Fortune Favors the Wicked (11 page)

“Set it aside, then,” he said. “I shall decide later what is to be done with it.”

Buttons scraped and jingled as Charlotte picked up the coat. “I am hanging it over the chair at the writing desk.” Her footsteps returned, and she stood again before him. “May I take the rest of your ruined clothing, Mr. Frost?”

“Call me Benedict.” His voice seemed not to be working properly as she undid the buttons of his waistcoat. Fingers pressing, tugging at his clothing, traveling down, down. The skin of his abdomen shivered, and not because it was bruised and sore.

He squeezed his eyes shut, a meaningless gesture—but it was enough to remind him to keep control of himself.
Don't get fuddled. Again.
An unwilling smile touched his lips. If he let his injured arm sink down, it would rest on Charlotte's back and pull her into an embrace.

“Benedict,” she repeated, undoing the bottom button of his waistcoat. “All right, then.” Closer, she leaned, slipping the doubtless-bloodstained white waistcoat from his right side. He lowered his injured arm to shrug free on the left—and he encountered a curve, soft and strong.

“That's what the Greeks call a
derrière,
” she said wryly. “You've got one yourself. Move your hand, please; we've got to get that shirt off before I can clean the wound.”

“I'm not sure that's Greek,” he replied. “I know most of the interesting words, and what I had hold of deserved an interesting word indeed.”

“I am honored that you find my
derrière
worth resting your injured arm upon. Last layer, now.”

Linen was whisked over his face, faintly smelling of soap and starch, of perspiration and the metallic odor of wet blood. When the sleeve slid over the wound on his arm, the injured skin burned. The shirt was tossed aside, landing with a light flutter on the floor several feet away.

Though a low fire burned in the grate, casting warmth through the night-cool room, his nipples pulled flat and tight. She would see him now, half-bare, and he had no idea what he would look like in her eyes. He was naked from needing help, not begging for seduction.

But if he had been a begging man, his every fiber would have been crying out for her touch.

When it came, it was the cooling touch of a damp cloth on his cut skin. “Your mysterious friend left you with a narrow wound,” she observed, “but a deep one. It ought to be stitched, but I'd get sick if I tried.”

“What will happen if it's not stitched?”

“It will heal if you keep it bound and don't move your arm much. I think. Though you might be left with a scar.” She dabbed at the wound. “I'm sorry, I don't know much about this sort of thing. I've far more experience driving men to madness than cleaning their wounds afterward. It
is
clean, though, or as clean as it can get with water and—”

“Damnation! What was that, acid?”

“—brandy.” She wiped his hands too, lightly abraded by his scrabble on the ground.

As she wrapped bandages about his biceps and tied them off snug, a lock of hair brushed his bare skin. Was her hair unpinned and tumbling down, ready for sleep? Was she undressed? Ready to be taken to bed?

He clenched his free hand and tried not to think about the fact that they were here,
right here by a bed
. Again, he planted his boots, trying to ground his thoughts.

When he shifted his right foot, the boot felt odd.

He wiggled his foot as much as one could within the stiff leather bounds of a tall boot. It was the sheath for his stiletto causing the problem; it wasn't flat against his calf as it ought to be.

He jerked, realizing at once what had happened. “My knife—Charlotte. The knife in my boot. It's not my knife.”

A flurry of tiny noises as she set down everything she was holding; then the mattress sank as she sat to his right on the bed. “It's your attacker's knife? You escaped with the knife that cut you?”

“The particular gift of a blind man under attack. Do not tell The
Times
or I shall have to fight every notable in the country.” He tried to smile, but he wanted the thing out of his boot. Now. Giving the handle a tug, it slid free, heavy and sleek as a snake.

Repulsed, he stretched down to set it on the floor next to the bed. “What does it look like?”

She shifted closer to him, her sleeve against his bare arm. “It's a dagger. A thin one, with a straight blade and a tarnished silver guard. The handle is pearl and . . . some sort of stone, though I cannot tell what. The light of the lamp isn't sufficient.”

And apparently she didn't want to touch it, to examine it more closely. Nor did he. “It is a rich man's toy, then.”

“And it might be the knife that killed Nance.” Her voice was low and tinged with sorrow.

“Yes, I am afraid of that, too.”

What do you want?
the assailant had asked. Not
why are you here,
or
leave off the search.

What do you want?
It was the question of a man fearing blackmail or exposure. The question of a desperate man, afraid of something Benedict knew.

Whatever that might be. He knew only what everyone at the inquest knew, no more. Surely not everyone would be attacked. No, there had been traffic to and from the public room for much of the evening. If anyone else had been hurt, a cry would have been raised at once.

