Nicole Jordan (44 page)

He glanced at his cousin. “Will you look after Miss Kendrick for me, Luce?”

“I would be happy to.”

“And I,” Dare volunteered, “would be pleased to offer my services as well.”

“Forgive me,” Nicholas retorted, flashing a grin, “but asking you to safeguard a lady is like expecting a wolf to protect a flock of sheep.”

“In this instance you have nothing to fear. I vow I will be as chaste as an elderly brother.”

“If I hear anything to the contrary,” Nick threatened, only half in jest, “I’ll string you up by your thumbs.”

“Point taken. Well then, farewell and good journey, my friend.”

When the two noblemen had shepherded their prisoner from the cabin, only March was left. Nicholas watched as Aurora went to the earl and took his hand. With the softest of smiles, she raised her lips and planted a tender kiss on his cheek.

Nick found himself clenching his jaw…but he willed himself to endure it. He no longer had reason to be jealous of the nobleman, he told himself. Not when he was the one claiming Aurora as his wife.

March murmured a farewell and then fixed his gaze pointedly on Nicholas. “You had best take good care of her, Sabine, or you can be certain I will be paying you a visit in America.”

“Be assured, I will guard her with my life,” Nick vowed solemnly.

The earl returned his attention to Aurora. “I wish you all the happiness in the world, my dear.”

“And I, you. Simone is a fortunate woman. Perhaps someday I may meet her.”

Stepping back, March gave Aurora a final smile and then left, shutting the cabin door behind him.

Nick took a slow breath, trying to ease the brutal tension in his body. When Aurora turned to face him, his gaze riveted on hers. “I wasn’t wrong, was I?” he breathed. “You love me?”

“Yes, Nicholas. I love you.”

Joy hit him with such fierceness it made him shake. In two strides he had reached her and caught her up in his arms, the way he’d been longing to do since her arrival onboard the schooner. Aurora found her lips smothered beneath his passionate kiss.

Even when he had stolen her breath away, he wouldn’t cease. His mouth moved over hers hungrily as if he were starved for the taste of her. Finally, however, Nicholas broke off the tender assault long enough to rasp hoarsely against her lips.

“Tell me again,” he demanded.

She didn’t misunderstand his urgency. “I love you,” she managed to say before he cut off her declaration with another devastating kiss.

It was a long, long moment before Nick allowed her to speak again, although he still refused to let her go.

Breathless with desire and love, he pressed his forehead against hers. “What caused your change in heart?” he dared ask.

“I realized I couldn’t live without you,” Aurora said simply.

“Then you will be my wife?” He lifted his head, searching her face. Her eyes were bright with love; her lovely smile trapped his breath in his throat.

“Yes, Nicholas. I will…on one condition.”

That finally gave him pause. He drew back to eye her warily. “What condition?”

“That you promise to make at least a small attempt to curb your recklessness.”

“My recklessness?”

“Since I’ve known you, all you have ever done is deliberately court danger. I have no intention of becoming a widow again.”

“I have no intention of letting you.”

“You just said you intended to guard me with your life. And I saw you eyeing Gerrod’s pistol as if you planned something rash. I felt sure you would have fought him for it if I hadn’t acted.”

“I would have found another way. I wouldn’t have risked endangering you.” Nick couldn’t help but grin. “The look on Gerrod’s face…He was so certain he had me in his grasp. He didn’t count on having to deal with my beautiful, courageous wife.”

“It was not courageous in the least. I was terrified he would shoot you.” She shuddered. “I couldn’t bear to lose you, Nicholas. I want your promise that you will try to keep yourself safe for my sake.”

“I promise, sweetheart. My reckless days are over, I swear to you. I have too much at stake to risk losing you.”

He gazed down into her azure eyes, still not quite believing his good fortune. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Aurora. I want to have children with you and grow old with you. I want to sleep with you and share dreams with you and wake up beside you….”

Aurora thought she had never heard words more beautiful.

Just then she felt the movement of the ship as the anchor was weighed. Nicholas lifted his head for a moment, then bent again to nuzzle her lips. “We have a long journey ahead of us, do you realize that, my love?”

