Chapter 14
August smiled. “No, I’m not.”
He didn’t await an invitation; he started over with what she wagered were the same crisp, confident strides he displayed aboard his ship.
Where Jeremy was a man as comfortable at sea as he was sleek and languid upon land.
I wish I could see him that way, fully in command of his ship and crew.
She’d resolved to have Jeremy in her life, and yet doing so would require he set aside his irrepressible hate. These past days he’d given her hope that he might . . .
“I hate to see you sad, Linnie.” Lord August stroked his thumb over her trembling lower lip.
“I’m not.” That lie felt weak to her own ears.
“Very well, I do not like seeing you think sad thoughts.”
She managed to smile. This man was very good at that.
“Ah,” he murmured. “That is so much better, my dear.”
Linnie’s lips twitched. “My father referred to my mother so.”
“Egad, I mustn’t do that.” Catching his chin in his hand, he tapped the slight cleft at the center. “Hmm. Not my dear. I shall have to find something else by which to refer to you.”
“There is Linnie.”
“Ah, yes, but Linnie is for all your family and most intimate acquaintances.”
“Do you not count yourself amongst those few, August?”
“Oh, absolutely I do,” he said with a blend of alacrity and matter-of-factness.
She laughed.
August winked.
He became solemn once more. “I wish for something by which only I can and do refer to you.”
He brought a hand up and palmed Linnie’s cheek. Her breath hitched.
Like a sorcerer, he held her spellbound.
August possessed such a lethal level of charm; he moved and spoke and touched in a way a woman would give him anything he wished . . .
August moved his thumb along the seam of her lips. Linnie dampened her mouth and accidentally touched her tongue to his naked finger.
Why would this great, powerful, breathtaking man want me?
Linnie went cold. He didn’t want her, not really. As enraptured as she’d been by him, this night and the ones before, she’d not once remembered the actual reason for his attention.
No, she hadn’t allowed herself to recall.
Linnie drew back. “I fear I’ve given you the wrong idea.”
He frowned. “In what way?”
Linnie pressed her palms together. “You see, it is just I understand why you’ve been attentive and . . . and . . . charming.”
“Am I charming?” His lips sloped up in a roguish smile. “This is the first time I’ve been called thus.”
Her lips twitched. “I highly doubt that.”
He winked.
Despite herself, Linnie found herself smiling fully.
How masterful he was at disarming a lady.
“I referred to the alliance,” she said, gently guiding him back. “You and Arran have discussed a merger of your shipping empires, and with me as the one to join them.”
“Is that what you believe?” he asked, grave. “That my interest in you is because I wish to be part of a shipping empire?”
Linnie peered at him. He appeared . . . sad.
“Isn’t it?”
“I would never lie to you, Linnie. Initially that was the case. Captain McQuoid and I discussed at length the benefits of a merger—”
Linnie interrupted. “And were Cassia and Myrtle not already married, you’d no doubt even now be courting one of them instead, my lord.”
His silence stood damning.
Her heart clenched.
“I don’t want that, August,” she said, gently letting him down. “I don’t want a marriage my family coordinated between me and a gentleman who is compelled by what he stands to gain. I want the gentleman who courts me and marries me to be one who truly wants me.” She pressed a hand upon her breast.
“Why can’t it be possible for these two things to be true, Linnie?” he asked with urgency. “Why can’t it be both the union that would benefit our families and that I love you?”
Linnie drew back. What he said did not make any sense. His words jumbled with similar ones Jeremy had spoken earlier that week.
She shook her head. Perhaps she was bosky from too much claret?
August repeated himself with a greater earnestness. “I love you.”
“August, you don’t . . .” She tried to reason it away. “It’s only been—”
August brought his hands up and took Linnie’s face gently between his palms. “Linnie Smith,” he said, his gaze boring into hers.
“I fell in love with you the minute I caught you trying to climb that brick wall.” He laughed softly at his own recollection.
“You, my love, fell hard that day, but I? I fell harder.”
My love.
“Oh,” she whispered.
“Do you dislike me, Linnie?”
Her lips twitched. “Of course not.”
“Am I a dull chap?”
“August.”
He waggled his eyebrows. “I should take that as a . . . ?”
“No. You are very entertaining,” she said like a proud tutor.
He continued to pepper her with questions.
“Do you find fault with my intelligence level?”
