Unlacing Lady Thea Page 23
I will send a note over tomorrow morning to warn her, then Godmama can make certain I see only what she wants me to see. I hope he is a good man. I pray he makes her happy, for she deserves joy for herself after all she has done for others.
The black ‘pirate’ ship came into harbour before we sat down to dinner, so it is a harmless voyager after all. You would laugh at me if you knew I was quaking in my shoes at the thought of pirates, Rhys. Or perhaps the fluttering in my stomach was caused by foolishly romantic ideas of a corsair: I have definitely been reading too many novels from the Minerva Press!
I am sure the reality is far more sordid. Besides, what use is a dashing pirate villain if you are not there to rescue me? I can imagine you, knife between your teeth as you swing on board to do battle....
The cabin door creaked open and Thea pulled a sheet of loose paper over the page. This journal was her private letter to Rhys.
‘Polly?’ She looked up to find the narrow doorway filled, not with a woman’s slender figure, but the bulk of a broad-shouldered man silhouetted against the bulkhead light behind. The pen dropped from her fingers, leaving a splatter of ink across the paper. Hodge would not open her cabin door without knocking and no other man would approach her here.
Thea got to her feet, sending the chair thudding to the deck behind her as she reached for the paper knife. Were her lurid imaginings real after all?
The man ducked his head and came into the cabin and she found her wits and her courage. ‘Get out or I will scream!’
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘I would rather you kissed me.’ Rhys closed the door and leaned back against it. The candle flames on her desk flickered and steadied as the air stilled.
He was wearing a white shirt, open at the neck, form-fitting black breeches, soft black boots and nothing else.
‘I was thinking about corsairs,’ Thea said and he caught her meaning and laughed as he pushed his over-long hair off his face.
‘I am sorry. I should have swung on board at the head of a gang of ruthless pirates, I suppose.’
‘Just you is enough.’ Enough to remove the air from the cabin and the sense from her head. Enough to leave her so weak she had to grip the edge of the desk to stay on her feet. ‘Is the black schooner yours?’
‘Yes. Is that what put corsairs into your head? It was the fastest thing I could find at Venice.’ He studied her face, but made no move to approach her. ‘Why are we discussing corsairs and ships?’
‘Because I am in shock and I have no idea why you are here.’ It was the truth. ‘I thought you had gone to Rome.’
‘Yes. Dreadful journey. I felt...wrong. Didn’t know why, thought I was coming down with marsh fever perhaps. First thing I did was to go to the British Consulate to sign the book and the third person I saw there was Benton. He took one look at me and said, “You left her, then, you bloody idiot?” No greeting, just a flat statement. I hit him.’ He rubbed the knuckles of his clenched right fist into the palm of his left and winced.
‘Poor Giles! Was he hurt? And in the Consulate of all places.’ Thea groped for the chair, set it upright and sat down before her legs gave out.
‘No, he wasn’t hurt and I bribed the porter not to make a fuss. Benton took me back to his lodgings—he’s having a fine old time in some library or other—poured a large brandy down me and observed that I might be a fool, but at least I had a respectable right hook.’
‘What...what did he say about me?’ Surely Giles would not have betrayed her?
‘Beyond enquiring punctiliously about your health, nothing. Nor did he explain himself. We went out to eat, got roaring drunk. I woke up the next morning rolled in a blanket on the floor of his parlour with a head like a steam hammer, but a very clear understanding of why I felt so bad. I left for Venice just as soon as we’d downed a pot of coffee.’
‘Why did you go back?’ It took her two attempts to get the words out of her dry mouth.
‘For you.’
‘We...agreed that it was not a good idea to continue our affair. We agreed there might be scandal and that would affect your chances of making the marriage that you want. We had always agreed that you would leave me in Venice.’ It was not easy to sit there and not go to him. All that kept her in the seat was the knowledge that to be with him again and then face another parting would break what was left of her heart. ‘This is not sensible, Rhys.’
‘I love you.’
