Part 18 (1/2)

But Mr. Burdumy was not quite finished. ”It is, my lord captain,” he said primly, ”at this time customary for the groom to kiss his bride.”

Blast, Edward knew that, without having some whey-faced cleric tell him so, and he barely bit back the retort that would have told Burdumy so. Instead he reached out to slip his hand into the rich silk of Francesca's hair and turned her face and her mouth up toward his and before she could stop him, he was kissing her, and it wasn't the dutiful, done-for-show kiss Burdumy suggested, either.

But then her lips were more yielding than he'd expected, too, lush and velvety and warm with a different promise altogether from the ones they'd just made. He circled his arm around her waist to draw her closer, gently crus.h.i.+ng the softness of b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his chest.

He kissed her long and hard, her startled hands pressed flat against his chest in wordless bewilderment. He liked that, for it meant he was the first man to draw this response from her, the first to kiss her with such urgency. He could taste her surprise in the way she fluttered beneath him, yet he could also tell the exact moment when that surprise gave way to eagerness and to pleasure all her own, when her lips began to respond to his, when the resistance in her body lessened and her hands curled round his back, and when, most of all, he realized he'd forgotten everything and everyone else except the woman in his arms.

Finally he broke away, his heart thundering and his blood racing as if he'd rowed the longboat from the sh.o.r.e himself. With this kiss he'd meant to demonstrate to her exactly who was the captain, but d.a.m.nation, now he wasn't nearly as sure himself.

Not that she'd any clearer sense of what had happened between them, either. Her expression was so confused she seemed almost dazed, her eyes heavy-lidded and her lips still parted and wet from his, her hair mussed and her cheeks flushed and all so thoroughly, infinitely desirable he nearly groaned aloud.

”Edward, mio inglese leone,” she whispered, her voice ragged, daring, as she reached up to touch her fingertips lightly to her lips. ”Who would have guessed my English lion would roar with such pa.s.sion?”

”Nor you, la.s.s,” he said hoa.r.s.ely, covering her fingers with his own. ”Perhaps we shall suit after all, eh?”

”My lord captain,” sputtered the forgotten chaplain, his jowls trembling with righteousness as he tucked his prayer book beneath his arm. ”When I asked you, my lord, to seal your sacred troth with a kiss, I did not realize I'd be witnessing such a-a-”

”Thank you, Mr. Burdumy,” said Edward, unwilling for even a moment to look away from Francesca, from her mouth, red, ripe, waiting, temptation incarnate. ”Harris, Connor, you, too. Now go. Go.”

The cabin door opened, closed, to mark that they were alone, and Edward reached for her again.

”We shouldn't, Edward,” said Francesca, still whispering in the hushed, heady voice of lovers as his arm slipped inside her green cloak and around her waist. ”You-you promised.”

”So did you,” he countered. He could hear the change in her breathing, the little catches of urgency that mirrored his own. ”But that's not what you want, is it?”

”You tempt me, Edward,” she whispered again, confessing even as she rested her hands on his shoulders, ”and you shouldn't. We shouldn't.”

”Why, sweetheart?” Beneath her gown he could feel that she wore no stays, no whalebone or buckram to mask her shape, and he spread his fingers to caress as much of the lush, rounded curves of her hips and bottom.

”Because,” she murmured, no answer at all. ”I-I'm not ready, that is all.”

”I'll promise not to come into your body, Francesca,” he said, feeling her move restlessly against the hard proof of his arousal. Perhaps her skittishness was because she feared childbirth; many women did, and he'd only to recall his own mother's death to understand why. ”I can see to it that you don't get with child.”

She started visibly. ”That's not the only reason.”

”Then there are other ways we can pleasure one another, sweetheart, other-”

”I know,” she breathed, her eyes already closed as she reached up to kiss him. ”I know.”

For an instant his mind wrestled with that-how the devil had she learned that knowledge, anyway, and with whom?-until he remembered the Oculus, and her being Neapolitan instead of English, and then he stopped thinking altogether as she kissed him, her mouth hot and open to him and her clever little tongue finding his just as his hand discovered her breast, her nipple already a hard little pebble of excitement through the silk of her gown.

”Captain Lord Ramsden, sir?” came the man's shout from the other side of the door. ”My lord, sir, are you within, sir?”

She flew away from him, her eyes wide, frantically tucking in stray hairpins and smoothing her gown to make herself presentable. For the first time since he'd become an officer, Edward realized he had forgotten his orders, his duty, even that constant, hovering nightmare-memory of Aboukir Bay, and Francesca was the reason. If he'd needed any more proof that he hadn't married her from gallantry alone, then here it was, and he swore long and savagely at himself and the cruelty of ill timing.

”Who the devil is there?” he roared. ”Enter, man, enter!”

”Turner, sir,” said the hapless mids.h.i.+pman who now opened cabin's door. ”Mr. Osborne sends his compliments, sir, and word that the first boat with the Neapolitan gentry's alongside.”

”The d.a.m.ned wh.o.r.eson Neapolitan gentry,” he muttered furiously. Of course they were here; that had been the whole blasted point of this evening's exercises, hadn't it? ”My compliments to Mr. Osborne, Mr. Turner, and tell him I shall join him on the deck directly.”