9. 8 September, 1826

Grosvenor Street Townhouses

Despair had never been something Cassandra Collins had contemplated. But now, with the most unaware, sensuous man she"d ever known sitting across from her, despair swirled around her like swells on a becalmed sea. He was a good man but really nothing more than just another entitled man. Entitled men had been the bane of her existence for so long, she"d nearly forgotten her first encounter.

And now nothing more than a ridiculously fragile tea table was all that separated the two of them.

She"d grown up the daughter of a whaling sea captain, despising the way she and her mother were forced to fend for themselves for months, sometimes years at a time. And then, inexplicably, she"d forgotten all that when a tall, dark-eyed English merchant captain had romanced her away from what she now realized was a safe and comfortable existence on Nantucket.

With all the confidence of a girl of sixteen, she"d told her mother she"d never stay home waiting for a man to return from the sea. She"d sail with her husband, they"d be partners. Her mother had simply shaken her head and pulled young Cassie close for a kiss before sending her off to sea with her love.

He"d died in her arms a year later in Kingston, Jamaica, shaking with chills on the hottest night she"d ever endured. She was left alone, not even allowed to stay aboard the ship, her only home. She"d considered writing to her mother for help, but hated the thought of the pity she"d see in her mother"s eyes.

She"d soon found a position as housekeeper on a sugar plantation on the north side of the island. For the first year, she"d been happy managing the large house and setting to rights the neglect of previous housekeepers. And then the young, aristocratic master had arrived from England to take over management of the thousands of acres owned by his family. Her thoughts shuttered at that point in her memory. What happened next was too painful to bear revisiting.

Lord Framlingwood finally looked up from the stack of household reports he"d been carefully reading. His dark blue eyes were like the dangerous, deep pools at the bottom of waterfalls in Jamaica. The beckoning hue of the water seemed like an invitation to lose oneself by diving into the depths, but the rocks hidden beneath could be lethal. Cassandra knew better, but she couldn"t help being pulled into the earl"s quirky charm, not unlike that of a small boy whose antics you forgave in spite of his naughty pranks.

He was always the consummate gentleman during their frequent talks about the state of his mistresses" dwellings. However, she knew enough of the ways of men to not be duped. He wanted her.

An earl, of all men, would never stoop to going over the minutiae of household management, week after week. No, he was not interested in how many bottles of wine were consumed amongst the five townhouses. He wanted her. If she were truthful, she"d admit to a great deal of wanting on her part as well, but that way lay disaster and ruin, a sad lesson she"d learned well.

"Is anything amiss, milord?"

And then he did the very thing she"d feared from the beginning. He slowly moved his hand across the tea table until it gently closed over hers. "Didn"t I ask you to please call me by my first name when we"re here, away from all the formal twiddling of the rest of the world?"

She stood suddenly, gently disentangling her hand from beneath his, his hand with the long, tapering fingers tanned from days aboard his beloved ship. She walked away from the table toward the long parlor window overlooking the kitchen garden. She had to have her say without staring into his dangerous blue eyes, and she had to do it quickly.

"Derek...there"s something I have to tell you. And please don"t interrupt until you"ve heard me out."

"I"m sorry...," he began.

"Don"t...please, just listen." She pulled a handkerchief from inside one of her sleeves and dabbed at her eyes. "I have a great deal of respect for you as my employer and I"m so grateful to have found this position, but I cannot endanger my standing here, or my reputation." She turned then and added, "For any reason."

"I understand," he said, and stood, the tortured look in his eyes gutting her. "I"ll leave you now."

Cassandra vowed not to turn around and watch the earl leave. That she couldn"t bear, but for some reason the infernal man took his time before she finally heard the parlor door open and then snick shut. Why in Hera"s name had he lingered. Did he think she"d change her mind?

At the sound of finality of the earl finally leaving her parlor, she sank onto the window seat, pulled a cushion to her face and allowed herself a long, noisy weep that hopefully, none of the other servants would hear.

Friday,8 September

Earl"s Bedchamber

Number One Townhouse, Grosvenor Street

Obadiah tried pulling the pillow over top of his head to hide the noises emanating from Adrienne"s bedchamber, but the feather-filled pillow was no match for her ever increasing shrieks of pleasure.

He sat straight up in bed again. What the hell was the earl doing to her? More importantly, what had she done to encourage the man to such heights of depraved love-making?

A low groan was building to a crescendo when suddenly there was a change in the tone of Adrienne"s voice. The previous low hums of pleasure had turned into pleas for mercy.

"Nooooo..." The tone in her voice now switched from pleasure to moans of pain. Obadiah leapt from the damned bed, pulled on his trousers, and raced bare-footed through the adjoining dressing room. When he flung open the far door to Adrienne"s bedchamber, he feared the hinges wouldn"t hold. By that time, the anger behind his eyes had built so precipitously he was in the throes of blind rage.

"Adrienne--." He searched wildly for the man inflicting such pain, but all he saw was the object of his terror sitting cross-legged on mussed silk sheets, munching calmly on an apple. She was clad only in a silk dressing gown trimmed with wide lace that left nothing to his imagination as to what lay beneath the barely closed wrap.

He swallowed and took a mighty breath before loosing his ire. "What in the hell do you think you"re doing? Where is he?"

"He who?"