So. Almost certainly, the other inhabitants of Strawfield were not in danger from this assailant. That was a balm for Benedict's ragged emotions.

Another was Charlotte, pressing against his side, sliding an arm about the bare skin of his waist.

How quickly a pain could be forgotten; how quickly a body could wake. “Intriguing,” he said thickly. “Is this part of the treatment for my wound?”

“For mine, if you do not mind.” She rested her head on his shoulder; long hair fell in a ticklish waterfall over his arm, his back. “I . . . I don't want to hear about the inquest. Not yet. She reminds me of me, you see. So quickly, everything changed.”

“All right. That's all right. We won't talk of it.” Charlotte might never have been hurt with a knife, but something had nevertheless cut her to the heart. He did not ask what, or when. He only put an arm around her, and they were in darkness together.

For a minute, no more, her chest hitched with tears that were completely silent. Then she hooked a leg across his lap.

Benedict sucked in a sharp breath, heart thudding at the unexpected touch. “Miss Perry . . .”

“You called me Charlotte downstairs.”

“I should not have done so until you gave me permission.” In his rush to the vicarage, his worry to secure it, he had called her the name by which he'd thought of her since she first revealed it.

“You have it.” Again, she tucked her head into the hollow beneath his jaw, resting on his shoulder. “Please. Say my name again.”

“Charlotte.” He cradled her in his unhurt arm as he said her name slowly, tasting each sound. The secretive beginning, the saucy flip at the end. Now, on his lips, it was as erotic as a kiss. “Charlotte.”

Her response was a hand trailing down his abdomen, coming to rest on the fall of his breeches. “Benedict.”

His body responded at once, cock growing thick and hard as his hickory cane.
Don't get fuddled
.

But she kept touching him, slow and unmistakable, and he had to ask before he was fuddled beyond all reason. “Do you really want this, or are you using me to forget something?”

“Must it be all of one or all of the other?”

Her nails teased the sensitive flesh about his navel until he could have groaned. “It is a bit of both, then? I can live with that.”

And he sank to one elbow, rolling her over him onto the bed. He was all ready to ravish her—but then she spoke.

“Before you touch me, there are a few things I ought to tell you.”

“You are lying atop me,” Benedict groaned, “and you want to
talk?
How many secrets have you?” It would have been funny had she not removed her hand from the fall of his breeches.

“More than my share. But somehow you've learned the biggest of them—that Maggie is my child. This is . . . the second biggest.”

“If it is a secret smaller than the existence of a human being, I am quite sure I can accept it.” Benedict could hardly think with a solid, sweet, wintergreen-and-seduction bundle of woman atop him on the bed. “I can't imagine what it could be. Last time you told me there was something I ought to know, you revealed a secret identity.”

She raised herself up onto her forearms, which had the interesting effect of pressing their hips together. She still wore her gown from the day, and he took the opportunity to undo a few buttons at the back of her bodice before realizing what her silence meant. “Oh, God. You
do
have another secret identity? Please tell me your name is at least Charlotte. I've already got used to calling you that.”

She laughed, as he hoped she would. And then, in a rush, she blurted, “I was a courtesan in London for ten years.”

“All right.” He raised his head to kiss her. “That makes sense. I didn't
really
think you'd been a traveling missionary.”

She permitted a quick press of lips, then pulled her face back. “That's . . . does that not matter to you?”

“Does it matter to me that you are intelligent and intriguing enough to earn a living by fascinating men?” He let his head fall heavily to the mattress. “I admit, it does. I think it is rather wonderful.”

“It isn't. Wasn't.” She let out a deep breath. “It's over now. I've left that life behind me.”

“For Maggie?”

“For many reasons. A life of pleasure is really nothing of the sort.” She slid down his body, the buttons at her bodice abrading the bare skin of his chest. “I can tell you that I never took a protector who had a problem with . . . who had any sort of . . .”

“Shy girl. Are you reassuring me you don't have the pox? I don't either.”

“Always to be preferred.” She nuzzled at the taut muscle of his abdomen. “You don't mind that I've been with other men?”

“Charlotte, you are mere inches from my cock. You could stab me in the other arm and I wouldn't mind.”

“All right,” she said. “All right, then. I wanted honesty between us.”

“You have it. Now, could there be fewer clothes between us? You've been ogling me for the past half hour and I haven't so much as touched your breast.”

“Ogling! Honestly.” He could tell she was smiling. “You probably got yourself slashed just so I'd take off your clothing.”

“It is a benefit I never foresaw.” And then a thought occurred to him—of something he wanted as much as he craved her intimate touch. “Will you let me feel your face?”

