A Most Unconventional Courtship Read online

‘Very well, let us go to the island.’

  Chance reached round and moved her until she was standing in front of him, her back against him, his left arm encircling her waist while he continued to steer with the right.

  ‘That’s nice,’ he murmured, resting the point of his chin on top of her head. Wordlessly Alessa snuggled back against him, feeling the long body behind her sheltering her, and abandoned herself to whatever happened.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The island was, indeed, populated by goats. They came trotting to investigate when they saw the skiff draw into the shallows and watched with their strange yellow eyes wide as Chance splashed ashore with Alessa in his arms.

  ‘Welcome to our first home together.’He set her on her feet on the beach.

  ‘Chance, I—’

  ‘Wait until we get to the cottage. I am damned if I am going to make a declaration of passionate love watched closely by a herd of goats.’ He took her hand and began to climb the narrow path that led around the low cliff. Alessa scrambled after him, with a fleeting sigh of regret for the pretty new gown she had put on that morning. It seemed she was about to be proposed to whilst clad in a garment that was soaked around the hem, had split under one arm while she was struggling out of the net and was regrettably fishy from the bottom of the rowing boat.

  Any proper young lady would have the vapours—Alessa was only glad that she was obviously not proper. Chance will take it off in a minute anyway, she thought with a ripple of excitement.

  Chance half-opened, half-lifted a rickety gate and drew her through into the overgrown remains of a paved terrace in front of a stone cottage. Whoever had once lived here—fisherman, goat farmer or hermit—had an eye for a view, she thought, gazing out through a tangle of gorse and long grass to the sea.

  ‘Out!’ Chance shied a pebble at the goats who took to their heels, and shut the gate.

  ‘Now, Kyria Alessa, I have you alone at last.’ Chance took her hands in his and stood looking down at her. Her heart was doing the oddest things. Alessa felt suddenly shy; it was an effort to hold his gaze.

  ‘What was it you wanted to say?’

  ‘That I love you. That I was not used to young women of independence and experience and I misjudged how I should behave.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I tried to dictate what you should do, and to decide, all by myself, what was best for us, when I did not understand you.’He lifted her hands to his lips and kissed her fingertips. ‘Can you forgive me?’

  ‘Of course.’ She had not tried to understand him, she realised, now she made the effort. ‘But can you change? It is how you have been brought up to deal with your womenfolk, is it not? And can I change enough not to scandalise those around us?’

  ‘We will learn together. Perhaps in society we will be more conventional than we will when we are alone. My mama and my sisters believe that I am a paragon. They would not believe it if you told them that I have had mistresses, that I have been known to gamble, that sometimes I wake up in the morning with a thick head from over-indulgence. And I believed that it was very important to keep any worry, any decision of any importance, from them.’ He pressed another kiss on to her fingertips, his eyes dark. ‘I think now that I was smug, and dictatorial and complaisant.’

  ‘Probably,’ Alessa agreed solemnly, sheer joy fizzing inside her. ‘But you can change, I will help. But I want to know about these mistresses.’

  ‘No, you do not! And I do not have one now, or ever again, I swear.’ He freed one hand and led her by the other to where a slab of stone made a bench by the door of the hut. ‘I wanted you as soon as I saw you, although why I was so aroused by an icy green-eyed witch, I have no idea.’

  ‘Witch?’

  ‘All I could think of was that you had bewitched me.’

  ‘And I thought the effect you had on me was witchcraft too.’ They fell silent, eyes locked, then Alessa put up a hand and touched his cheek. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I realised I was falling in love with you when I went to apologise for what happened at the Liston and you were gone. I could hardly believe it. I knew exactly what I wanted: a well-bred, strictly brought up young lady who I would meet during the Season, who would be vetted by my mama and who I would marry, in the fullness of time, in a fashionable London church.’

  ‘And you thought you were falling in love with a widow, no longer in the first blush of youth, with two children and a mysterious past.’ Alessa smiled, ‘Poor Chance. I realised I loved you when I got to the cottage at Liapades and I thought I would never see you again. And then, like a miracle, there you were in the sea.’

