To Pleasure A Duke (The Husband Hunters Club #3)

Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-One

L ord Ridley’s narrow boat was a long low craft, designed to move easily through the narrow waterways, with their aqueducts and locks and bridges. It was painted in bright blues and yellows and reds, and as Eugenie picked her way down the stairs into the inside of the vessel, she found it quite pleasant and roomy. The captain, known as Johnno, was a short wide man with tattoos of mermaids on his forearms, who informed them he had once sailed the oceans but after one ship-wreck too many had decided the inland waterways were far safer.

“Rufus will get you to Wexham,” he said, nodding to where a large feathery footed shire horse stood on the towpath, tethered to the boat by the length of the tow rope. Rufus would pull them along the canal while his master steered.

“As long as we make good time,” Sinclair said brusquely.

The captain gave him a look and a nod. “Never you mind. Lord Ridley has given me me orders, Your Grace.”

Why didn’t that fill him with confidence? Sinclair asked himself, as he went below. Uneasily he glanced about at his surroundings. The interior of the narrow boat was very luxurious, almost dangerously so in the circumstances. They were on a mission to rescue his sister, after all, not taking a holiday.

“I knew this was a mistake,” he said. “At least I know where I am with horses.”

“You hated that coach, remember?”

“We could have had my uncle’s coach.”

“We’ll find them,” Eugenie soothed, feeling the need to say something positive when he looked so dour.

But Sinclair was no longer listening to her. He was staring at a small pencil sketch hanging on the wall. He took a step closer, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing, and then with a curse he swung around and caught Eugenie’s arms, hustling her back toward the stairs.

“What is it?” she cried nervously, trying to see behind him. “Sinclair, whatever is the matter?”

“We can’t stay here,” he muttered.

“Sinclair, what are you talking about? We have no choice. Stop it!”

He did stop, and met her eyes, and she saw that there was something in his that was close to fear. It struck her as so unlike the Sinclair she knew that she pulled away, stepping around him, and making her way purposefully toward the framed sketch.

“Please, Eugenie. Don’t.” He made another grab for her, but she avoided him, and then she was standing before the sketch.

It was a drawing of a naked woman, standing by an open window, her hair unbound and curling about her hips. Eugenie didn’t consider herself a prude, and there was nothing obscene about what she saw now, but it was very sensual. There was the sense of something, or someone, beyond the window who had caught the subject’s attention and the fact that she was standing naked led Eugenie to believe whoever was outside was the woman’s lover.

Sinclair had followed her, and was standing behind her. He was very still, almost as if he was holding his breath. She understood then that it wasn’t fear she had seen in his eyes, but vulnerability. She saw it now in his stance, in his expression, as his dark eyes searched hers as if waiting for an axe to fall.

“Whatever is the matter?” she said. “Sinclair?”

And then she remembered the conversation she’d had with Robert Coachman and she turned again to the framed sketch and searched for the artist’s signature at the bottom. Just as she’d thought: S St. John . This was one of Sinclair’s works from his brief career as an artist.

“You did this?”

He nodded his head, but his eyes remained on hers, searching, as if he was desperately uncertain of her reaction. As if her opinion mattered. Of course he would feel like that after his mother’s attitude to his art, but he should have known Eugenie would never destroy his confidence in such a way.

“Sinclair, it’s beautiful,” she said gently. “Really beautiful.”

His shoulders relaxed, his mouth twitched into a relieved smile.

“Although of course I disapprove of you having naked women in your company. Who was she?”

His eyes gleamed with humor. “A model I hired. I didn’t know any young women willing to undress for me then.”

Eugenie tilted her head, examining the sketch again. “Why did you stop?” she said blithely, as if she didn’t know.

He didn’t answer, saying instead, “I’ve wondered whether you might be willing to pose for me. With your clothes on, of course.”

She smiled a wicked little smile. “Where’s the fun in that?”

He reached for her, tugging her close. She tilted back her head, watching the heat gathering in his eyes, waiting for what she knew would come.

