Rough Surrender
"From hot sex scenes to tender moments, I fell in love with this book..." Terri - Night Owl Reviews 5/5
"sensual, touching, mesmerizing..." CozyReader - The Romance Reviews 5/5 & the other TRR review... "My choice is ROUGH SURRENDER. What's the question, you ask? If I were stranded on a deserted island, what is the one book that I couldn't live without?" Tiffy - The Romance Reviews 5/5 "I was enthralled from page one and could not put it down" Kitty Angel - Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews 5/5
"BDSM elements were...detailed, delectable and left me panting, definitely wanting more"
LeighAnna - BDSM Book Reviews 5/5 Paddles, 5/5 Kinks "...read this book if you love really good BDSM, intelligent characters who challenge each other, a man who is the alpha Dom to the max, and want to read about how pens will have you breaking out in one huge smile at the most inappropriate times" Penelope - Kinky Book Reviews 5/5 Kinks, Recommended Read |
As the rights have reverted this will be re-released soon. Buylinks currently inactive. Publisher: Cari Silverwood Release date: Late April 2017 Length: Novel of 80,000 words Genre: Heterosexual M/f Historical BDSM One master, one woman who craves surrender, and a sky that will challenge them both. At a time when airplanes are as new-fangled and sensational as the telephone, Faith dares to fly. The one territory she has not explored is her own sexuality. In Leonhardt she discovers the man who can teach her how a woman surrenders her body and her mind. However, Leonhardt has a shadowed past and his own learning to do. He doesn't have the right to keep Faith from flying, even if he thinks airplanes are flimsy death-traps made of canvas, timber and their inventor's prayers. Faith has her limits, Leonhardt has his flaws, and sometimes the nicest people get murdered by unscrupulous bastards. Even if Leonhardt can save the woman he loves, the battle for Faith’s heart will be the hardest one of all. Previously published by Lyrical press and Pan Macmillan / Momentum |
Click here if you'd like to see the Rough Surrender website where you'll find some fun facts about my writing of this book
Chapter 1
The last three lashes of the whip striped across her naked back. Molly jerked only a little, moaning softly, hanging limp in the rope tying her hands to the top of the post. Red lines crisscrossed her buttocks and a few places higher up. Waves of her glossy brunette hair clung to her shoulders, shimmering in the yellow light of the electric chandelier dangling from the high ceiling. Her white cotton drawers were pulled to ankle level and long silk ties trailed over her feet.
No blood showed--he’d judged it right. Hard to do sometimes with the whips Smythe provided at his brothel when right was as delicate a matter as painting a butterfly’s wing. Leonhardt smiled. Molly had a love of the whip and it seemed he’d taken her to exactly the place she wanted to go. Her inner thighs glistened with moisture.
“Molly?” He dropped the whip, stepped up to her and ran his hand down her back, feeling her ribcage move with each pant, tracing the raised lines where he’d laid the leather. Sweat slicked under his hand. She whimpered and flinched at the press of his fingers.
“There, there. Shh.” He kissed her neck and caressed the lines, watching her mouth, the rhythm of her breathing and the other tiny signs that spoke of arousal. When her squeaks changed into soft sighs, the familiar electricity zapped him into higher awareness. He never grew tired of seeing how far he could take a woman.
His cock pressed into his trousers. Every response of her body--every moan and movement, every mark on her skin, made him wish he could record it somehow, a symphony of the whip with her beautiful pain and pleasure written for him to treasure.
He might have asked her if she wanted to come but the mere act of not asking thrilled him more. Making her come, whether she wanted it or not was far better. The slickness between her legs let him glide two fingers into her, exactly as like his cock might enter her. The clench of her hot flesh and her little shudder made him smile. He inhaled her scent while slowly increasing the pumping tempo--in and out, a little faster, a little rougher, a little farther when he pushed hard.
“That’s it Molly. My fingers are inside you. Let me see your pleasure. I can do what I like to you, can’t I?”
“Yes. Yes. Sir. Oh. Sir!” Her words came out harsh and staccato between her squeaks. Her hands twisted in the ropes. “Mmm!”She spread her legs, gasping in time with each moist thrust.
