Captive Hearts Read online

  She wanted to draw him. When her memory grew clouded by time, her drawings would aid her in remembering him more clearly. Her throat ached as she collected her pack and opened it. Withdrawing several sheets of paper, she sat down at Matthew’s desk. Using a piece of charcoal, she quickly sketched his reclining form.

  Asleep, he looked younger even with the heavy shadow of beard darkening his jaw. The intensity of his gaze, his personality, was relaxed for the moment.

  She worked for nearly an hour while Matthew slept.

  Her attention remained focused on him so intently she was only vaguely aware of the chill in the room.

  He stirred, and she froze. For the first time, she wondered how he would feel about being drawn while in so vulnerable a position. Her stiff muscles protested as she rose from the chair to put away the drawings. Black dust from the charcoal coated the desk, and she quickly wiped the wooden surface clean with a rag. She walked to the washstand and scrubbed her stained hands and washed her face.

  Matthew threw back the bedclothes and rose to his feet. Her mouth went dry just watching him. His skin looked dark against the white bandage around his forearm. Broad of shoulder and wide of chest, his muscular torso tapered to a lean waist and hips. Dark hair grew in swirls across his chest then arrowed down the center of his flat stomach to blossom into a dark thatch that framed his sex. Long and hard, it jutted out from his body as it had the night before. His long legs looked as powerful and well shaped as the rest of him. He brushed her mouth with a quick kiss then disappeared into the water closet.

  Her cheeks burning, she poured water into the bowl and soaped a rag. Leaving the shirt on, she ran the cloth

  between her legs to ease the soreness there. She jerked it away as Matthew left the water closet, and offered him a tentative smile as his reflection appeared in the mirror next to hers. His arms went around her waist, and he nuzzled the sensitive area between her neck and shoulder. Katherine shivered in response as delightful tremors raced down her spine.

  “You’re cold. Come back to bed.” He gave her no time to respond, but scooped her up and carried her to the bunk.

  “Woman, those have to be the coldest feet I have ever felt,” he complained as he cradled her close to share his warmth.

  She laughed as she tossed the wet rag toward the washbasin and missed.

  “What have you been doing while I slept?” he asked.

  She saw no reason not to tell him. “I have been drawing.”

  He grasped her hand still slightly stained with charcoal and studied it before he bent his head to kiss her palm. “It’s more than just a casual entertainment to you, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I think I may be able to make a living with it, if I can find an agent willing to sell my paintings for me.”

  “Why would you have to have someone act on your behalf?”

  “When a man paints, it is his profession. When a woman does it, it is a hobby. When a man sells his wares, it is business. When a woman does it, it is unseemly.

  People will pay a great deal more for paintings done by a man than a woman as well.”

  “It sounds as though you’ve experienced those problems first hand already.”

  She nodded. “A month before his death, my brother sold two of my paintings for a hundred pounds apiece. I had been offered ten pounds for both a month before.”

  “How did your father feel about your success?” he asked.

  “He never knew. He thought my drawings a waste of time.”

  “Was he like Edward and insisted you be dependant upon his good graces?”

  She studied his features for a moment. The probing intensity of his gaze had her biting her lip. Did the sharing of her body entitle him to other intimacies as well, or had it only opened his desire for them?

  A knot of tears rose in her throat. She turned her back to him.

  Matthew sighed softly from behind her, but when she wiggled back against him, he slipped an arm around her waist to hold her.

  “He burnt my drawings and paintings until I learned to hide them successfully. He destroyed my paints more than once. My mother smuggled more back during her trips with him to London. He thought me too strong willed and had launched a campaign to cure me of it, because a husband would expect me to be meek and subservient to him at all times.” His arm tightened around her. “Not all men expect that, Katherine. In fact, most, I’d wager, would want their wives to be able to take charge of their household in their absence.”

  “Did you?” she asked.

  He remained silent for moment. “Caroline and I were only married a year. We were apart only once during that time, and my father was there to see to things. Without him there to take my place, I’d have depended on her to make decisions in my absence.”

  Some of the tension eased from her body. Matthew’s hand slid beneath the fabric of the shirt and captured one of her breasts. Her mouth went dry as he began to fondle it. His hot aroused flesh moved against her intimately.

  She tilted her hips back against him in response, as desire leaped through her.

  His hand ran in a slow provocative caress down the center of her body. She parted her thighs as his fingers honed in on the moist pressure that built between her legs. He nibbled her ear lobe as he parted her with his fingertips and found the tiny sensitive bud hidden there.

  Katherine bit her lip to keep from groaning aloud at the tempting pleasure he inspired.

  He pushed inside her. She felt sore and his possession was a pleasurable pain as he sank deep inside her. As he began his slow careful movements, she pressed

  back against him finding his rhythm.

  His lips grazed her shoulder, her neck, and he nibbled her ear. “Is it too much, Katherine? I don’t want to hurt you.”

  It was not enough. She reached back to touch him, her hand sliding down his hip to his tautly muscled thigh.

  She knew they could not continue with this. For every time she shared her body with him she moved closer to becoming the very thing of which everyone accused her.

