Gossamer Wing Page 12

  “It doesn’t matter whether I want it. Animals want. Human beings reason. I can forgive myself a momentary lapse, but I have a job to do and mustn’t lose sight of my mission.”

  Which Dexter knew was absolutely true. But for at least the next week, it was a moot point and they both knew it.

  He drew his legs in and pulled the curtain closed, not bothering to fasten it but hoping to recreate the earlier mood. Charlotte reached out and batted the curtain open again, seeming to relax a bit once her view of the cabin was restored. The storm had brought warmer air, it seemed, and the small enclosure was humid now. Dexter could feel the linen of his shirt sticking to his back. Funny, how little things could be magnified when one was aroused. As though all the nerves were suddenly operating at higher capacity.

  “Human beings are animals,” he reminded her, peeling the shirt off, “and though we can reason, we also have needs. We deny that part of our nature at our peril. People are also, I think, a bit like temperamental machines. We need to run at full speed sometimes, and stretch to our capacity. It clears the works, helps the settings keep their calibration. A steam car that’s never throttled all the way up wears out faster than one that gets used at top speed on occasion, did you know that?”

  “I am not a steam car, Lord Hardison.”

  Oh, but it was arch, her expression and the words she spoke. He felt a hint of something devilish and raw. Not only desire. She made him want to play.

  “You’re a very fine machine indeed, Lady Hardison. If you were my steam car, I’d run you at full throttle nightly.”

  She couldn’t resist answering in kind, but her question was more pointed than he had expected.

  “The sort of steam car you purchase outright? Or the kind you lease on holiday and return after a fortnight when the thrill of driving something new has worn off?”

  He felt the smile play around his lips, a grace note of admiration rising above the symphony already filling his mind. “I suspect it would take a good deal longer than a fortnight.”

  She bit her lower lip, worrying it for a moment, and then repeated quietly, “I am not a steam car.”

  Mere hours earlier, he had asked her a question in much the same tone of voice. Must we pretend? They both wanted something more straightforward, apparently. The pretense had ended. Earlier it had seemed easier because lust was motivating them both. Reasoning her into doing it again, Dexter realized, would take more work.

  “Give me this week,” he suggested, not sure where the inspiration had come from. “While we’re still on the ship. Once we’re in France . . . we’ll reevaluate.”

  Silence. Stillness. And then a small, quick nod, so subtle he almost missed it in the dark.

  * * *

  DEXTER HAD FOUND it easy enough before, if frustrating, to pretend he was a love-struck buffoon. He had enjoyed Charlotte’s company, her quick mind and sly wit. It was especially amusing to see her fool people into thinking she was a blithe, vapid bit of society fluff.

  Now he had a new element to contend with, something novel to him and quite unexpected. Jealousy. Dexter found himself following his young bride about the ship all day, bristling whenever she encountered another man who seemed to appreciate what he saw in her.

  That was practically every man, of course. Even the ones who assumed her head was empty couldn’t help but take the measure of her body with their eyes. She was tiny but perfect, a pocket Venus as Matthew Pence had once described her, and Dexter knew only too well the temptation presented by those dainty curves. A creature so delicate made any man feel larger and stronger, more protective. He had to constantly repress the urge to lift her, to carry her. If he could have, he would have stowed her in his pocket for safekeeping.

  Days became insubstantial and too long, a purgatory of waiting for darkness. Nights were almost painfully real, fierce and sweet and desperate. He found Charlotte’s passion astonishing, her occasional reticence a delightful challenge. He pushed, even as he knew she was still holding back some part of herself. He told himself each day that he would stop that night, talk with her, find the root of her fears and concerns so he could vanquish them.

  But each night she was there in the berth. So vital, so much more present than anybody he had ever known. Though Dexter took, he knew Charlotte was taking too, using him to exorcise some personal demon of hers. How could he mind, when the process took him to Heaven again and again? But how could he ignore her obvious emotional pain? When he asked, she never would say what was wrong.

