My Lord Beaumont Read online

  Unfortunately, Danielle's age and unpleasant experiences practically guaranteed that such a suggestion would be poorly received and flatly vetoed. He would have to go slowly with her, treat her very gently, and seduce her. He decided he found the idea immensely appealing, and quickly discovered that Danielle was determined not to cooperate in any way.

  He was incensed at first and finally frustrated (though he preferred to think of it as bored) to the point of considering abandoning the plan altogether. However, an evening spent meditating over a bottle of fine bourbon convinced him that he'd hit upon the perfect solution. He would simply begin by suggesting they become more intimately acquainted. Whether she turned him down or not, she must at least then realize the direction of his thoughts. And once she'd had time to accustom herself to the idea, he could dispense with finesse and ask her to name her price.

  Having come at last to a decision, he excused himself abruptly, interrupting Lavinia, whom he'd gone to dine with, mid-word and quitting her cabin so quickly that her jaw was still agape when the cabin door ceased vibrating behind him.

  Danielle was awake when he came in. This wasn't from a lack of trying to seek her rest, for she'd made a strenuous effort to do so. Unfortunately, although he had not suggested she serve at table since Lavinia's attack, she knew very well that Lord Beaumont had gone to dine with the woman earlier. And she'd discovered that her mind regurgitated some very unpleasant suppositions concerning possible happenings in the cabin down the way each time she closed her eyes. Which had made it impossible to find sleep. Regardless, she feigned sleep, watching him from beneath her lashes as he moved about the darkened cabin, readying himself for bed.

  She'd just begun to relax, to think she might be able to sleep after all, since her fears were apparently unfounded and it seemed obvious Lord Beaumont meant to sleep in his own bed, when he passed near her cubbyhole and she caught a whiff of Lavinia Johnson's favorite scent. The queerest pang of hurt and anger smote her then. Odd to feel such a thing when she should have expected it. Odd to feel it at all. He's a regular honey bee, he is, she thought to herself with considerable disgust, flittin' from one flower to the next, so to speak.

  She also caught the strong scent of whiskey, and, on that discovery, her heart leapt into her throat and tried to strangle her. Resolutely, she squeezed her eyes shut as she surreptitiously edged a little deeper into the safety of her nook, curling into a tight, protective ball. She knew about men in their cups, and, although she hadn't seen Adrian the worse for drink since she'd known him, she had absolutely no desire to discover whether drinking affected him the same way it affected some of the other men she'd been entirely too well acquainted with.

  She felt his eyes upon her when he'd settled on his bunk and held her breath as she peered at him from beneath her lashes, torn by the strangest mixture of emotions. Fear and anticipation assailed her at the same time and for the same reason, that he might suddenly decide to finish what he'd begun with that wholly unexpected kiss several nights earlier. He lay down, however, propping his head on his folded arms, and she relaxed, feeling a stab of something suspiciously like disappointment mingling with her relief.

  Adrian let out his breath slowly as he stared up at the ceiling, willing himself to relax. He found it difficult to do so. He was still seized with the same restlessness that had possessed him to a greater or lesser degree since the night he'd discovered his fascination in Danielle extended far beyond her stimulating conversation. The same restlessness that had caused him to prowl the darkened cabin interminably before he'd turned resolutely towards his bunk, so attuned to Danielle that he was aware of her every movement, however furtive.

  She wasn't asleep. He knew that, instinctively realizing that her movement stemmed from caution rather than the relaxed tossings of sleep.

  She was afraid. He knew that, too, and was sorry for it. And yet, despite his vow to her, he had only meant to assure her that he would not force her, regardless of how she might have construed it at the time. He knew that now and felt certain that she must have begun to realize it as well by now. Because he'd finally been forced by his reaction to her to acknowledge the fact that he'd wanted her for some time.

  He heard her shift again in the darkness and smiled. "Good night, Danny," he said quietly, his voice tinged with amusement.

