Page 17 of Devil of the High Seas
“Have you...?” He cleared his throat. “Did my brother...?”
“Did he what?”
“He didn’t seduce you last night, did he?” Griffin finally asked, his back straight and stiff as he waited for an answer.
“Seduceme? Griffin, no, he was badly injured. I tended to his wounds and only stayed the night to make sure he was all right.” She felt her anger coming out at Griffin’s presumption. “Is that my only value to you? That my virtue remains intact?”
Griffin’s cheeks turned red. “No,” he said. “But my brother is more assertive in his desires than I am, and I know how charming he can be. I feared he might have taken advantage...”
“I am more than capable of handling an injured man’s advances should he have made any, but he didn’t.” Josephine wanted to tell Griffin she also knew her way around rapiers and pistols and was perfectly capable of caring for herself, but she thought better of it.
“Good, good. I’m simply saying it’s best you stay away from him.” He took her hands in his and raised them to his lips for a kiss. “I also wanted to tell you that I shall be speaking to your parents today about the wedding. I believe we should wed sooner than planned.”
“Sooner?” Her heart slammed against her ribs as dread settled over her.
“Yes. Two days from now.”
Two days...and she would be married. Two days and the shackles of wifely enslavement would be around her wrists.
“Gavin will be gone by then, and you and I can resume our lives.” He kissed her hands again, his eyes studying her face as she struggled not to let him see her terror at the thought.
She wanted to scream that she wasn’t ready, that she needed a decade or more before she’d even consider marriage. But she held those protests in as she had been taught.
“You need not worry about my brother. He will be all right. I have seen that he has food and clothing, and I will continue to provide for his welfare until he leaves. Why don’t you join the other ladies downstairs? I believe there was talk of a tour of the gardens before taking tea in the drawing room.” He stroked a finger down her cheek and then bowed to her before he left her alone.
“A tour of the gardens?” She had no desire to walk around and gossip among the rosebushes with the other women. In that instant, she could see her life with Griffin playing out before her. Tours of gardens, gossiping behind fans with other ladies, hours of endless needlepoint, the occasional child born and taken away from her to be raised by nurses, and gentle kisses in the dark at night as Griffin made tender love to her. A dull ringing started in her ears as she felt that future rising toward her like an inescapable tide.
She closed her eyes, trying to breathe as her chest suddenly tightened. In a flash, Gavin filled her mind like a burning flame. She reached toward it, toward him in her mind, chasing that breathless joy of discovery and adventure. His kisses were a wild blaze that would set her soul on fire. He wouldn’t cage her, wouldn’t tame her. He’d simply chase her the way he chased each new horizon.
The tightness in her chest eased and a deep breath filled her lungs, clearing the blind panic from her mind as she left the drawing room and headed for the stairs. She stopped at the top of the stairs and glanced toward the tapestry that led to Gavin and the sea.
“You aren’t my husband yet, Lord Castleton,” she said under her breath as she headed straight for the secret passageway.
When she entered the hidden room, she saw three lit lamps on the table, giving the room a far brighter glow. Gavin was dressed in fresh trousers, a white shirt, and a leather waistcoat, which he’d left unbuttoned. He sat on the bed, pulling on the new leather boots Griffin must have provided for him. Upon her entrance, his eyes raked slowly up her body in a languid appraisal.
She suddenly felt how very small the room was with the two of them in it and blushed wildly. She turned her face away at the intimacy of knowing that he was dressing and tried to act calm by straightening the lamps on the table, quite unnecessarily. She did her best to ignore the feel of his gaze on her back.
“I suspect my brother likely forbade you from coming back here,” he said.
She tried not to sound surprised at his correct assumption. “He did.”
Gavin chuckled as he slowly stood. “And yet here you are...”
“Here I am.” She stared at him as a wild and reckless thought caught hold of her. Griffin informing her that they would marry in two days had unleashed some sort of madness inside of her.
“He didn’t seduce you last night, did he?”Griffin’s words echoed in her mind. Perhaps shehadbeen seduced... by the mere idea of an adventure with this man and the life he led. She wanted to know everything about him and his adventures, but she wanted other things too. Like the feminine knowledge of his kiss, his touch. The feverous need within her to know this man in all ways, to belong to him and claim him as her own, was so overpowering that it felt as if some spell had been cast. The hazy enchantment seemed to drape over her, whispering that she should go to him.
She walked toward Gavin as if in a dream. It was only the two of them in this room. No future lay ahead of either of them. There was the distant crash of the sea and the briny breeze that drifted up from the tunnel that led down to the shore. All that existed was them and the sea.
She stopped inches away from Gavin, and he gazed down at her, his rakish grin vanishing as he seemed to read what she hoped her eyes were telling him,begginghim to do. He reached up with one hand and caressed her cheek, then curled his fingers around the back of her neck, holding her still as he lowered his head.
He claimed her mouth, his lips harsh at first, making her gasp in surprise at the heat. His tongue plunged between her lips, assaulting her senses with a delicious sense of wonder and excitement. Her blood sang in endless arias the longer he kissed her.
Their mouths briefly parted, and he took a moment to stare at her. She blinked in a daze, then gripped his shirt, pulling him close again, taking him as he had taken her.
Gavin’s eyes burned with harsh intensity, but his lips were soft as he made love to her mouth. Her womb clenched when he swept his palm over her backside and pulled her flush against him. Gavin made a soft sound at the back of his throat, and she trembled as a wave of dizziness swept through her. She couldn’t get enough of the wonderful feel of his mouth, his body, all of it focused on her.
Why had no one told her a kiss could spin a thousand new dreams in one’s mind and heart? Things she’d never noticed before seemed to sharpen, like the scent of Gavin’s skin and the silken feel of his hair when she dug her fingers into it. The way his mouth tasted, sweet with a hint of wine and salt upon his skin from the sea.
