Chapter 7

The Following Night

Io was the first one to arrive at the deck chairs the next night and for a moment she wondered if Mr. Masterson would come. Perhaps he had only spent time out here when he'd been too ill to—

"Good evening, my lady," his familiar voice said from behind her.

Io smothered her likely fatuous smile before turning. "Did you get caught in Mrs. Jordan's clutches again, Mr. Masterson?"

He gave her that faint smile that she had somehow begun to view as charming, rather than superior and irritating, and lowered himself into the deckchair Io now thought of as his.

"It is no great hardship to dance with Miss Jordan. She is a sweet girl."

Io's hackles rose. "She is eighteen, Mr. Masterson, hardly a girl. And I suspect her sweetness is another word for ignorance."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that if her mother has her way, Miss Jordan will be married and swelling with her first child this time next year."

His handsome features rearranged themselves into a chiding expression. "That seems an unnecessarily harsh pronouncement, not to mention vulgar and not the sort of comment you'd want to make in company."

Io shrugged off his annoying chastisement, unwilling to be distracted from her point. "But it is true all the same, is it not?"

"Have you paused to consider that it isn't just Mrs. Jordan who would like to see her daughter married? Perhaps Miss Jordan would like a husband and children as well."

Io snorted. "That is what she thinks she wants because she has been told that is all she is good for her entire life." Masterson opened his mouth, but she did not give him an opportunity to speak. "Miss Jordan has the self-will of a veal calf and Mama Jordan is no different from a broker of cattle who wants their stock fat and sleek for the auction block, hoping for the wealthiest buyer. Not until her wedding night will poor Miss Jordan understand just whose blood will be spilled—and likely with as much compassion and tenderness as that which transpires in an abattoir."

Although Masterson's expression was as fixed and stern as ever, she could feel disproval rolling off him in waves. "Do you never think before you speak?"

Io bristled. "Do you?"

His lips pressed into a straight line. "If you think to shock me with vulgar references to fornication, you are doomed to disappointment, my lady. Just because I comport myself with decency and decorum"—his emphasis on those words left no doubt in Io's mind that he believed her bereft of both qualities— "does not mean I am some chicken-hearted namby-pamby to be unmanned by the crass utterances of a rebellious female bent on exhibiting all the worst characteristics of an adolescent stable lad."

Io laughed, delighted. "My, my, Mr. Masterson, it appears you have not been tamed, neutered, and domesticated just like a lady's lapdog, after all."

The look he gave her was withering. "Do not push me too far, or you will find out just how undomesticated I am, madam."

"Is that so? I believe I will take that as a challenge to arms, Mr. Masterson."

His eyes narrowed. "Tell me, Lady Io, do you think yourself so much better than other women that you revile all those who desire marriage and a family?"

She blinked at his sudden change in subject. "I do not revile them. And I do not think myself better than other women." Io felt a twinge of guilt at the claim but shoved it aside. She turned on her deck chair so she could face him directly. "You said that Miss Jordan was a pretty girl."

"I did. And I stand by my observation."

"In one way at least, you are right."

"Why do I think I will regret asking what you mean by that?" Masterson said dryly.

"She is still a girl when it comes to what to expect on her wedding night."

His expression shifted subtly, exposing the censure she had known he felt toward her all along. "Yet again you are bringing up what goes on in someone else's bedchamber. What point do you hope to make?" His frown deepened. "Unless you are only harping on this subject in the hopes of outraging me? If so, you have sorely failed, my lady. All you have done is give me a disgust of your sordid interest."

Io absolutely adored this side of the erstwhile starchy man!

"My point is that Miss Jordan—just like those cows in my earlier analogy—is marching to the slaughter completely innocent of her fate. Like those cows, she has been deliberately kept ignorant of what awaits her. Nobody will tell her what to expect or how her body will never again belong to her once she is married. How her husband may impregnate her or beat her or lock her away if he wishes. How he may take mistresses and bring home diseases and—"

"What has happened to make you this way?" he asked, a glimmer of morbid fascination in his gray eyes.

"What way?"

"So bitter and disillusioned about men and women and the institution of marriage?"

Io gave a bitter laugh. "Now there is a question that only a man would ask." She got to her feet. "No, do not get up. I am leaving. I am too angry to discuss this rationally with you," she admitted, wanting to get away from him before she was reduced to slinging insults. "I bid you goodnight, sir."

Only when Io made it to the inner stairwell did she realize the thudding she heard wasn't coming from inside her head, but footsteps beside her.

She stopped and turned. "What are you doing?"

"I am escorting you back to your cabin," Masterson said.

"Why?"

"Because it is a gentleman's duty to—"

"Bullshit." To say the vulgar word was satisfying. To watch its effect on Masterson—who appeared to be carved from stone—was even more pleasurable.

Io enjoyed his reaction until he began to gather his scattered wits.

"I insist you allow me to accompany you," he said stiffly.

"You didn't walk me back to my room every other night. Why now?"