“Yes.” He kissed her neck again while letting his thumb slide in where his fingers had been. Still coated with her juices his fingers made a V either side of her clit, squeezing, slicking to and fro, squeezing again as his thumb took over the pumping rhythm. Screamers were nice but Molly’s ascending high-pitched sounds were more delightful than the loudest of wails.
With his other hand he grabbed the cheek of her bottom and glided his thumb across a raised whip mark on her hot skin.
“Ah, ah, ah. Nooo!” Molly stiffened and shoved her groin into his fingers then shuddered quietly as her orgasm swamped her.
Her head fell back against his shoulder.
Holding her while she calmed was as much a reward as making her come. He loved the curves of an exhausted woman’s body tucked into his.
“Happy?” He held her around the waist and untied the leather strap around her wrists.
“Oh, yes, Mr. Meisner.” Freed at last, Molly turned in his arms and pressed her face into his shirt. “I’d do this for you any day, sir. Wouldna be no need ta pay me, sir.”
“Hmph.” He toyed with her hair. “I’m afraid your employer might have other ideas, miss.”
On the way out he stopped at the desk to pay the sovereign Sydney Smythe required. The man himself was there. Though Smythe barely came to chin height he had a commanding air and was attired in the most elegant fashion--silver frock coat over an immaculate white silk shirt and dark trousers. His facial features were neat and Leonhardt guessed some ladies would see him as handsome. Even his backward combed gray-streaked hair had parallel lines in it. Yet the steady flatness of his gaze and the marionette way he reacted made everything he did seem emotionless and dull. But then what brothel owner could afford openness?
“Thank you, Leonhardt.” Smythe stretched his mouth into a tight smile. “For your patronage. The girls do seem to like you.”
Leonhardt nodded and let the coin slip onto the leather of the desk. “I try to keep them happy.”
“Don’t we all?” Smythe’s eyes were dark and fathomless, despite his comment. “Please do return when the urge strikes you.”
A scream sounded. The foyer where Leonhardt stood had five doors exiting from it, interspersed by the lush red curtains. One, he’d come from. The scream he was sure, came from the door behind Smythe.
The door opened and a young woman in lacy pink drawers and corset sneaked out though the gap.
“Mr. Smythe.” She bowed her head and clasped her hands between her thighs. The black glossy bun of her hair bobbed. “Sir. The duke is flogging Mary and... Sir, I fear he is hurting her more than she can bear.”
Leonhardt frowned. It wasn’t polite to interfere. Smythe ran a brothel, not a young ladies’ college of learning or some such gentle institution. Still...he waited for Smythe to say something to acknowledge concern.
“Truly?” Smythe frowned then smiled at Leonhardt as if to say, I have this in hand. “I’m sure the duke knows what he is doing.” He glanced at the woman. “Go back inside, now, Betty.”
Betty ducked her head again.”Uh. Yes, sir. I’m so sorry to disturb you.”
“Perfectly understandable. I’ll be in there in a moment. Please ask the duke to wait until I can check the matter.”
Betty shrank back through the door then closed it with a quiet snick.
A duke was involved? “Would you like me to come with you, Smythe?” He tried not to seem rude.
“No.”
A flat, unmovable, no. Leonhardt stared.
“If, Mr. Meisner, you go through that door, you will meet up with the duke’s three very formidable guards. They would not be happy. I assure you, I will handle this. Though, Mary has a bad habit of screaming when she does not wish assistance.” Smythe widened his smile.
He could barge in that door and, from what Smythe had said, make a fool of himself, or he could go. No further screams came forth. Smythe’s smile was like frosting on a cake--smooth and sweet. Maybe too sweet?
No. He might not like the man but he was imagining problems. This was Smythe’s business. He seemed keen on taking care of his girls. Leonhardt turned on his heel, and left.
*****
The river the next morning was delightful.
Leonhardt crouched over the oar of the coxless pair he and Jeremy had been rowing. A few ducks cruised past. The oar pressed forward into his arms as he cradled it. The wash of the hull, and the trail of the oar tip a few yards out, made pleasant shushing sounds. He sucked in a few more big lungs full, watching Jeremy’s back and the heave of the man’s chest as he too recovered from the sprint. Jeremy looked white as any ghost and as weak as a newborn chick but he rowed mean.
