An Affair in Autumn Page 8

  The way his words made her feel—God, she’d never experienced this sensation before. Like she’d been punched in the gut. Or maybe punched in the heart. Whatever it was, the pain was so intense she had to struggle against her body’s urge to curl into itself. Fighting for control with everything she possessed, she said, “I hadn’t made any assumptions.”

  But that was a lie, wasn’t it?

  Mark blew out a breath of relief. “Good.”

  “I misunderstood, I suppose.” She managed to keep her voice light.

  “How?”

  “I thought you enjoyed my company.”

  “I do,” he said. “More than you know.”

  “Then why are you talking about this now? Why can we not just enjoy the time we have left?”

  He gazed at her silently for a long moment, then he said, “We can. But it ends when we arrive in New York.”

  “Why?” she whispered. With that one word, she revealed far too much. It emerged as weak and needy. She sounded hurt.

  He didn’t react as she might have expected. He jerked back as if the word why had been a slap to his face. Then he rolled to his back, staring up at the wood-paneled ceiling of his cabin.

  She wanted to shake him. She hated feeling this way, confused and vulnerable. Especially after he’d just made her come harder than she’d ever dreamed possible.

  “What?” she asked him. “Tell me. Something’s been bothering you for the last few days. I want to know what it is.”

  Mark pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and groaned. Then he dropped his arms at his sides. “I’m not who you think I am.”

  She stared at him. How could she respond to that? What the hell was he talking about? “Um… do you mean you’re not really Markus Hawkins? You’d think I’d know if you were some kind of imposter, Mark. I saw you almost every day for over half my life. I think I’d know if you weren’t who you said you were.”

  “No. It’s not that.”

  “What then?”

  “I’m not even who I thought I was.”

  “What are you talking about?” On her side, she raised herself up on her elbow to get a better look at him. He just stared blankly up at the ceiling.

  “Five years ago,” he said quietly, “my mother went missing.”

  “Yes, I remember.” The dowager had been missing for several months before she’d been found. It turned out she’d married a gypsy and disappeared from society because she wanted to save her children from the scandal. Of course, when they finally found her, the scandal had dominated all other news for at least a season.

  “When my mother was gone, several truths came to light about the House of Trent.”

  Caro frowned.

  “None of those truths were particularly welcome,” he said quietly.

  “But that was five years ago. Your mother is well. Your brothers and sister are all still very close, as far as I know. I visit the duke and duchess whenever I go see my parents. They speak highly of all your siblings and you.” She always, always asked the duke about Mark and his current adventures, and Trent never failed to respond with enthusiasm.

  “It was five years ago, yes, and it might not look like anything has changed on the outside. Trent has held us together somehow. Without him, the Hawkins family would no longer exist.”

  “What was it?” she whispered. “What did you learn?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t tell you all of it. They are my siblings’ secrets to share, not mine.”

  “But you have your own as well,” she guessed.

  He nodded.

  “Will you tell me?”

  He finally turned to her, his eyes shining. “I never thought I was good enough for you, you know.”

  She blinked at the abrupt change in topic. Then she laughed. “Are you mad? You were far too good for me! You were the son of a duke! My father was in trade.”

  “My title had little to do with it. Or maybe it had everything to do with it. Maybe, deep inside I knew…”

  “Knew what?”

  “That I’m not really Lord Markus Hawkins. I am… I am a bastard.” The last word was so low she could hardly hear it.

  “Mark… what do you mean?” She was bewildered. She’d known the Hawkins family her entire life. Their mother, the dowager duchess, was always loving and accepting of each of the six children in her brood. The oldest son, Sam, had been born to the duchess out of wedlock before she married the duke. The others were all born while the duke and duchess were married. The only way Mark could be a bastard would be if the duchess had had an affair, then passed the child off as the duke’s.

  Which was possible, Caro supposed.

  “The Duke of Trent wasn’t your father?” she whispered, when he didn’t say anything.

