Chapter Eighteen
A burden no more.
Cuddled up on the old chaise, with capable arms encircling her waist, Tamsyn shared that which had held her captive for so long.
Foolishly, she’d thought they’d sit across a desk. Him with paper and quill, scratching notes, herself nervously stuttering through the events, hands twisting and voice quaking.
But this was Jack and instead he’d shrugged off his tailcoat, stretched across the blue chaise, parted his legs and patted the seat in between.
Wicked thoughts had skittered through her mind, until she’d seen the practicality. He could hold her snug, but whisper questions in her ear. She could stare at the familiar painting, stay in Jack’s grasp and not be swept away on past terror.
That other man from Whitehall had shaken her by the shoulders as if he could rattle the words loose, told her she’d burn in hell for not speaking.
But he’d not realised she couldn’t, that she hadn’t been faking or coy or stupid. Every time she’d tried, her voice had refused to comply, as though fingers had clenched the place from whence it came and squeezed tight.
No reason could be found for her silence, no doctor’s prodding had revealed its cause, and yet now, years later, she knew its name.
Fear.
Fear for her family and for her friends. Fear of more death.
Tonight, however, fear would be banished.
She recounted nightly rides across the headland, of growing up amongst the wild cliffs, of feeling invincible.
“Did you love Jonathan?” he interrupted as she told of beach fires beneath the stars.
“Yes, and I miss him still. We grew up together, knew each other’s thoughts and ways. Would such familiarity have made a good marriage? I do not know. And at sixteen I was too young to understand…desire.”
She sensed him nod, seemingly satisfied, and continued, describing her horse rearing in fright, of gaining consciousness in the cave with dearest Jonathan dead by her side.
Pain clutched her heart and she faltered. Such a senseless death. He would have been a fine young man – brave and strong.
Arms tightened, a kiss to her hair as Petrok’s night cry carried through the open window, and she resumed.
“I suppose you want to hear of details useful to your investigation.” She picked the lace of her cuff. “As he stood over me, I remember he was shortish – five and a half foot or nearabout. White teeth and pale hair–”
“Pale?” Jack startled. “Are you sure?”
“Certainly. I always thought demons would be dark but he was blond and smelled of frankincense.”
“The scent is as someone else once described but I glimpsed him last spring and he’d blac–”
She twisted in horror. “You saw him? You never said.” Her skin prickled, eyes so wide they stung. That same devil who’d wounded her so, who’d been responsible for her sweetheart’s death. “How?”
“We rescued a friend’s wife whom he’d kidnapped and in the melee aboard his boat, La Chauve-Souris was shot. He fell in the Thames and we thought him dead, but my superior has harboured suspicions for some time.”
She bit her lip to stop the tremble. She’d been so afraid for her family, her friends and truthfully, she’d been so feverish that she had scarce known her own name, but… “If I’d spoken sooner,” she cried, “I could have stopped–”
Broad hands rose to her cheeks, forced her to meet his fierce gaze. “Tamsyn, we are not talking about some foolish horse thief or handkerchief nabber, but a determined and evil murderer. Your words might have added to our information at the time, but he would have silenced you forever and changed his guise in an instant. Your memories are useful now, Tamsyn. The past is just that.”
She twisted back, leaning into his strength, compelling those memories to mere ripples on the surface without the power to stir below.
“I suppose in years he was…five and twenty or thereabouts, but only dusk and a dim lantern lit that cave so I caught nothing but glimpses. I…I thought I was to die. He held the knife to my throat, teased me with death, yet… You talk of your own temper but ask my father, in those days I often flared like gunpowder.”
“I cannot imagine,” he teased, and she felt…calm in his arms, protected yet free, and she smiled.
“Indeed. But I hated him so. For Jonathan, for bringing death to my precious cove and I spat in his face, called him names and struggled like a fury. I told him to look me in the eye as he stole my life.”
She felt lips press on her neck and suddenly it wasn’t so terrifying. Not with this man.
“You had a tantrum?”
Jack rendered it flippant, as though for show. But this was how he coped with life, the depravation of man. He spun it, mocked it, showed no fear.
She embraced it.
“I did,” she declared with vehemence. “My biggest one ever. I glared and yelled he was a pathetic rat, but he shook his head and told me he was La Chauve-Souris.”
Hands clenched her midriff, and a tardy night-time breeze at last seeped through the window, cooling her skin.
“Why did he let you live? He has a reputation for leaving no one behind, kills all who set eyes on him.”
