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“I don’t want you to worry unduly,” he said firmly. “TheRed Dragonwon’t make port too long ahead of us. The clipper has much faster speed.Weknow Anthony is in Ceylon, but your cousin doesn’t know. He thinks Tony’s in London.”
“Perhaps he’ll never find out. Perhaps he’ll immediately take passage back to England.”
Adam squeezed her hand, but in his gut he knew fate was a crafty old bitch who’d never let him off the hook before.
A month into the voyage they were halfway to their destination. TheFlying Dragonwas indeed living up to her name. Mr. Baines was a dependable captain who ran a tight ship, cutting through the ocean in a silent, steady glide.
Mr. Burke personally looked after the needs of his two ladies, keeping them isolated from McSwine and the rest of the unspeakable riffraff who crewed the ship.
Adam had rigged an awning on deck for the ladies’ comfort on the second day out. Sometimes Tony basked in the sun, soon turning a lovely golden brown, but at other times the sun was so fierce, she was glad to decline beneath the awning, spending lazy hours wafting a huge fan made from palm fronds.
From the long, warm days of inactivity her body was becoming less slim and more beautifully rounded. Adam couldn’t take his eyes from her. Her breasts were fuller, her whole body had a ripeness about it that sent his blood surging through his veins. Her looks were heavy eyed and languid, promising him paradise at their next stolen rendezvous.
They managed many stolen moments for kisses or intoxicating love words, but they could never spend hours together as they would have liked, except in the company of others. Adam often took the wheel from midnight until dawn. These were the hours they spent together. Sometimes they thought darkness would never arrive, but finally the sky traded its blue for pink and then black. Past midnight their voices were instinctively soft, not daring to trespass on the stillness.
He could not really make love to her while he was at the helm, but it was an intimate time when he enfolded her against him with one arm, while keeping the other on the wheel.
“This indolent life suits you,” he murmured, slipping his hand beneath her cool cotton camisole to cup a ripe breast. “I love the way you look these days, the way you feel, the smell of the sun on your skin, the taste of salt when I lick you.”
In bare feet she was not nearly as tall and had to go on tiptoe to twine her arms about his neck. In the tropical night he wore only loose cotton breeches. In the darkness he slipped them off knowing she wore nothing beneath the loose petticoat.
Tony began to rub her body against his. The hot sliding friction of their naked skin was silken torment. “Christ,” he rasped hoarsely as her sleek heat scorched him, then became a wet slide as she wrapped her legs about one of his thighs and rubbed herself up and down him until she convulsed with hot shuddering. She moved in front of him between his body and the ship’s wheel. She slid to her knees. Her arms wrapped around his iron-hard thews. Her fingers slid into the cleft of his buttocks. Her hungry mouth sheathed the swollen head of his phallus, then her lips sought the ridge three inches below the engorged crown. The tip of her tongue made circles until it found the tiny opening at its center, then she flicked it in slow rhythm with the friction of her lips.
His deep growls of pleasure made her wild for the taste of him. “Tony, I’ll spill,” Adam whispered fiercely.
“Promise?” she purred.
They clung to each other silently for the next hour. The calm after the storm. Slowly her head slipped to his shoulder and he knew she slept enfolded against him.
The long weeks at sea gave them many opportunities to talk. Roz and sometimes Mr. Burke were included in their discussions. Tony loved to listen to Adam’s deep voice talk of Ceylon, its climate, its customs, its people. When he described Leopard’s Leap, she heard the pride and love he obviously felt for his plantation.
At other times they spoke of Edenwood. It was plain to the listeners that both Adam and Tony felt deeply about the home they would return to after they were married.
“I feel very guilty that you are being dragged away from your important work in Parliament,” she admitted.
“By now they are in summer recess. When we return, be prepared to become a political wife. Mr. Pitt has very ambitious plans to reorganize his party. He has generously asked me to play a major role.”
“Do you think the Regency Bill will finally pass?” asked Roz.
“Not if I can help it,” Adam replied, “at least not yet.”
“Poor George,” Roz said, beginning to laugh, but a rather poignant thought prevented it. “Poor Maria,” she murmured.
“What does Mr. Pitt hope to accomplish?” Tony asked with genuine interest.
Adam teased, “I’m not sure I should let you be privy to the Prime Minister’s plans until you are my wife. Can you keep a secret?”
“Better than any woman breathing.” She smiled inwardly, cherishing her knowledge.
“Pitt, with my aid, plans to strip the Whigs of their power. The new party will be Tory.”
“How will you accomplish it?” Tony asked.
“Politics is based on patronage. Whig nobles and landlords have made dynastic marriages for themselves and their children. They control votes by bribes or threats. William Pitt will promote Tory interests by filling every office with our own. The civil service, the army, the navy, colonial appointments, church preferments. You create a network of power from the top down. Merchant princes, as men like myself are now called, represent the commercial interests of the country and money talks.”
“The poor Prince of Wales will be in his dotage before he becomes Regent,” Roz lamented.
“Not so,” Adam contradicted. “George is much more shrewd than people think. When he abandons the Whigs and comes over to the Tories, we will pass his Regency Bill.”