  “No. He was.”

  “Then… I don’t understand.”

  “The Duke of Trent was my father. But the duchess wasn’t my mother—not my true mother, I should say.”

  She was flabbergasted. “How… is that possible? She loved—loves—you.” She’d witnessed the dowager’s adoration of Mark multiple times over the years.

  “She does love me. I think it’s because there’s no woman in the world quite like her. But she’s not my mother. And”—he squeezed his eyes shut—“she’s not Theo’s mother, either.”

  “Who is your mother, then?”

  He looked back up to the ceiling. “My father’s mistress. Her name was Fiona Atwood.”

  “Oh, Mark,” Caro whispered. To believe for your whole life that you’re the legitimate son of a duke and a beloved mother, only to find out that your true mother is actually a stranger, your father’s mistress… Caro couldn’t begin to imagine it.

  “The Duchess of Trent paid Fiona dearly for me, right after I was born. I don’t know why.” He gave her a pained smile. “I always thought the duchess—my adoptive mother—was a little bit mad. This confirms it, I suppose. Fiona took her money, but my father still ‘visited’ her whenever he was in London. When she gave birth to Theo, the duchess had had enough. She paid Fiona a huge sum this time but demanded that the woman not only hand over Theo but leave England and live on the Continent and never show her face to anyone in London again. Especially my father.”

  “Did she go?” Caro asked.

  “She disappeared for a time, but reappeared in London years later, after my father’s death. Penniless and wasted away from gambling and drink.” He was quiet for a moment. Then, “I went to see her a few months after I found out. She died a year later.”

  “What was she like?”

  Mark shook his head. “Like no one I’d ever want to know.”

  “I’m so sorry.” How lucky he’d been that the duchess had taken him in and treated him as her own. But still, finding out that he wasn’t who he’d always believed he was must have been devastating to him.

  “Fiona reeked of self-pity and blame. She blamed the Duchess of Trent for all her misfortunes. But… she was my mother. Half of me. The other half belongs to the bastard who was the last Duke of Trent.”

  Caro sighed. He was right—the old Duke of Trent had been a bastard. Once while playing hide-and-seek with Nate and Mark, she’d peeked through a doorway and seen the duke beating one of his sons—his second son, Luke—brutally. Terrified, she’d slunk away from him and kept her distance from him from then on. She never told anyone about what she’d seen, but it had haunted her for years.

  “Caro… I’m not good enough for you,” Mark whispered. “I have never been. I’m a bastard. The son of a whore.”

  Caro ground her teeth. “Don’t talk like that.”

  “You deserve viscounts. Dukes… like Nate. Not a man who lives a goddamned lie of a life. Who’s always running away so he doesn’t have to always be reminded of how his entire existence is nothing but an enormous farce.”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m the one who’s unworthy. Do you know what kind of guilt I held on to after marrying Whytestone? Because I chose his money over
the man I admired beyond measure?”

  “You mean the man you loved?”

  “No,” she said flatly. “I admired Nate. I liked him immensely. I never loved him.”

  He gave her a sidelong glance. “I saw the two of you together when we were youths, Caro. You loved him.”

  “As a friend.”

  “You’re lying to yourself if that’s what you really believe.”

  She sat up and instantly got tangled in her skirts. Frustrated, she quickly untied her dress and kicked it off, along with her petticoat. In only her stays and chemise, she crossed her arms over her chest. “I was a child, Mark. I’m a woman now, and I know what love is. What it really is.”

  “How can you?” he challenged. “According to you, you’ve never loved anyone before. Clearly you wouldn’t know love if it came along and slapped you in the face.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. “You silly, stubborn man,” she whispered. And at that moment, the truth of it rushed through her. She had loved before. She’d loved Mark.

  The seeds of that love had been there forever, and when she and Mark were young adults, it had grown into a fledgling love that had gone dormant under the strains of her marriage and Mark’s harsh words. It had remained like that for years, buried under her guilt and remorse. She should never have married Whytestone. She was miserable for every day of that marriage, missing Nate and Mark desperately, her feelings for Nate simple fond memories while her feelings for Mark had been far too complex to untangle.

