In the Arms of a Marquess(84)

“They are being taken under false pretenses and are perishing on the voyage east.”

“Dear Lord.” Then her gaze sharpened. “You know about it already?”

“Some, but this completes the picture. How much did he tell you about the girl?”

Tavy held Ben’s steady, warm, perfectly beautiful gaze that she could live inside forever.

“He did not tell me. I met her.”

His regard did not alter, but a muscle ticked in his jaw. Her fingers itched to smooth it away, to uncurl his fists. She did not care about the girl or Marcus’s faithlessness. Tavy understood better than she should why Marcus had treated her shabbily. She had lied to him as much as he had lied to her, both of them trying to escape what their hearts wanted most by using the other as a shield.

“It is all right,” she assured. “Not about all those girls, of course. But about the one girl and Marcus.”

The furrows between Ben’s brows deepened.

“Truly.” She dipped her gaze to his hands, which held the fates of so many people, and worked her fingertips along his palms until he released his grip. Strong hands, and beautiful. She loved the way he touched her, the way he looked at her. “I have been considering it all day, you know, and I think he imagined I could guide him away from his infatuation for this girl. Not that he would transfer his feelings for her to me, but that I would be a steadying influence on him. He actually said something like that once or twice. That I was steady.”

Silence met her. Tavy looked up and her heart pirouetted. A half smile crooked Ben’s mouth.

“What?” she breathed.

“He does not know you very well, does he?”

Throat dry, she shook her head.

“Not well at all,” he murmured.

“You do?”

His grin slipped away.

“What if I have changed?” Her voice quavered like a silly girl. “What if I have decided that adventure is not exciting after all? You see, I think after this escapade, I am weary of it.”

“Then,” he said without a hint of levity, “you must forthwith live a quiet and staid existence. Perhaps take up stitchery or some such thing.”

“Stitchery.”

“Yes. Or is that what old spinster women do?”

Her heart thudded. “Spinster women?”

“No,” he replied without a moment’s lapse. “Stitchery would not do for you. Absolutely not.” His voice was husky.

Tavy laughed and his eyes sparkled. A thrill of happiness scurried through her. Ben pulled her to him, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her on the mouth, then on the brow and neck and everywhere in between. She slipped her hands along his sides to his waist, her heart expanding. Being with him felt so right. And yet it had felt this way before, in the country, when she was foolish enough to believe that making love with him meant something else. Something more.

She had felt it long before that too. Seven years ago.

But this time she knew better. This time she would not be so foolish.

“I should leave now.”

“No.” He spoke against her neck, his mouth delicious and hot upon her skin, making her tingly all over. “You will not.”

“You are accustomed to people doing what you wish, I suspect. But would you hold me here against my will?”

He drew back, his eyes serious. “The temptation would be great. Do you wish to leave?”

She placed her hand on his chest. He covered it, flattening her palm to his firm muscle. His heart beat steady and fast, and hers tripped in reply.

She shook her head.

He drew her down into his arms. She curled against his body, the male beauty she still could not quite believe she could touch after all the years struggling not to dream of him. Her palm smoothed along his chest.

“I wanted for so long to put the past behind me, that time when I imagined the world was made for adventure,” she whispered. “I have been trying to forget it for years. But, it’s strange. Sometimes those memories feel a great deal more like reality than now.”

“They are so vivid to you?”

“I daresay you have had such an exciting life since then you barely have any memory of that time at all. Except of course for the indecency of my shift.” She smiled uncertainly against his shoulder.

He cupped her hand in his palm and ran the pad of his thumb along each of her fingers.

“To shade the sun, you carried a yellow parasol with white lace.” He spoke softly just above her brow. “You wore your hair a great deal shorter, the ribbon of your bonnet tied to the side as though it constricted your throat to wear it otherwise. You spoke to merchants in the bazaar like you had known them your entire life, and they the same to you, despite your wretched Hindi. You laughed without inhibition. And you chewed on your nails.”

Tavy struggled to draw breath. “I used to do quite a few things I no longer do.”

“You still chew on your lip at times.”

“A gentleman would not mention that.”

“It makes this gentleman want to kiss you.”

She lifted her head and met his gaze flecked with firelight. The intensity of the black depths was not at all in company with his teasing tone.

“Shalabha,” he only said.

“Why did you call me that?” she whispered.