Delphine Dryden - Gossamer Wing

Now she looked like a fallen woman, gorgeously debauched and sleeping the sleep of the exhausted unrighteous in his bed. A fallen, lascivious angel.

She was an angel who would be his only for a few precious weeks or months, if all went as expected in France. Then they would complete their masquerade with a genteel separation upon returning to America. At such time as either of them wanted to marry again in the future, there would be a discreet divorce or, if they could convince the court they qualified, an annulment.

For Crown and country, Dexter reminded himself. But here in the dark it was just the two of them, and Dexter found himself wishing the storm could go on indefinitely.

“But it’s stopped,” he realized.

“Mmm?” Charlotte nestled against his chest, eyes still closed.

“The storm has passed. Shh, go back to sleep.”

She clung to him a moment, but he worked his way free of the tangled bedclothes and her enticing limbs to leave the berth. The gaslights, with their automatic pilots, were back on, and he turned them all down carefully while checking for damage about the cabin and ascertaining that it was still night.

After taking care of other needs he returned to the soft, warm cocoon of the bunk, and the woman still curled there with one hand tucked under her chin.

She was awake, and watching him.

“I don’t suppose I could convince you it was a very bad idea, and we must never repeat it?”

Dexter grinned. “Never in a million years. Do you really not want to repeat it?”

Charlotte sat up, taking his breath away. She was still gloriously naked, and seemed to have overcome her shyness. Knowing her even a little Dexter suspected it was a brave front, a point of pride with her not to seem ashamed of herself or her actions. He admired that, and admired her. He already wanted her again.

“It doesn’t matter whether I want it. Animals want . Human beings reason . I can forgive myself a momentary lapse, but I have a job to do and mustn’t lose sight of my mission.”

Which Dexter knew was absolutely true. But for at least the next week, it was a moot point and they both knew it.

He drew his legs in and pulled the curtain closed, not bothering to fasten it but hoping to recreate the earlier mood. Charlotte reached out and batted the curtain open again, seeming to relax a bit once her view of the cabin was restored. The storm had brought warmer air, it seemed, and the small enclosure was humid now. Dexter could feel the linen of his shirt sticking to his back. Funny, how little things could be magnified when one was aroused. As though all the nerves were suddenly operating at higher capacity.

“Human beings are animals,” he reminded her, peeling the shirt off, “and though we can reason, we also have needs. We deny that part of our nature at our peril. People are also, I think, a bit like temperamental machines. We need to run at full speed sometimes, and stretch to our capacity. It clears the works, helps the settings keep their calibration. A steam car that’s never throttled all the way up wears out faster than one that gets used at top speed on occasion, did you know that?”

“I am not a steam car, Lord Hardison.”

Oh, but it was arch, her expression and the words she spoke. He felt a hint of something devilish and raw. Not only desire. She made him want to play .

“You’re a very fine machine indeed, Lady Hardison. If you were my steam car, I’d run you at full throttle nightly.”

She couldn’t resist answering in kind, but her question was more pointed than he had expected.

“The sort of steam car you purchase outright? Or the kind you lease on holiday and return after a fortnight when the thrill of driving something new has worn off?”

He felt the smile play around his lips, a grace note of admiration rising above the symphony already filling his mind. “I suspect it would take a good deal longer than a fortnight.”

She bit her lower lip, worrying it for a moment, and then repeated quietly, “I am not a steam car.”

Mere hours earlier, he had asked her a question in much the same tone of voice. Must we pretend ? They both wanted something more straightforward, apparently. The pretense had ended. Earlier it had seemed easier because lust was motivating them both. Reasoning her into doing it again, Dexter realized, would take more work.

“Give me this week,” he suggested, not sure where the inspiration had come from. “While we’re still on the ship. Once we’re in France . . . we’ll reevaluate.”

Silence. Stillness. And then a small, quick nod, so subtle he almost missed it in the dark.

DEXTER HAD FOUND it easy enough before, if frustrating, to pretend he was a love-struck buffoon. He had enjoyed Charlotte’s company, her quick mind and sly wit. It was especially amusing to see her fool people into thinking she was a blithe, vapid bit of society fluff.

Now he had a new element to contend with, something novel to him and quite unexpected. Jealousy . Dexter found himself following his young bride about the ship all day, bristling whenever she encountered another man who seemed to appreciate what he saw in her.

That was practically every man, of course. Even the ones who assumed her head was empty couldn’t help but take the measure of her body with their eyes. She was tiny but perfect, a pocket Venus as Matthew Pence had once described her, and Dexter knew only too well the temptation presented by those dainty curves. A creature so delicate made any man feel larger and stronger, more protective. He had to constantly repress the urge to lift her, to carry her. If he could have, he would have stowed her in his pocket for safekeeping.

Days became insubstantial and too long, a purgatory of waiting for darkness. Nights were almost painfully real, fierce and sweet and desperate. He found Charlotte’s passion astonishing, her occasional reticence a delightful challenge. He pushed, even as he knew she was still holding back some part of herself. He told himself each day that he would stop that night, talk with her, find the root of her fears and concerns so he could vanquish them.

But each night she was there in the berth. So vital, so much more present than anybody he had ever known. Though Dexter took, he knew Charlotte was taking too, using him to exorcise some personal demon of hers. How could he mind, when the process took him to Heaven again and again? But how could he ignore her obvious emotional pain? When he asked, she never would say what was wrong.

Later, we can sort it out later. We’ll reevaluate after we get to Honfleur .

He didn’t want to repair Charlotte, because she wasn’t broken, even if she thought she was. He wanted to recondition her, body and soul, restoring ease and flexibility where stiffness and wear had taken over. If she were a steam car, or any other type of mechanism imaginable, he could have fixed her up by now and had her running like the finest Swiss clockwork. But with a person, Dexter didn’t even know what tools to use.

It was a long week, but not nearly long enough. The charming, bubbly patter from Lady Hardison began to sound strained and forced to Dexter’s ears by the last few days of the voyage. His own attempts at manly bonhomie were exhausting him, and only partly due to the lack of sleep. Nobody else seemed to notice anything amiss. Perhaps they assumed the newlyweds had overdone it, a safe enough assumption, especially given how sick Lady Hardison had been during the first half of the voyage.

They were in the bunk, overdoing it for perhaps the last time when the captain’s voice on the intercom announced the French coast had been spotted. They would be landing in Le Havre in a few hours’ time.