  But she’d untangled them now. All of her now knew what only a part of her had realized long ago. She loved Mark. She’d always loved him. He’d always been the one she wanted.

  “Mark?”

  He gazed at her, the pain in his dark eyes palpable.

  “I don’t care who your mother is. Or who your father is, for that matter.”

  “You should care.”

  “Why? It makes no difference to me.”

  “I live a lie, Caro. If you stay with me, you’d have to live that lie, too.”

  She sighed. “That’s not true.”

  “It is,” he insisted. “I live the lie every day, and I cannot tell you how much I hate it. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

  “Have you ever thought of revealing the truth?”

  “Yes. But to what end? I don’t care about myself, but if the truth came out about me, it would about Theo as well. I wouldn’t do that to my brother. And the rest of my family would also suffer.”

  “And that, right there, is what makes you an honorable man. It’s not the blood that runs through your veins that makes you who you are. It’s who you are, to yourself and to others. And—look at me”—she grasped his face in both hands and turned him to face her—“that’s an honorable man. A good man. An intelligent, worthy man.”

  “How can you say all that to me after I was such an ass to you for all those years?”

  “You understood once you heard the entire story. You admitted you were wrong. Not many men can do that. Whytestone certainly never could. He considered me worthless, and nothing I could say or do could change that. But you’re fair, Mark. You’ve shown me respect, and kindness, and…” And love. But she wasn’t ready to say that word again in his presence. She was suddenly afraid of it.

  He closed his eyes. “I… can’t. I can’t do that to you. Put you in that position—”

  She kissed him, bending down and pressing her lips to his. “Shh,” she murmured against his mouth. She climbed over him, straddling him, pulling her chemise up her thighs so she could spread them wide enough.

  She moved her kisses to his strong cheekbone, his hair-stubbled jaw, and down over his neck and collarbones. She loved his body—it was so masculine, not pale and fleshy like most men she’d seen, but dark and muscular.

  She kissed his small, flat nipples until they made tiny points, and he gasped, “Jesus, Caro.” And then she licked her way down his muscled abdomen. At his navel, she followed the trail of hair to the waist of his trousers. Rising, she undid the buttons and opened his falls, revealing his already hard cock.

  She smiled up at him, then returned her attention to his rigid length. She kissed him all over, then licked until every bit of him was slick with her saliva. Then she took as much of him as she could manage into her mouth, using her fist to slide up and down as she mimicked the motion of intercourse with her mouth.

  She didn’t last long that way. She was already aching and wet for him after just a few slides of her lips. After a few minutes, she climbed back over him and positioned him at her entrance, then slid down over him, down and down until he was inside her to the hilt, nudging at the end of her channel.

  She leaned forward over him and kissed him deeply. “Nothing,” she whispered, “has ever felt so good to me as the feeling of you inside me, Markus Hawkins.”

  And then she began to move, setting a slow pace, sliding up his length and all the way back down, the blissful feel of him spreading through her entire body.

  He took control, as Mark was always wont to do, and she relinquished it gladly. Wrapping his big hands around her waist, he sped the pace, making her grind her center against him at the bottom of his shaft. Soon she was panting, rolling her hips, searching for more of that sweet sensation. She pushed harder, rubbed deeper, and soon the sweetness burst within her. Lying on his body, her face buried in his neck, she gasped her way through the orgasm.

  Finally she relaxed over him. He let her rest for a moment, then he flipped her over and settled on top of her, all while remaining wedged deep inside her.

  “Caro, look at me.”

  She opened her eyes, and at that moment, she knew he loved her too. He didn’t have to say it. The way he was looking at her was as if she ruled his universe. As if she was everything to him.

