“One day I hope to be able to explain everything to you,” he continued. “Please believe me when I say that it’s best if I don’t tell you the whole story yet.”
“It is your story, sir. You may tell whomever you wish to tell.”
“You deserve the truth.”
“Now that you mention it, I agree with you,” she said.
He smiled at her crisp tone. “I wish I was sailing back to London with you.”
“Do you?”
He put his hand over hers on the railing. For a heartbeat he did not move. She knew that he was waiting to see if she would pull her fingers free of his grasp. She did not move, either.
He caught her hand and turned her slowly around to face him.
“I’m going to miss you, Amity,” he said.
“I will miss you, as well,” she whispered.
He drew her to him and took her mouth with his own.
The kiss was everything she had dreamed it would be and so much more—darkly passionate, utterly thrilling. She put her arms around his neck and parted her lips. His scent captivated her. She breathed him in. A sweet, hot hunger uncoiled deep inside. Fearful of causing him pain, she was careful not to lean too heavily against him even though she wanted to do so; oh, how she wanted to lose herself in the wonder of it all.
He dragged his mouth away from hers and kissed her throat. His hands moved to her waist and then slipped up the bodice of her gown until his fingers rested just beneath the weight of her breasts. The heat and fire on the distant horizon was an extraordinarily perfect backdrop to the fierce emotions that threatened to sweep her away. She gripped Benedict’s shoulders very tightly, seeking promises but knowing she would not get them—not tonight. Tonight was an ending, not a beginning.
Benedict gave a low groan, shifted his mouth back to hers and deepened the kiss. For a timeless moment the world beyond theNorthern Starceased to exist.
Driven by a passion that was unlike anything she had ever experienced, she longed to follow the kiss straight into the heart of the storm, as if there was no tomorrow. But with a low groan, Benedict broke off the embrace, setting her gently but firmly away from him.
“This is not the time or the place,” he said.
His voice was as harsh and as heavily freighted with the steel of his ironclad self-control as it had been the day she found him bleeding in the alley.
“Yes, of course, your wound,” she said quickly, mortified that in the heat of the moment she had forgotten all about his injury. “Forgive me. Did I hurt you?”
His eyes gleamed with dark amusement. He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. “My injury is the very last thing on my mind tonight.”
He walked her back to her stateroom and said good night at the door.
In the morning theNorthern Stardocked in New York. Benedict escorted her off the ship. A short time later he disappeared into a cab—and from her life. He never even bothered to send so much as a telegram from California.
Three
LONDON
Amity blamed herself for failing to realize until too late that there was a man concealed in the shadows of the cab. It was the rain, she concluded. Under most circumstances she would have been far more observant. Traveling abroad, she made it a point to pay strict attention when she found herself in unfamiliar surroundings. But this was London. One did not expect to be kidnapped straight off the street in broad daylight.
True, she had been distracted when she left the lecture hall. She was still fuming because of the countless inaccuracies in Dr. Potter’s lecture on the American West. The man was a benighted fool. He had never so much as set foot outside of England, let alone bothered to read her pieces in theFlying Intelligencer. Potter knew nothing of the West, yet he dared to present himself as an authority on the subject. It had been too much to take sitting down, so of course she had been forced to stand up and raise some serious objections.
That had not gone over well with Potter or his audience. She had been escorted out of the lecture hall by two stout attendants. She had heard the muffled snickers and disapproving sniffs from the crowd. Respectable ladies did not interrupt noted lecturers with the goal of correcting them. Luckily, none of those in the audience were aware of her identity. Really, one had to be so careful in London.
Irritated and eager to escape the dreary summer rain, she had leaped into the first cab that stopped in the street. That proved to be a serious mistake.
She barely had time to register the odd, shuttered windows and the presence of the other occupant before the man wrapped an arm around her neck and hauled her close against his chest. He pressed the tip of a very sharp object to her throat. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that he gripped a scalpel in one gloved hand.
“Silence or I’ll slice open your throat before it’s time, little whore. And that would be a pity. I’m so looking forward to photographing you.”
He spoke in a harsh whisper but the accent was unmistakably upper-class. His face was covered by a mask fashioned out of black silk. Openings for his eyes, nose and mouth had been cut into the fabric. He smelled of sweat, spice-scented cigarettes and expensive cologne. She was vaguely aware of the fine-quality wool of his coat because of the way he held her pinned against him.