After that saucy reply, Obadiah did not trust himself to move or speak further. He stood seething in the middle of the room, clenching and unclenching his fists. "Explain yourself" was the only thing he could manage to get past his similarly clenched teeth.

"See, this is just what I thought you"d do."

"What?" His aversion to killing a woman as beautiful as Adrienne was all that kept him from throttling her.

"I had to find out." She took another juicy bite from the apple and glared back at him from beneath the long, dark curls he"d loved to run his hands through when she belonged to him. "You see, if Derek had been here, you"d have ended up at the wrong end of a hangman"s noose for assaulting a peer."

After counting to one-hundred, twice, he ground out, "And that"s why you performed this bedroom farce?"

"Of course."

Obadiah calculated how long the earl must have been gone and then surveyed her carefully staged scene. He snorted in derision before pointing a finger at the conniving woman. "You didn"t have to stage this elaborate plan. You knew exactly what I"d do if I thought you were being harmed." This...this..." He spread his arms wide. "Is nothing more than a ruse to get me back in your bed. You want it all. You want the earl at your beck and call and me in your bed as well."

At that she threw the apple at him and climbed to her knees, causing the dressing gown to fall open. He spun away from the sight of the infernal woman"s glorious breasts beneath the gown and covered his eyes, as if he could wipe away the memory of that view. He finally found the strength to speak again in low, guttural sounds. "Enough...I"ve had enough. You win. I"ll ask Captain El tomorrow to find someone else to guard your precious body." With that, he strode back through the changing rooms, back to the peace of the master"s chamber and locked the door behind him.

Adrienne"s achingknees brought her back to reality. What a pompous, egotistical bastard Obadiah Lassen had become. She supposed there were waves of willing women at Goodrum"s that threw themselves at his feet nightly.

When she"d left him while he"d been at sea with Captain El, he didn"t even try to find her when he came back. She meant nothing to him. She was just another mermaid in a sea of maidens eager to climb onto his cock. The thought of that scene brought her back to reality.

She sobered then and found a suitably plain dress in her wardrobe. Obadiah Lassen had always had a place in her heart. He still did and probably always would. She knew that better than anyone. Furthermore, Adrienne couldn"t bear the thought of leaving all of the earl"s mistresses to the mercy of some other guard in El"s employ. Obadiah was the best. He"d keep all of them safe until the blackmailer was found and dealt with. She"d go apologize, beg, and grovel to keep him from leaving in a fit of pique over her subterfuge.

She giggled then and had to admit the sight of him in nothing but his trousers raging into her bedchamber had been worth enduring his wrath. She was certain he"d locked the dressing room door on his side of the master"s chambers, but she knew another way in. There had been a short time, four years earlier, when she and Derek had shared the master"s enormous bed. That was before the earl had become hopelessly entangled in Mrs. Collins" warm, hazel eyes and husky voice.

She knew the detour off the back servants" passage which led to a door hidden within the wallpaper pattern in the master"s chamber. When she nudged the door, it swung open silently, revealing Obadiah sprawled in his favorite sleeping pose on his back, both legs bare outside the counterpane and his arms flung wide.

He didn"t move when she crept across the room, but when she sat on the side of the bed, he sat up and pulled her toward him, crushing her to his powerful chest. "You scared me to death tonight. I thought he was hurting you."

"I"m truly sorry, but I only meant to test you to see if you"d stay away if you thought I was, um, with the earl."

He gave her a long, hungry stare in the light of the candle stub on the chest next to the bed. "And how did I do?"

"What do you mean?" She opened her eyes wide.

"Did I pass the test?"

She trembled and was afraid to say anything else. When her hand shook, he took the candle from her she"d brought along through the passageway and placed it safely alongside the other on the chest.

"Please don"t leave us because of my foolishness. We need you. You"re the best guard at Goodrum"s."

He didn"t answer but closed in on her lips and claimed them in a long kiss, sucking and licking at her bottom lip until a small moan escaped from her throat.

"I don"t know why you left me. I don"t know why you"re still with him, but I do know one thing."

"Wh-hat?" She still shivered from the feel of him, the fear of his reaction to her foolish earlier charade.

"You belong to me, Adrienne Godet. You always have. You"re mine." He pulled her around to face him squarely and spread her legs around his waist. "Take that off," he ordered, and she pulled the dress over her head.

When his hardened cock thumped an impatient beat against her mound, her cunny sickened with juices. Without warning, he claimed another long kiss, lifted her bottom, and slid inside her. The years they"d been apart and all the resentment she"d felt melted away until she wondered why she"d ever left.

They remained face-to-face, and he added his clever thumb to the movement of his cock. Just as she screamed his name and was about to reach her own peak, he withdrew suddenly, laid her gently back onto the pillows and placed another pillow beneath her lower back. When he entered her again, he gave three long, leisurely thrusts before he began moving quickly inside her.

When she pushed at his chest to remind him there could be no child, he gave one last thrust and spent within her. When she tried to push him away quickly to minimize the danger, he held her in a fierce grip and repeated in her ear, "You are mine, Adrienne."

"But what if there"s a child?" Her voice rose petulantly.

"He"ll be mine too." He rubbed her back lazily until she fell asleep in his bed. Obadiah smiled into the darkness after he snuffed the candles and rejoined her, carefully covering their sweat-slickened bodies with the earl"s elegant sheets.