Tamsyn gulped, not realising how…different that made her. “H-he was surprised at my strength, said he couldn’t kill such spirit but that he would save me…” She swallowed her breath. “…for his future.”
“Tam–”
“He’s coming back for me, isn’t he?” she rasped, trying to focus on Hades, on his avid expression and gaze of thunder.
Without warning, she was twisted in Jack’s arms and met that same expression. Not in cold oils but in living skin and burning eyes. Intense, earnest…and she craved him so.
“If he does, I would defend you with my life, Tamsyn Penrose. Do not doubt for that.”
His gaze held, steady and true. She nodded, believed him. Believed Jack could triumph over anything. But…
“Th-there is one last matter.”
Her voice had held firm, yet abruptly it stumbled. Throat tightening.
No, not now, she inwardly screamed. She would speak, damn it, even if ’twas barely a whisper. “To sh-show you.”
In too few moments, she would see his expression change from ferocity to repulsion, or even worse pity. And she needed all her strength, all her spirit to face it. To face Jack with all her imperfections.
He shook his head, hands to her shoulders, thumbs caressing. “Tam, breathe. Breathe slowly, my valiant one. We’ll continue another day.”
Trembling in frustration and anger at her cursed torment, words lost, she reached to unfasten her gown at the neck but the cotton refused to stretch, bodice twisted, buttons too tight.
But she would not be deterred.
Gasping, she rose to her knees, hoicked her skirts and turned, straddling Jack on the chaise.
His nostrils flared, eyes flickering, hands on her waist, fingers indenting her cotton dress. “Tam?”
It had to be now. If not now, she never could.
Finally, a blasted button complied and as one slipped free, the whole strip tore away in a flurry.
Jack’s eyes fixed on the bare skin at her throat, and he licked his lips appearing for all the world as though he would devour her.
She would shatter that world.
Tamsyn wrenched the gown from her shoulder, the chemise dragging to display the swell of her corset-bound breasts.
Panting, she followed his gaze.
Not to where she expected.
Black scorching eyes fixed on her heaving bosom.
She bit out a hysterical laugh but his gaze shifted and the laugh died.
She’d thought she could watch. Yet in the end, cowardice ruled, and she closed her eyes, waiting for him to rebutton her gown.
To cover the ugliness.
To say he was sorry.
Kiss her forehead.
A coarse growl rumbled from him and she tentatively lifted her pained lids.
No expression of pity or disgust scored his features, only unabashed fury, lips torn back in a snarl, fist scrunching, gaze raging like a Treloor midsummer bonfire.
“J-Jack?”
Fearsome eyes met hers. “If that fiend lives still, then you have my word, he will die a thousand deaths for this evil.”
Oh.
His fist unclenched; she saw half-moons in his palm, and his unsteady finger reached out to trace the scarring above her right breast.
F T – the letters carved deep, less raw than once but still a livid scorch to her skin.
“You…you couldn’t tell they were letters until some time had passed,” she rasped, words stronger now the worst was over. “He cut so deep and the stitches were…” She couldn’t bear to remember the agony, the laudanum they’d dosed her with, Father holding her down, Ruan crying, the devil doctor and his burning needle.
“Tam–” Now it was Jack’s voice that caught.
“The stitches were ragged,” she stammered, “skin so torn and bloody like…frenzied slashes.”
Endless weeks had become months as infection had set in, and when finally the skin had begun to heal, the scars still aflame, she’d ceased looking, ceased wishing them away in the mirror. Covered them. Refused to think of them. Think of him.
“I rarely looked at my reflection so didn’t see the wound heal, see what had emerged.”
A curse spilled from him. One she didn’t know so it must have been foul.
“It was Lowdy,” she whispered, “who recognised the slashes as letters or maybe…initials, but it seemed unimportant by then.”
No words, he simply stared, and she could bear it no longer, the silence, the compassion, the pity, and so began to draw up her gown with fumbling fingers.
Suddenly a hand grasped, hauling her forward, velvet softness meeting the damaged skin above her breast, and her eyes snapped shut.
With mind ablur, Jack traced the ragged outline with his lips, heard a sob, continued, never to cease.
The whoreson had marked her, as though his animal to brand and claim, the agony, the blood loss she’d suffered as she’d lain unconscious in that damp cave for hours, her beloved lying dead by her side – two stone effigies in a rock-cut church.
When Tamsyn had tugged her bodice down, he’d thought heaven had taken him. Then his gaze had shifted, hellish rage igniting, wicked and blistering.
Yet he’d seen the anguish on Tam’s beautiful face, realised his destructive temper held no place this night. Instead, he’d battled to quash it, breathed deep and sought peace. Sought life.