  She jumped, her eyes flying open for one startled moment, then settled back with some irritation. "Bleedin' sod. Must have eyes in the back of his head," she muttered under her breath.

  "No," he replied calmly, deciding to let her lapse into vulgar street slang pass for the moment. "But people do not generally screw their eyes up like that when they are asleep. Nor are they usually quite so tense."

  "Jiminey! It's black as hell in here!" she exclaimed midway between indignation and surprise.

  "And don't say hell," he added as an afterthought. "Young ladies do not say hell or bloody either."

  "Well, as you already pointed out more'n once, I ain't no lady," Danny said sarcastically.

  "Don't quibble," he returned shortly, angry at her words despite the fact that he'd very recently been thinking much the same thing.

  He said nothing more, and, after a time, Danielle relaxed again, settling herself more comfortably. She'd just decided that he was undoubtedly asleep, and thus that it was safe for her to sleep, when he spoke again.

  "I've been thinking," Adrian began musingly, having found that it was impossible to sleep with the tension in his body and the knowledge that the cause of it was only a few feet away. "I believe you'd be much more comfortable if you slept up here with me," he said with a touch of wry amusement and added as an afterthought, “'said the spider to the fly'”.

  Danielle was so startled that she sat bolt upright, banging her head on the table in the process. She settled back, rubbing the injury. "Comfortable for you maybe, but I can't see as how it'd be comfortable for me. I ain't got no burnin' desire to be mauled, an' I told you already, I'm savin' myself for the right fella, which you ain't. An' you already got a woman anyway, so I don't see as how you need to be botherin' me with your problems. If you've got an itch, she can scratch it," she snapped forthrightly, resolutely quelling the desire to inform him that she was well aware that he'd already gotten his itch scratched once tonight and needn't expect a repeat performance from others, naming no names.

  "I said sleep, damn it, and I meant it," he snapped coldly, wondering why her flat rejection had made him so furious when he'd fully expected it when he made the suggestion.

  However perverse, it occurred to him that much of his anger stemmed from her assertion that she was waiting for another man, and her complete lack of interest in whether or not he disported himself elsewhere as long as he didn't foist himself upon her.

  The ridiculous thing about the whole business was that, if she was turning him down simply because she thought he had come to her from another woman's bed, she was dead wrong. If he'd been with Lavinia any time in the past two weeks and more, he wouldn't be in the condition he was in just now, he felt certain. He was on the point of telling her so when he changed his mind. He had no intention of giving Danielle the entirely false notion that he'd left Lavinia's bed in hopes of gaining hers weeks ago. That had had nothing to do with it, nothing at all. And he had no intention of promoting a false notion, only to have his way.

  "If it had been my intention to maul you," he reminded her with slightly less heat, "I could have done so at any time in the last two weeks and more."

  She digested that in silence. It was true of course, and she would've wondered at his restraint herself if it hadn't been for the fact that she was so certain she didn't appeal to him. Apparently, she had been wrong. Or had she? It was hard to decide which idea caused her the most apprehension and distress. "Well, if I ain't to your taste, and you don't want me like that, why do you want me to sleep with you?" she asked reasonably and was rather pleased that she managed to sound so disinterested.

  He groane
d aloud and then was silent for so long that she thought he wouldn't answer her question at all. He wondered, with wry amusement, if she would leap to her feet in search of a weapon if he told her he'd thought of little else for so long that he couldn't even remember when he'd begun to want her like that, that she was in his thoughts waking and sleeping, that his body became hard and aroused with the mere thought of possessing her, and that he'd been burning with near unbearable need ever since he'd kissed her. He had no intention, however, of telling her any of that. "I'll not deny that I want you in just that way," he said with studied casualness, feeling his way cautiously. "I've considered it for some time. Rape does not appeal to me, however. I prefer my women warm and willing, and I know you are not . . . yet. As for why I would agree to sleeping with you without touching you like that . . . ."

  He paused and shrugged. "It would be pleasant to have you close," he said finally. "And one can always hope for a change of heart," he added with a touch of amusement.