  “Mark,” she whispered. “I—”

  He dropped a kiss on her lips to silence her. “I’ll never think I deserve you, Caro. Especially now.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  He shook his head. “Shh. Just… let me love you now, all right?”

  She wrapped her arms around him, feeling hopeless but so aroused her legs had begun to tremble. “Yes, Mark. Love me.”

  He clasped her hands in his, their fingers threading together as he pinned her to the bed. He slid in and out of her, forceful precision, until they were both gasping. Until sweat beaded on his forehead and ran down the side of his cheek.

  When he came, he didn’t pull out. He came inside her, his eyes clenched shut, his teeth gritted as his body went completely rigid over her. She cried out in pleasure at the feel of him so deep as he found his release inside her.

  They held each other for the rest of the night. Caro had so much she wanted to tell him, so many reassurances to give, so many hopes for the future. But Mark was raw from his confessions of the afternoon. Not all questions and worries needed to be addressed at once.

  Tonight she’d just hold him for as long as she could.

  Chapter Nine

  They’d be in New York tomorrow. At least, that was what Captain Torrance had said at the noonday meal when the black clouds in the sky had promised another storm. The captain had warned them all to remain below, for this storm looked to be worse than the last.

  That had been an understatement.

  The passengers sat together in the salon, looking uneasily at one another as the wind howled outside, the ocean roared, and the Liberty rolled about as if it were a bouncing ball kicked by a toddler.

  All of them were present tonight—in the past few days Mrs. Frank had improved remarkably and was now functioning almost as well as the others. Even Evan Evans had joined them this evening, though he looked jaundiced and thin—he’d lost about two stone, and his finely tailored clothes hung loosely from his gaunt frame.

  “I do believe it’s getting worse,” Mrs. Frank said worriedly. She huddled with her husband on one of the sofas, clutching his hand tightly.

  “It is getting worse,” Owen confirmed.
He had been staring out the small porthole for the past several minutes, though Caro couldn’t imagine what he was looking at. All she could see through the porthole was a circle of what looked like endless black. It was dark as pitch out there.

  Evan groaned. With his arms wrapped around his too-thin torso, he shivered in his chair. “When we land at New York, I’m kissing the ground, and then I’ll be remaining on terra firma forever. I’ll never board another ship for the remainder of my days.”

  Honestly, Caro couldn’t blame him. He looked absolutely terrible. She glanced over at Mark, who didn’t show any expression besides the line between his brows.

  They’d been together every day since their talk of the future and of Mark’s parentage—and of his deep insecurities. They’d given each other pleasure, and they’d spoken of lighter topics—mostly of Mark’s extensive travels in the past five years.

  The problem was, Caro didn’t know how to allay his fears, because her first instinct was to laugh at the absurdity of his concerns. But of course, that wasn’t the best approach. In any case, she had a feeling that no matter what she said or how she said it, he wouldn’t believe her. He’d always been a damnably stubborn male.

  She leaned over toward Mark and murmured in his ear, “Is the storm very bad, do you think?”

  He nodded. “Worst I’ve been in. Evans is right, too. It’s getting worse.”

  Mark had been on many ships and in many gales, so his words were unsettling, to say the least.

  She inched closer to him on the sofa they shared, craving the comfort he could offer her. When she was almost touching him, he wrapped his arm around her and drew her close. She glanced up to see the other passengers looking at them. An “I knew it!” smile played around Mrs. Frank’s pale lips. Mr. Frank just gave them a cursory glance then looked away. The Owens brothers both looked disgusted.

  She didn’t care. In England, the way she and Mark were touching would be fodder for gleeful gossip, but not in America. In America, nobody cared about either of them or how they felt about each other.

  And that was a very refreshing thought.

  The ship pitched hard to the side, and Caro grabbed onto Mark for dear life. Mrs. Frank squealed, and Owen, the only one of them standing, stumbled, falling hard against the ship’s wall. The Liberty hovered there, listing to the side, and the lantern snuffed itself out, plunging them into absolute darkness.