Now drawing back from her skin, he encountered eyes so fiercely closed that ridges had emerged on her lids, tears seeping beneath the gold-tipped lashes to trail her cheek. He pressed another kiss and stared at those scars.
They represented cruelty, death and fear. He would change that forever.
He would twist it, turn it upon its head.
“Feathered Thorn,” he murmured.
Blue-soaked eyes unlocked. “What?”
He traced the letters again, felt her shudder. “These are no scars of darkness, Tamsyn, but of victory and life, and as such, you should make them part of you, part of who you are.”
She stared at him dismayed, and he realised he wasn’t explaining himself well at all, the silver-tongued libertine making a botch of it.
“You must embrace them and break the bonds that tie that fiend to them.”
“They’re so ugly,” she cried. “You don’t under–”
“No, Tamsyn, they are not ugly.” Reaching out, he began to pull the pins from her hair. “They are part of a beautiful whole, beautiful within and without. No more will they represent that evil. He may have carved them but now they represent…the Feathered Thorn, the winged creature you adore, the one we watched that night, darting free and wild.”
“I…” She gazed down, as though debating, walnut hair now swathing her shoulders. “That has to be both the strangest and most enchanting idea I’ve ever heard.” She nibbled her lip. “Feathered Thorn,” she whispered huskily, “one of my favourites.”
Her voice cast a wild shiver through him. He ought to be rendering comfort and reassurance, but still she straddled his thighs, breasts so very near, emerald choker demanding his teeth, silken skin teasing with almond scent.
This overwhelming arousal didn’t give a damn for her scars. It yearned for Tamsyn alone, the whole woman with all her beauty and all her flaws. His mind conjured wicked images of lovers entwined in the cool twilight, her flame bright, gasping his name as he made her his.
She shifted, thighs grazing, breasts lifting with every shallow breath and his fists clenched. Torment.
“Tamsyn.” His voice was hoarse. “We need to mov–”
“Kiss me.”
Jack tensed, closed his eyes to the temptation before him – entreating lips and flowing wild hair. He’d solely to lift a hand. To touch. To take. “Tam, I can’t.”
“Oh, I understand. Of course.” Her voice broke on a sob, and he cracked open an eye to see her fingers scrabbling with the buttons, covering her misery beneath his gaze.
No, she hadn’t understood at all.
And there was only one way she would. Words could never be enough.
Grabbing hold of her trembling hand, he yanked it to his chest, to his thundering heart.
Her eyes widened.
But it felt so perfect.
Lower, he laced their fingers, firmly trailing her palm over his silk-clad ribcage, down over his flat stomach.
She bit her lip.
But it felt so divine.
Shuddering, he continued until her small hand skittered over the band of his pantaloons, and then enveloped his blatant arousal. He pressed. Groaned.
She gasped.
Indeed.
Despite her tanned complexion, a blush swept her cheeks as she gawked, hand lightly clenching. He groaned anew, hips thrusting instinctively.
“Do you now understand why I cannot kiss you, Tamsyn Penrose? It is because I want you, all of you. I ache with sinful hunger.” He gritted his teeth. “But I also care for you and I will not take your innocence.”
“I only asked for a kiss,” she whispered.
He laughed wryly. “And I only have so much control. You are sitting astride me, my mouth inches from your breasts. It would take so little, Tamsyn. To lick your skin. To push your skirts aside, to undo my breeches, wrench you forward, to…”
Her breathing shallowed and putting action to those words was all that consumed him.
But brave Tamsyn deserved more. A husband. A man with principles and honour. Not a Winterbourne rogue who’d break her heart.
And so, with every vein of his body screaming its dissent, he removed her hand.
Sensing her eyes upon him, he tugged the gown to her shoulders, ignored the swell of her breasts, the silk of her throat.
He cursed as the fingers of a so-called urbane seducer shook like an unlicked cub’s, but one by one the buttons slipped into place.
Right up to the neck.
Palms to the side of his face took him by surprise. The kiss even more so. Innocent and sensual. Gentle and strong. Tamsyn.
Lips abandoned his and he starved for their return.
“Thank you, Jack,” she murmured softly. “Thank you, my honourable rogue.”
Yes. A rogue was who he was. They must both remember that.
With time, he would forget Tamsyn, forget this overwhelming need.
And to ensure she also forgot him, he must remind her of who he was.
“I’m no honourable man, Tamsyn. I’m a rogue. A rogue who lives for pleasure and little else.”
But the words tasted like ash. Sour, dirty and so very wrong.