Luc put his hand on her arm. It was good to touch her and hell, too. He wanted to yank her into his embrace and kiss her senseless. She shook her head. ‘No, do not do that.’ He took his hand away, feeling absurdly as though she had slapped him. ‘I do not need sympathy. I will be all right.’
‘So what did Bradon say? About us?’
‘I told him nothing about you. I told him that I could reveal nothing about the identity of the officer involved because of the secrecy required for the mission. He appeared to accept that.’
‘And you are still here. So he believes you are a virgin.’
‘No. Not exactly. He either does not trust my word or thinks me too ignorant to know if something had happened while I was unconscious. For a month, until he is certain that I am not with child, it will be put about that I am merely a guest of the Bradons. Once he is sure, then we will become betrothed.’
‘My God. The cold-blooded devil. You will not stay with him, surely?’
‘Why not? What has changed?’ She shrugged and he felt a spurt of anger. This was not Averil, not his Averil, this obedient, long-suffering puppet. ‘I did not behave well on the islands, I should have been stronger willed. There is a contract. My family—’
‘Your family can shift for themselves!’ He fought to keep his voice below a quarterdeck bellow. ‘They are adult men, the lot of them. You can’t behave like a virgin sacrifice, Averil, and they should not expect it of you.’
‘Can’t I? What will your wife be? She will not be agreeing to a love match, will she? She will be marrying a man who wants her for her bloodlines and her deportment. Will you lie and pretend to a warmth you do not feel while all the time you sneak off to your mistresses?’
The temper and the shreds of restraint that he was hanging on to by his fingernails escaped him. Luc hauled Averil into his arms and lost track of what he was about to say, let alone what he was thinking. She was soft and yet resilient as she pulled back against his arms, she smelled of a meadow in springtime and his mouth knew what her kiss would taste like.
‘I do not sneak,’ he snapped. ‘And I am not such a damned cynic as this money-grubbing Englishman you are throwing yourself away on either.’
‘Luc, please …’ Please go, she meant. Her mouth was soft and under his hands, her body trembled and he knew he should either release her or just hold her, give her the comfort of some human warmth and care. But the devil that had brought him here was strong and the feel and the scent of her was making his head spin with desire so he took her mouth and closed his eyes on the hurt in her green, exposed, gaze.
She was quivering with anger and desire and vulnerability in his arms. She tasted of his dreams and she felt like heaven and he ravaged her mouth even as she twisted in his arms and kicked at his booted shins with her pretty little slippers.
When he lifted his head she stared back, holding his eyes despite the confusion in her own. He remembered the way she had looked deep into his eyes on St Helen’s as she searched for the truth in his words.
‘Damn it, Averil. Be mine. Come with me—I’ll give you all the warmth you’ll ever need.’
‘You’ll ruin me for your own desires, you mean,’ she said flatly. ‘Let me go. Promise me you will stay away from me.’
Sick at what he had just done, at the look in her eyes, Luc opened his hands and she stepped back. ‘There. Free. But I will not stay away, not while you need me. Not while you want me.’ Not while this madness holds me.
‘You—’ The effort it took to regain her poise was visible, but she managed it. ‘You are arrogant, Monsieur le Comte. I neither need nor want you. Only your absence. Goodbye.’
Luc opened the gate for her and she went past him a swish of skirts without looking at him. He waited until she was through and said, ‘Convince me.’ The gate shut in his face and he heard the unmistakable sound of a bolt being drawn across. He should leave her to Bradon, forget her. He ran his tongue over his lips and tasted her—passionate, feminine, innocent—and knew he could no more do it than fly.
‘That was reasonably satisfactory.’ Andrew Bradon replaced his hat and frowned at the traffic fighting its way up and down Cornhill. There was no sign of the carriage. ‘Where has that fool got to?’
‘There does not appear to be anywhere he could wait.’ Averil stared at a flock of sheep being driven down the middle of the street; it was like Calcutta but cooler and with sheep, not goats. Sheep were easier to think about than what had happened this morning. Two men: ice and fire. They both burned the skin.
‘He should have kept circling.’ Still fuming about his coachman, Bradon extended his crooked elbow. ‘Take my arm.’
‘Thank you.’ She had fled upstairs from the garden and washed her face and hands, brushed out and redressed her hair, afraid that he would somehow scent Luc on her.
‘I do not understand why that lawyer wants all your bills sent to him to settle. He could have entrusted a sum to me to deal with on your behalf.’
‘Doubtless Mr Wilton will need to give Papa an exact accounting for the purposes of insurance after the shipwreck.’ And I am going to have to go through my married life being this careful and tactful. Mr Wilton saw no reason to put the money into your hands until he was forced to by my marriage. He is a canny man.
But he was also a dusty, dry and unimaginative man, she decided. She wondered whether to write to Papa and mention this. Wilton seemed to be the sort of person who would carry out orders even if they made no sense—there was a feeling of unyielding rigidity about him. On the other hand, he did appear to be utterly devoted to Papa’s interests. Sir Joshua’s word, it seemed, was law.
There was a navy blue uniform and a cocked hat in the crowd pouring out of the Royal Exchange. Averil told herself not to be foolish. The City must be full of naval officers; besides, he had been wearing civilian dress. Oh, my God. It is him. Luc—
‘My dear? What is wrong?’
‘That crossing sweeper—I thought he was going to be struck by the carriage with the red panels.’
And Luc was crossing the road, coming towards them. Her heart beat so hard she thought she would be sick. No! He was going to speak. He was going to betray her in some way, make Bradon suspicious and her own position more precarious so that she would be forced into his arms. Averil closed her eyes and tried to banish the memory of just how those arms felt around her and how much she wanted to be in them.