The Very Daring Duchess Part 15

For G.o.d's sake, what had he done to make her cry?

He'd admit that he had little experience with women on an everyday basis, and none at all with a woman confronting the sort of personal upheaval that was now facing Francesca. But he'd never imagined she'd behave like this with him, not at all, and he took a deep breath and slowly exhaled before he trusted himself to answer.

He did not wish to become mired in a full-fledged quarrel with her here on the beach in full sight of his crewmen, nor was there time to squander on such folly. But he couldn't let her continue like this without risking out-and-out disaster, both for the success of the evening's mission and for themselves as husband and wife.

Husband and wife: What devil had claimed his senses for him to believe in such a half-witted notion, anyway?

"Miss Robin," he said firmly. "Francesca. We will discuss all of this further when we are alone, and when, of course, you will be permitted to speak. I would not wish otherwise for my wife. However, for the sake of your safety, you now must do as I ask, and do it without comment or objection."

"Your wife, oh, yes, yes, your wife." She bowed her head and her shoulders sagged, her whole body seeming to surrender forlornly before his order. "All I want, Edward, is to be myself, the way I always have before. But I don't belong anywhere now, do I? What do I have left to show of my life?"

"Blast, Francesca, you have me!"

"Do I?" Her face was a pale, troubled oval turned up toward him. "Do I really?"

"Aye, you do," he answered with more conviction than he'd realized he'd felt. "You have me, and as for your place, yours is now beside me in the sternsheets of that boat."

She glanced back over her shoulder as if seeing the boat for the first time, then turned again toward him, hugging her arms around herself beneath her cloak.

"Oh, Edward," she cried wistfully. "What am I to say? O, per favore, what am I to do?"

That much he could answer. "You are to climb into that boat directly, else I shall carry you there and put you onto the bench myself."

"You would?" She made an oddly endearing sound, a gulp of an anxious giggle. "I have but this one pair of shoes with me, you understand. They are already quite filled with sand, and I-I cannot afford next to soak them in the sea as well."

He had an instant, vivid image of her feet in the bright silk slippers that Neapolitan women favored, delicate shoes with high curving heels and flirtatious ribbon bows on the toes. She would wear shoes like that, with the thinnest white stockings that would be as good as transparent if she got them wet in the seawater. He thought of pulling them off for her himself, of resting her little foot on his knee and lifting her skirt to untie her garter and sliding his hand along the curve of her ankle, higher, along her calf, above her knee to the soft, warm skin of her thigh, higher, and higher still....

"If those shoes are your only pair," he said, his voice strained, "then we can't get them wet, can we?"

He looped his arm behind her knees and swept her from the sand. Though she gasped with surprise, she instinctively linked her arms around his shoulders to steady herself.

"This-this shall suffice, Edward," she said breathlessly, holding herself very still in his arms. "To help me into the boat, I mean."

"And to keep your feet dry," he said, though his overeager imagination had already moved far beyond the thought of her little slippers.

He had never carried a grown woman before, and though she wasn't particularly heavy in his arms, he hadn't realized how familiar a position this could be. He had obviously touched her before in small, social ways-offering her his arm, adjusting her cloak-but holding her in his arms intimately pressed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his arm and her hips and bottom against his chest. He could hardly ignore how insubstantial her stays and petticoats must be beneath her gown, or how, as a result, he was acutely aware of holding so much soft, yielding, fragrant female flesh so close to himself.

No, not simply female flesh, but Francesca's, the woman he had promised to marry, but not to bed.

d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n.

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It was, thought Edward grimly, bound to be the next wonder of the entire fleet, and endless entertainment for them all, too. Admiral Nelson's indiscretion with Lady Hamilton would be relegated to old t.i.ttle-tattle, and instead the gossip would be focussed on how exactly Captain Lord Ramsden, who'd always forbidden loose women on his ship, had gone and married one.

"Handsomely now, and mind you keep your petticoats clear," he cautioned as he lifted Francesca over the side and into the boat. Awkwardly she settled herself on the bench, tucking her feet up to keep those infernal slippers of hers out of the muck in the bottom of the boat.

"Bene," she announced with resignation. "I am ready, Edward."

"Indeed," replied Edward briskly, all he could think to say. He swung himself into the boat, and when he came to sit beside her on the bench, she didn't shift away from him as he'd expected, but let her hip and leg remain touching his. Granted, there was no real room for them to keep apart on the narrow bench even if she'd wished it, but feeling that soft female hip pressing gently against him was enough to raise his overeager imagination to a simmer again.