  Later, we can sort it out later. We’ll reevaluate after we get to Honfleur.

  He didn’t want to repair Charlotte, because she wasn’t broken, even if she thought she was. He wanted to recondition her, body and soul, restoring ease and flexibility where stiffness and wear had taken over. If she were a steam car, or any other type of mechanism imaginable, he could have fixed her up by now and had her running like the finest Swiss clockwork. But with a person, Dexter didn’t even know what tools to use.

  It was a long week, but not nearly long enough. The charming, bubbly patter from Lady Hardison began to sound strained and forced to Dexter’s ears by the last few days of the voyage. His own attempts at manly bonhomie were exhausting him, and only partly due to the lack of sleep. Nobody else seemed to notice anything amiss. Perhaps they assumed the newlyweds had overdone it, a safe enough assumption, especially given how sick Lady Hardison had been during the first half of the voyage.

  They were in the bunk, overdoing it for perhaps the last time when the captain’s voice on the intercom announced the French coast had been spotted. They would be landing in Le Havre in a few hours’ time.

  Charlotte startled at the announcement, looking for all the world like a deer about to bound away at the crackling of a twig. Dexter stroked her sides and haunches, shifting under her, settling her and reclaiming her attention.

  “We still have time, love.”

  She nodded, but her fair hair was tumbling over her face. He smoothed it up out of the way to see her expression, then wished he hadn’t. She looked raw, exposed. He didn’t like to see her uncertain.

  “We don’t have much time,” she corrected him, as though she felt duty bound to be the voice of restraint. “And when we get to Honfleur we won’t have any. A week at the most, for you to evaluate things at the station and me to prove the Gossamer Wing’s suitability to Murcheson. We must be in Paris within nine days of our arrival here, if I’m to make this window of opportunity to try for the documents while there’s no moon. Otherwise we’ll be stuck in France another month at least before I can try again.”

  “So let’s not waste this time.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, relieved when she smiled. And then he gasped when she squeezed herself around him quite deliberately.

  “I want to do something new,” Charlotte said, shy but not quite whispering, “make the most of it.”

  With the limited amount of cognition available to him, Dexter ran through the past few nights in his mind. Mentally, he ticked off things they had already done, a surprisingly impressive list of accomplishments for such a short time. He realized he had quite thoroughly corrupted the girl.

  Not a complete corruption, perhaps. Charlotte was still shy in front of him, and that was one area in which he hadn’t pushed very hard. Now, seeing her so vulnerable, he was struck with a perverse desire to break her down even further. See just how far she would allow herself to be pushed . . . and perhaps create one last fond memory to tuck away in the album of his mind, depending on how things went in Honfleur. He tried not to think further ahead than that. He told himself it was just sex. Just sex with the most extraordinary women he’d ever met. Not lovemaking, and certainly not love, because that would never do. Charlotte would have none of that.

  “Ride me,” he ordered, pulling her hips into his.

  “We’ve done this,” she breathed, even as she complied.

 
; “And touch yourself.”

  Her hips gave a little hitch, then kept moving. Her hair slipped forward again, hiding one eye. It swayed with each breath she took. After a moment, Dexter pulled one of her hands from his chest and put it where he wanted it, daring her with his eyes. Then, because he was anxious about what would happen once they disembarked, and because he felt like a petulant child about to be forced to give up a favorite new toy, he raised the stakes.

  “You’ve never done that for yourself, have you?” He didn’t expect an answer, but he knew she hadn’t. She couldn’t have, if she’d reached the age of twenty-seven still believing women couldn’t have orgasms. “You wanted something new. This would be two new things in one go. Doing it in the first place, and also doing it in front of somebody else.”

  It was getting harder to control his urge to thrust, harder to resist the sweet pull of desire that swelled his cock and made him want to rush to a conclusion. But just as he had decided to let it go, decided she wasn’t ready for that particular challenge, he saw her fingers start to move.