“Not bad, Jeremy.” He grinned though his friend couldn’t see it, and wiped away sweat from his temple. Cool day but rowing brought out sweat better than anything.
“Yes, good time too. Say, were you at Smythe’s last night? Because a friend of a friend at Scotland Yard told me they found a woman dead in an alley this morning. Been hushed up due to someone top drawer bringing down the curtain on it. You heard anything ’bout that?”
Stunned, Leonhardt only gripped the handle of the oar tightly.
“He says it was murder--been bashed and whipped hard but the body’s gone, spirited away where no one will find it. Mary, he reckons was her name. Damn bad doings, hey? Gosh. To think he knows all this... Do you think Smythe knows? It was a girl of his, apparently? Leonhardt?” Jeremy flicked back his disorderly black curls and turned on the seat.”Leonhardt? You okay?”
Dismay, disgust and horror were vying for first place in his mind. “Yes, I heard you Jeremy.” He dragged his hand over his face. Damn, what am I becoming? Am I a man like that? I did nothing last night! Except to whip a woman in the same way...one mistake, that’s all it would take. One.
* * * *
A year later: Cairo, 1910
The bow lanterns on the fleet of felucca boats reflected off the wide black waters of the Nile as if a city had submerged and waited for Faith to join those trapped below. She dismissed such dark thoughts. Someone had already joined the denizens of the river, though not willingly. One was more than enough. She didn’t intend to be the next victim.
The boat slid through the water like a greased knife. Above, the sleek triangular sail slapped at the air. Even here the smell of Cairo reached her--donkeys, unwashed flesh and something that reminded her of burnt dung...and probably was exactly that.
Faith smiled grimly. A few hours off the steamer and this awaited her. Someone had been dragged in by the crocodiles. The alarm had gone up an hour ago and, though most of the steamer’s passengers had gone on to their hotels, she’d not been able to resist volunteering to help search. Jeremy, being a family friend, had felt obliged to accompany her onto the boat.
The barest touch at her elbow alerted her to the presence of Jeremy Henleyson. “How are you holding up, Faith? We can avoid this entirely if you wish?”
“Hmph. I’m perfectly all right.” She quirked an eyebrow. “We are not likely to find anything except a body, are we?”
“No. If that, Miss Evard.”
She smiled at the Miss Evard. Though they hadn’t seen each other for a few years, she and Jeremy were childhood playmates. No matter how formal he might seem, his voice brought back memories of playing tag and blindman’s bluff.
A black, flickering silhouette in the moon and lantern light, Jeremy shrugged then ran a hand through his curls. When the steamer docked that afternoon, she’d observed him from the deck of the steamer. From above, he’d been little more than a mop of black unruly locks. The rest of him was properly restrained, of course--polite and oh so British. This was the man her step-father, Henri, had hopes of her marrying.
She sighed. Like all men, he did little for her--fun, in his laidback way. But...Jeremy--she’d rather marry a pot of custard: well-meaning, nice and handsome to a degree. Darning a sock excited her more than he did. Still, without that, this trip to join the first gathering of aviators on the African continent would have been harder to arrange. Henri had almost choked on his croissant when she’d first suggested it. She’d have done it anyway, but keeping Henri happy made everything just...well, she never liked disappointing him.
That thought only reminded her, of how she ached, literally ached, to discover the whereabouts of her poor airplane.
Such a petty thought. Here she was worrying about a hunk of metal, timber and canvas when someone had died this night.
She leaned on the rail and resumed searching. The fabric of her dress brushed against her calves--caught by the southerly evening winds--light material, barely there, sensible for Cairo but sometimes the new French fashions bothered even her in their flimsiness.
A swirl in the surface diverted her. Something gleamed. Water gurgled past.
“Ah!” She pointed. The Egyptian captain of the felucca swiftly arrived with hooked stick in hand. He jabbered something to his crew, the sail kinked and the vessel slowed.
I have to learn the local lingo. Have to. And soon.
With Jeremy to one side and the captain to the other she pointed again. “There!”
“No.” The captain shook his head ruefully. “I see nothing.”
“I also, Faith.” Jeremy leaned over the rail. “What is it you...”
She grabbed the stick from the captain, lunged and hit something solid. The hook penetrated whatever it was and she hauled it in.