“Does it matter to you what I look like?”

“It's only fair for me to know, is it not? You know what I look like. Think of it as my turn to ogle you.”

“If you feel my face, I ought to feel out your shortcomings.”

“Charlotte, your face is as the Creator made it, just as would be my shortcomings—if there were any, which there are not.”

“None?”

“Not of the sort that are relevant in a bed.”

“All right,” she said again. He was beginning to love that phrase.

She crawled back up his body, arms and knees straddling him, the loosened front of her gown teasing the hairs of his chest. And then she tucked herself against his left side, her face and unbound hair pillowed against his shoulder.

With the forefinger of his right hand, then, he reached across to touch her. The moment felt trembling and slight, like the first raindrop to fall into a pond—but at the brush of his skin against hers, something much larger rippled between them. And at last, he learned the shape of her.

There was one of her brows, with a wicked arch, and there was the other. This was the shape of the eyes she had surely rolled at him more than once, the lips that spoke and smiled and had welcomed his kiss. Her nose was—well, it was a nose, straight and seeming a fine size for the rest of her face. He felt the line of her jaw, the column of her neck. Passed a thumb about the curve of her ear. Stroked her cheeks, one of which bore a puckered scar just below the cheekbone.

“There you are, then, Charlotte,” he murmured. “I knew you were beautiful from the first time you spoke to me.”

She swallowed heavily. He cupped her cheek, and wet lashes blinked against his rough thumb. “Here I am.”

Since she was within such easy reach, he found the laces of her stays. No sailor had tied these knots; his fingers had them undone in a moment. “How were you going to get out of these clothes if I hadn't been so obliging as to remove them?”

“I've slept in my stays before. But I would far rather have them off.”

“I would prefer that, too.” Keeping her in his embrace, he eased down her sleeves and stays. “If you don't like what I do, only tell me to stop.”

“Do not stop,” she said.

So he kissed her again. Sweetly at first, as light and teasing as the touches on her face. Coaxing her to take her pleasure of him instead of the reverse. Just kisses, to taste and breathe her in. To learn not the shape of her body, but of her will.

Did she want comfort? He would comfort her. A thrill? Yes, she might have that, too. He would kiss her until her tears were dry, or until desire poured from her like a fine wine uncorked.

For a few minutes, the world was all hot mouth and gentle tongue. And then her fingers clutched in his hair as she shifted, moving closer on the bed. “We must be perfectly silent,” she murmured. “No one must hear.” Her hips shifted, riding the line of his thigh, and she took his hand to her breast.

Finally
.

“If you want silence, you will have to work for it.” He helped her to sit so he might further untangle her from her bodice and stays—pushing down the former, pulling away the latter. Then he faced her and explored her body as gently as he had learned her face. Her shoulders, flexing under his warm touch; her arms, about which he had once wrapped a shawl. He trailed light fingertips down her ribs, across her belly. He dipped lower to toy with the hair about her sex, a slight pressure that made her squirm.

“Silence,” he reminded her. He drew his fingers up her back, holding her steady with his broad palms. Bending his head, he nuzzled at one soft breast. The curve was soap-scented and warm and delicious. He nibbled the skin until her breathing came more quickly and she wrenched his head to her nipple.

He took it between his lips, drawing on the tenderness until it grew tight. “Yes,” she moaned. “Just like that.” Ah, he could have groaned; he wanted to stroke himself in rhythm with her every passion-caught breath.

But this was for her. Cupping one breast, he teased the other; then he switched mouth and hands. Again and again, alternating pressure and play, until her legs began to shudder, her hips to twitch and shake the mattress. She was eager; she wanted release. She had come to him for pleasure, and he would see that she got it.

“Slide down the bed,” he said. “Seat yourself atop my traveling trunk.” He stood, lending her a hand, and helped her to the foot of the bed where his sea chest kept pride of place.

“You want me to sit on the trunk,” she said, half-amused, half-questioning. “Are you going to tell me a story?”

“Hmm. Let's say I'm going to act it out. I think you'll like it—especially the ending.”

“All right,” she said yet again, and he grinned.

When she perched on the flat lid of the chest, he sat before her on the floor. Drawing up her skirts and bundling them at her knees, he spread her legs with his free hand. “May I?”

She knew what he meant. “Yes,” she said faintly. The bed creaked as she rested her weight against the footboard and opened wider to his touch.