"Proceed, Mr. Pye," he said, praying his voice sounded sufficiently world-weary and captainly. "And make haste about it. As Miss Robin has observed, we are ready."

He smiled at her, striving once again to be gallant, but she didn't answer, instead pointedly looking away from him and back at the city they were leaving.

In well-practiced unison, the men dipped the blades of the oars into the water and pulled, and the boat jumped to life, racing out away from the sh.o.r.e. Edward felt Francesca tense beside him at the unfamiliar motion, and saw how she clutched the side of the boat beneath her cloak, clearly trying to hide her uneasiness from him and the others. Ever since he'd become an officer, he'd been accustomed to living with the constant scrutiny and attention of his men, but she must be painfully aware of the two rows of men at their oars, unabashedly watching for any stray morsel to report back to their messmates.

"I'll be glad when this night is done," he said, as much to himself as to her as he gazed up at the shifting clouds in the night sky. "It's our luck that after a week of fair weather, we'll sail into foul. But you needn't worry, la.s.s. The Centaur's as steady a ship as there is in a rough sea."

"Indeed," she murmured, pulling her hood forward to shield her face from the spray, and from him.

"Indeed, aye," he persevered. "I promise you'll be as comfortable there as any lady ever was at sea."

"Which is to say far less comfortable than any lady on the land," she answered, still looking away from him. "Naturalmente, if women were meant to live upon the water, then nature would have supplied us with fins and scales and gills."

He tapped his fingertips against the side of his knee. "You're still angry, aren't you?"

"Not angry, no." At last she turned toward him, her hood limp with sea spray and flopping forlornly over her face and her hair plastered in damp tendrils to her forehead. By the light of the signal lantern in the boat's prow, he could see the faint glisten of tears on her cheeks. "Just-just frightened."

He hadn't expected that, not from her, and instantly he reached for her chilly little hand in the yellow glove.

"You've nothing to be afraid of," he said gruffly. "I told you I'd look after you, didn't I?"

She hesitated before she nodded, her fingers curling more tightly into his. "You've told me so, yes. But you see, Edward, I've never had to trust-"

"d.a.m.nation, Francesca, I'm not like my brothers!" he said harshly, then broke off, aghast at his own words. What had made him speak of his brothers now? None of them would have landed himself in a situation such as this, for none of his brothers cared a d.a.m.n for anyone other than himself. Why the devil had they surfaced so abruptly here, making her stare as if he'd lost what few wits he still could claim?

"My brothers are not trustworthy men with ladies," he said finally. "That is, my brothers and I have little in common."

"Then it is most fortunate that I find myself dependent upon you," she said, smiling wistfully, "and not them."

He nodded, determined not to reveal any more of his family than he inadvertently had. With luck, she'd never have to meet them, anyway. "You have my word, Francesca. I cannot offer you more than that."

"I know," she said softly, and now when her fingers tightened around his, he had the distinct impression that she was comforting him and not the other way around. "What more could I wish, mio coraggioso inglese leone?"

He frowned at the unknown words. "In English, la.s.s, in English."

"Very well, my most brave English lion," she translated, smiling through her tears. "Because you are brave, and never know any of my sorry sorts of fears, I will be brave, too."

"An English lion?" He rather liked that, though he liked rather more that she'd added the possessive, making him her particular English lion. "Well, then, we shall have to dub you the English lioness in turn, won't we?"

She lowered her chin to look at him sideways beneath the sooty fringe of her lashes, skeptical and winsome at the same time as she fought her tears.

"Then you must not provoke me, Edward," she said with that same little broken gulp that had touched him so before, "else I shall turn fierce as any true lioness, and unleash my savage jungle nature upon you."

An open boat in a rising sea in late December was farther from the depths of a lion's jungle than any place Edward could imagine, and yet as soon as she'd spoken he felt a rush of heat race through his body that was worthy of any African sun.

His savage lioness, indeed. No proper English lady would dare even think of herself like that, let alone say so to a gentleman, and yet the more Edward considered the possibilities of what Francesca had said, the warmer he became. How the devil could she speak like that to him one moment, then vow to keep chaste the next?

It was a trial, this impulsive gallantry of his, a d.a.m.nable trial. He'd always heard that the women who lived in southern climates like Naples were more pa.s.sionate, but he'd never given it much serious thought before this. Now he could think of nothing else, no matter how he'd sworn to the contrary.