Irresistible (17 page)

"Would you care to explain why you can't?" His voice was faintly dry. She was looking at him as if she feared he might roll on top of her again at any minute, but he was pleased to realize that he had now fully regained his self-control.

She hesitated, and her lashes dropped. Hugh found himself intrigued by the inky thickness of the curling fringe, and cursed himself for his susceptibility.

"It would be wrong," she said, and those lashes rose again and she met his gaze. Her eyes were no longer molten pools of longing, he was both glad and sorry to see. Like his, her internal temperature appeared to have cooled considerably.

"Allow me to point out that the rightness or wrongness of it didn't appear to bother you unduly when you offered yourself to me earlier."

She lowered her lashes again. Hugh found himself waiting, almost with bated breath, for them to rise. When they did, he saw that her expression was resolute, as if she had made up her mind to stand her ground with him and not let him embarrass her or make her feel shy. Again, he found himself intrigued. Or, if he was to be perfectly honest, almost— enchanted.

"Then I thought I might have to— to— you know— to save my life. Now I know you'll not harm me. At least, I don't think you will."

Hugh studied her. Was the artlessness real? God help him, he was beginning to be all but convinced it must be.

"So you would be willing to sleep with me to save your life, but not just for your own pleasure?"

She made a harsh sound that was not quite a laugh.

"It's not a pleasure," she said, and her lashes swept down to hide her eyes again.

"Now, why would you think that?" he wondered aloud, watching her as carefully as a cat at a mouse hole. "Archer is an old man, I know; was he somehow lacking in bed?"

She gave an indignant little gasp, and her eyes flew open again. "I wouldn't know. I have never had occasion to find myself in bed with Lord Archer. As I've said, I only know of him because he is a friend of my aunt's."

There was hostility in the golden eyes now.

He raised his brows at her. "Then just who was it who managed to convince you that making love is not a pleasure?"

"My husband," she said with something of a snap. "Who else would I…? Never mind. This conversation is most improper."

Even under the circumstances, she managed to look haughty. Given that she was in total deshabille, next to naked, trapped in a bunk with him, and had just kissed him halfway to heaven, looking haughty was no mean feat.

"The most interesting conversations generally are," he said tranquilly. "Tell me about your husband. How long have you been married?"

"We were married a year ago last June."

"About a year and a half, then. And the bloom is already off the rose?"

"What do you mean?" She was frowning at him, from displeasure at the turn the conversation was taking, he thought, rather than from any lack of understanding.

"Well, if you no longer find any pleasure together in bed…"

"It was never…" she began. Then her lashes swooped down again, hiding her expression from him. Looking at her closely, he was fascinated to discover a faint wash of color creeping up her cheeks.

"It was never— a pleasure?" he guessed, and from the sudden opening of her eyes he knew he had hit the mark. "You never took pleasure from your husband in bed?"

"I refuse to continue this conversation," she said in a stifled-sounding voice.

"Is he an old man? Ugly?"

"David is twenty-five, and accounted very handsome," she flashed.

"David?" Suddenly he knew, or thought he knew, who her husband was. Unless, of course, she was a very clever liar indeed.

"My husband. Lord David Lynes."

"Whom you married a year and a half ago," he said slowly, still working out the probabilities in his head. If she wasn't lying…"Why did you marry him? For his money?"

She looked outraged. "Certainly not. He has no money."

"Then why?" he prompted, more fascinated now than she could ever begin to guess.

For a moment he thought she wasn't going to reply. Then she made a restless movement, and her mouth twisted with what he took for a touch of bitterness.

"I wanted a man who would be kind to me," she said. "And David was kind. He wasn't loud or aggressive, as some of my suitors were. He was gentle. I was quite certain that he would never beat me, or abuse me in any way. And— he was— is— handsome. He has blond hair and blue eyes, and he's slender, not so tall but taller than I am. I— I fell in love with him, and I thought he fell in love with me."

"And so you married him, only to discover that he's no fun in bed," Hugh said dryly.

"Fun?" She sounded as if the word had gotten stuck in her throat. Her expression was horrified. "I never said— I never expected…"

"To have fun in bed? A man and a woman in bed together should have fun, my poor deluded darling. We were having fun, you and I, until…"

"I absolutely refuse to continue with this conversation!"

