Chapter Thirteen

P ENELOPE'S CHEEK CHAFFED against the coat she'd made for her husband.

Her husband.

She was glad of the darkness. Glad of the wind.

The first hid her tears, the last dried them. The steady rhythm of the horse's hooves drummed out her fears. She resolved to hold Cheverley close, leaving questions for another time.

For now, she would seize sensation.

They flew over the field. Each time Chev's horse jumped she made a sound of unfettered joy. Each time, Chev answered with a low-bellied laugh.

His laugh. Sweet mercy, his laugh.

His laugh had always run though her like a spring—fresh and deep and cleansing. Her fingers bit into his ribs, wanting to clutch him so close, she'd never lose him again.

But such ownership was impossible. Hearts were but borrowed things, never belonging fully to anyone but the one in whom they were born.

She wiped her cheeks against his coat.

They'd spent so many nights apart, had matured living vastly different lives. But hadn't there always been a vast difference between them?

Could they face adult fears with adult wounds and without the trusting openness of youth?

The world could wound in so many ways. Every human heart held emptiness and light, just as sure as the heavens held blank spaces and stars.

She dried her eyes as they approached an outcropping of stone that marked the beginning of the cliffs that spilled to the sea. If any tears remained, he would know she knew he was Cheverley, that she was now certain.

As it was, she wasn't sure she could keep the knowledge from her face.

But he hadn't told her. Not yet. And Chev never did anything on a whim. Every decision was calculated. Every choice carefully parsed.

If he'd come home in disguise, he must have good reason.

He slowed the horse. She leaned back, allowing him to dismount, marveling at his ease. His injury had changed him, yes, but his new body had found a rhythm all his own. She had no doubt she'd fail to notice, in time.

Time. Years. Oh, heavens. They would have years ahead of them. Years of nights, of moonlit rides, but years. Together.

She moved to dismount on her own.

"Now, please," he chided. "Don't you trust me?"

She did. Enough to continue with this ruse. For now.

"Place your right arm around my neck, and your left on my shoulder.

She did. He scooped up her legs with his left arm and held her up with the crook of his right. If she hadn't held him tightly, she might have rolled from his grasp, but together, they managed a reasonably steady dismount.

She let her arms slide from his neck, but she kept her hand against the top of his shoulder.

"You can move to the other side."

His uninjured side.

"There's no need. I'm—I am—" She placed a shaking hand over her mouth, unable to say the word fine.

"Oh—oh," he soothed. "Did I frighten you? I am sorry. I should not have gone so fast."

She shook her head. "The ride was beautiful. It's just that... It's just that I feel—

He grinned. "Free?"

The opposite of free, actually. Was there a word for happily bound? She felt, if he remained by her side, she could surmount any obstacle. Conquer any foe.

It was happening again. Because of Chev, she could see doors of possibility where before there had been only walls.

But, would history repeat?

Would those doors shutter and leave her alone?

He spoke soothing things to his horse, as led them all to a sheltered area within the rocks. He secured his horse's reins.

"Come," he said to Pen. "Let us find a place where we can be out of the wind."

As they rambled around the rocks, he frequently stopped to give her his hand. He chose a place for them to sit between two large outcroppings, where they had a partial view of the horizon.

How had she not known him at once?

And now that she was certain, how could she keep from taking him into her arms and covering him in grateful kisses from head to toe?

"Tell me, Captain," she said. "Of all the places you've traveled, what do you think of Ithwick?"

His teeth flashed in the moonlight. "What proper Englishmen doesn't love a good ruin?"

"You are jesting," she said.

"Only in part. You must admit history's shadows run long in these parts. The standing stones alone have been there for thousands of years."

"Yes," she agreed. And still they retained their magic.

"What did you think of this place when you first came?" he turned around her question.

Always a specialty of his.

"I was not welcomed," she replied. "Not at first."

"But what did you feel? Of the landscape?"

"Ah," she breathed. "Stark beauty. The moors, and rocks, and woods have settled into my soul and will never depart."

"This is home, then?"

"Yes," she replied. "I never want to go anywhere else. I will wait for my husband to return."

"And what if he returns—as I have?"

"Dressed like a beggar?"

"You know that is not what I meant." He rested the elbow of his injured arm on one knee.

"Captain," she said, almost scolding. "I miss his heart. I miss the warmth of his body beside me in bed. I miss the way my heart lifted when he smiled."

She turned away. She could do this no longer.

"Penelope," he said softly.

He moved behind her, so she was sitting between his legs. She leaned back against his chest and turned her face upward toward his.

Stars sparkled around the shadow he made in the night, just they had on that first night in the alley behind the public assembly rooms.

Then, like now, she fancied he could be hers.