“Aside from not having had a chance to review your penmanship, arithmetic skills, and abilities with the classical languages, I can confidently say not at all.”
“Noli me olfacies?”
“Do you smell?” Linnie laughed. “No. Olfacies amoenissimum.” She drew in the subtle scent of sandalwood and seawater.
August slipped a palm about her nape, and all her levity faded. He lightly stroked his thumb along her neck. The quixotic feel of that slightest caress brought her lashes fluttering.
August placed his lips next to her ear, and her eyes slid all the way closed. “Tu es attiré par moi,” he said huskily. You are attracted to me.
He brought his brow against hers. “Je vois le désir dans tes yeux, mon amour.” I see the desire in your eyes, my love.
Linnie felt his chest rise in quick concert to her own.
“Je sens que tu trembles rien de plus que mon baiser sur ta main,” he rasped. I feel you tremble at nothing more than my kiss upon your hand.
His voice possessed a husky quality, one she recognized—only because of Jeremy—as that of desire.
August lowered his head slowly. The gentleman he was, he allowed Linnie time to retreat, but she remained motionless; his dark eyes compelled her.
“Lord Culross . . .” She tried to make a plea, but it emerged shamefully breathy and weak.
Then, in absence of a stated resistance, the earl claimed her lips with his.
Linnie tensed, but the haze left by claret had long lifted, and she found herself more sober than she’d ever been.
The earl’s lips were different, firm, yes, but slightly fuller than Jeremy’s, and also very clearly skilled. And as Lord Culross embraced her, Linnie’s body trembled.
He repeatedly brushed his mouth over hers. The way in which he kissed coaxed Linnie, enticed.
August drew her nearer, and she gasped. The long line of his erection pressed firmly against the flat of her belly in further proof of his desire.
His kiss wasn’t unpleasant. On the contrary. It—
August filled his hands with her breasts and Linnie’s breath caught.
She’d allowed this man’s embrace as a study of some sort, but now heat centered low in her belly, ever lower.
“So beautiful,” he praised. All the while he trailed delicate kisses down her neck. Through the thin fabric of her gown, he lightly stroked her nipples.
She moaned softly, and he answered her desire by continuing to play with the overly sensitive peaks.
Linnie told herself to pull away, but something held her back, something Jeremy had said recently.
Linnie, there’s no love involved. What you call lovemaking is just a meeting of two base animals who use each other to find relief.
So she let Lord Culross continue their embrace, to see for herself. August guided a finger along her jaw, and she opened for him.
She attended this man’s touch the same way she read and analyzed books about the sea and seafaring life.
Where Jeremy wielded his tongue like a hot, angry brand, August kissed with his entire soul. He swirled his tongue around Linnie’s in a delicate waltz, teasing her until, dizzy from the erotic dance, she gripped the front of his jacket to keep from falling.
As he kissed Linnie, fully, deeply, she at last understood. The only man whom she’d ever kissed had been Jeremy, the first and only man she’d ever truly loved, but as Lord Culross embraced her, her body trembled still.
This was the carnal lust Jeremy spoke of. Now it made sense. The earl might—and did—coax a response from her body, but Linnie’s heart and mind remained emotionally detached.
August pressed the long length of his shaft firmly against the flat of Linnie’s stomach. Heat centered low in her belly, ever lower. Linnie moaned; her hips moved of their own volition, and she rubbed against him.
August groaned, and she felt that rumble deep inside.
“So beautiful,” he murmured.
His voice broke whatever spell he’d cast.
In the end, he was not Jeremy.
Linnie hated that this man stirred her, but she hated herself more for not just responding to him but reciprocating his embrace.
“A-August,” she said, her voice unsteady. She pressed her palms upon the front of his sapphire evening coat.
The contoured muscles of his broad chest leapt at her touch.
“Forgive me,” she murmured. “I cannot do this.”
“You can,” he coaxed. He placed a kiss at the corner of her lips. “And you are.”
Despite the heat of the earl’s embrace, she went cold all over.
What if this is all Jeremy feels for me?
Whereas August wanted her in other ways, too.
He scattered a trail of kisses along her lips and cheeks and lower . . .
His breathing grew harsher. “I love how you respond to me, Linnie.”
Reflexively she tipped her head, opening herself more fully to him because it felt so good.
If Jeremy didn’t love her, this powerful, desirable, tender gentleman could be enough.