  She could not be his wife, only a temporary mistress.

  She had promised to let him go, to find a way of releasing him from the marriage. She had to stand by that promise.

  She pulled away and turned to face him. The warmth she read in his pale blue eyes was nearly her undoing. His large hands ran in restless circles up and down her back.

  “It’s all right, Katherine. We don’t have to make love.” Make love. Those two words brought to mind a realm of possibilities they could share if only he truly loved her.

  Knowing this would be their last intimate moments together, she was torn by her need to be as close to him as she could get, and a desire to end it now. As she looked into his face, her heart ached with a bittersweet need too deep to deny.

  She traced the curve of his cheekbone and the flat plain of his jaw with her fingertips. His beard felt prickly and rough against her skin. She sat up on her knees and straddled him. He rested his hands on her hips beneath the fabric of the shirt his pale gaze intent with interest.

  She bent and kissed him, her lips parted to drink in the warmth of him. The heavy mass of auburn curls fell over her shoulder to drape across his chest. She tasted his skin as she kissed the hollow of his throat. She explored the round flat nipples that peeked through the hair on his chest and felt his response as they beaded beneath her touch.

  Matthew ran restless hands under the shirt and over her bare back. She unbuttoned the shirt. She dipped low to rub her breasts against his chest, loving the roughness of the hair there against her skin. Matthew murmured her name, his voice husky. The lance-like hardness of his aroused male flesh brushed against her thigh.

  She slid downward to rest her cheek against his chest

  then turned her lips against the steady beat of his heart.

  She wanted to hold him close, to feel his body against hers, to draw him inside her and be a part of him, for the last time.

  She curled her fingers arou
nd him and was surprised by the velvety soft heat of him. The skin there felt tender, yet his flesh was swollen and throbbed beneath her touch.

  She looked down into his face and wiggled forward to lean down and kiss him as she guided him inside her. As her body enveloped him, tears of loss welled up making her throat ache. She closed her eyes against the pain, and focused on the intimate connection between them.

  Never again would she know this closeness with any other man. Never again would she feel free to offer her body or her heart to anyone.

  He caught her lips with his, his kisses slow and languorous as he cupped the tender weight of her breasts and gently kneaded them.

  She began to move against him in response. Her body adjusted to his possession and the initial soreness eased.

  A heart wrenching pleasure began to build inside her.

  He grasped her hips, guiding her in a slow deep tempo of motion. Every kiss left her hungry for another, every touch inspired an answering caress. She could not get close enough, could not touch him enough, could not draw him deep enough, to last forever.

  Their bodies strained toward each other, their short deep thrusts growing faster and more frantic. He groaned her name and his thick, husky tone triggered an answering part of her. She tried to hold it off wanting more time, more of the closeness she had found. A wave of pleasure pulsed through her working outward from the very core of her body to her fingers and toes. She cried out as the end rushed toward her. As she felt Matthew’s release echo deep inside her, a feeling of such sorrow coursed through her, she turned her face into the bend of his neck and clung to him.

  An abrupt pounding on the door, interrupted before their hearts had even begun to slow. “What is it?” he called from beneath her.

  “It’s a message from Lord Willingham, Cap’in.

  There’s been some sort of trouble at the house,” Georgie

  called through the door.

  Katherine eased from her position on top of him.

  With a murmured apology, he rose and quickly slipped on his discarded breeches from the night before. He strode to the door and opened it, blocking Georgie’s view into the room with his body.

  “Lord Willingham needs you to come at once, Cap’in.

  His man is on deck waiting to drive you back to the house.”

  “Did he say what kind of trouble, Georgie?”

  “Something to do with one of the maids being attacked, Cap’in.”

  “Tell him I’ll be with him immediately, Georgie.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Hearing his comment about one of the maids, Katherine rose and began to gather her clothes.

  “There’s no need for you to accompany me, Katherine.”

  “Of course there is. He did not say who it was that was attacked or where. What if it should be Hannah?”

  “Whoever Talbot has sent can tell us the details. As soon as we’re both dressed we’ll go up on deck and ask him for more information.”

  “It must be serious if Talbot wants you there. I will not be left behind,” she argued as she looked through the valise from the night before for a fresh shift. A frantic sense of fear tied her stomach into knots. Talbot wouldn’t have sent for Matthew if the incident weren’t serious.

  She emptied the water out of the bowl on the washstand and refilled it. Even though they had shared their bodies, she found herself too shy to abandon the shirt she still wore. She washed quickly, aware of Matthew watching from behind her as he set out clothing for them both.

  She held the garment against her as she moved to the bunk for the fresh shift he had laid on the bed.

  He peeled aside the collar of the shirt and kissed her shoulder. “Do you remember on our wedding night when you met me at the door covered from neck to ankle in that ugly wool robe?”

  She nodded. She focused on the dark beard that covered his jaw for fear she might cry if she met his gaze.

  “Covering yourself from head to toe was more provocative than if you strutted around naked, though the latter would certainly garner a response. I’d want you if you wore sack cloth and ashes.” He wanted her. But what of affection and love?