“Miss! Miss!” The captain repossessed his hook, pulled the thing over the gunwale and aboard. Something soft thumped onto the deck.
“Oh. My. What have you found, Faith?” Jeremy sounded chagrined.
Faith stepped over to the find. “Tell them to bring the light.”
The light arrived faster than she’d thought possible. She glanced up and over her shoulder and her gaze locked with that of the other European aboard--the mysterious one who’d not bothered to introduce himself.
The glow from the lantern the man held sharpened edges and deepened hollows--accentuating the crease of his pale trousers and the shadows between the long fingers of his hand. Bald and six foot or more, perhaps... God take her for a dull-brained idiot but he seemed a charcoal drawing come to life--magnificent and meant for admiration.
If I touch him, maybe he’ll smudge. She almost smiled at that, until her imagination leapt farther. What would it be like to slide her hand between the opened buttons of his shirt? Her mouth turned desert dry and, for once, she regretted not ordering a few pairs of the newer underwear. The crotchless pair she wore suited her older dresses--ones that would never dare flip up in the breeze.
As if to emphasize her wanton thoughts, coolness teased between her legs.
Her judgment seemed cast awry by the lateness of the hour, the strange circumstances and, most of all, by the throbbing in her private parts that she really could have done without.
He bowed his head a trifle, lifted the light higher. “You’ve found him. I do believe.”
She looked down and gulped.
An arm. She’d found an arm. Raw, severed, the flesh was studded with bite marks and gouges and bloated as if it had been pumped full of air. A blue ring gleamed on a finger. Sickness welled up from her stomach, twisting a bitter flavor of bile into her mouth. She swayed.
“Hold on there.” Hands, arms held her still. Warm arms--the stranger’s she realized, but she cared not at all, instead concentrating on not bringing up the last of the jellied eel she’d eaten on the steamer.
“I’m perfectly fine.” She gulped again though, and shivered.
“Don’t look.” The man behind swung her away, forcing her to break off her examination of the arm.
“I’m not--” A child. She put her hand to her clammy forehead. Ridiculous. She’d seen wounds before...only not on pieces of the anatomy that were bereft of their human owners. That thought was enough to remind her stomach. “Uh, no. Let me--”
This time, with a gentle urging of his hands, he showed her to the gunwales. Water shone blackly a yard from her nose.
To her relief, lunch remained where it was, though the surge and splash of the hull made her shudder yet again. All the while his large hand rubbed between her shoulder blades. By the time she’d recovered and wiped her mouth with a handkerchief, he’d stepped back. She turned.
“Thank you, sir. I’m sorry to be such a trouble.”
“Think nothing of it.”
The depths of his rumbling voice, spoke to her at some primal level where animal logic ruled, where beasts prowled and mated as they willed.
Sweet Lord above.
She stared. The raw intensity of the man made it impossible to break away.
At the edges of her vision, the crew gathered about the arm where it still lay on the timber plank of the boat--drained of blood, raw and lifeless. If only she could breathe normally, she might have felt some gratification at her success.
She licked her lips. “And you might be, sir?”
“Leonhardt Meisner, mademoiselle, at your service.”
I doubt that. The steel-backed gaze of this man told her quite firmly, he was at the service of no woman, and possibly no man. For a moment, her heartbeat fluttered.
* * * *
Leonhardt wondered at the strength of this woman, Faith Evard. Recently ill, imbalanced, yet she glowed with vibrancy. Even in the night gloom, her hair shone, as if she’d spent the day polishing the ebony waves that gently swept back and gathered at her nape. If he put his hands out, he could easily place them on her shoulders--from the lightness of her dress, he’d feel the muscles beneath and her feminine frame.
She still stared back at him. He allowed himself the smallest smile as he returned the examination. Wouldn’t do to let her think she held the upper hand.
The quick lowering of her eyes satisfied him.
He took a deep breath through his nose.
Satisfied him in ways he’d not thought to allow himself since London. Damn himself to Hell and back. He’d come here to escape such impulses. The whores at the brothel had borne his whip, his obsession with binding them and his other whimsies... No, he sharply corrected himself...his aberrations, because he’d paid them to, even if he’d always picked those who enjoyed the affair. He’d never figured out why he needed his partner controlled and subjugated, but after the tragedy, he’d sworn to no longer let it rule his life. This young woman deserved the best of his manners.
