Loving Rose: The Redemption of Malcolm Sinclair (Casebook of Barnaby Adair) (18 page)

Thomas smiled and looked down at Homer. “These two seem happy enough.”

Homer flashed him a grin, then looked back at the ships. After a moment, he wriggled around and looked first at Thomas, then at Rose. “Can we go up on deck and look about?”

Rose looked at Thomas.

He hesitated, then said, “Once we’re properly underway and pulling away from the dock, then yes, we can go up on deck. The captain will very likely allow us onto the poop deck.” Thomas pointed at the cabin’s ceiling. “It’s directly above us, and from the railing there you’ll be able to look back and watch Falmouth fall away behind us.” He glanced out of the window. “Given it’s afternoon, we should have a good view.”

That, as it transpired, was exactly what they did; Rose leaned against the rail along the rear of the poop deck, and with Homer on one side and Pippin on the other, with Thomas beyond, screening Pippin and Rose from the whipping wind, she watched Falmouth and all risk of immediate pursuit fall further and further behind them.

They stood watching in companionable silence until a rising sea mist obscured the view.

Thomas stirred, then met Rose’s eyes. “I’ve arranged for us to dine in our cabin. Shall we go down?”

With nothing more to see, and the air growing cold and damp, the children were ready to descend. They went ahead, leaving Rose to take Thomas’s arm and allow him to guide her back to the ladder down to the lower deck.

His arm was solid and strong, unwavering; feeling the warmth and strength of his body beside hers put the final seal on the sense of safety and comfort stealing through her. All immediate anxiety had fallen from her, the tension it wrought sliding away as in the ship’s wake Falmouth had dwindled and eventually disappeared.

“Thank you,” she said, letting all she felt color her tone. Glancing up, she caught his eye just as he parted his lips. “No—don’t say anything.” She held his gaze. “Just . . . for now, thank you.”

With that she faced forward, then released him so he could go before her down the ladder.

F
or now.
She doubted he’d understood what she’d intended, what means of later thanking him had leapt to her mind.

Once the thought, the concept, had blossomed, the attraction only grew.

She waited until night fell. Until she’d shepherded the children, drooping and yawning, into their room and tucked them securely into their bunks. After the excitement of the day, combined with the sea air, both were asleep the instant their cheeks touched the pillows.

Returning to the stern cabin, she closed the door quietly behind her. Across the room, Thomas stood beside the wide shelf of the bed, anchored to the cabin’s wall. Cane resting against the nearby window seat, he shrugged out of his coat and laid it aside.

She reached him as he tossed his waistcoat to join his coat, and raised her fingers to his cravat. “Allow me.”

Stilling, he met her gaze, then, as, stepping close, she unraveled the simple knot, he reached for her, slid his hands around her waist, then set his fingers to her laces.

She stripped the long, linen band away, let it fall from her fingers to join his coat and waistcoat. The scars that marred the left side of his face and head, half hidden by the heavy fall of his hair, extended down the side of his throat. Caught, unable to resist the lure, she raised her hand and slowly, gently, traced the line of scars.

He drew in a slow breath, his chest expanding, then he turned his head and pressed a kiss to her palm.

His hands firmed and he drew her closer.

Raising her head, sliding her hand to his nape, she stretched up, and their lips met.

The kiss was long, unhurried; confident and assured, they both savored.

She’d slept in his bed every night since she had placed herself so deliberately there. While she’d sensed, every night, that he’d been torn over allowing it, he had nevertheless fallen in with her wishes.

Had nevertheless succumbed to the temptation she’d realized she represented.

An affirming, confidence-building realization.

She moved with him now, sliding into passion, letting desire rise and thrum through their veins. Clothes fell, shed, whispering to the floor. They’d moved past the point of unnecessary modesty, at ease with each other’s bodies, and with their own.

But when they both stood naked, locked together in passionate embrace, and he raised his head and moved to draw her to the bed, she stopped him, her hand firming on his chest. “No. My turn.”

Thomas looked down at her, slowly arched his brows.

She smiled, sultry, sirenlike, then murmured, “My turn to script our play.”

He wasn’t sure what to think of that; searching her eyes, he got the distinct impression she had some purpose in mind, but . . . tonight they were safe, the long, rolling swell of the deck beneath their feet a reassuring reminder that for the next several days they were out of danger’s reach.

Traveling through an unexpected hiatus, their peace before the storm, for once they reached London, they would inevitably be plunged back into the heart of the action, into the cauldron of whatever might come, and the dangers would escalate.

But for tonight, for these next days, they were safe, free.

Free to indulge as they wished, as they pleased.

With an infinitesimal nod, he acquiesced. “So . . .” Dipping his head, he brushed her lips, rosy and swollen from their kisses, with his and murmured back, “What’s your intention?”

She smiled, soft and smug, and didn’t answer.

Not in words.

Instead, lids heavy, long lashes screening eyes that smoldered with a passion she had never sought to hide, she moved into him, against him, her silken skin and supple curves a potent distraction. The grip of her hands firmed, fingers pressing into muscle, over scars, then she bent her head and pressed her lips to his shoulder, traced the line of his collarbone, diverted to lick, lave, then press a hot, wet, openmouthed kiss to one nipple.

Hands riding on her hips, he closed his eyes and let his senses sink into the pleasure she wrought. With her kisses and caresses, her stroking, fondling, and blatantly possessive claiming, she opened his eyes to another dimension of what had grown, was clearly still growing, between them.

She showed him her passion, her possessiveness.

Showed him that her desires matched his own.