  Danielle scowled at him, resolutely ignoring the strange mixture of happiness and apprehension that had leapt in her veins at his first words and the relief that followed when she realized that he did not, apparently, intend to break his vow and force her. But then she felt a strange sadness take hold of her and, beyond that, bitterness that he see-sawed so radically in his perception and interest in her, treating her as nothing one moment and the next correcting her speech and manners as if to mold her into the person he wished her to be; teaching her pride, then snatching it away. "You don't want me to be a whore, but you want be to whore for you, right?" she asked bitterly, remembering the hurt of that time when he'd suggested that that was all that she was.

  He sat up and threw his legs off the side of the bunk, his countenance stony with the cold fury that had seized him at her words. "Don't ever say that again," he ground out furiously.

  She shrugged indifferently, but her heart was beating unpleasantly fast at his outburst, and she edged a little further under the table until she felt the hard wood of the bulkhead grinding into her back. "Don't see as how it makes a bit of difference what fancy name you want to put to it. That's what it is, and, anyway, it'd be kinda crowded with me and you and the widow Johnson, don't you think?" she queried sarcastically. "I've got my pride, after all, even if you think I'm nothin' but a nasty little street whore. And I ain't real crazy about crawlin' between the sheets with a man who's just crawled out of some other woman's bed an' still stinkin' to high heaven with her bleedin' perfume!" she added tauntingly, angry and curiously close to tears.

  Adrian cursed luridly under his breath. "God damn it, Danny! If you don't stop cursing every time you open your mouth, I swear I'm going to wash your mouth out with soap," he ground out furiously. "As for Mrs. Johnson, you can't get within ten yards of her without smelling like that damned scent she takes a bath in. And I did not just come from her bed, for your information. I dined with her and took her for a stroll above decks as I have almost every evening since we began the voyage. As I intend to continue to do. She is without the protection of a man and can not otherwise go out in safety," Adrian retorted angrily, justifiably incensed at being falsely accused, particularly since he'd gone to the woman for that very purpose, only to discover that he couldn't arouse enough interest to do so. There was nothing that could make one feel quite so outraged as to be accused of doing something one had thought about doing and had refrained from.

  "You didn't?" Danielle said doubtfully, wondering why the idea caused such a heavenly sense of elation. But her spirits plummeted in the next moment. Even if he hadn't, he had before and undoubtedly would again. And even if he'd lost interest in the woman totally, it could make no difference to her. They were still worlds apart. It would be stupid to give in to the budding warmth that had suffused her with the thought that he wanted her near him, was really interested in her, of all people. The idea was simply too appealing to trust herself to, to take a chance on opening herself to pain when he was through with her. But she couldn't resist contemplating it, however apprehensively; intrigued by the notion of being so close to the man who'd haunted her dreams for so long; to actually have him want to touch her, as if she was somebody.

  "I didn't," Adrian snapped, wondering why the devil he hadn't, since he'd been tense with need ever since the night he'd kissed Danielle and badly needed an outlet. He'd always considered himself fastidious where women were concerned.

  "Well, I still don't want to be mauled," Danielle said with credible indifference.

  Adrian felt his irritation vanish abruptly at her words. "You'll lie with me though, won't you?" he said coaxingly, his lips curling into a slow smile as he heard the indecision in her voice.

  "I might think on it if you put your breeches on," she parried, wondering if she'd lost her mind to even be considering such a thing.

  "If I put mine on, will you take yours off?" Adrian asked with interest.

  Danielle blushed and glared at him, feeling again that peculiar leap of anticipation and fear in her veins. "You must think I'm a bleedin' nodcock!" she snapped indignantly. "I sure as hell ain't sleepin' with you bare arsed, an' I seem to have misplaced me nightie somewhere," she added sarcastically.

  Adrian stood up and pulled on his breeches, then moved to his portmanteau and pulled out a shirt, tossing it to her. "Your nightie, my lady."