She felt her pulse quicken at the thought; the prospect of having weeks and weeks alone with Nicholas filled her with joy.

Deliberately she raised her arms to encircle his neck, gazing into his dark eyes that shone so fiercely with tenderness.

“Not long enough,” Aurora whispered, wanting to sing with the fullness in her heart.

She was actually sailing to Virginia with Nicholas as his wife. The enormity of her decision no longer alarmed her. She could only contemplate her future with eagerness and excitement and hope.

Nicholas was her life. The only man she would ever love.

As her lips molded to his, a line from the journal came back to her:
He held my heart captive, with chains stronger than steel.

She was Nicholas’s captive, she reflected, but a completely willing one.

She sighed and gave herself up to his searing kiss. Nicholas owned her heart. And she knew with utter certainty they had touched only the beginning of something vast and beautiful. Their future lay ahead of them. A future bright with promise. Husband and wife, bound together by an irresistible passion known as love.

Epilogue

Journal entry, February 4, 1814

I see the truth so clearly now. All of my existence before you was nothing but a shadow of living. I kept life at a distance, never allowing myself to get close.

Only you freed me from my prison. Only you touched me deeply enough to find the core of passion inside me. Only you saw into my heart, baring the depth of my yearning.

You taught me passion and then taught me love—

Aurora paused in her writing, her gaze lifting to the door of the sitting room that adjoined the bedchamber.
Nicholas.
She had sensed his presence rather than heard him, they were so attuned to one another.

He stood casually leaning against the doorjamb, looking so irresistibly handsome that her heart skipped a beat. The bright winter light gleamed golden in his hair, which was no longer darkened to disguise his identity.

She smiled to see him, overcome with love and desire. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Not long.”

“You seem to be developing a habit of watching me.”

“True. It’s one of my greatest pleasures, looking at my beautiful wife.” Nicholas crossed the room to where Aurora sat at her writing desk. “Are you writing about me again?”

“About us,” she contradicted.

She was writing her own journal, setting down her most intimate thoughts. She had wanted, needed, a means to express the depth of her feelings for Nicholas.

He was the only one who would ever see it. She had no secrets from him. He had led her on an odyssey of the heart, an odyssey that was still unfolding. Each day with him was a fresh wonder, each moment a joy.

“Forgive me for interrupting, dearheart,” he said, handing her a rolled parchment, “but this just came from Lucian. It should please you.”

Curious, Aurora set down her pen and opened the document. She gave a cry of delight to see the royal seal of England’s Prince Regent. “You have been pardoned?” she exclaimed, reading feverishly.

“Yes. The price was exorbitant—two merchantmen and a schooner from the Sabine shipping line—but I can now return to England without a death warrant hanging over my head. And you can visit your homeland, sweetheart.”

Aurora was elated, more for Nicholas’s sake than her own. He was no longer a fugitive. She no longer had to live in terror that he would be apprehended like a criminal and sent to the gallows.

“If you like, we can plan a trip there as soon as the war ends,” he offered.

She glanced up at him in contemplation. America’s war with England was still raging—dangerously close to their own shores, in fact—which made travel across the Atlantic extremely hazardous.

Giving him a smile of gratitude, Aurora shook her head. “I have no urgent need to return to England,” she said softly. “This is my home now, Nicholas. Everything I care most about is here. Except for Raven, of course…Did your cousin Wycliff send any word of her?”

“A brief mention. She’s still the toast of London, apparently. Her betrothal to a duke only seems to have added to her allure.”

A slight frown scored Aurora’s brow. “I worry about her, Nicholas. It disturbs me that she accepted Halford when she had so many better choices of husband.”

“I don’t much care for her choice either, sweetheart, but we have discussed this before. And we agreed I wouldn’t forbid the marriage.”

“I know, but even so…I think we were right to send her the journal. Perhaps it will help Raven reconsider before she commits to a life without passion or love. I want her to understand what she is giving up and realize that the joy of love is well worth the risk of pain.”

“As Desiree discovered?”