To her surprise he didn’t carry her to the bed, but lifted her onto the table in the central part of the boat, edging her thighs apart and standing between them. Slowly, intently, he began to unfasten her bodice. Her breath caught in her throat as first his fingers and then his mouth began an intense exploration of her breasts. She cupped the back of his head, pressing him close, lost in sensation.

By the time he reached beneath her skirts, she was damp and aching, wanting him urgently. It was her fingers which opened his breeches and caressed the hard length of his cock, drawing him to the entrance to her body, wrapping her thighs about his hips as he drove forward.

Voices sounded outside and then their captain, his voice drifting down from the deck. “We’re about to head off. Do you need anything, Your Grace?”

Their eyes met. Eugenie bit her lip. “No, thank you,” Sinclair called in reply. “I have everything I need right here.”

The boat rocked, began to move.

With his eyes closed and beads of sweat on his brow, Sinclair groaned softly as he thrust again, taking his time. Their buildup to ecstasy was gradual, relentless, and she wondered if she would ever reach her peak, and then when she did it was so tumultuous she felt as if her heart might stop altogether.

Afterward they clung together, weak and shaken. Dreamily she said, “Why did your uncle hang that sketch?”

He lifted her in his arms and she clasped her hands about his neck, resting her head against his shoulder.

“He admired it,” Sinclair admitted. “He was the only one who didn’t think I should take up more gentlemanly pursuits, like horse racing. He even encouraged me to keep drawing and painting. He did a little sketching himself but he always claimed he didn’t have my talent.”

“And yet you stopped?”

“Yes. At least . . . lately I’ve been playing about with my paints again,” he said wryly. “Much to my mother’s disgust.”

“Well, as far as I’m concerned you can paint from dawn to dusk.”

The words came out before she considered them, and then she flushed and hid her face from him. “That is, if I had anything to say about it. Which obviously I don’t.”

He set her down on the lavish bed and she watched him as he began searching through some of the drawers in the table. “My uncle said he’d left some here somewhere . . .” Soon he found what he was looking for, a sketch pad and pencils, and held them up.

“You said you wouldn’t mind,” he reminded her, rather diffident.

Eugenie, who wasn’t at all sure about this, managed to put on an air of ease. “How should I . . . eh . . .”

“Just like that. Perhaps lean back a little, and hold the blanket to your breasts. Like that.” He smiled at her. “Oh yes, very nice.”

After a moment, with the silence broken only by the scratching of his pencil on the paper, she said, “You won’t hang this one in someone’s boat, will you, Sinclair? I don’t think my family would appreciate it.”

He grinned. “This one is strictly private,” he answered her. “This one is for me.”

“Good.”

They smiled at each other and Eugenie knew with a sense of sheer relief that Sinclair, her Sinclair, was back.

* * *

She’d fallen asleep.

He wasn’t surprised. She must be exhausted after all their adventures, despite their brief respite at Framlingbury. He leaned back in his chair, stretching out stiff muscles, raising his arms over his head, opening and closing his fingers. He’d enjoyed drawing her, and then watching her sleep. Her riotous hair fell over her cheek, tangled strands tumbling down over the side of the bed toward the floor. Her arm, soft and pale and rounded, was caught in a shaft of light from a narrow strip of window in the deck above, and she breathed softly, peacefully, like an innocent child.

He felt happy. A sense of deep contentment he couldn’t remember ever feeling before. The movement of the narrow boat, the occupation of his eyes and his fingers, the making of a work of his talent and imagination. All in the company of a woman he was besotted with. If only life could always be like this.

But of course it couldn’t. How could it be? The world was still outside and soon it would interfere with them, tearing them apart.

There was another possibility.

Sinclair rubbed his hand across his jaw, feeling the beginnings of a beard. He could take Eugenie’s hand in his and they could face the world together. People might sneer and mock, but such things couldn’t hurt them.

Not unless they allowed them to.