Seven Years to Sin(31)
She sighed, resigning herself to eating whether she wanted to or not.
“You look pale this morn,” he noted. “Did you not sleep well?”
“Well enough.” Hester reached for one of the day’s papers that lay on the table by her elbow. She was thrown unaccountably out of sorts by the thought of Michael fighting Regmont, especially when his motivation might be aggravation over choosing a proper wife. In that respect, she could be of more assistance than her husband. There was very little she didn’t know about the women of the ton, from the most established matrons to the newest debutantes. Perhaps he would accept her help.
It would do her heart much good to see him content with his lot. He certainly deserved happiness.
Regmont set his silverware atop his empty plate. “I should very much enjoy squiring you about the Park this afternoon. Tell me you don’t have other plans.”
If she had, she knew to cancel them. When Edward wanted her time, he expected to have it. She was his wife, after all. His. Irrevocably owned until death parted them.
Looking up from her paper, she managed a smile. “A lovely thought, my lord. Thank you.”
There might come a moment this day when she could share the news that she was breeding. Outside in the sunshine, surrounded by the peers he so wished to impress, might be the perfect time and place to present the opportunity of a new beginning for them both.
She hoped so. Maybe there was a miracle in that as well—sometimes, she still had hope. She couldn’t afford not to have it. There was no other way out.
Miller knocked on Jess’s cabin door shortly after one o’clock with a request for her to join Alistair on the deck.
Trying to pay no mind to the nervousness brought on by uncertainty, she followed Miller up the companionway stairs and into the open air. Her last discussion with Alistair under moonlight had been fraught with tension. His invitation to visit his cabin had lingered in her mind for hours after they parted. It was not an offer she could act upon, and she believed he knew that, but it hung between them now like a gauntlet thrown at her feet. There was a part of her—the part he incited into mischief—urging her to indulge, but her greater nature overrode such abandon.
What did he wish to say to her? In a relatively short acquaintance, a multitude of searing intimacies had passed between them. She was now completely preoccupied by thoughts of him, in a way she’d never been with anything or anyone else. Jess had difficulty understanding how he could so thoroughly engage her physically and then capture her mental faculties as well, but he had. Alistair had left it to her to decide what to do about it, while making it clear he would not desist. She doubted there was anything Alistair Caulfield wanted that he didn’t eventually attain.
As they turned toward the stern, the salt air hit her back in a rush, awakening all her senses. Invigorated and anticipatory, she slowed at the sight of a large blanket spread across the deck, anchored at each corner by crates of cannonballs. It was covered with several pillows and a shallow basket brimming with food.
A picnic. At sea.
Alistair stood on the other side of the counterpane, waiting. He was perfectly dressed in buff slacks tucked into polished Hessians, tan-striped waistcoat, and brown tailcoat. His hair had been styled by the wind in a fashion resembling the way he looked after she ran her fingers through it.
As many women did, Jess thought him the handsomest man she’d ever seen. Exotically so. Blatantly seductive. More than slightly dangerous.
Delicious. She wanted to strip him to the skin, to appreciate the full impact of his powerful form without the impediment of clothing. She couldn’t resist such thoughts now, with their desire for one another bared so openly between them.
It was impressive to see him on the deck of such a fine ship, surrounded by men who worked for him. She could scarcely recall the scapegrace who’d accepted every wager and lived on the fine edge of a hazardous margin. But she knew he was there beneath the flawless surface. Tempting her with wicked promises she knew he’d keep.
“My lady,” he greeted her, bowing.
“Mr. Caulfield.” She looked around the deck, noting how the dozen or more men about them kept their gazes carefully averted.
He gestured for her to sit, and she sank to her knees. He joined her, then dug into the basket, withdrawing a loaf of bread he tore in half. That was followed by a hunk of dry cheese and a quartered pear. He collected her portion in a large napkin and passed it over.
She accepted with a smile. “An impressive offering for ship’s fare.”
“Soon enough, you will pine for variety.”
“Some might consider a picnic on a ship’s deck to be a form of courtship,” she pointed out, deliberately using a teasing tone. “It could certainly be considered romantic.”
“My aim is to please.” He flashed his infamous smile, and a tingle moved through her. How easily he charmed women when he wanted to, while keeping his tone so light as to take any intensity from his words. She couldn’t decide if the practiced, noncommittal discourse was meant to soothe her nerves, or make her long for his usual fervency.
He ripped off a bite of bread with his perfect white teeth and somehow made the act of chewing arousing, too. And he seemed not to do it on purpose, which was in keeping with her belief that sensuality was simply innate to him.
Taking a small bite of the cheese, she looked out at the endless expanse of ocean. The sun sparkled off the water, and although the day was a cool one, she thought it quite lovely. All the anxiousness she’d previously felt around Alistair had altered into a different sort of awareness, one she savored for how alive it made her feel.