His thoughts raced. Tonight hadn’t changed the fact he still needed to rescue Ryan. Tomorrow, he must sail.
Drex’s gaze traveled Lilli’s naked length. He couldn’t leave her here, prey to someone like her aunt, or worse. Of course she had to accompany him back to England. At the voyage’s end, when Ryan was freed, perhaps she would still care for him. Then he could think about the future. What they had shared tonight was too hot and sweet not to pursue.
Lilli moaned and stretched, opening green eyes with a smile. “I thought I had a most delicious dream. But you’re truly here.”
He stroked her hair, wondering how soon he could make love to her again without hurting her. God knew, he wanted to right now.
“Lilli, I’ve got to go back to England tomorrow. I want you to come with me.”
-137-
Shelley Bradley
She pushed herself onto her elbow, her eyes wide and dilated and frightened. “England? Why t—there?”
Pausing, he wondered how much of the truth he should give her. She deserved more than he could. “I have a…mission I must complete.”
“Oh. Can I not stay here to wait for your return?”
“You’re not safe,” he said. “Not with your aunt nearby.”
She conceded the point with a nod. “Can you see to your mission somewhere beside England? “
“No.” He savored her mouth for a sweet moment. Her nakedness waylaid his thoughts until he forced his mind back to the conversation. “Why don’t you want to go to England?”
“I—I can’t go there.”
Her hand-wringing statement puzzled him. Didn’t she know he would take care of her? “Why not?” He laughed. “You’re not running from the law, are you?”
She shook her head. “No. But my grandfather—”
“Ah, so the truth finally emerges,” he teased.
Lilli bit her lip. “I—I suppose I should tell you the truth.” She winced. “Who I really am.”
He stroked her shoulder, then pressed his lips to her damp flesh. She was a changed woman already, offering him the truth. Hmm, perhaps he should have stopped resisting her charms along ago.
“I’m listening.”
Lilli reached for him, entreating, “You must understand. I didn’t have a choice. If I had been truthful from the start, you would have never taken me with you and I—”
“You’re rambling,” he baited with a smile. “So who are you? Princess Charlotte? No, she carries a few more pounds than you.”
“You must promise not to be angry.”
He smiled. “Why should I be? Tell me your little secret.”
She squared her shoulders. Her green eyes, half-hidden by thick lashes, lent her a hint of vulnerability that warmed Drex’s insides.
-138-
The Lady and the Dragon
“Lillianne is my middle name. My—my name is actually Christina Delafield.”
Drex felt as if time had stopped, his blood ceased flowing. His smile faded.
His face became stone. The present became a void filled only with Lilli’s pleading eyes and his own pounding heart. He staggered before his trembling legs gave way and he fell to the sand.
She swallowed, casting him an apprehensive stare. “My grandfather is—”
“The Duke of Manchester,” Drex finished.
Of all the women in London who could have come to his ship, fate had chosen the Duke of Manchester’s granddaughter. The one he had plotted to kidnap. The one he needed to obtain Ryan’s release. The one he’d just made his lover.
Drex turned his gaze to her, as she clutched her chemise over her bare breasts, and swore. He’d deflowered her, one of society’s beloved. The only woman who could end his hellish days in this dangerous masquerade and mend Ryan’s broken family.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” His soft spoken words gave no hint of the turmoil roiling inside him.
“I couldn’t,” she insisted. “If I had, you never would have let me sail with you. I was sure you would ransom me off or trade me for amnesty. I can hardly risk going back to London. Grandfather had vowed to send me to a Swiss finishing school and leave me there indefinitely, so—”
“So you ran away and found me.” With a shaky sigh, Drex rose to his feet and turned away. He needed to think.
He strode away toward the island’s overgrown interior.
“Please, try not to be angry!” she shouted.
An impossibility, he decided. Angry didn’t begin to cover the gamut of his emotions, ranging from fury to disbelief to an urge to laugh at the irony.
He said nothing to her, simply continued into the jungle.
“Don’t leave. I know this is shocking, but…”
An understatement, if ever she’d made one. Why her? Why him? What a terrible twist of fate!
-139-
Shelley Bradley
He trudged forward, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and escaping Lilli’s cries.
“You cannot leave me here.”
A necessity, he knew. He needed time to understand, to sort out his feelings and his duties.
Moments later, the tropical vegetation engulfed him, towering above him, almost obliterating the night sky. The rich scents of wet earth and waxy leaves blended with the varied sounds of night creatures. He walked without a destination.
Drex hated fate. Its dooming ways twisted a man’s gut. Nothing in his life had proceeded as planned for the last four years. Not his days as a plantation owner earning community respect, not his desperate wish to forget his mother’s exploitation, his birth, his past. Nothing.
Damn it, why had Ryan run away from an adoring wife and small son?
Drex had never resented his twin for the upheaval in his life more than he did now.
He swore again. Now he had Christina Delafield to deal with. She’d run away, just like Ryan. He should be repelled by her impulsive behavior. Yet she reached inside his chest and tugged. She mattered to him.
And he’d taken her virginity, made love with her.
Drex raked a trembling hand through his hair. He had never hated the mask and masquerade more since he knew what he had to do. Reality dictated the fact that, no matter how deeply Christina Delafield had imprinted herself onto his heart, he must return her to her grandfather in exchange for Ryan’s freedom. She needed to be amidst her element, where her grandfather’s clout would ensure she could mingle with and marry her own kind.
And to leave her, to convince her that she belonged with England’s elite and not the scourge of the seas, he would have to break her pride—and his own heart.
-140-
The Lady and the Dragon
Chapter Eleven
Christina paced the darkened drawing room from end to end, nibbling on a fingernail. Hancock sat in the corner, his watchful eyes set at a glower.
An hour, blast him! An entire hour since the captain disappeared, leaving her naked and confused on the beach. Of course she hadn’t expected him to be thrilled with the truth, but anger she could have combated. But desertion she had never imagined. Nor did she accept.
She shook her head and shuffled to the window. Nothing but the silver swish of the tide against the shimmering sand.
Wriggling self-consciously in the dress she had not been able to button completely, Christina felt grains of sand chafe her back. Though she refused to dwell on the missing buttons of her shocking dress, her anger surged anew.
Where was that man?
“He’ll be back,” Hancock said, as if reading her mind.
Christina whirled and demanded, “When?”
The short man shrugged. “Maybe five minutes, maybe two days. The cap’n does things in his own way, in his own time.”
If Hancock intended his words as comfort, he obviously hadn’t learned how to do the thing correctly. Two days? She closed her eyes, trying to block out her rising nausea.