryptic, deadened voice and opaque gaze, both so different from earlier, when he’d loved her so gently, raised gooseflesh along her arms.
Linnie shook her head firmly. “No. I don’t believe that. They need to be free.”
He stared at her. “Free?”
Linnie nodded.
“And you are saying . . .”
“We should free them! It will be the ultimate romantic gesture to commemorate this special day, Jeremy.”
His hard lips remained implacable.
Linnie tensed and braced for the newer, angrier Jeremy to lash out and mock her and deny her request.
Then, faint at first, there came a quiet growl in his chest.
Wrinkling her brow, she ventured cautiously, “J-Jeremy?”
That rumbling grew into a deep, distinct, resonant boom.
He burst out laughing.
Linnie drew back. “Jeremy? Are you all right?”
His mirth grew by bounds until he snorted and tears seeped from the corners of his eyes.
She stood frozen, staring incredulously at him. Until his amusement proved infectious.
Linnie joined him, laughing until she too cried with the force of her hilarity. “Wh-what is it?” she asked breathlessly when their laughter faded.
Jeremy dashed the moisture from his cheeks and shook his head. “From shore to shore, there’s no one in the world like you, Linnie Smith.”
She started. “Oh.”
Chuckling, Jeremy came and joined her at the cage.
“Hood up,” he instructed as he reached for the latch.
While Linnie rushed to comply, Jeremy opened the door slowly. “I’m going to hand you the young lady, whom we shall call . . . Linette.”
She giggled. “My mother recently decided to refer to me as Linette.”
“Did she?” he drawled.
Linnie nodded. “It is ‘grander,’” she said with a dramatic flourish.
Jeremy snorted. “The hell it is. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Because I’m not an elegant, worldly lady, Captain Tremaine?” What’d left her lips as playful banter froze her smile in place.
Mordant thoughts assailed Linnie—of Jeremy with a sophisticated beauty who matched him in every way. There came a burning sensation in her chest—
Jeremy lowered his head and placed a feathery-soft kiss at her temple. “You’re not some huffish, unfeeling woman. You are my Linnie,” he whispered.
Her pulse raced.
“You’re the whimsical, enchanting, clever, fearless enchantress. There’s only one Linnie in the world.” Jeremy drew back. “This lovely bird can have something similar.”
Linnie fell.
Right there, she fell in love with Jeremy Tremaine all over again.
“Linette,” she murmured as he handed over the precious bird, whom she yearned to bring home and keep until they both grew old together—with Jeremy at their side.
In an unexpected display of contentment, the white-feathered chicken flattened herself against Linnie’s body. “Oohhh, you sweet lass,” Linnie cooed.
She looked up and found Jeremy’s eyes on her. They were all serious once more, and it was impossible for her to make out even a hint of his thoughts.
Linnie playfully waggled her brows. “Never tell me you’re having second thoughts about our attempt to spring them free?”
“And steal the romanticism from our meeting?” Jeremy murmured. “I think not, love.”
Nothing could destroy this day spent with him. Not cannon fire. Not the end of the world itself.
Jeremy redirected their attention on the other bird. “Then we have this fellow.”
“Whose name is?”
“Uh-uh. I’ve named the lovely lady. The gentleman is all yours.”
Cradling Linette in her arms, Linnie moved closer to better study the rooster. “Hmm.”
She thought for a while.
“Preferably sooner before we’re discovered and our heist cut short, love,” Jeremy drawled.
Only half hearing him, Linnie brightened. “Tom!”
“Tom?” he echoed.
Jeremy glanced about like he sought out some fellow whose name she’d called.
“For the rooster?” he said.
“Should I have named him Jeremy?” she teased.
Boyish color climbed the rugged lines of his cheekbones. “There does seem to be some randomness to ‘Tom,’” he mumbled.
“Not at all!” She deepened her voice to a suitably solemn telling. “Sir Thomas was a great Scottish laird of long ago. Legends surround him and homage is still paid to his poetry; he was made the hero of a romantic tale. In it, he’s carried off by the Queen of Elfland.”
“Tom, then,” he concurred, sounding so suitably unimpressed she blew her tongue out at him.
He grinned.
Jeremy went to remove the rooster. “Does this at least make me the King of Elfland?” he asked, reaching for the bird.
“No.”
He paused and cast a frown at Linnie.
“You wouldn’t want to be a king of any land, Jeremy. You were born to be a captain,” she said softly. “A king of the seas.”
Something glimmered in his eyes.
“Bwack. Bwack!”
Old Tom angrily called their attention his way.
“Come along, Tom.” Jeremy went about collecting his fowl.
Unlike Linnie’s bird, who merely flapped several times in response to Tom’s newly acquired freedom, Tom angrily squawked and fluttered.
Stolen poultry in hand, Linnie and Jeremy made their way back through the noisy hall of caged chickens.
Like before, Jeremy ducked his head outside to verify whether the McQuoid-Smiths searching for Linnie were nearby.
“Clear,” he mouthed. “On the count of three.”
They shared a last smile.
With a nod, he stepped aside so Linnie could be out first. He followed quickly at her heels.
Then they shared one last look.
Jeremy gave the count: “One. Two. Three.”
Together, they released Tom and Linette into the market, and as a new hue and cry went off, Linnie took off to find her family, wishing she could remain behind with the only person she wanted.