Extended his own; his reaction to her devotions, to the acceptance and open hunger she allowed to show, allowed to infuse her touch, burning him, branding him, took him unawares. Overwhelmed him and filled his mind.

He was beyond making any protest when she slid to her knees before him.

Beyond thought when he felt her breath, warm and full of promise, wash over the head of his erection.

Hands gripping her skull, fingers clenching in her hair, he rode the wave of unadulterated pleasure she evoked and, with a languid but deliberate sweep of her fingers, an achingly gentle brush of her lips, sent raging through him.

Rose curled her fingers around the heated rod of his erection; her breaths shallow, trapped in the moment, by the sensual magic she had so deliberately evoked, she touched and caressed.

And he stilled, caught, trapped in the sensual web she’d woven.

Triumph washed through her, a very feminine feeling.

Emboldened, she slowly licked the broad head and tasted the tangy salt of him; the sensation flashed like fire through her blood.

She bent her head, closed her lips about the velvet head, and slowly, savoring, drew him deeper.

He gasped and trembled.

His head fell back and his fingers tightened in her hair. Every muscle in his body locked, veins cording.

Inwardly smiling, a sense of feminine victory suffusing her, she focused on her task—on her intention.

Thanking him in words only went so far; even if, after her lecture about accepting thanks graciously, he allowed her to speak the words, even if he now listened, he didn’t truly hear. Didn’t truly believe that he was due such gratitude, because his actions—so he thought—were motivated by his need to atone for his past.

She understood that, in part, that was true, but was it the whole truth? His whole truth?

Or did some part of his drive to protect and care for them spring from some finer, purer source?

In her heart, in her soul, she felt the latter was true, and so she devoted herself to lavishing on him all the thanks to which she considered him due, for all his acts of kindness.

For all the things that didn’t matter, that made no difference to whether they saved William, but which Thomas still did. Went out of his way to do.

Because he cared.

For that, she thanked him, in a manner he couldn’t refuse to feel, to absorb and take in.

When he finally grated, “Enough,” broke the seal of her lips with his thumb and freed himself from the heat of her mouth, she rocked back on her feet, smoothly rose, and, taking the hand he held out to her, joined him on the bed.

They came together in heat and in passion, with steadily burning desire, and a hunger no longer so urgent, no longer uncontrolled, but unwavering in its depth and breadth, in its towering compulsion.

Confident, assured, they rode the waves of pleasure, let them sweep them up to the pinnacle of delight, and on into ecstasy.

Into the furnace that fused them, that shattered their senses, fragmented their realities, then forged them anew.

And left them spiraling through the void, until, buoyed on the golden sea of fading bliss, they floated in paradise.

A man and a woman entwined in each other’s arms, exhausted and sated, content with themselves, and at peace with the moment.

T
hey rattled into London in the early evening. Favored by the winds, the
Andover
had sailed up the Solent and into Southampton Water earlier than anticipated. Thomas had hired a carriage and four for the journey on, and they’d made good time on the road.

Their days at sea had passed in comfort and without incident. Pippin had been content playing with her dolls in the cabin, while Rose and Thomas, freed from immediate concerns, had relaxed, strolling in the fresh air, talking and making the most of those moments. Homer had been in his element. His eager questions and polite manners had quickly made him a favorite with the crew; he’d spent most of the journey learning about the ins and outs of sailing a modern ship.

The last stretch up the Solent and through Southampton Water, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, had fascinated them all; there’d been so many ships to see, so many different styles and types of sails, all gleaming white against the blue-gray sea gilded by the silver brilliance of early morning.

Once they’d disembarked, bowed off the ship by the beaming captain, Thomas had led them to a nearby hotel, once again one of the more expensive variety. After arranging for the carriage to take them to London, he’d surprised Rose by hiring a room, leaving their bags there, then escorting her, Homer, and Pippin on a shopping expedition.

As Thomas had explained, given they were going into London society and would, at some point, be reclaiming their true identities, they needed the clothes to support that claim. Rose hadn’t thought of the necessity, but he had.

Now, becomingly clad in a new deep-brown pelisse trimmed with gold ribbon, Rose stared at the façades lining Kensington High Street, then glanced across at the trees of Hyde Park, visible through the window on the other side of the carriage. London. They’d reached there safely, in very real comfort, and without having to weather any danger or challenge.

All thanks to Thomas.

She glanced at him where he sat alongside her, like her, rocking slightly with the movement of the carriage. He, too, was wearing new clothes, a well-cut coat of pale gray over darker gray trousers, with a silver-and-gray striped waistcoat.

When she’d asked, he’d told her that, via the letters he’d sent from Falmouth, he’d arranged rooms for them at a London hotel. He hadn’t mentioned which hotel, or where it lay.

As she didn’t know London well—had only spent two Seasons there, and during both had lived at Seddington House in Mayfair—she hadn’t pressed him for details; after the last months, let alone the last week, she trusted him to have made the best arrangements for them, on all fronts.

In due course, the carriage turned up Park Lane, then into the quieter streets of Mayfair. After rolling slowly across the northern side of Grosvenor Square, the carriage turned left up Duke Street, then slowed even further, coming to a halt at the curb before a pair of large, glass-paned doors; the gold lettering across the doors proclaimed them to be the entrance to the Pevensey Hotel.

The hotel lived up to her expectations of Thomas. Its subdued and elegant decor, the thickness of the rugs scattered over the polished floors, and the pervasive hush that blanketed the foyer testified to the establishment’s exclusivity.

Keeping Pippin and Homer close, Rose looked around while Thomas, beside her, signed the register and obtained the key to the suite reserved for them from the very deferential manager.