of his thumb against her breast was questioning; as her nipples hardened she pressed into his hand, her breath shallowed and waiting.
She was cold and he warmed her. She was hot and he cooled her. He was of her and she was of him and there seemed no place that they were separate or solitary in the heady secrets of the flesh.
And when he had finished he brought her up into his arms and walked across to his bed, gently laying her down and bringing up the sheets before joining her.
Smoothing back the damp curliness of her hair, he grinned. The golden lights in his eyes were easily seen and he looked younger and happier. ‘We will be married as soon as the banns have been read. I swear it.’
Marriage!
God.
As who?
As Emerald Sandford?
She was pleased that he did not notice her confusion or her withdrawal as she lay there, listening to his breathing deepen into sleep.
How long would it be before Asher started to put the pieces together properly? Closing her eyes, she gritted her teeth. She could not tell him. He was an honourable man, a man who took his responsibilities seriously. And here she was, another responsibility, a woman whom he would feel bound to marry just because they had slept together.
Marriage.
In the circles she had mixed in, even the notion would seem ludicrous. But her father’s crowd had never had the sort of moral fibre Asher Wellingham did.
A flare of pleasure warmed her and therein lay the rub, for her steely independence faltered somewhat under the mantle of his care, and if she let herself believe in fairy tales she would only be hurt all the worse later.
The memory of him deep inside her body made her heart race. Lord, but to never again know the sweetness of his kisses and the raw white heat of passion…She slashed at the tears that welled in her eyes and swore.
She was caught between love and lies, frozen into immobility. She, who had always walked her world unfettered and straight, the wind in her hair and the sun on her back and a sharp true blade in her fingers.
And now when her world had skewed and reshaped, she understood how often she had been lonely. Solitary. Isolated. Living in Jamaica under the shadow of her father had allowed no space for frivolity, for girlish pursuits, for love.
Love.
A prickling panic overcame her. Love? Asher had never said it. Not once. Could just lust be enough? Had it ever been enough for Beau?
She rubbed at the ache that was settling at her temples and promised herself honesty.
She was the pirate’s daughter and already the whispers of her difference were starting, just as they had at home in Jamaica. She had never fitted anywhere. Even aboard the Mariposa.
Frowning, the slight echo of mistruth startled her.
She did fit!
In Asher’s arms with the promise of safety in his name and in the strong lines of his body.
Yes, for the first time in all her life she looked neither onwards nor backwards but existed just in the moment, a tiny and fragile reality that offered happiness.
Or hurt?
The ghost of her father hovered near and behind him other spectres lingered, death and pain written across each face.
She would not let them spoil this moment and she shook away memory, laying her arm alongside Asher and feeling his warmth. And then, when he did not stir, she pressed her legs against the long heat of his own and a shiver of delight consumed her.
When she woke again it was morning and the indent of where he had slumbered was still warm. He has only just left, she thought and sat up, running her fingers through her hair to try to straighten it. What should she do next? How many nights of loving constituted absolution? Rising from the rumpled bed, she was pleased to see that a basin with water and a towel had been left on the table. Wetting the flannel, she brought it across her forehead, her face in the mirror showing the struggle of wanting. Wanting to be with him. Wanting to be gone so that he might never know any of it. Today the blue in her eyes was overshadowed by dark, dark green and her hair was a wild array of wayward curls.
Not the face of a duchess.
She could not imagine a portrait of herself above the Carisbrook baronial fireplace to last down through the centuries. The scar that dissected her right eyebrow was reddened and visible and she brought up her finger to touch it. This was the sum of who she was and no amount of wishing it otherwise could preclude her past.
She had just dressed when he returned, and ridiculously she blushed. If he noticed, he gave no word of it—for that she was grateful.
‘Would you walk with me? We have much to say to each other.’ He did not touch her at all as she went past him and kept his distance still as they descended the stairs. Outside in the sun he seemed to relax more as they ambled between the stone walls, the lush green of summer in the leaves of trees that stood as sentinels on each side of the garden.
When he stopped she looked up at him. The brown of his irises was darker today and his hair slicked back as though he had just bathed.
‘Who were the men who attacked me?’
So he wanted answers. She hoped that she might give him at least a version of the truth. ‘The McIlverrays of Kingston Town. They want the map inside the cane. They believe that it should belong to them.’
‘And you think it prudent to hold on to a treasure map that might indeed in the end kill you?’
She almost laughed at that, but stopped herself.
‘My family has debts.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Tell me how much you owe and I’ll place it into an account tomorrow.’
Her mouth fell open. ‘No.’ She couldn’t do it, couldn’t escape from here with a fat payment in her pocket after a quick toss in the sheets. That would make her—what? A whore? And every bit as on the game as the ones she had seen peddling their bodies in Jamaica. ‘I can’t take money from you like that.’
She was unprepared for his laughter. ‘And what if you are pregnant?’
She had not even considered that.
‘If you are pregnant, the child will be the heir to the Carisbrook fortune. I would not want him, or her, to be brought up on an empty quest for treasure or a hollow prophecy of greed. And Falder would welcome the promise of a child.’
‘A child you would risk everything for?’
He shook his head and turned her towards him, peeling away restraint with a quick easiness. ‘It is you I am trying to help.’
‘Help me, then, by giving me the map.’
‘And then watch you disappear?’
She reddened and felt his breath on the soft skin at the top of her ear and her insides twisted