But that was the danger, wasn't it?

Even now, even after the terrible complexity of the wounds he'd revealed, even knowing he had not yet told her the truth, she would turn over her heart to him and accept him without reservation.

Once again, she'd pluck out his shiny pieces, and set them into a constellation of her own making, forgetting the terrifying power of the vast places between the stars, the emptiness that frightened.

But not enough to stop her desire.

"I don't want to talk of the past, or the future. I just want..." She paused.

The power of their first night together mingled with the power of now.

"What, Penelope? What do you want?"

She unfastened her outer cloak and pushed it off her shoulders. "I want you."

~~~

He shouldn't comply. Before he walked through the door she held open, he should be sure she knew who he was.

She reached up and curled her finger around the back of his neck.

"You said you could not deny me."

"No." He concentrated on the small circles she drew. "I said I would not deny you." One indicated helplessness. The other, choice. "If I acquiesce to your wishes, I will do so, not because I must, but because..."

"Because?"

He dropped his voice, "I wish to hear you laugh."

"Make me happy, then," she said. "Kiss me."

Again, he could not breathe, even in the sea-scented air. Penelope, the moonlight, the desire that simmered low—they vined around his heart and squeezed.

"Would you like me to kiss you?"

"Would I have led you here if I did not?"

When he'd held Pen in the shadow of the standing stones, she'd been confused by her reaction to "the captain."

Pen did not show an ounce of confusion, now.

He'd wager his last sixpence Pen knew who he was, though his secret wafted between them thin as candle smoke.

"I'm waiting," she said. "You cannot know how much I hate waiting."

With a rueful smile, he bent his head, brushed his lips against hers. A prickling sensation shot from his lips to his groin.

"Soft," she said. "Like a whisper."

"Like a secret." He feathered his lips along her cheek to her ear, marking her sweet face as his.

"Secrets must be whispered, mustn't they?" she asked. "Held sacred. Treated with the utmost care."

Care, like she'd taken with his new shirt and coat.

Care, like she'd taken with his son.

Care, like the way her fingers soothed the back of his neck in a firm, gyrating dance.

"And," she finished, "secrets must only be shared with those you treasure."

His head remained giddy, but dread pooled his stomach.

"Just kisses," he said—more to himself than to Pen.

"Just kisses," she replied. "And anything else you wish."

He froze. "Pen, I—I cannot."

She adjusted her legs, turning within his embrace until they faced one another.

"What can you do?" she asked.

His mind went blank. Then, flashes of yellow fire—flames that followed her fingers as they threaded through his hair. He couldn't bed his wife—he did not wish to even try. Not here.

Not yet.

Not until the truth between them had been acknowledged. Not until he was fully prepared to return home.

She tilted her face toward his in trust. "I will take whatever you can give me."

The other night, when he'd held her close, her name had kept him breathing.

Tonight, could her breath become his guide?

He claimed her mouth in a deeper kiss—releasing fears as if he were bailing water, trusting her breath to keep them both afloat.

"I can give you pleasure," he said.

Her chest rose and fell as he trailed his lips down her proffered neck.

He loosened the left side of her bodice; the right, he freed with his teeth. Nibbling soft kisses against the side of her throat, he slid his hand beneath the fabric and cupped her breast.

She whimpered as he ran his thumb over her nipple.

A stab of desire sliced through to his stomach. Sweet torture—she sighed into his ear—his cock filled, draining his head of blood, his lungs of air.

He stilled, cradling her gently between his thighs, riding the rise and fall of her breath, listening for soft sounds, her desire packed within her breath's ebb and flow.

"Captain."

Her whisper turned to groan as he draped her across his thighs.

"Open for me." He moved his lips to her breast. "Please."

She inched her skirt up around her thighs, though one arm remained around his back, holding on, fingers digging into his shoulder.

He reached beneath her skirts. Even before he reached the cleft between her legs, he met with heat. Her pale legs fell apart artlessly.

More memories slipped into place—like the clicking of an opening lock.

All the times they'd come together in intimate union, she'd never cared how she looked. Pen poured her all into sensation—both her own as well as his.

When she made love, when she danced, she was unaffected joy meeting complete, immodest surrender.

That had been why she'd entranced him from the first. Why he'd wanted to rescue her, protect her, keep her. But he hadn't.

And now she was rescuing him.

She writhed against his fingers, joining with him in search for her pleasure. Then, she found it—untapped and unable to be contained.

Fever broke in her breath, in her trembling limbs, in the sound of bliss that pillowed his ears.

He clasped her close, keeping his lips pressed to her temple as he rocked her back to this time.

He'd done it. He'd given his wife pleasure.

He hadn't thought of his terrors, his injury, of anything else but Pen. He had remained anchored by her breath.

He blinked until the evening cold tingled in the dampness between his lashes.

He could have done anything in that moment, even leap from the cliffs and flown.

And the final, hidden memory slipped into place.

Limitless possibility—this was how Penelope had always made him feel.

