Chapter Thirty
Arms crossed over his chest in a deliberately menacing attitude, Gideon contemplated Gwen. He’d known she would want to join him in questioning Dirk’s wife. But he’d already thought it through and dismissed the notion.
Not only was Dirk a man wanted for treason, his wife was probably also wanted for questioning. Beyond that, the fact she had gone into hiding more than likely meant she knew something about the affair.
The bottom line was he didn’t want Gwen mixed up in any unpleasantness if he could avoid it, and he could avoid it, by delivering her to London before heading to Portsmouth himself.
“No. Absolutely not.”
“But Gideon,” she said, her blue eyes pleading.
He had to look away from her. She was so damned arresting.
So beautiful and clever and damned if he didn’t want to haul her across the narrow divide and into his arms. He had made love to her the previous night ’til the wee hours and still, his body craved hers like she was a frothy pint of ale and he a man desperate for drink.
She bounded from the bench facing his to plant herself beside him and grasp his forearm, squeezing in an urgent manner.
“Gideon, think about it. You have searched for the poor woman for weeks, perhaps months. She’s clearly terrified.
What if, by delaying your arrival, her anxiety gets the better of her and she leaves before you arrive? ”
Unfortunately, she made a compelling argument.
“If I agree,” he began, and shifted his gaze toward her, “you will stay out of sight and in the coach while I question her.”
“In the coach?” She sounded so appalled, he nearly laughed.
“Yes. I would take you to my apartments there to wait, but apparently, that is where she and the babe are holing up.”
“Sir,” she began, her voice cajoling and ever-so-slightly condescending.
He pressed his lips together to keep from grinning as she continued. “Would it not look more strange to anyone who may be watching your property if you leave your wife outside on the street for an extended time?”
He snorted. Too clever by half was his little bluestocking wife.
“Besides, my presence will reassure her.”
He eyed her hand, still squeezing his arm. He wanted to strip her glove off and bare her elegant hands. Wanted to feel her cool fingers against his face, his nape, wanted them weaving in his hair. “How?” he demanded, his voice rough.
She blinked, no doubt taken aback by his harsh tone. “I doubt she would worry you meant to entrap her with your wife present.”
He grunted in acknowledgment and took her gloved hand, raising it to his mouth to tug at the leather with his teeth.
At her sharp, indrawn breath, his cock hardened, not that it wasn’t already halfway there.
Having worked off her glove, he tossed it aside and sucked her pinky into his mouth, then gently nipped the tip. He reached for her other hand.
“I…sir, what are you doing?” she asked, her voice satisfyingly breathless.
I need your hands on me, he wanted to growl. “I thought you might be more comfortable for the extended drive, sans travel gloves.”
She swallowed. “Very thoughtful of you. Sir, do we have an agreement?”
Having removed her second glove, he met her gaze. Challenge gleamed in her sky-blue eyes, but also, a burgeoning hunger.
“Yes.” He started to reach for her, then stopped short, silently lambasting himself for his lack of control. What had gotten into him, fawning over her like a besotted imbecile? He could manage a few measly hours alone with the woman without ravishing her. Probably.
“Now for the other matter we must discuss,” she said, eyes watchful.
“What’s that?” He sank back into the corner and gazed out the window as if bored. As if he had no notion what other matter she meant to broach.
“You said once we were secluded in our travel coach and assured of privacy you would clarify your plan. You implied, nay, you insisted no one would be hurt as a result of our pretense.”
He sighed. He may as well get this over with. Turning to look at her, he fixed her with a steady eye. “Gwen, the problem here is simple—there is none. You labor under a misapprehension.”
She frowned. “I do? And what is that?”
“Our marriage is no longer a pretense.”
Her face went perfectly blank. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me.”
She said nothing, just stared at him in dumb stupefaction.
“Before this afternoon, we had a forged document attesting to a fraudulent marriage. Today, however, we recited vows before a chamber filled with witnesses, and performed by a registered clergyman. Documents have been filed. Gwen, I offered you a way out. You insisted you were fine going through with the thing. Frankly, I do not see the problem.”
Her fair brows shot up nearly to her hairline. “You do not see the problem, sir?” she demanded, her voice pitching high.
“No. You claimed to not want a husband, so it is not as if by marrying me you will be forgoing another opportunity.”
She blinked rapidly. “Yes, but, what about the part where I still end up with a husband?”
He was starting to get irritated. “As we have already been operating under the guise of a married couple, and the arrangement has not caused either one of us undue duress—unless I am mistaken?”
Her mouth firmed. “On the contrary.”
He reached for one of her hands to toy with her fingers.
They had gone ice-cold, and looked impossibly elegant in his tanned, large hands.
“And as continuing as Mr. and Mrs. Devereux enables both of us to pursue our mutual interests without the burden of a looming scandal, I, for one, do not see the problem.”
When Gwen did not readily agree, he pressed further. “You did, willingly, participate in the ceremony, Gwen.”
“I did, yes,” she agreed with quiet dignity.
He turned her hand over and drew it to his mouth, pressing his lips to her soft palm, feathering kisses over her wrist, up her forearm.
She drew a shaky breath. “And what about you, sir?”
“What about me?” He was through talking. He released her hand and reached for the ribbon at her bodice. In one deft tug, he untied the bow, then leaned forward to slant his mouth over hers as his fingers worked to loosen her bodice and ease it lower.