  Chance began to toy with the few pins that remained in her hair until it fell about her shoulders like heavy silk. ‘I sailed back to the villa and I decided the thing to do was to ensure you arrived back in England under your aunt’s chaperonage. I was concerned that if I married you out here, when I got you back people would dismiss you as a Greek girl I had picked up. I wanted to protect you, marry you in circumstances that would cast no shadow of doubt over you.

  ‘I should have talked it through with you, not decided what was right by myself.’

  ‘So it was for convention?’ she asked dubiously.

  ‘Yes. It is a fact—we have to make sacrifices to it, make compromises if we are to live in society. I will not have you looked down on, or allow the old cats to whisper behind your back.’

  ‘But they will now,’ Alessa pointed out.

  ‘No, I have a plan. I will take the ship after yours to Venice. I will be invited to the British Residence, meet you there and I will conduct a whirlwind courtship in the full view of the international diplomatic community and every fashionable traveller in the city. We will be married in Venice with as much fuss as possible: far from being a quiet and discreet wedding in a fashionable London church, this will be the talk of gossip columns for weeks.’

  ‘Oh.’ Alessa had never considered her own wedding, not even in her wildest fantasies about Chance loving her had she tried to imagine it. To marry in Venice was suddenly the most romantic thing she could think of. ‘Can we go to the wedding in gondolas?’

  ‘But of course, a fleet of them, including several for the orchestra.’He bent and kissed her very softly. ‘That is at least a month away. Alessa, if you want to wait, then I will understand and I will take you back to the Residency now. Or we can stay here tonight.’

  Chance watched her face, wondering at the softness in those wide green eyes as she looked at him, wondering why this proud, suspicious, passionate woman had decided to trust him and love him.

  ‘Yes, let us stay here.’ Her lashes swept down and he realised just how shy she was of him; yet that trust had not wavered.

  ‘Before you have seen the interior?’ he asked, trying to lighten the atmosphere. It was suddenly hard to breathe, as though his chest was being squeezed.

  ‘Yes, even if the goats have been sleeping in there,’ she said, her smile flickering.

  But Harrison had been as good as his word, and the Residency staff who had been despatched the day before had swept and garnished the simple interior. There was a clean hearth laid for a fire with more logs beside it. A table and two chairs had plates and glasses, and hampers stood shut against any attack by the local wildlife.

  And against the far wall there was a wide wooden bed, heaped with white linen and pillows.

  ‘Will it do, my lady?’

  ‘It will do very well my lord.’ She was watching him uncertainly. ‘I am feeling very shy, which is ridiculous when you think what has already passed between us.’

  ‘I could always tie you up again, if that would help,’ he offered, keeping his face straight.

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ Alessa grabbed the nearest pillow and held it up defensively. Laughing, Chance seized another and took a playful swipe, to be rewarded by a solid hit in the midriff. He collapsed on to the bed, carrying Alessa with him. The sturdy wooden frame creaked and the rope lacing under the mattress groaned, but he hung on, rolling her on to her
back until she lay helpless beneath him, laughing up into his face.

  He watched, fascinated by her, as the laughter slowly ebbed away to be replaced by her sensual awareness of him, of his weight as he lay on her, of the feel of his hands which were tangling in her hair.

  ‘Chance.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Love me.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ And he took her mouth like a drowning man takes air.

  Alessa had thought she knew Chance’s kisses now, but this was different. One part of her mind, the part that could still think coherently, tried to analyse it as his mouth angled over hers. As she opened to him, welcoming the surge of his tongue, she realised what it was: he was claiming her. This was not ownership, but it was the kiss of a man who belonged with the woman he was kissing. Alessa took him into the heat of her mouth and returned the kiss with a claiming of her own.

  Mine, she thought as she nipped gently at the curve of his bottom lip and tasted the savour of him. ‘Mine,’ she tried to say against his mouth as he lifted his lips and began to nuzzle into her hair, down her throat.

