Page 70 of The Smuggler’s Escape

Chapter 16

Noelle stood before the pier-glass in her bedchamber, wearing nothing but the flimsy nightclothes supplied by Richard. She ran her hands over the luxurious silk resting lightly on her breast, belly, and thighs. The package had been waiting on her bed, tied up in scarlet ribbon, but although Lady Boltwood’s maid had urged her to open it, she had refused, pleading exhaustion.

She had made a bargain and intended to keep it. One part of her longed for his kisses and his touch. Another part of her hated him for treating her like a whore. A sensible woman, a determined one, would have burned the package without opening it.

Nevertheless, she had untied the red ribbons and opened the box with trembling hands, spreading the nightdress and the matching wrapper on her bed. The fact that she had already seen them didn’t mitigate the thrill of longing that ran through her. She examined herself in the mirror, running her hands up and down the thin, whispery silk.

Up and down her quivering flesh, where Richard’s hot hands had run only this afternoon. She closed her eyes as visions assailed her, as heat rose at the memory of Richard’s touch.

When the bookshelf next to the fireplace shifted, her first thought was that tears blurred her vision, the second that . . .

The bookshelf swung away from the wall. A towering male figure stepped out of a black void behind it. Noelle gasped, heaving, once, twice.

“Noelle, it’s just me!”

She took a deep breath to calm the pounding of her heart. “You surprised me, that’s all.” She glared at the hole in the wall. “There’s a secret door to this room! That’s why you chose this bedchamber for me, so you could sneak in and out without being seen.”

“Yes, but I’ve changed my mind. We’ll both do the sneaking.” His eyes ran up and down her wanton clothing. “Very seductive.”

She felt herself blushing. Heating up. “Sneaking where?”

“Out, where there will be no embarrassing evidence left for the servants to find in the morning.”

She blinked, astonished at this sudden consideration for her feelings.

“Hurry up. Put your shoes on.” He laid the fur-lined cloak about her shoulders. The pistol, which she had stowed in her pocket when leaving her uncle’s house, thudded against her thigh.

“If worse comes to worst, you’ve got your gun,” he said. “I don’t think you hate me quite that much, though, do you?”

“I don’t really hate you,” she muttered, “and you know it.”

He took the candle from her dressing table, grabbed her hand, and, after pulling the bookcase shut, led her down a cramped staircase that curled beside the chimney stack.

“Where are we going?”

“To our love nest, for an evening of unbridled passion.”

She longed to slap away the sardonic note in his voice. At the bottom of the staircase, they emerged through a creaking door into a tiny storeroom.

He set the candlestick on a small table and fitted the door gently into the wall, then swung a set of shelves across the door with a creak and a soft thud. They not only masked the door completely, but matched shelves on two other sides of the room. On the shelves were various pots and small garden implements, several candle stubs, and a tinder box. “Harry and Daniel and I found this secret stair when we were young.”

He held out two crystal wineglasses. “I’ll carry the corkscrew and the wine.” He blew out her candle while pushing open a door in the exterior wall. “I’ve already taken the bed linens.”

They emerged into the chill night not far from the terrace and herb garden at the back of the house. The moon cast long shadows across the lawn. Richard closed the storeroom door behind them and latched it shut.

He strode across the lawn, and she had perforce to run to keep up with him. She grabbed his coat sleeve. “Slow down!”

Richard obliged, but said, “The haste is for your sake, not mine. We are too visible in the moonlight. Am I right to assume you wish our tryst to be secret? I certainly don’t care one way or the other.”

“Nor do I,” Noelle snapped, but she hurried anyway, and soon they reached the cover of the trees.

Cheerfully, Richard said, “You seem agitated, my love, but you have nothing to fear. I am an ordinary man with ordinary desires. I shall require nothing from you that a man wouldn’t expect from a wife.” He paused reflectively. “Not at first, in any event.”

What was that supposed to mean?

It didn’t matter. Soon she would be gone.

“Does that frighten you, love? It’s not intended to. I merely meant that a man and his mistress often have rather more fun, because the mistress is less inhibited by propriety than a wife.” He pondered. “Although come to think of it, my mistress in Amsterdam was rather a prim little thing, but she was in love with another man, and only under my protection for as long as it took to buy a farm.”