“Pardon my staring, mademoiselle.” He bowed again then held out his hand.
With the smallest of pauses, she put her hand up for him to take. He took her fingertips in his, kissed the back of her knuckles very gently. At the brush of his lips she started and made as if to remove her hand. He firmed his grasp.
As if to divert them both from his grip, she asked, “Are you French, sir? I would have thought Leonhardt to be Germanic.”
“It is,” he murmured, noting the rasp in her voice and the surreptitious tug as she strove yet again to free herself...the parted lips, the small heave of her breasts. His feral urges resurfaced. This time, he let them stay. God in heaven, she entranced him. “I am from Luxembourg. We have all manner of nations in our blood--French, German and, of course, the main one, Luxembourgian.” He released her hand.
“Er-em,” Jeremy cleared his throat. “You do realize we have a part of a man’s body at our feet? And, my word, I think I recognize that ring.”
The last three lashes of the whip striped across her naked back. Molly jerked only a little, moaning softly, hanging limp in the rope tying her hands to the top of the post. Red lines crisscrossed her buttocks and a few places higher up. Waves of her glossy brunette hair clung to her shoulders, shimmering in the yellow light of the electric chandelier dangling from the high ceiling. Her white cotton drawers were pulled to ankle level and long silk ties trailed over her feet.
No blood showed--he’d judged it right. Hard to do sometimes with the whips Smythe provided at his brothel when right was as delicate a matter as painting a butterfly’s wing. Leonhardt smiled. Molly had a love of the whip and it seemed he’d taken her to exactly the place she wanted to go. Her inner thighs glistened with moisture.
“Molly?” He dropped the whip, stepped up to her and ran his hand down her back, feeling her ribcage move with each pant, tracing the raised lines where he’d laid the leather. Sweat slicked under his hand. She whimpered and flinched at the press of his fingers.
“There, there. Shh.” He kissed her neck and caressed the lines, watching her mouth, the rhythm of her breathing and the other tiny signs that spoke of arousal. When her squeaks changed into soft sighs, the familiar electricity zapped him into higher awareness. He never grew tired of seeing how far he could take a woman.
His cock pressed into his trousers. Every response of her body--every moan and movement, every mark on her skin, made him wish he could record it somehow, a symphony of the whip with her beautiful pain and pleasure written for him to treasure.
He might have asked her if she wanted to come but the mere act of not asking thrilled him more. Making her come, whether she wanted it or not was far better. The slickness between her legs let him glide two fingers into her, exactly as like his cock might enter her. The clench of her hot flesh and her little shudder made him smile. He inhaled her scent while slowly increasing the pumping tempo--in and out, a little faster, a little rougher, a little farther when he pushed hard.
“That’s it Molly. My fingers are inside you. Let me see your pleasure. I can do what I like to you, can’t I?”
“Yes. Yes. Sir. Oh. Sir!” Her words came out harsh and staccato between her squeaks. Her hands twisted in the ropes. “Mmm!”She spread her legs, gasping in time with each moist thrust.
“Yes.” He kissed her neck again while letting his thumb slide in where his fingers had been. Still coated with her juices his fingers made a V either side of her clit, squeezing, slicking to and fro, squeezing again as his thumb took over the pumping rhythm. Screamers were nice but Molly’s ascending high-pitched sounds were more delightful than the loudest of wails.
With his other hand he grabbed the cheek of her bottom and glided his thumb across a raised whip mark on her hot skin.
“Ah, ah, ah. Nooo!” Molly stiffened and shoved her groin into his fingers then shuddered quietly as her orgasm swamped her.
Her head fell back against his shoulder.
Holding her while she calmed was as much a reward as making her come. He loved the curves of an exhausted woman’s body tucked into his.
“Happy?” He held her around the waist and untied the leather strap around her wrists.
“Oh, yes, Mr. Meisner.” Freed at last, Molly turned in his arms and pressed her face into his shirt. “I’d do this for you any day, sir. Wouldna be no need ta pay me, sir.”
“Hmph.” He toyed with her hair. “I’m afraid your employer might have other ideas, miss.”