She flounced around so that her back was turned to him. He had to dodge to save his ribs from injury. While she stared stonily at the wall, he stared at the back of her head, lost in thought. Everything she had said was spot on— if she was who she claimed to be. Could Sophy Towbridge have known so much? Perhaps. Could she have acted so convincingly? Perhaps again. Could she look like an angel, kiss like a green girl, and spin a story that, in all the particulars he was in a position to verify, rang absolutely true?

Who the hell knew?

With a hand on her shoulder, he turned her onto her back. She did not resist, but lay glaring up at him. He noted that she kept the blanket wrapped closely about her, as if it would somehow protect her from him.

If she was Sophy Towbridge, she would need far more than a scratchy gray blanket to protect her, he reflected grimly.

And if she wasn't?

"All right, my little Scheherazade, tell me your tale," he said wryly, his gaze moving over her face. "Tell me just exactly how you came to be on that beach where we— uh— first made our acquaintance."

She met his gaze, and for a moment he thought she meant not to reply. Then her little pink tongue emerged to wet her lips— a visual torture he grimly willed himself to ignore— and she sighed. Then she began to talk. By the time she had finished, a long time later, she was comfortably nestled against him again. He lay on his back with the pillow beneath his head and his arm around her. Her head rested trustingly on his shoulder, and one slender arm had emerged from the blanket to curl across his chest. Lulled by the gentle rocking of the ship, Hugh gave himself over to thought. He found himself listening to the soft rhythm of her breathing as he once again contemplated the unexpectedly intricate patterns of the cobwebs above his head.

He realized that what he had just listened to was the verbal equivalent of watching straw being spun into gold. What he had to determine now was whether the end result really was gold— or just a devilishly clever trick.

He slanted a glance at her. Her eyes were closed now, and he wasn't even completely sure she was still awake. Her face was pale, very pale, as if all color had been leeched from it. She looked young and lovely and vulnerable and trusting— the very opposite of a cast-iron-hearted harpy who could diddle one lover, rob him, set out to betray her country, and seduce the man charged with capturing her along the way.

She opened her eyes and scowled at him.

That scowl caught him by surprise. He blinked at her.

"I need to get up," she said in a small, grim voice that was like nothing he had heard from her before.

He frowned. "What…? Why?"

"Let me up."

Pushing impatiently at his arm, she managed to wriggle out from beneath it and lever herself into a sitting position. Hugh, looking up at her, saw with some interest that she was even paler than she had appeared just seconds before— black hair and brows and lashes notwithstanding, she was now as white as her shirt.

"Move. Please."

His brows lifted. "Certainly. But— "

"I'm going to be ill."

As that sank in, Hugh's eyes widened in alarm. Her complete absence of color was suddenly, hideously explained.

"Good gad, are you telling me you're seasick?"

"I'm telling you I'm going to be ill. At once."

She clapped a hand over her mouth. Galvanized, Hugh rolled off the bunk, his protesting ribs ignored as the true nature of the emergency became clear. On his hands and knees, he groped desperately beneath the bunk for the chamber pot, which, fortunately, he'd had reason to locate during the previous crossing to England. Fishing it out, still on his knees, he turned and presented it to her.

Just in time.

Chapter 15

"All right, angel eyes, up you get."

The hatefully amused voice had grown so familiar that Claire didn't even have to open her eyes to identify whom it belonged to: Hugh. He'd held the chamber pot for her while she had so ingloriously succumbed at last to the motion of the sea. Then, by dint of shouting for James, he had seen her provided with soap and water and a towel for washing her face and hands afterward, tooth powder for cleaning her teeth, and a glass of brandy to send her to sleep. Finally she had collapsed onto the bunk again, curled up into a little ball with the blanket wrapped around her, and gone to sleep. Since then, two hours could have passed, or twenty. From time to time she'd surfaced enough to be peripherally aware of what was going on around her: Hugh's deep breathing as he had slept beside her for a time, and herself, finally warm as toast, snuggled close against his side, her head on his shoulder, her arm nestled around his neck; Hugh and James conducting low-voiced conversations in the cabin, some of which had turned fairly heated; the smell of food, as Hugh had devoured a meal of bread and meat.

That last had almost been enough to send her stomach turning inside out again.