No. No, he does not believe in love. He does not mean it. Does not want it. ‘No.’ Apparently she had been wrong. All it took to break her heart was to hear Rhys say those three words.
‘Yes. And I think you love me.’
‘No! I told you...’
‘You never denied it. I should not allow myself to forget how very good you are with words when you need to be, Thea.’
‘So you believe I love you and your gentlemanly conscience has driven you back to Venice and then right along the coast of Italy in search of me to do the decent thing, has it?’ She pushed herself upright and flung away to stare out of the porthole into the darkness.
‘No, the realisation that I cannot live without you has done that.’ From his voice, he had not moved from his position flat against the door. It was as though he would not use his touch, his body, his lips—only his words.
Somehow that was the most convincing thing that he could have done. Faint hope began to flutter deep inside her. ‘You do not believe in love.’
‘I was wrong. I did not understand how being with you made me feel. At first I thought it was a mixture of friendship and lust. Then we made love and I understood that I desired you, that I felt more fulfilled in your arms than I had with any other lover. But I talked myself into believing it was our friendship that made it special.’
Thea kept her gaze on the porthole. She could see Rhys reflected in it, just part of his hand and arm where he had rested his palm on the bulkhead. His hand was shaking. Tears she could not understand and did not know how to stop began to run down her face.
‘It was not friendship,’ Rhys said, his voice as steady as his hand was not. ‘It was our love.’ He must have heard her sob, despite her effort to choke it back. ‘I know how much love means to you, Thea. I would never tell you I loved you if it were not the truth, even if you begged me on bended knee. I would not lie to you—’
And then his voice did crack and he moved, caught her by the shoulders, pulled her round. ‘My love, say something, for God’s sake. I never meant to make you cry, Thea.’
‘I think it is happiness overflowing. I love you, Rhys. I have loved you since I realised why I was so jealous of Serena. That she was beautiful and I was ordinary did not matter, but she had you, and that did.’ Her face was buried in his shirt front now, her wet cheeks dried by the soft, warm fabric, her senses full of the feel and scent of him. ‘I thought I had managed to suppress it. After all, I cannot fly, however much I might want to—yearnings can be accepted and controlled.
‘I thought it was safe to come to you, to travel with you. I thought, fool that I am, when I sensed that you desired me, that it was safe to be your lover, that you would never know.’ His hands were warm and steady now, one around her waist, the other gentle on her hair. ‘It was almost more than I could bear to hide my feelings and to know it must end.’
‘Will you marry me?’ His voice was muffled in her hair.
Thea pushed a little so she could look up into Rhys’s face. He looked very serious, but there was joy and something more, deep in those blue eyes. ‘I am not at all the sort of wife you wanted. I will get involved in causes and argue with you about politics. I will probably say the wrong things to important people and I will not stand for being left in the country with the children.’
‘You will, will you? That sounds remarkably like a yes, Thea.’ Rhys dropped his head so his forehead rested on hers. ‘I was an idiot. I wanted to shut all the messy, difficult, painful, emotional stuff out. We will argue sometimes and it will hurt. It won’t be
calm and safe, Thea.’
‘I can promise to be difficult and messy. And probably painful.’ Thea reached up and took a handful of hair and tugged. ‘Very painful if you don’t kiss me.’
‘Is there a lock on this door?’
‘A wedge.’ Thea ducked down and pushed it into place as Rhys hopped on one foot, dragging at the other boot. They fell on the bunk together, both of them laughing and jostling as they pulled at each other’s clothes.
When they were naked Rhys looked down at her and shook his head. ‘Why didn’t I realise?’
‘You had to outgrow an adolescent yearning for blue-eyed blondes of a coming disposition and I had to grow up,’ Thea suggested as he bent to her breasts, her eyes drifted shut and all desire to tease and laugh fled.
He was not gentle or respectful or careful. This was a claiming and a masculine shout of triumph and Thea revelled in the strength of his body as he bent her this way and that, as mouth and hands explored her as if they had not been lovers for weeks.