Whether her skin was rosy or pale, whether her private hair was brown or black, he didn't care. Sight mattered least at moments like this, when one could breathe in the intimate scent of desire. When he could touch her folds, slick and ready, and slide a finger within her; when he could bend to taste, pulling at her bud of pleasure, and feast his ears on the sound of her gasp, her quickly covered moan. Fingers, lips, tongue, he drew on her until she tightened about him, quaking her pleasure.

She started to fall from the height, but he would not let her land. “Silence,” he murmured again, just to be wicked. Pressing a kiss to her thigh, he thrust a second finger into her core, then spread them. Somewhere was a mysterious little spot that could send her to the peak.
There
. He knew he had found it when she went tight about him, muscles clenched, calves bunched, as though she could strain her way to another climax.

He would help her with that. Fingers still working the inner spot, he again found her bud with a gentle nibble of lips. Then he licked it with force.
Come now.
She did, shuddering as if caught in a storm—and
ha,
she cried out, too, clapping a hand over her mouth to cover the sound.

“How . . . Benedict . . . my
God
.”

He withdrew his fingers, kissed each thigh in turn, and sat back as he eased her knees together. “Wicked Charlotte. You weren't silent.”

“Not even a saint could have been entirely silent while performing such virtuous works.” She shoved her skirts back into place in a rustling bundle, then flopped from her seat on the trunk right onto him.

Oof.
He hadn't been prepared for that, and he fell back, rolling prone to the floor with her atop him.

At this angle, half-naked and with Charlotte on his lap, the faint remains of a fire kissing him with warmth, he didn't notice the bare floor. He didn't remember why he had been hurt, or what existed outside this room. All that mattered was that Charlotte had wanted something of him, and he had given it to her, and she had liked it.

He felt like a god-damned king.

* * *

Later that night, he sat before the trunk again, trailing his fingers over the lock. Charlotte had gone to bed in her chamber, and he was alone, and the fire was out.

After a few minutes in their puddled embrace on the floor, she had offered to pleasure him. He declined—rather heroically, he thought. “Too much of a risk of being heard,” was his excuse. “I couldn't possibly be quiet once you put your hands on me.”

“Oh, no, you misunderstand,” she said with false innocence. “It wouldn't be my hands on you. It would be my mouth.”

His will almost collapsed. “Cruel temptress. But I think—best not. For now.”

Stubborn of him to refuse, maybe, but he had wanted her to receive pleasure with no obligation to return it. She probably hadn't had such an experience for ten years, if ever.

She seemed to understand his meaning, for she kissed him, gentle and slow, on the plane of his cheek. “You are kindness itself, Benedict Frost. Another time, then, shall I?”

“If there is
another time
of any sort, I should be the luckiest man in existence.”

When she kissed him farewell for the night, he wondered if she could taste herself on his lips.

Once he was alone, he brought himself off with a few strokes, spending with a smothered groan. Ever since Charlotte had kissed him ragged that morning and shoved him into the bedchamber, lust had soaked the edge of his every thought.

With it slaked, at least temporarily, he removed his boots and cleaned his hands.

And now he sat before the trunk again. Flat-topped and battered, it was constructed of camphorwood, and a faint fresh smell issued from the wood itself. The small lock had long since corroded too much for the key to turn easily, and Benedict was in the habit of opening the chest with his stiletto.

Not possible right now. Fortunately, he still carried the key about with him, and he eased it into the lock. The iron had grown fragile and stubborn from sea salt and the clumsy cuts of the stiletto blade, but eventually he got it open.

Within the neat drawers and compartments of this chest were all of his possessions in the world. It seemed a paltry collection: breeches, stockings, linen shirts, a spare waistcoat. A hat. All the money he had from his pension and the sale of the family bookshop, heavy in the form of silver and guinea-gold. Since losing his sight, he had always insisted on being paid in specie. Paper currency meant nothing to a blind man.

And here, wrapped in brown paper and string, was his manuscript. He hefted it, the weight pleasing in his hands.

Even more than the chronicle of his travels, it was a record of his mastery of the written word. Throughout his sighted years, letters—whether scribbled with a pen or printed in a book—had wiggled and shifted into incomprehensible jumbles. Every volume in his parents' bookshop was a silent witness to their disappointment: that they loved this world of words, and that he was too stubborn or imbecilic to join them.

At sea, literacy was almost irrelevant. All that mattered was doing one's work well. Following orders. Making up part of a crew that worked together like the beating heart of a ship.

He sometimes thought the Royal Navy had saved his life.

Writing was different with the noctograph, though; the stylus seemed to pin words in place. Working with hand and mind, without the trickery of his eyes, sentences came forth in careful order. He felt each letter's shape and etched it with his pen. Though he could never reread his own work, he knew: he could write. Finally. An unexpected gift granted by blindness.