He looked pained. "I was hardly in any condition to—"

"Oh, just go away! I don't need you. I've survived the last few nights without you, not to mention the first twenty-five years of my life." She turned and strode off without another word, aware of his presence just slightly behind her.

Io ignored him. Or at least she tried to.

The truth was, she couldn't ignore Corbin Masterson even when she tried her hardest.

And that scared her more than her foolish journey to Five Points unattended had done.

***

Corbin was confused.

One moment, he and Lady Io had been pleasantly conversing almost like friends.

The next, she'd launched on a tirade about young women and marriage and cattle and it had been as if a cyclone had suddenly risen up in front of him. Her anger had turned into barely restrained rage in the blink of an eye.

It had been more than a little disturbing.

When they reached her cabin, she fumbled with her key and dropped it.

Corbin bent and picked it up. "Allow me," he murmured, relieved when she didn't argue.

He unlocked the door, opened it, waiting for her to enter before saying. "Good ni—" that was as far as he got when hot, soft lips molded to his mouth.

The excuse that Corbin would cling to when he thought about his behavior later, was that he was still not up to snuff after his illness.

Because instead of stepping back like a gentleman would, Corbin wrapped his arms around her lush body with a groan and walked her backward into the room, hooking his foot on the door and kicking it shut behind him.

Io Hale was every bit as savage and passionate as Corbin had imagined, her mouth impossibly sweet, her uncorsetted, unbustled, and uncaged body nothing but soft, full curves.

Corbin had never before kissed a woman who attempted to consume him, but he should have expected it from her.

While they jousted with their tongues, he allowed himself to do something he had been fantasizing about for weeks—from the moment he had met her, if he was honest with himself—and slid his hands from her waist down to the feminine flare of her hips, his fingers stretching to grip her lush bottom.

Rather than earn him a slap—which part of him expected—she gave an approving groan and thrust herself against him, her hands firmly stroking his body until she grabbed the globes of his ass with both hands and squeezed. Hard.

Arousal tinged with amusement flared inside of him at her obvious aping of his own action. In response, he caressed his way back up to the uncorsetted nip of her waist, over her small ribcage, and came to rest on the sides of her body, his fingers scant, torturous inches from her magnificent breasts.

Yet again, Lady Io did not respond as he expected.

While her hands slid around his body and under his coat, they moved south instead of north. Her fingers digging into the sensitive muscles of his stomach while she ground her hips against him, her mound rubbing against his raging erection until he was slick with pre-ejaculate.

Corbin knew that together they were making a mortifying wet stain on his trousers but could not bring himself to care.

Christ! Her hands felt good.

He thrust his dick against her and thumbed the peaked tips of her breasts.

She let out a low, animal groan and plucked at his waistcoat and shirt before pulling away from his lips, panting hard. "Take off your clothes. I want you inside me."

The effect of her words was unlike anything he had ever experienced. He was simultaneously molten inside while his skin prickled as if somebody had just thrown icy water on him.

You are groping your best friend's sister. The woman Hastings asked you to protect.

"What is it, Masterson?" She demanded when he froze.

He looked down into her eyes. The lust that had been blazing in them dimming even as he watched, like a dark cloud passing over a brilliant sky.

Corbin stepped back. Or at least he tried to, but his hands were so happy on her breasts that they had other ideas.

Release her, he barked, thankfully only in his mind.

Io literally took the matters out of his hands by stepping back.

Once they were no longer touching, he gathered his wits enough to say, "I am deeply sorry."

She crossed her arms over her chest and, Lord, how he envied her forearms. "Sorry for what?"

Corbin's brows lowered. "For behaving so inappropriately."

"I am the one who kissed you, Masterson? Or have you forgotten? Should I apologize, too?"

He gritted his jaws to keep something sharp and thoughtless from flying out of his mouth. "That is different."

"Why?"

"You know why."

"Because I am a woman," she said, her voice flat.

It was not a question, so Corbin didn't answer. Instead, he said, "I will speak to His Grace and explain—"

She closed the distance with a step, her body pressing against his—not in lust this time—her eyes as hard as granite. "If you say so much as one word to my brother about the minor, insignificant tussle we have just engaged in, I will—"

"Insignificant?"

Damn it! Why did he say that? And why did he sound so much like an injured schoolgirl?

"Yes, insignificant," she said, cutting him a nasty smile. "At least it was to me."

And then, to Corbin's regret, she stepped away from his body, strode to the door, and flung it open. "Get out."

Corbin hesitated, trying to think of something to say that might make this end differently—less…contentiously.

Her face was like a beautiful statue, but Corbin knew that she viewed his actions—putting a stop to their trysting—not as an attempt to save her reputation, but as a rejection of her.

As much as it pained him, he said nothing to change her mind. If she hated him, the less likely he was to forget who she was ever again.

Or, perhaps more importantly, he might not forget who he was.

John Hale's best friend and employee.

And also a man who had nothing to offer to any woman except an illegitimate name and empty pockets.