Glancing over her shoulder, she watched from across the room as Lucian closed the drapery and moved to the final window, where he stood looking out and drinking from his glass. Brynn hesitated, wondering exactly how she should distract him until he succumbed to the drug.

Steeling herself, she rose and went to join Lucian, coming up behind him. Outside the window, a chill sliver of moon hung low on the black horizon, partly obscured by ghostly, scudding clouds. A blustery wind blew off the sea; she could hear waves beating against the rocky shore below.

A good night for treason.

Inside, however, the bedchamber was warm and hushed.

“Are you still angry with me?” she murmured in an effort to capture Lucian’s attention.

He snapped the drapes shut and turned to face her. Involuntarily her gaze went to his glass that was now only one-third full. Her relief was profound, yet she still had a role to play; she couldn’t stop until Lucian was sleeping soundly.

She pasted an enticing smile on her face. Her finger dipped into his wine, then rose to glide along his lower lip. “How can I assuage your anger, Lucian?”

“I think you know, love.”

Her focus dropped below his waist. The stockinet fabric of his evening breeches clung to his powerful thighs, stretched taut over his erection. An immediate, quivering response rippled through Brynn, along with a momentary spark of elation. He might still be angry with her, but he wanted her.

Determined to arouse him further, she slowly, provocatively slid her fingers into the waistband of his breeches. When he gave no response, Brynn relieved him of his wineglass and set it down along with her own. Then she began to undo the buttons of the front placket.

Her heart was thudding in her chest when she opened his drawers to expose the stiff erection that stirred so eagerly between his thighs. With a tempting smile, she closed her caressing fingers around the base of his pulsing arousal and sank down to kneel at his feet.

His jaw was set rigidly, Brynn saw when she glanced up at Lucian. He was still fighting her, and yet he was blatantly aroused, the rigid rod thrusting high, the rampant head gleaming in the lamplight.

Wanton heat coiled through her body to throb inside her, contrasting strangely with the ache in her heart.

Letting her fingers stroke him, Brynn leaned closer to press her lips along his shaft, tasting the marble-smooth skin. Lucian jerked when she kissed him there, and a flaring excitement ignited inside her at the familiar, erotic feel of him.

She attended him lingeringly. His skin felt hot, searing, as she softly ran her tongue around the swollen head… the sensitive ridge below… Then her lips closed around his shaft to take him more fully in her mouth.

She felt Lucian tense with pleasure as she suckled him. He was obviously fighting for control now.

His now-rigid erection thickened still more as she explored him further with her mouth and tongue, tasting the slick, velvet contours, making love to the most intimate part of him. Lucian had been the one to teach her this-how to use her carnal skills to such devastating effect. He had shown her pleasures of the flesh, led her to embrace her woman’s passion…

She felt him shudder, but she continued deliberately to arouse him, her teeth softly raking. She knew a moment of triumph when he groaned at her ministrations.

“Am I paining you?” she murmured tauntingly against his flesh.

“Yes,” he said, his own voice hoarse. “Dire pain.”

“Should I stop?”

“No, siren…”

When her lips slid down his shaft again, his hands curled in her hair and he strained against her mouth, his breathing harsh and ragged. His desire for her had always been fierce, and she used it mercilessly against him now.

She heard her name hoarsely whispered, felt him shaking. When he clutched at her shoulders, Brynn shuddered with pleasure herself. She was nearly as aroused as Lucian, her body pulsing, her feminine hollows wet with desire, yearning to merge with his hard male flesh. She had intended to seduce him, but she was caught up in her own game. When she glanced up at him, she knew his passion-hazed eyes mirrored her own.

“Lucian,” she breathed, shredding the last of his control.

Urgently he drew her to her feet and lifted her up. His lips came down upon hers with hot, wet heat, his mouth feverishly capturing hers as she wrapped her legs around his hips.

Carrying her to the bed, he lowered her to the silk sheets and followed her down, pressing himself between her welcoming thighs. For a space of several heartbeats, then, he hesitated, holding Brynn’s rapt gaze.