On the way out he stopped at the desk to pay the sovereign Sydney Smythe required. The man himself was there. Though Smythe barely came to chin height he had a commanding air and was attired in the most elegant fashion--silver frock coat over an immaculate white silk shirt and dark trousers. His facial features were neat and Leonhardt guessed some ladies would see him as handsome. Even his backward combed gray-streaked hair had parallel lines in it. Yet the steady flatness of his gaze and the marionette way he reacted made everything he did seem emotionless and dull. But then what brothel owner could afford openness?
“Thank you, Leonhardt.” Smythe stretched his mouth into a tight smile. “For your patronage. The girls do seem to like you.”
Leonhardt nodded and let the coin slip onto the leather of the desk. “I try to keep them happy.”
“Don’t we all?” Smythe’s eyes were dark and fathomless, despite his comment. “Please do return when the urge strikes you.”
A scream sounded. The foyer where Leonhardt stood had five doors exiting from it, interspersed by the lush red curtains. One, he’d come from. The scream he was sure, came from the door behind Smythe.
The door opened and a young woman in lacy pink drawers and corset sneaked out though the gap.
“Mr. Smythe.” She bowed her head and clasped her hands between her thighs. The black glossy bun of her hair bobbed. “Sir. The duke is flogging Mary and... Sir, I fear he is hurting her more than she can bear.”
Leonhardt frowned. It wasn’t polite to interfere. Smythe ran a brothel, not a young ladies’ college of learning or some such gentle institution. Still...he waited for Smythe to say something to acknowledge concern.
“Truly?” Smythe frowned then smiled at Leonhardt as if to say, I have this in hand. “I’m sure the duke knows what he is doing.” He glanced at the woman. “Go back inside, now, Betty.”
Betty ducked her head again.”Uh. Yes, sir. I’m so sorry to disturb you.”
“Perfectly understandable. I’ll be in there in a moment. Please ask the duke to wait until I can check the matter.”
Betty shrank back through the door then closed it with a quiet snick.
A duke was involved? “Would you like me to come with you, Smythe?” He tried not to seem rude.
“No.”
A flat, unmovable, no. Leonhardt stared.
“If, Mr. Meisner, you go through that door, you will meet up with the duke’s three very formidable guards. They would not be happy. I assure you, I will handle this. Though, Mary has a bad habit of screaming when she does not wish assistance.” Smythe widened his smile.
He could barge in that door and, from what Smythe had said, make a fool of himself, or he could go. No further screams came forth. Smythe’s smile was like frosting on a cake--smooth and sweet. Maybe too sweet?
No. He might not like the man but he was imagining problems. This was Smythe’s business. He seemed keen on taking care of his girls. Leonhardt turned on his heel, and left.
*****
The river the next morning was delightful.
Leonhardt crouched over the oar of the coxless pair he and Jeremy had been rowing. A few ducks cruised past. The oar pressed forward into his arms as he cradled it. The wash of the hull, and the trail of the oar tip a few yards out, made pleasant shushing sounds. He sucked in a few more big lungs full, watching Jeremy’s back and the heave of the man’s chest as he too recovered from the sprint. Jeremy looked white as any ghost and as weak as a newborn chick but he rowed mean.
“Not bad, Jeremy.” He grinned though his friend couldn’t see it, and wiped away sweat from his temple. Cool day but rowing brought out sweat better than anything.
“Yes, good time too. Say, were you at Smythe’s last night? Because a friend of a friend at Scotland Yard told me they found a woman dead in an alley this morning. Been hushed up due to someone top drawer bringing down the curtain on it. You heard anything ’bout that?”
Stunned, Leonhardt only gripped the handle of the oar tightly.
“He says it was murder--been bashed and whipped hard but the body’s gone, spirited away where no one will find it. Mary, he reckons was her name. Damn bad doings, hey? Gosh. To think he knows all this... Do you think Smythe knows? It was a girl of his, apparently? Leonhardt?” Jeremy flicked back his disorderly black curls and turned on the seat.”Leonhardt? You okay?”
Dismay, disgust and horror were vying for first place in his mind. “Yes, I heard you Jeremy.” He dragged his hand over his face. Damn, what am I becoming? Am I a man like that? I did nothing last night! Except to whip a woman in the same way...one mistake, that’s all it would take. One.