  ‘How does this undo?’

  The gown and its tiny buttons was distracting him. Impatient, Alessa seized the neckline in both hands and tore. ‘Like this.’

  His laugh was warm against the curve of her breast as he took over the destruction of the fine muslin and the light linen beneath it. ‘I don’t know what you are going to wear to get back to Corfu,’ he said, between tiny hot licks at the pale skin they had exposed.

  ‘We will have to stay here.’ She was impatient now to feel his skin against hers, pulling at the wide-sleeved shirt, tugging it out of the swathed sash.

  ‘I will wrap you in this, like Cleopatra in her carpet,’ he said huskily as he freed the knot and unwound the broad length of red silk.

  His words were muffled as she dragged the shirt over his head and spread her palms on the hard muscle of his chest. He went very still, hanging over her on his elbows, the weight of his hips heavy and hard against the softness that was cradling them. Alessa did not recall opening her legs, but her body knew what to do.

  It understood the meaning of the pressure as he began to move slowly against her. One part of her mind flinched at the size of him, but she could feel her body’s own preparations, the hot, moist core that was pulsing in anticipation.

  She pressed up with her hands, letting her fingertips tease his nipples amidst the intriguingly springy hair. It was darker than the hair on his head, she noticed, then her attention was riveted by the way her touch caused his nipples to harden, just as hers were doing under the heat of his gaze.

  Alessa let her hands slide down, feeling his ribs, strapped with muscle, sensing the effort with which he was controlling his breathing. She reached the waistband of his trousers. ‘You can undo them now, your hands are free this time.’

  ‘You do it. Touch me.’ He bent his head to take one nipple in his mouth, sucking gently. The sensation lanced through her.

  She struggled with the fastenings at the waistband, then, with those free, ventured down to the buttons of the straining placket. Distracted by Chance’s tormenting attentions to first one, then the other breast, the whisper of apprehension she had felt vanished like mist on a hot day. She just wanted to touch him, to explore to…Oh! So hot, so hard and yet the skin is so soft. So big.

  Chance gave a groan that was half-prayer, half-pain, and stood up to tug his trousers off. The sight of his naked body had been haunting her dreams ever since the beach. Now, in the half-shadows and cool dimness of the hut, he seemed both more real and strangely unfamiliar. ‘Chance,’ she whispered, holding out her arms to him for reassurance.

  Then their bodies were twining together, skin to skin, and she looked up into his face, awed by the strength and the tenderness and the sheer heat of desire that flowed from him. She shifted beneath him, finding the position that felt right, raising her knees as he settled between her thighs and she felt the pressure at the core of her, gentle but inexorable. She swallowed, but raised her hips a little and felt him enter her.

  ‘Sweetheart?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, yes, Chance, love me.’ She had expected pain, but there was none, just an incredible sensation of possession, of joining, of fullness as he thrust into her. And then they were locked, she felt his hip bones against hers and drew in a deep, shuddering breath of fulfilment.

  ‘Did I hurt you?’ She realised he was not moving, although she could feel the incredible sensation of his body within her as her own muscles caressed him without conscious direction.

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Should it have hurt?’

  ‘I believe so.’ He laughed softly, dipping his head to kiss her. ‘All that riding and walking and physical effort had a benefit.’ She tried experimentally controlling those mysterious inner muscles she had just discovered, and he broke off with a gasp. ‘Witch!’

  ‘Aren’t I supposed to move?’ If she tilted her pelvis just so…‘Oh!’

  ‘We both are,’he said with a chuckle that sounded breathless. ‘And I don’t think I can wait any longer.’

  The long, slow rhythm of thrust, withdrawal and thrust took her by surprise, then she began to move with him, tentatively at first, then using what she had learnt to tease and torment in her turn. And the wonderful sensations he had conjured up with his mouth in the cabin of the Ghost were building again, the same but different, more intense, more widespread, and she stopped thinking, stopped consciously trying to follow his moves and let her head thrash on the pillow as the relentless thrusting possession drove her up, over, down into a crashing release.