  She was hesitant at first, finding the right spot. He ran one fingertip lightly over the back of her hand, feeling each tendon and muscle as she worked out the tempo and pressure. Her pace picked up as she grew more assured, as she found her own way down that path for the first time. It was coarse and fascinating, the storm of activity taking place at the spot where their bodies were joined. Dexter couldn’t tear his eyes away, even though the sight made him ache for release.

  Charlotte gasped, and Dexter looked up at her face as she began to tremble and clench around him. Her fingers flew, and their bodies collided again and again with noisy, wet enthusiasm that would have been enough by itself to send Dexter to oblivion. But the lewd sight of her pleasuring herself was nothing compared to the sight of her face, her eyes on his, the joy and embarrassment and need and relief. All shared in a single glance. She had never truly been naked before him, but she was now. She had pulled out her soul for him to see, and it was so beautiful it nearly blinded him.

  He came hard, jerking up into her still-shaking body, shouting her name like a cry for help. Afterward, he had to pull away quickly so as not to compromise the sheath he wore. He had worn one every time after that first, mad night, and didn’t mind it for her sake but for this one thing. He hated leaving her body so soon, particularly this time. He wanted to stay inside her until he hardened again, make love to her once more before the ship’s docking forced them from the bunk.

  He pulled out, but he wrapped his arms and legs around her and didn’t let go until the hated voice of the captain on the intercom interrupted them for the last time.

  Nine

  HONFLEUR AND LE HAVRE, FRANCE

  CHARLOTTE WANTED TO focus on her work. She wanted that very much. She had a list of coordinates to memorize then destroy, along with maps of Paris and Le Havre and a calendar full of notes about the phases of the moon. She had a dossier full of information about her target, Roland Dubois, all of which needed further study before she embarked on her first flight.

  But after a night and half a day in Honfleur their contact still hadn’t surfaced, and Charlotte felt no closer to accomplishing any of her goals than she had when she left New York. She was also frustrated and preoccupied by her body’s obvious disgruntlement at being denied its newfound source of entertainment.

  Their hotel suite was lavish, and Charlotte suspected Dexter was sleeping comfortably enough on one of the two overstuffed sofas in the sitting room. For all she knew, he was trotting out to find French whores every night to satisfy his obviously quite healthy libido. She only knew for certain he wasn’t satisfying it with her anymore. He seemed content with the arrangement, but in her experience people were seldom what they seemed.

  Why it bothered her so much to think Dexter was pretending to be content, Charlotte couldn’t say. She said nothing instead, and the words on the pages before her swam and danced in an endless tedious whirl. Charlotte tried to keep her eyes on the work, on the ridiculous novel in whose margins she’d jotted the coordinates to study, rather than staring across the sidewalk café table at her temporary husband’s sensual mouth.

  “Lord Hardison?” A cultured voice, a British voice, startled Charlotte from her reverie. She looked up to see an older gentleman in a top hat nodding to Dexter. A wave of relief, flavored with excitement, swept over her. Dexter leaped to his feet, a broad smile on his face and his hand extended for a gentlemanly clasp.

  Charlotte scanned their surroundings automatically as she stood, but saw no obvious eavesdroppers or onlookers. The rooftops across the street were clear, and there were only a few other patrons at the little café where she and Dexter sat lingering over brunch and enjoying the cool coastal breeze.

  “I’m Rutherford Murcheson. Heard you were in town. Lad at the embassy said I might find you here.”

  Murcheson, Charlotte knew, ran one of the largest makesmith forges in Europa. He was an ideal business acquaintance for Dexter to make on this dual-purpose honeymoon. This also made him an ideal contact for Charlotte and Dexter, and the perfect covert spymaster for the Crown’s agents in France.

  “My wife, Charlotte.”

  She threw Dexter a warning glance for flubbing the introduction, but the older gentleman covered with a courtly bow over her hand. “Baroness, it is a great pleasure. I understand it’s your first visit to Europa. Welcome to France.”