She gave back with a fierceness that matched his own, leaving the marks of her nails and her teeth on his back and shoulders as he ravaged her body. He was determined to reduce her to quivering submission; she was desperate for his possession. When he would only tease her with the pressure of his erection against her she wrapped her legs around his hips and clung, arching up to capture him.
‘Witch,’ he groaned in surrender, and thrust hard and deep. She was ready for him, more than ready, but she saw his set face and the hard lines of the tendons in his throat as he plunged and withdrew, mercilessly possessing her; he wanted to make this last for ever, yet he wanted to reach that peak of fulfilment. She wanted it, too. As he lodged deep inside her she gripped, held, refused to yield.
‘Stay with me,’ she gasped and for the first time in their lovemaking he lost control, shuddered and hung above her as the heat of his climax flooded inside her and she screamed and reached for him even as she shattered and fell, knowing only that he was with her, totally. And for ever.
* * *
The wedding, in the chapel of Prince Frederico’s residence in Syracuse, took place a month later, the day after Agnes, Lady Hughson, became la Principessa d’Averna. The ceremony was performed by the British consul’s chaplain, ably assisted by Reverend Giles Benton in borrowed vestments. It was attended by a small but select party of guests, including the bride’s father, the Earl of Wellingstone, who appeared faintly stunned that his difficult daughter had made such an excellent match and was off his hands at last, and, to the delight of the gossips, Mr Paul Weston and Lady Serena Weston.
The wedding breakfast lasted well into the evening, but finally Rhys took his wife by the hand and led her, without ceremony, out into the great square in front of the cathedral and down the slope to the ancient spring by the harbour. ‘See?’ He pointed at the strange plant growing in the clear water with trout weaving through its stems. ‘Real Egyptian papyrus. No one knows how it comes to be here. Shall we take it as an omen and visit Egypt on our honeymoon?’
‘I don’t mind where we go, as long as it has a bed and you.’ Thea took the corsage of flowers that was pinned to her shoulder and tossed it to a group of little girls who were staring open-mouthed at her wedding finery.
‘We will set sail at dawn and head east, then see where the winds take the Aquila. After all, the prince said we can use it for as long as we want.’ He looked down at her as she smiled at the children, wondering why he had ever thought her ordinary or could have taken her for granted. ‘Come, we have a wedding night before us.’
He swept her into his arms when they reached the yacht and carried her up the gangplank to the applause of the crew, then into the sumptuous master cabin. He was alone with his bride, at last.
* * *
‘Oh, look, a proper big bed!’ Thea gasped as Rhys lowered her onto it.
‘I know.’ He began to unbutton the gown of pale gold silk. ‘We may never want to go home.’
He made love to her slowly, carefully, as though it was the first time. Her flesh softened for him as he caressed her, her body opened to him as he entered her and his strength overwhelmed her as she clung to him. More than words, the certainty of his claiming convinced her of his love.
The tension grew and spiralled and Thea opened her eyes to find Rhys watching her, his face stark with the effort to control his building climax. ‘I love you,’ she gasped and he smiled and kissed her so she took his shout of triumph into her and she fell free into a swirl of light and dark and, finally, peace.
* * *
She woke to find dawn light flooding through the portholes and the ship in motion. Rhys was propped up on one elbow, looking down at her.
‘What is it?’ Thea scrubbed at her eyes. ‘Is my hair in a tangle?’
‘I was just making up for years of not looking at you properly,’ her husband murmured. ‘Just this past hour I have found three new freckles and discovered that there is a tiny mole behind your left ear.’ He bent to kiss it. ‘How long is it going to take for me to discover everything about you?’
‘Seventy years?’ Thea hazarded as Rhys threw back the bedclothes and began, with a growl, to explore.
‘At the very least, my love.’
* * * * *
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ISBN-13: 9781460329092
UNLACING LADY THEA
Copyright © 2014 by Melanie Hilton
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