  But it did not stop. As she regained her senses Chance was still with her, still holding her, still surging into the very core of her. Hazily Alessa opened her eyes and saw his brow was dewed with sweat, his eyes dark with a passion that was so intense she gasped, reaching up to pull his head down so she could close her mouth with his.

  Wonderfully, her body was still responding to his, the powerful, demanding ache was building again, even as his strokes became harder, less controlled, more urgent. She let go of his hair and dug her fingers into the hard muscled shoulders as though clinging to a spar in a shipwreck.

  ‘Come with me,’ he urged hoarsely against her throat, ‘Alessa…now…’

  And as his entire body tensed in one massive thrust she felt her own respond again, tightening around him, as the spasms carried them both into lightning-shot darkness. She heard a cry, did not know whose throat it came from, and then slipped into the velvet blackness with a sigh.

  ‘Alessa?’

  ‘Mmm?’ She kept her eyes shut, letting all her other senses explore. There was a hot weight over her body, the touch of skin against skin, the tingling friction of male hair against her breasts, her thighs. She felt damp and sticky in embarrassingly intimate places and found she did not care. His hand was stroking her hair and her cheek and from the touch of his breath against her lips she knew, when she opened her eyes, she would be looking into his.

  She smiled, anticipating the moment, and let her lids flutter up. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hello.’ There was just the hint of anxiety in the deep, masculine voice. He is worried in case I am not satisfied, she realised with a little shock of power. All that wonderful masculinity, all that strength and confidence and tender skill and he is uncertain.

  ‘Chance. That was beyond words.’ There, the flicker of relief, of triumph, of male confidence fully restored. ‘I do love you.’ But was I all right for him? The sudden lance of unease caught her by surprise. She had been so swept up in him, so focused on following his lead, she had not thought of how she should please him best. ‘Was I…did I please you?’

  ‘I had no idea it could be like that,’ he said, levering himself up on his elbows and rolling over on to his back with a sigh of deep satisfaction. ‘Because it was you, because of your love, I will never be the same again. There will never be another first time.’ He turned his head on the pillow and smiled at her.
‘But we will rediscover each other, over and over again, and it will be different and deeper and better in so many ways. Yet it will never be this first time again. I know now I am not going to break simply because I love you so intensely and you return that with all your strength and your trust and your sweetness. There is a future and it is full of loving you.’

  ‘How did you know how I felt?’ Alessa rolled on to her side and wrapped her arms around Chance’s torso. ‘I could not put it into words, but that is how it is for me.’

  They were silent for a while, listening to each other breathe, letting their fingertips trace and explore over damp skin, into hidden curves. ‘Chance,’ Alessa said after a while.

  ‘Yes? Have you any idea how soft your skin is behind your ear?’

  ‘Chance, when we go back, until we are married, we are going to have to…to behave, aren’t we? We must if we are going to have this big society wedding and quash all the rumours.’

  ‘No, we are not.’He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, then standing up and stretching. Alessa watched him, wondering if she was ever going to get used to seeing his masculine beauty, so openly displayed, just for her eyes. ‘We will conduct a secret affair. We will go to masked balls and slip away in a gondola, returning at midnight for the unmasking. We will hire a gondola to take us to a deserted island in the lagoon. I will climb the vines to your balcony at one in the morning. And everyone will wonder why your skin glows and your eyes shine and why I am intolerably smug.’

  ‘That sounds wonderful. Do we have to get married at all?’ she teased. ‘Can’t we just continue having a wildly romantic affair?’

  ‘I think we will just have to pretend,’he said, turning with a smile to look down at her. ‘I could promise to climb the ivy to your room at least once a week when we are at Freshwater—our country estate. And you can sneak out at night wearing a domino and loo mask and meet a mysterious masked stranger at masquerades when we are in London. But I really think we should get married.’ He sat down and ran the palm of his hand lightly over the curve of her belly.