* * * *
A year later: Cairo, 1910
The bow lanterns on the fleet of felucca boats reflected off the wide black waters of the Nile as if a city had submerged and waited for Faith to join those trapped below. She dismissed such dark thoughts. Someone had already joined the denizens of the river, though not willingly. One was more than enough. She didn’t intend to be the next victim.
The boat slid through the water like a greased knife. Above, the sleek triangular sail slapped at the air. Even here the smell of Cairo reached her--donkeys, unwashed flesh and something that reminded her of burnt dung...and probably was exactly that.
Faith smiled grimly. A few hours off the steamer and this awaited her. Someone had been dragged in by the crocodiles. The alarm had gone up an hour ago and, though most of the steamer’s passengers had gone on to their hotels, she’d not been able to resist volunteering to help search. Jeremy, being a family friend, had felt obliged to accompany her onto the boat.
The barest touch at her elbow alerted her to the presence of Jeremy Henleyson. “How are you holding up, Faith? We can avoid this entirely if you wish?”
“Hmph. I’m perfectly all right.” She quirked an eyebrow. “We are not likely to find anything except a body, are we?”
“No. If that, Miss Evard.”
She smiled at the Miss Evard. Though they hadn’t seen each other for a few years, she and Jeremy were childhood playmates. No matter how formal he might seem, his voice brought back memories of playing tag and blindman’s bluff.
A black, flickering silhouette in the moon and lantern light, Jeremy shrugged then ran a hand through his curls. When the steamer docked that afternoon, she’d observed him from the deck of the steamer. From above, he’d been little more than a mop of black unruly locks. The rest of him was properly restrained, of course--polite and oh so British. This was the man her step-father, Henri, had hopes of her marrying.
She sighed. Like all men, he did little for her--fun, in his laidback way. But...Jeremy--she’d rather marry a pot of custard: well-meaning, nice and handsome to a degree. Darning a sock excited her more than he did. Still, without that, this trip to join the first gathering of aviators on the African continent would have been harder to arrange. Henri had almost choked on his croissant when she’d first suggested it. She’d have done it anyway, but keeping Henri happy made everything just...well, she never liked disappointing him.
That thought only reminded her, of how she ached, literally ached, to discover the whereabouts of her poor airplane.
Such a petty thought. Here she was worrying about a hunk of metal, timber and canvas when someone had died this night.
She leaned on the rail and resumed searching. The fabric of her dress brushed against her calves--caught by the southerly evening winds--light material, barely there, sensible for Cairo but sometimes the new French fashions bothered even her in their flimsiness.
A swirl in the surface diverted her. Something gleamed. Water gurgled past.
“Ah!” She pointed. The Egyptian captain of the felucca swiftly arrived with hooked stick in hand. He jabbered something to his crew, the sail kinked and the vessel slowed.
I have to learn the local lingo. Have to. And soon.
With Jeremy to one side and the captain to the other she pointed again. “There!”
“No.” The captain shook his head ruefully. “I see nothing.”
“I also, Faith.” Jeremy leaned over the rail. “What is it you...”
She grabbed the stick from the captain, lunged and hit something solid. The hook penetrated whatever it was and she hauled it in.
“Miss! Miss!” The captain repossessed his hook, pulled the thing over the gunwale and aboard. Something soft thumped onto the deck.
“Oh. My. What have you found, Faith?” Jeremy sounded chagrined.
Faith stepped over to the find. “Tell them to bring the light.”
The light arrived faster than she’d thought possible. She glanced up and over her shoulder and her gaze locked with that of the other European aboard--the mysterious one who’d not bothered to introduce himself.
The glow from the lantern the man held sharpened edges and deepened hollows--accentuating the crease of his pale trousers and the shadows between the long fingers of his hand. Bald and six foot or more, perhaps... God take her for a dull-brained idiot but he seemed a charcoal drawing come to life--magnificent and meant for admiration.
If I touch him, maybe he’ll smudge. She almost smiled at that, until her imagination leapt farther. What would it be like to slide her hand between the opened buttons of his shirt? Her mouth turned desert dry and, for once, she regretted not ordering a few pairs of the newer underwear. The crotchless pair she wore suited her older dresses--ones that would never dare flip up in the breeze.