“Yes.” Aurora smiled faintly at her husband’s superior look. “You were right, I admit. In the end, Desiree had both passion and love torn from her, but she didn’t regret loving.” Aurora gazed up at Nicholas soberly. “I only wish Raven could see that she would be far happier to marry for love.”

“We didn’t, remember? You took pity on a condemned pirate and spared me a fate worse than death, never knowing your love.”

Aurora gave a small shiver, recalling how close they had come to missing their destiny.

Nicholas, however, evidently wasn’t as disturbed by the dark memories as she was, for his mouth curved up at one corner. “As much as I dislike admitting it, we should be grateful to Gerrod. If not for him, we never would have met, let alone wed.”

Perhaps she did owe the captain gratitude, Aurora grudgingly admitted. For the first time in her life, she was truly happy. She had a wonderful husband who filled her heart, and a completely new family as well. Nicholas’s mother and two sisters had welcomed her eagerly as his wife, becoming as close as any cherished blood relations. She still couldn’t think of Gerrod with equanimity, however, considering how he had sought Nicholas’s death.

“Did Wycliff have any other news to relate?” she asked, changing the subject. “How is he faring with his new bride?”

“His letter didn’t say.” Nicholas’s eyes lingered upon hers. “I can only hope he is half as fortunate as I am.”

Smiling softly, Aurora rolled up the parchment and retied the ribbon. “Well, I would say a celebration is in order.”

He bent to place a light kiss on her lips. “I can think of the perfect way to celebrate,” he murmured warmly against her ear. “Indulging in another of my greatest pleasures…ravishing my beautiful wife.”

“In the middle of the day?” she asked, feigning shock. “How very scandalous.”

Nicholas’s smile was pure, wicked magic. It made her blood sing and her nipples harden with the need for his touch. When he drew her to her feet, she went willingly. She ached for him, an ache only he could fill.

She felt the heat and strength of his body as his lips met hers. He kissed her tenderly, his taste deliciously familiar, the scent of his heated skin exquisitely tantalizing. Fever mounting, she wrapped her arms around him, letting the wild yearning rise up in her and overflow.

Wordlessly then, he led her into their bedchamber and shut the door behind him, closing them inside.

They undressed each other slowly, drawing out the moment, lingering to taste and touch. His dark eyes smoldered with desire as he laid her naked on the bed, while her heart leapt with the same desire at the magnificence of his aroused body. Rapt, she watched him come to her, sighing with pleasure as he joined her.

The smooth, hot flesh of his broad chest pressed against her sensitive nipples, the long sleek hardness of his thighs eased hers apart. Yet he was not prepared to give her completion, it seemed. Instead he wanted to torment her.

Aurora watched his eyes go smoky as he shifted his weight. Bending over her, he feathered light, erotic kisses over her skin, her tight nipples, her belly, moving ever lower, until his lips found the mound of her sex. She drew a sharp breath as he tasted her moist flesh, the hotter moistness of his tongue a delicious shock. She trembled under his erotic assault as talons of passion sank into her, raking her with need.

Finally, though, she could bear no more. Clutching at his dark gold hair, Aurora said his name in a raw, shaky voice, needing to feel the hot slide of his flesh into hers. “Nicholas, please…”

He wanted his possession as much as she did, she knew; his arousal thrust hard against her thigh, huge and impatient, as he covered her with his body.

His hands wound in her hair, and he kissed her hungrily, a slow, writhing kiss as he slowly entered her. A low groan sounded from his throat as her hot flesh tightly sheathed him.

Aurora welcomed him fully, arching beneath him as he filled her with melting fire. Her body was full of him, molten with him. She felt like weeping. Each time Nicholas touched her was so new and beautiful….

He felt the same wonder, she was certain. A shudder rocked him, and he drew back only enough to meet her gaze, his eyes burning into hers. Then he thrust again, sinking deeply into her, so deeply she couldn’t tell where he ended and she began.

She did weep moments later as blinding surges pulsed from the deepest center of her. Pulses that caught Nicholas in their wake.

They moved as one and shattered as one, splintering in shards of bright, hot light. It seemed as if their souls fragmented and slowly re-formed, fusing with unbearable sweetness.