  She giggled, as that seemed an indelible part of her cover persona now, and bobbed a little curtsy. “Mr. Murcheson. Oh, are you the Mr. Murcheson who makes those lovely curio boxes? How exciting! Dex, we must see if we can impose on Mr. Murcheson for a tour of his factory!”

  The passwords Europa and curio having safely passed between them, they proceeded to make plans for a visit to the factory that very afternoon. Then they all shared fashionable coffee while the gentlemen talked smithing. Dexter was firm and businesslike, while Charlotte continued to speak in sentences that seemed to demand exclamatory punctuation. By the time they parted ways with Murcheson and she and Dexter returned to their suite, she was thoroughly sick of herself and her cheeks were aching from all the forced smiles.

  “It really is like an optical illusion,” Dexter remarked, loosening his cravat and shrugging his coat off onto the nearest sofa arm.

  “I beg your pardon?” She sighed with relief as she removed her hat. One of the pins had been poorly placed, poking her with distressing frequency throughout the contact session.

  “I know you’re the same person. It looks like you, it’s wearing the same clothing. But that insipid creature simply isn’t you.”

  You seemed to like her well enough on the ship, Charlotte was tempted to say, but she knew there was a difference. On the ship she had come to feel almost childlike for a time, able to enjoy things freely. Playing the part had become a game, and not all her giddiness had been a pretense.

  Now, however, the charade was in deadly earnest. Each giggle, each stupid question or eyelash-batting, had a purpose. To misdirect, to glean information from an unwitting source. She had to be, very deliberately and aggressively, the last person anybody would suspect of espionage. It was her job to be other than what she seemed.

  “Of course it isn’t me. That’s the point,” she snapped.

  “She gives me a headache.”

  “Me too. But darling,” she simpered, because the room might even now be under surveillance, “you know it’s just because I get nervous around people.” She shot him a warning look, which it took him a moment to process. When he did, he nodded with weary resignation and mouthed an apology. She shrugged it off.

  “Would you like to come with me to see Mr. Murcheson’s factory this afternoon, sweetheart? Perhaps there’ll be a shop. You know how you love shops,” he said with droll good humor, the perfect indulgent honeymoon husband.

  She smirked. “Well dearest, a poor lonely widow has to fin
d some way to spend her days.” With an undignified flop, she slumped to the sofa opposite Dexter and let her head loll back. It was an unseasonably warm day in Honfleur, and the fans in the room only seemed to stir the air, not cool it. Charlotte had felt sticky since they’d reached the coast, even in the evenings when the temperature dropped.

  “Her money too, I suppose. But lambkin, I know a number of widows who find other ways to spend their time. Fascinating ways, some of them.”

  She glared at him and whispered, “Lambkin?”

  He shrugged, then grinned in a completely unrepentant way. His aggressive good cheer was almost grating.

  “Volunteer work?” she guessed. “Charity balls?”

  Dexter lifted an eyebrow, seeming to gauge the risk of his answer before speaking. “Yes, in fact I know several very accommodating widows who are well known for volunteering to work on balls, among other things. Perhaps not for charity, but certainly out of the goodness of their own hearts.”

  She held her stern face for only a few seconds before breaking. He laughed along with her, and she watched him with delight until she realized she was watching him with delight, at which point she quickly looked away. His next words caught her completely off guard.

  “Charlotte, tell me more about Reginald.”

  Time froze for an instant, or perhaps it was only that her heart seemed to stop beating. Then it thudded in her ears, loud and insistent, as a rush of feeling came over her. It was something like terror, or panic. Charlotte couldn’t name it, nor did she understand why it came upon her now. In broad daylight, in this peaceful setting, with a man she trusted.

  “Why?”

  “Because he was important to you.” He was keeping his voice light on purpose, she thought, but she could hear the serious intent beneath that.