As if to emphasize her wanton thoughts, coolness teased between her legs.
Her judgment seemed cast awry by the lateness of the hour, the strange circumstances and, most of all, by the throbbing in her private parts that she really could have done without.
He bowed his head a trifle, lifted the light higher. “You’ve found him. I do believe.”
She looked down and gulped.
An arm. She’d found an arm. Raw, severed, the flesh was studded with bite marks and gouges and bloated as if it had been pumped full of air. A blue ring gleamed on a finger. Sickness welled up from her stomach, twisting a bitter flavor of bile into her mouth. She swayed.
“Hold on there.” Hands, arms held her still. Warm arms--the stranger’s she realized, but she cared not at all, instead concentrating on not bringing up the last of the jellied eel she’d eaten on the steamer.
“I’m perfectly fine.” She gulped again though, and shivered.
“Don’t look.” The man behind swung her away, forcing her to break off her examination of the arm.
“I’m not--” A child. She put her hand to her clammy forehead. Ridiculous. She’d seen wounds before...only not on pieces of the anatomy that were bereft of their human owners. That thought was enough to remind her stomach. “Uh, no. Let me--”
This time, with a gentle urging of his hands, he showed her to the gunwales. Water shone blackly a yard from her nose.
To her relief, lunch remained where it was, though the surge and splash of the hull made her shudder yet again. All the while his large hand rubbed between her shoulder blades. By the time she’d recovered and wiped her mouth with a handkerchief, he’d stepped back. She turned.
“Thank you, sir. I’m sorry to be such a trouble.”
“Think nothing of it.”
The depths of his rumbling voice, spoke to her at some primal level where animal logic ruled, where beasts prowled and mated as they willed.
Sweet Lord above.
She stared. The raw intensity of the man made it impossible to break away.
At the edges of her vision, the crew gathered about the arm where it still lay on the timber plank of the boat--drained of blood, raw and lifeless. If only she could breathe normally, she might have felt some gratification at her success.
She licked her lips. “And you might be, sir?”
“Leonhardt Meisner, mademoiselle, at your service.”
I doubt that. The steel-backed gaze of this man told her quite firmly, he was at the service of no woman, and possibly no man. For a moment, her heartbeat fluttered.
* * * *
Leonhardt wondered at the strength of this woman, Faith Evard. Recently ill, imbalanced, yet she glowed with vibrancy. Even in the night gloom, her hair shone, as if she’d spent the day polishing the ebony waves that gently swept back and gathered at her nape. If he put his hands out, he could easily place them on her shoulders--from the lightness of her dress, he’d feel the muscles beneath and her feminine frame.
She still stared back at him. He allowed himself the smallest smile as he returned the examination. Wouldn’t do to let her think she held the upper hand.
The quick lowering of her eyes satisfied him.
He took a deep breath through his nose.
Satisfied him in ways he’d not thought to allow himself since London. Damn himself to Hell and back. He’d come here to escape such impulses. The whores at the brothel had borne his whip, his obsession with binding them and his other whimsies... No, he sharply corrected himself...his aberrations, because he’d paid them to, even if he’d always picked those who enjoyed the affair. He’d never figured out why he needed his partner controlled and subjugated, but after the tragedy, he’d sworn to no longer let it rule his life. This young woman deserved the best of his manners.
“Pardon my staring, mademoiselle.” He bowed again then held out his hand.
With the smallest of pauses, she put her hand up for him to take. He took her fingertips in his, kissed the back of her knuckles very gently. At the brush of his lips she started and made as if to remove her hand. He firmed his grasp.
As if to divert them both from his grip, she asked, “Are you French, sir? I would have thought Leonhardt to be Germanic.”
“It is,” he murmured, noting the rasp in her voice and the surreptitious tug as she strove yet again to free herself...the parted lips, the small heave of her breasts. His feral urges resurfaced. This time, he let them stay. God in heaven, she entranced him. “I am from Luxembourg. We have all manner of nations in our blood--French, German and, of course, the main one, Luxembourgian.” He released her hand.
“Er-em,” Jeremy cleared his throat. “You do realize we have a part of a man’s body at our feet? And, my word, I think I recognize that ring.”
Copyright Cari Silverwood 2011. All rights reserved. No part of these publications may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the author.