  She caught it, staring at him uncertainly in the dim light that filtered through the small porthole. It wasn't nearly as dark in the cabin as she'd thought, and she wasn't at all certain that it would be wise to change clothes in front of him in his present mood, which seemed rather reckless to say the least. But then, men in their cups were wont to behave amazingly uninhibitedly. "I'm comfortable just as I am, thank you," she said finally but with decision.

  "But you'll be more comfortable in my shirt," he argued reasonably. "I'd be more comfortable sleeping as I usually do, but as I've made a concession for you, it seems the least you could do is to make one for me, and those clothes are far too coarse for comfortable sleeping."

  "I already made one concession for you when I agreed to get in bed with you like a nodcock," Danielle snapped. "An' I ain't sure even that's a good idea. In fact, I know it ain't, and I ain't fixin' to make it easier for you to maul me if you should take the notion!"

  Adrian studied her in silence a moment. "You have so little faith in my word then?" he asked softly. "Or is it that you think I shall lose my head once I have you so close?"

  "Well, you don't have to be so sarcastic," Danielle muttered indignantly. "I know I ain't exactly irresistible. The thing is, I ain't so sure I'd trust any man not to take what he wanted when he wanted it."

  "There's only one way I know of to prove it," Adrian said quietly, wondering if she really had no idea how very irresistible he found her, and becoming less inclined to resist the temptation of her by the moment.

  She shrugged. He was right of course. And, to a certain extent, she did trust him far more than she ever had any other man, and she was still more than a little inclined to take him up on his offer, to discover if it would really be as nice as she thought it would be to lie next to him. And it wasn't really comfortable to sleep in her clothes. The rough fabric was near unbearably scratchy, particularly when she thought about having his fine shirt next to her skin. Finally, she shrugged again, capitulating. "You won't watch?' she asked suspiciously.

  "Certainly not," he answered promptly, though there was a trace of amusement in his voice that she continued to be so conscious of her modesty when they'd shared the same cabin for nearly three weeks.

  Danielle studied him doubtfully a moment, wishing that there was enough light to read his expression, and then perversely that is was even darker still. But as he settled himself on his bunk once more, she retreated to the far corner and pulled off her shirt, deciding she could discard her breeches under the concealing folds of fabric once she'd donned his shirt.

  "What the hell is that you have wound around your chest
?" Adrian snapped so abruptly that she jumped and dropped the shirt from suddenly nerveless fingers.

  "Bloody hell!" she cried indignantly, snatching the shirt up again and quickly jerking it on. "You said you wouldn't watch!"

  "I lied," Adrian replied calmly, staring up at the ceiling once more, "and you are not to say bloody hell any more or I shall be forced to spank that admittedly delectable bottom of yours," he added sternly, then paused for a fraction of a second. When he spoke again, his voice was tinged with amusement. "You'll stunt your growth if you continue to bind yourself like that."

  Danielle blushed, feeling a rush of elation, apprehension, and then anxiety in quick succession as she stared at him. "You think so?" she asked at this last.

  His lips twitched. "Undoubtedly. You have no need to leave it on at night, surely?"

  She studied him doubtfully for several moments. It was uncomfortable. There was no getting around that, for it was pure torture, wearing the thing day in and day out. But was it really safe to remove so many barriers? "You'll keep your hands to yourself?" she asked suspiciously.

  The amusement left him. "I won't hurt you, Danny. I gave you my word I wouldn't force you." He paused, and a gleam of devilment entered his eyes. "On the other hand, if you should change your mind, I wouldn't be at all adverse to the idea."

  "Well, don't get yourself in a stew! It ain't bl . . . likely!" she snapped and resolutely turned her back to him as she reached beneath the shirt and unbound her breasts, then slid out of her breeches. He was studying her intently when she turned around, and her heart leapt into her throat as she moved towards him hesitantly, wondering what had possessed her to give in to his coaxing. It was insane! That's what it was! She paused at the edge of the bunk, staring down at him in wide-eyed apprehension as he swept the blanket back invitingly on the opposite side of the bunk for her.