Couldn’t he?
Emboldened by Linnie’s lack of resistance, August sucked lightly upon the shell of her ear.
As he nipped at her lobe, the cruel words Jeremy hurled at Linnie during their reunion at Lord Rutland’s masquerade haunted her.
I might have overlooked my enmity for all your rotten family to get between your legs, Linnie-Lou . . . Might have . . .
He’d hated her one night and the next, at Hyde Park, mentioned friendship. How could she explain that? She’d been so caught up in him and them together, she’d not stopped to make sense of it all.
Linnie squeezed her eyes painfully.
Everything pointed toward Jeremy’s interest in her being purely physical. Why, even the fun they’d had together at Leadenhall Market had culminated in an explosive moment of passion.
But then there’d been the chicken Linette, arriving in a cage with a note Ada had discreetly tucked into Linnie’s hand.
August sucked lightly on the shell of her ear. “Where are you, darling?” he cajoled.
A million miles away, and with thoughts of another man.
“You cannot love me, August,” she said softly, shakily, reminding the both of them. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know you are courageous. Spirited.” With each praise bestowed, August touched his hot lips to her neck. “Clever. Witty. I want to know you, Linnie, in every way.”
He made to reclaim her mouth.
She turned her head, and the remainder of his kiss glanced off her cheek.
“I cannot,” she repeated with greater force and actual conviction this time.
He immediately stopped.
His features froze. “You’re in love with someone else,” he said, his voice deadened.
The earl let his arms fall to his sides.
For a moment, she believed she’d uttered her love for Jeremy.
“I did not say that,” Linnie said frantically.
What did it say about her soul that she should worry about protecting another man when it was the one before Linnie now hurting?
Exhaling a beleaguered sigh, August looked about. “You didn’t need to.”
Linnie took his right hand in both of hers. “I am so sorry to cause you pain. I do consider you a friend.”
The earl gave a droll laugh. “A friend?”
August removed his fingers from Linnie’s. Clasping his hands behind him, he surveyed the area like he searched for the gentleman of whom they spoke so he could call him out.
Abruptly, he let his hands fall to his sides. “He does not deserve you; I can promise you that.”
“He does,” she said, her loyalty to Jeremy too great to allow anyone to besmirch him, even when he was not spoken of by name.
August’s expression hardened. “I don’t presume to be worthy of you, Linnie, but if the gentleman whom you ardently defend did, he wouldn’t remain a mystery to your family.
” His jaw tensed. “He’d be seated at the very table where I sat tonight, at your side, and your name already joined to his.
” A shadow shifted in August’s eyes. Something flashed in their depths but was gone so quick she couldn’t make out what it’d been.
She wanted to explain it was complicated, but telling this man as much would only deepen the complexity of it all. Worse, it’d lead him all the way down the path to discovery.
“You are a good man, August,” she murmured. “And the woman who marries you—”
He pressed a finger to her lips. “I do not wish to speak about me marrying someone, unless that woman we speak of is, in fact, you. I accept your decision on one condition.”
“I’m not sure you are allowed to set conditions on this, August,” she said, alternately irked and amused by his high-handedness.
“Entertain me, dear heart.”
She composed her features into an appropriately solemn mask. “Very well.”
He drew her into his arms, and she allowed his embrace just as she’d done his kiss. “Allow me to court you.”
“August,” Linnie pleaded.
“Unless you’re afraid, Linnie,” he said, his fire-filled gaze penetrating hers. “Unless you are afraid to discover you not only desire me, but that you love me.”
Linnie trembled.
“You don’t have to say the words, Linnie,” he murmured silkily. “I see your capitulation.” He lowered his head.
“Good night, August.”
August gently kissed her forehead. “Linnie.” And with his gaze containing an all-powerful determination, he bowed and took his leave.
Her shoulders taut to the point of snapping, Linnie stared vacantly at the door long after he’d gone, until her breathing resumed a normal cadence.
Everything was mixed up.
All of it.
RapRapRap.
Gasping, Linnie spun toward that staccato knock.
Seeing nothing, she squinted and peered harder outside at the dark night sky. The white cloud covering drifted past the moon and lent a glow upon the McQuoids’ snow-covered, parklike grounds here in London, illuminating a tall, imposing figure in black.
Linnie opened her mouth to scream, but no sound emerged.
Jeremy.