  “There are things we must talk about later when there is more time, Katherine.” She nodded again, not trusting her composure enough to speak. She rose on tiptoe to press her cheek against his. “I must dress.” She moved to the bed and turning her back to him, shrugged free of the shirt and quickly donned her shift. Matthew appeared behind her as she tugged her stays in place and pulled the strings snug and tied them for her. He was there again to button the numerous tiny buttons down the back of the gown he had packed for her. Katherine busied herself with trying to brush the tangles from her hair and braid the heavy mass as she waited for him to finish dressing.

  As she smoothed the wrinkles from her gown, she thought, just once she would like to wear something festive and colorful for him instead of the drab gray or black of mourning. There would be no time for that now.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “The authorities have been notified, Captain Hamilton,” Elton, the Willingham’s butler, said as they settled into the small rowboat he had arrived in. The sailor he had hired took up the paddles and began to row them ashore.

  “It was one of the downstairs maids who found Margaret this morning. Her cries for help awoke some of the other staff, and Lord Willingham was notified. He seems to think that Margaret slipped downstairs to meet the man and he turned on her for some reason. Nothing was disturbed inside the house.”

  “That at least is a relief,” Matthew said.

  “Margaret is the young blond maid with the lovely skin, is she not?” Katherine asked from beside him.

  “Yes, Madame.” Elton nodded, his expression solemn.

  “She was not much older than I am,” she commented, her voice weak and thready.

  Matthew placed an arm around her waist for though her composure seemed intact, she looked pale.

  “With the guards patrolling the grounds, I’d be interested to know how he got by them and into the house,” Matthew said.

  “She would have had to let him in herself, sir. The side entrance was locked. I checked it myself before retiring.”

  The man’s words shocked him. It couldn’t be. Surely it hadn’t been the woman he had seen outside last night?

  Had he walked past the man moments before he killed her? The trip from the docks to Willingham’s progressed in silence. Matthew kept his arm around Katherine throughout the short journey. He was troubled by her abrupt withdrawal into silence and attributed it to shock and concern for the maid. His own concerns lay like rocks in the pit of his stomach. Why hadn’t he called out to them as he’d gone into the house?

  “How did you know her, Katherine?” Matthew asked as he braced them both against the sway of the coach.

  “She brings in the morning paper at breakfast,” she answered. “I know the names of all the servants.” Surprised, he fell silent again. He wondered how many of the servants he could name. Very few, he’d guess.

  Elton hung back as the footman opened the door and lowered the steps. Matthew exited the coach and reached up to offer Katherine a hand. A crowd hung outside the entrance to the grounds, their silence giving an air of foreboding to their arrival. Two burly men dressed in camel colored knee breeches and dark coats stepped forward as Matthew and Katherine mounted the stairs with Elton behind them.

  A small cart with two horses harnessed to it blocked the drive. Two men bearing a blanket-covered stretcher rounded the corner as they stood on the steps.

  “This is Lord Willingham’s nephew and his wife,” Elton informed one of the men as the other brushed past them and went to lower the tailgate of the cart. The man flipped back the cloth covering the woman’s face revealing blond hair surrounding a pale grayish face. A blue ribbon dangled from around her throat.

  Matthew’s pushed aside his own reaction as Katherine staggered and grasped at the concrete banister of the steps. Matthew cau
ght her arm partially breaking her fall. She raised shock-glazed eyes to his face, her hands clenched at her throat as she huddled upon the narrow step. Matthew bit back an oath. Had the man been able to curb his curiosity for one moment more she would have been spared seeing the girl entirely.

  He knelt upon the step prepared to lift her, but she held him off, her hands grasping his upper arms so tightly he felt the pressure of each finger. Her eyes appeared so large and dark, her face looked as though it had shrunk around them. The bruise upon her cheek stood out in stark contrast to the pallid color of her skin. “He’s been here.”

  For a moment he stared at her in confusion, then realization dawned. “How do you know, Katherine?”

  “The ribbon. It is the same as the one he used to strangle my mother. A blue ribbon.” She clenched both

  fists against her lips, as though to hold back some sound that rose inside her. “Oh, God! It is my fault.” She began to rock as though in pain. “You warned me that someone would be hurt.”

  He scooped her up, intent on getting her inside the house and away from the prying eyes of the men standing around them. Elton opened the door for him, and he carried her into the entrance hall.

  Hannah sat upon a bench along the wall waiting for their arrival. She sprang to her feet upon seeing them and rushed to Matthew’s side.

  “She knows.” It was a statement not a question. He set Katherine on her feet and the two women reached for each other immediately.

  “He used a blue ribbon,” Hannah said.

  Katherine’s posture was stiff. He realized she was struggling to hold onto her composure. “I saw it.” Listening to the women talk in short terse sentences sent concern rushing through him. He watched as Hannah hugged her offering her comfort.

  “It is my fault she is dead, Hannah. I should have warned the staff more clearly. I should have given each one of them one of the prints. She may have recognized him and we could have caught him. She’d still be alive.” Her voice, choked and husky, held a broken note of sorrow. Her skin retained the paleness of shock. The fact that she turned to Hannah for comfort, instead of him, made Matthew uneasy.