~~~

Shameless .

She nearly chuckled.

She hadn't a hint of shame.

She'd exposed herself to the captain, let the him shatter her into tiny pieces, let him hear her unfettered cries. Let him? She'd practically begged him. And she hadn't told him she knew.

She hadn't needed to tell him.

Truth existed between their bodies, a recognition that went beyond words.

He'd known it. Felt it.

Hadn't he?

She shivered with a dawning chill. She flicked her skirts down over her legs and then moved to adjust her bodice.

"Allow me."

His voice returned some of her warmth.

She looked up into his face. He smiled.

Oh yes. He knew. Her Chev. He would tell her soon. He must. He would tell her, and they would oust those rotten men and start to rebuild. Together.

Just as they were working together to refasten her hooks.

"You must think—" she started.

"Hush," he said against her temple. "I'm endeavoring not to think at all."

She nodded and sighed. Silent recognition would be enough for tonight.

He'd suffered so such—had so many scars. She must trust that he would, in small measures, continue to reveal the truth.

Faith again.

And waiting.

"I'm not very good at faith," she said aloud.

"Aren't you?" he asked.

She shook her head no.

"Where do you get your strength?" he asked.

"From the hope that—" she stopped.

"Well, then." He lifted his brows. "Hope is a kind of faith, isn't it? And, you are very good at dwelling in hope."

Dwelling in hope. She liked that.

She was very good at hoping. Who else would have waited for an absent husband for thirteen years?

She glanced up. "I may be too good at hoping, in fact."

"My dear—" he stopped abruptly, and his smile disappeared.

"What is it?" she asked.

He placed a finger over her lips, tilting his head as if encouraging her to listen.

They were no longer alone.

Silently, she pulled her legs up to her chest, and he drew his dark coat over her petticoats, whose light color practically screamed in the moonlight. Even in this, he was thinking of her.

He was her Chev but changed.

Together, they inched back into the shadows.

A few more moments passed before she heard them distinctly.

Voices. Men's voices.

Wedged between the rock and his body, she could see nothing, but the sound of the voices grew louder.

~~~

Pen moved back into the shadows entirely without sound. What Chev could not hear, he could feel. She tucked her silver-blonde hair beneath her black wool cloak, even as he'd covered her petticoats with his, both ensuring nothing light-colored would accidentally reveal their position.

He placed the strange sense of connection—of comradery—it was like the bonds he shared with his naval brothers...the knowledge that one did not work alone, but in concert.

In trust.

As captain, he held the primary responsibility for his crew, but he worked with confidence, knowing he was not alone.

He experience the same with Pen.

He could work, knowing she would be working beside him, thinking with him, beyond him, even.

As with his fellow officers, he could trust her to fill gaps he missed, making their combined defenses impenetrable.

In the past, he'd failed to understand their mutual dependence. Failed to trust her strength. This time, he vowed, would be different.

The voices were close now—men, moving not-so-silently through the night, their whispers fizzling like ash into the darkness.

Chev's heart thudded in his throat.

Smugglers. The unseen. Smuggling had dwindled, not stopped. The goods could even have come from the ship Emmaus had spoken about.

And, from the path the men had taken up from the harbor, they would have had to walk right past Sir Jerold's militia.

Then again, why should he be surprised?

Officers and smugglers often worked in consort. Most of the time, the only way a man ended up caught smuggling was if he went against his own.

The men passed by in groups of two—one man in front, one behind, a chest between each pair. Two, four, six, eight.

One of the men stumbled and cursed.

The line came to a halt.

"That's the last time, I tell you." A man spoke.

"You whine like a woman." A second man said.

Penelope's spine stiffened.

"I almost died back there," the first man spoke again. "Could've been you and you know it. There's no way an inexperienced man could climb down that cliff."

"Shut it, would you?" A third man called. "I told you they won't be going down that way."

"Then how—"

"I said"—the third man lifted a flintlock—" shut it. "

Silence fell among the group.

"Now," the third man said, "let's get these to the storerooms, shall we? Quietly. "

The line of men moved slowly across the field, not bothering to hide themselves in the least.

"Looks like we'll be here for a while," Chev whispered into Penelope's hear, "you had better get comfortable."

Penelope nodded, turning her face into his chest.

He held her head beneath his chin as he considered what he had just heard.

Why would one of the smugglers complain that the cliff was too difficult for an inexperienced man to climb down?

The smugglers only transported goods.

Or were they planning to transport men?