Romney Marsh Trilogy: A Gentleman by Any Other Name / The Dangerous Debutante / Beware of Virtuous Women. Kasey Michaels
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passion released but not wholly satisfied.
“Stay here, sweetings, don’t move,” he told her quietly, then retrieved a towel from the washstand in the corner. He sat on the bed and slightly pressed the towel between Julia’s legs, then wiped her belly. “Are you all right?”
All right? She was mortified! She was lying there naked. She’d just given herself to this man, and now somehow something very beautiful had become something very tawdry as he wiped away the seed he hadn’t cared to spill inside her.
“I’m fine,” she said, glad for the dark that was broken only by the small candle she’d brought to the room with her. “Could…um…could you please leave now?”
Chance tried for some humor, something to lighten what was rapidly becoming the most awkward moment of his life. “Are you speaking to your conscience again?”
Julia pulled the covers up to her chin. “No, I’m not. Please…just go. I don’t know if you feel some small need to talk now, to discuss what just happened, but I must tell you that I most assuredly do not.”
Chance nodded, then reached for his clothing, quickly pulling on his breeches and stabbing his arms into the sleeves of his shirt, not bothering with the buttons, then lowered the gad over his head. His hair was hanging loose, and when Julia dared to peek at him in the semidarkness, she caught her breath. He looked so beautiful and yet so dangerous. Untamed yet vulnerable.
And he had just made love to her, to the spinster daughter of a Hawkhurst vicar. The world had turned upside down, and Julia still wasn’t quite sure how that had happened.
Would he please just leave!
“We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Julia nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“I’m serious, Julia. We will talk.”
Then Chance snatched up his hose and shoes and headed for the door. Stopped.
“So much for a gracious exit. Julia, I’m still locked in.”
The most ridiculous thing happened. Julia smiled. Then she giggled. She laughed until tears came to her eyes and then she began to cry.
She was still crying when Chance, having retrieved the key from the pocket of her gown, and without another word, left her, closing the door quietly behind him.
CHAPTER TEN
CHANCE WASHED HIMSELF hastily in cold water, then pulled on the clothing Billy had laid out for him. Black. Black from throat to ankle, including a pair of black boots he’d left at Becket Hall when he’d gone to London, boots that went to the knee in the back, up and over the knee in front. Boots last worn on the deck of the Black Ghost.
He tied a length of black silk around his waist, another around his throat, then slid his favorite knife between the sash and his waistband.
A black knit toque would completely cover the hair he pushed up inside it as he opened the door and stepped into the hallway.
“My, my, my. You are having a busy night, aren’t you, Chance?”
Morgan. Chance turned to look at his sister, who stood with her back to the wall, her hands tucked behind her and rhythmically pushing against that wall, so that she seemed to gracefully move while standing in place. “What in bloody blazes are you doing here? And what in God’s name are you wearing?”
The girl stepped away from the wall and spread her arms wide before turning in a full circle. She, too, was in black from head to toe. “You don’t recognize your own clothes, brother mine? Anyone else would have noticed if I’d raided their wardrobes, but you weren’t here to notice, were you? Yet here we are. I thought you’d never leave her room. Honestly how anyone would rather rut like a boar than ride the Marsh, I’ll never know, but to each his own, I suppose. Come on, they’ll be waiting for us out at the stables.”
Chance scrubbed at his face with his hands, then chuckled darkly. “You’re seventeen, Morgan, if I’m remembering correctly. Too young to be so jaded but not too old to be spanked and sent back to the nursery.”
She pulled herself up straight, unaware that the action only served to accentuate the lush swell of her breasts beneath the black silk. When had she grown up? How had it happened without him ever noticing?
Her dark brown hair was tucked up inside a drooping knit toque, but one thick lock of hair was visible, hanging from her forehead and sweeping down the curve of her cheek, ending beneath her chin. Her stormy gray eyes seemed to dance in mischief. Beautiful. Wild. The girl was becoming a woman, even if she didn’t know it.
“I’ve ridden out before, Chance. I have. What’s one more, when there are already so many? I didn’t have to come here. I just thought…I just thought you would…”
“You thought I’d be pleased? That I’d enjoy being in on the joke? Ainsley definitely has had his nose too long in his books, hasn’t he? You’ve gone wild out here on the Marsh.”
“I’ve grown up out here on the Marsh. And I help. What do you do, big brother?”
“What do I do? I count to five, little sister, and if I don’t hear the door to your bedchamber slamming shut by then, I’ll find a rope and tie you to your bedpost. Wait. First, I’ll relieve you of this, thank you,” he said, snatching the wicked-looking knife from the black sash she’d tied around her waist. “What a piece of work you are. And now, Morgan…one…two…three…”
Morgan stood and glared at him a moment longer, her full lower lip pushed forward in a defiant pout, then turned on her heels and ran down the hallway.
Chance shook his head and watched her go. “God save the man who tries to tame that one,” he muttered, placing the knife on a nearby table, then headed for the servant stairs and the door closest to the stables.
Morgan had been right. He was late, and they were waiting for him, already saddled, mounted, prepared to move. A good three dozen of them, at his quick count. All men from Becket Hall.
Jacmel also waited, tied to the fence rail, and Chance made short work of vaulting into the saddle. “My apologies for my tardiness,” he said as Billy handed up a pistol Chance pushed into his waistband. “You’re not dressed for the occasion,” he said then, grinning down at the sailor-cum-coachie.
“The day I set sail on a horse is one you’ll never see,” Billy said, shaking his head. “Bad enough to sit up behind them. They fart, you know. And stink worse’n a shark three days dead on the deck in the hot sun.” He hesitated, then added, “You be careful, you hear? Stay near Court, get each other’s backs if it comes to a fight.”
Chance grinned. “Such concern. Will you give me a kiss goodbye, too?”
Billy’s lined face went flat, his eyes cold as he laid a hand on Chance’s thigh. “You’ve been living soft, boy. Living high. I’m just askin’ you to follow, not lead on this one. You understand? Court. Follow Court.”
“Oh, yes, I can see the wisdom in that. He’s led everyone so well while I’ve been gone, hasn’t he? Led every man here within an inch of the hangman.”
Chance felt a leg against his as Courtland brought his own mount up close beside Jacmel. “Nobody asked you along. We’ve been muddling through without you for a lot of years, we can muddle through now.”
Chance looked at his younger “brother,” so much the man now, with his shaggy sandy hair, his too-solemn face, that close-cut beard he’d adopted.
Chance had been the only one, until Ainsley had dragged Courtland to the island and handed him over to Odette. Small, bloodied, whip marks on his bony back. Ainsley had named him because Courtland hadn’t said a word, told anyone his name. He hadn’t said a word for about four years after coming to the island, not until Ainsley had brought Isabella there, introducing her as his wife. His first words had been spoken to her: “Your laugh is so pretty.”
Courtland