“Sir, what are you—”
“Do you want me to stop?” he asked, suckling her lower lip before easing the tip of his tongue inside her mouth. He sealed his lips over hers before she could form a reply, and slid one of her arms through the cap sleeve of her gown, then the other.
He lifted his head and took in the swell of her breasts and lacy corset revealed by his handiwork. By God, he wanted to feast on every delectable part of her.
He slid his gaze to hers. Her eyelids hung low over passion-glazed eyes.
“Do you want me to stop?” He repeated, already knowing what her answer would be, but needing to hear the admission.
“I…no.” She licked her lips. “I just thought we ought to finish our discussion before you distract me beyond reason.”
“Did you? Put your hands on me,” he ordered roughly.
She complied, no hesitation, cupping her cool palms around his hot nape.
He wrapped one arm around her waist, anchoring her, and lowered his head to nuzzle her cleavage, glorying at the soft whimper of need that sounded in her throat.
“What distracts you beyond reason?” he whispered, his lips dancing over one rosy nipple as it puckered over the lacy edge of her corset. He found her other nipple and grazed it with the flat of his palm. “This?” He glanced up at her face in time to witness her frantic nod.
He should have felt satisfaction. She wanted him, her desire for the pleasure she knew he would give her an elixir powerful enough to blot out all other considerations, just as he’d foreseen.
Instead hunger clawed at his insides, as if he were an untried youth and she an experienced courtesan. By God, he would not be a slave to his desire for her. He could hold his need at bay—and play her body like a harp.
He shifted his body off the bench, crouching before her in the narrow aisle.
Her eyes slitted open, her heated gaze locking with his as he shoved at her skirts, baring her silk stockings and her crotchless undergarments. He grasped her knees in each of his hands and spread her legs wide.
“What are you—”
“Shh,” he said, and reached up to press her torso into the bench. She fell back in total surrender.
Mouth watering, he drew his face to her apex, parting her folds with his lips and tongue. He moaned in helpless wonder at the treasure he found—rose-colored flesh, burning hot and already damp with feminine arousal.
He flicked the tip of his tongue over her opening and suckled her pink pearl with his lips. Her scent intoxicated him, and her taste—salty like the sea and sweet like the most exotic fruits from the islands—fueled an insatiable craving for more.
The sounds of her harsh breathing, of her fists pounding into the cushions filled the cab as he licked and suckled and feasted and still he could not get enough.
He slid one finger into her hot channel, stretching her, caressing her secret places, as his tongue and lips played over her, driving her to the edge, so close he could feel the tiny pulses threatening.
Then he eased back. Again and again, he brought her to the precipice, not relenting to her increasing demands for release until she wove her hands into his hair and gripped him to her.
When she came apart under his mouth, his own desire reached a fever pitch.
Hands shaking, he freed his throbbing manhood and guided himself to her core.
He heard a desperate whimper and dimly realized the sound had come from him.
He drove himself into her, sheathing himself in her quivering channel, again and again.
Unable to get close enough, he wrapped her in his arms and pressed his face into her neck. “Gwen, God, Gwen, I need…please…I can’t…” His control had vanished, and the inane pleas tore out of him in a torrent.
She clung to him, her arms and legs banding around him, her body trembling with the effort of holding him to her as if she, too, could not abide any distance between them. Then, her second release rolled through her, her gasps and delicate shudders calling forth his own soul-shattering climax.
Afterward, he collapsed atop her in an awkward sprawl, half on, half off the bench. Tremors riffled through him, the likes of which he had never experienced.
Finally recalling his pantaloons around his thighs, he eased off of her and righted his clothes.
Wordlessly, she followed suit, straightening her skirts, foamed about her hips. She looked so delightfully mussed, her previously neat coiffure hanging askew, her cheeks flushed, her gown rumpled.
His insides ached at the sight of her.
“Here,” he said, and helped her slip her arms into her capped sleeves, then retightened the ribbon of her bodice. He felt her eyes on him as he worked, not daring to lift his gaze to hers until after he had tied the bow.
Her blue eyes, filled with tenderness and knowing, sparked an unreasonable sullen response in him.
He dropped onto the bench beside her. What did she think she knew?
That he had used seduction as a means of shutting their conversation down?
That he had no words to explain his reasons for not halting the ceremony, himself?
“I should probably let the groom know we’re to Portsmouth before we reach the crossroads.”
“Yes, you probably should.”
A thought occurred to him and he turned to look at her. “Thank you—for taking time away from your precious enterprise to assuage my father’s concerns. I don’t know if I ever expressed my gratitude.”
She smiled, and her dimple winked into view. “You’re welcome.”
A sudden image of Gwen, holding a baby in her arms, a girl with sparkling sky-blue eyes and a dimple in her cheek to match her mother’s filled his mind with sharp clarity. Longing, painful in its intensity flooded his chest.
Bloody hell. What had this woman done to him?
A second thought came on the cusp of that one—he would do absolutely anything to keep Gwen and his babe safe from harm, anything at all, and the very last thing he would do was abandon them.
“What is it?” Gwen asked, somehow discerning his sudden distress. She cupped his cheek, searching his eyes.
“I think Dirk is dead.”
She said nothing, but he read in her eyes she’d already come to the same conclusion. “You think he must be dead, because death is the only thing that would have kept him from his wife and child,” she said.
He nodded once and closed his eyes briefly.
This. This is how she’d ensnared him. Gwen, with her near sorceress’s ability to reach into his mind, his soul, to discern things about him no one else ever had. Hell, at this rate she probably knew him better than he did himself. It bloody terrified him.