His face was so incredibly beautiful in the flickering candlelight, his features taut with desire and what strangely looked like pain. When he curved his hand to her throat, Brynn stirred restlessly beneath him, wondering why he delayed.

“Please… I want you, Lucian,” she whispered hoarsely.

He obliged her, sliding the engorged crest of his erection into her pulsing cleft slick with the liquid evidence of her own need.

She was wet and eager for him. Hungrily she wrapped her legs around his, clutching him to her as he thrust into her, driving his powerful member deep within her hot, throbbing flesh. Her arms tightened around him, and she opened to him fully, desperate to take him deep, to fill herself with his essence, even as she battled her heart.

The blaze between them erupted into a firestorm, violent, fierce, raging. Lucian shuddered again and groaned, his body contracting savagely as he spilled his seed deep within her body. His explosion shattered Brynn. She arched helplessly beneath him, convulsing wildly as wave after wave of ecstasy hit her, cries of bliss tearing from her throat, tears of anguish dredged from her eyes.

She was weeping, Brynn realized when her brutal climax at last subsided. Shaking with love and pain that mingled into a tangled, razor-edged knot inside her.

In the turbulent aftermath, they lay together, gasping for breath. Their lovemaking had never been so potent, so powerful… so agonized.

His lips pressed against her hair then, and Brynn felt her heart break. When Lucian eased his weight to one side, her arms tightened around him almost desperately while she buried her face against his shoulder, trying to stifle her tears. Dear God, how she loved him. It was a torment, knowing her love might lead to his death.

She lay there a long while, struggling with remorse, with regrets. If only she didn’t have to betray him. If she could have kept her heart detached. If she had never wed him in the first place…

When eventually Lucian’s breathing grew even, Brynn drew back so that she could see his face. His eyes were closed, as if he were in a drugged stupor.

“Lucian?” she whispered.

She waited several more long moments before finally untangling her limbs from his and easing away. Lucian lay there, unmoving, as if dead to the world. But at least he wasn’t dead. She couldn’t bear to lose him to death.

Wiping the tears from her face, Brynn dragged in a deep, steadying breath and forced herself to leave the bed. She couldn’t think about Lucian any further now. Nor did she dare tarry. She had to try to stop her brother from committing treason, to try to foil the real traitors.

Her plan was desperate, but it might just work. Grayson had told her the gold was hidden in the caves below the house, that the smugglers planned to retrieve their contraband tonight. She doubted they could act without Grayson’s presence, though, or even be able to find the strongboxes without his direction, for surely he would have concealed them well.

If she could just keep Gray away until after high tide, then the gold would be safe tonight. She could reveal its location to the local authorities on the morrow, without implicating her brother. Then Lucian could recover the strongboxes without risking his life, and Gray could escape his vicious blackmailers-

He and Theo would have to go into hiding, of course, and she would go with them. She and Gray could leave tonight. They would collect Theo from school and flee somewhere safe…

Please, please, merciful God, let her plan work. And help her make Gray see reason. She would have to use dire means to convince him, she had little doubt.

She dressed quickly in her usual smuggler’s attire- an old pair of breeches and boots and a warm woolen jacket. Then she caught up her vivid hair and stuffed it under a seaman’s cap. Finally, with one last, lingering look at her slumbering husband, Brynn put out all the lamps but one. Carrying it with her to light her way, she slipped from the room.

She went directly downstairs to her brother’s study and the cabinet where Gray kept his finer weapons. Setting down her lamp, she withdrew a small wooden case from the cabinet and opened it, expecting to find a matched pair of double-shot pistols.

The case was empty, Brynn saw with alarm, realizing Gray must have taken the weapons. But there was an older pistol toward the rear of the cabinet. With shaking hands, she spent a few precious minutes priming and loading the gun; Grayson himself had taught her how so that she might defend herself against her over amorous suitors if need be.

She had just stuffed the pistol in her belt and shut the cabinet when a beloved voice spoke behind her freezing the blood in her veins.

“Would you care to explain why you left our warm bed and dressed yourself up as a Free Trader, love?”

Chapter Twenty