In fact, it still lingered. Sniffing the air, Claire shuddered without opening her eyes. She could smell, of all things most calculated to outrage her stomach, food.

She confidently expected never to eat again.

So when Hugh tugged at a strand of her hair and bade her get up for a second time, she groaned by way of reply, but didn't even so much as open her eyes. Her head swam, her stomach gave every indication of still taking its rebellion seriously, and she was absolutely sure that remaining prone was her best course of action.

Hugh shook her shoulder. "Up. We'll be landing soon."

Landing? As in land? That perked her up. Not a lot, but enough to make her open one eye and look at him.

"Land?" she croaked.

If possible, he looked even more maddeningly amused than he had been sounding, she discovered with some annoyance.

"That's right. Come on, sit up. Unless you wish to be left behind when James and I go ashore, of course."

At the moment, Claire was more dazzled by the prospect of going ashore than she was fearful of being left behind, but both weighed with her. She opened both eyes, closed them again as the cabin seemed to do a slow revolution around the bunk, then found her upper arms seized. Just like that, she was hauled unceremoniously into a sitting position.

"No, please," she moaned, pulling her arms free and leaning back against the wall. Resolutely she refused to open her eyes.

"You'll be better as soon as you're off the ship." He still sounded amused. "Come on, open your eyes. You can't possibly be worried about getting sick again. There's nothing left inside you."

If there was any justice in the world, Claire thought bitterly, his tall form would be racked with nauseous spasms before he was very much older.

"James brought you some tea and bread. Get dressed, and you may have time to eat it."

Hugh said this as if he were offering her a bribe. Far from being tempted, Claire shuddered.

"Food's what you need, I promise you." He sounded amused again.

Only a monster— or an insensitive lout— would speak to her of food after having witnessed her earlier sufferings. Conclusively proving that he was, at least, the latter, Hugh chuckled, moved away, and came back bearing a tin mug full of a steaming substance that one cringing look told her was tea.

"Here," he said, and held the mug out to her.

Claire, still leaning back against the wall and feeling as limp as a soggy rag, took one look and shook her head in revulsion.

"Drink it." Hugh's eyes glinted at her purposefully, and his jaw was set in an obstinate fashion that she was beginning to recognize. His mouth— his mouth… Oh, dear Lord, he was watching her as she stared at his mouth. Was he remembering, as she was now because she simply couldn't help it, how he had kissed her— and how she had kissed him back?

She tore her eyes from his mouth— and found the tea mug thrust into her hand.

"Don't spill it," Hugh growled, and turned away. Claire stared at the back of his head, which nearly brushed the ceiling, at his broad shoulders and powerful back and lean hips and long legs. Had she really lain in his arms? Had she slept snuggled against the whole well-muscled length of him? Had she wrapped her arms around those wide shoulders? Had she kissed that supremely masculine mouth?

God forgive her, she had.

"The tea will be getting cold." James's voice, clearly directed at her, was something less than friendly. "You'd best drink it, miss, and have done. I have, in addition, done my best to dry your garments, though they're still a trifle damp in spots."

Until James spoke, Claire had not even realized that he was in the cabin. As her surprised gaze flew to him— he was standing in the shadows near the table, his back partially turned as he carefully placed her frock and, presumably, her other garments over the back of a chair— she became acutely aware of her state of undress. Her legs, curled beside her on the bunk, were at least covered by the blanket. But the blanket ended at her waist, and the fine lawn of the shirt provided precious little in the way of modesty. Her breasts were clearly outlined beneath it, and the gaping neckline had slipped off one shoulder, baring it and a considerable swath of creamy skin to the view of anyone who cared to look. Shamefully enough, the idea of Hugh seeing her in such a state of deshabille was not particularly bothersome. The degree of intimacy she had shared with him in the course of their brief but eventful acquaintance had already rendered such considerations as ordinary modesty almost moot. The man had, after all, seen her naked. He had kissed her till her toes curled and taught her to kiss him back in a way she would never have believed a lady would do— or would want to do. He had run his hands over her body, caressed her breasts, held a basin for her to be sick in, and spent the last few hours sleeping at her side. The conventions, as far as he and she were concerned, had long since been well and truly breached. If anyone were to discover that she had spent the night with him in this tiny cabin, just the two of them alone, she would be ruined. Even if nothing beyond that had happened.