Cromwell regarded him thoughtfully. “You have a point, Granville. But the mission carries some hazard, it seems to me.”

Cato raised an eyebrow. His hand was now motionless on his sword hilt. “You think I might run from hazard, General?”

“No, of course there’s no such implication, Granville!” Lord Fairfax exclaimed. “No man would ever question your courage.”

“Not with impunity, certainly,” Cato agreed coolly, but his eyes still rested on the general as gently he drew his sword an inch from its sheath.

Oliver Cromwell picked at a scab on his chin, then he shook his head slowly. “ ‘Twas just an observation, Cato. We’ve sent two agents who’ve disappeared into thin air. Strickland has vanished, to all intents and purposes. It seems obvious there is hazard in the mission. But I believe you’re well suited to take it if you’re willing.”

“I have already said so,” Cato returned, pushing his sword back in place. The air seemed to lift and lighten.

“I’ll take ship from Harwich to the Hook, then down to Rotterdam,” Cato stated.

“The Black Tulip is the usual point of contact with Strickland,” Fairfax said. “How many men will you take with you?”

“None.” It was a crisp negative.

“Not even Giles Crampton?” Fairfax was incredulous.

“Not even Giles. I’ve no desire to draw attention to myself,” Cato pointed out. “And clumping around Rotterdam asking questions in the company of a broad Yorkshireman will certainly make us conspicuous. Giles is a magnificent soldier, but espionage is not his forte.”

He picked up his cloak and gloves from the settle beside the empty hearth. “I’ll travel as an English merchant looking to find transport for lace and Delftware. It’ll give me a good excuse to roam around the port. If there’s information to be found, it’ll be found where sailors and ruffians congregate.”

“Aye,” Cromwell agreed with a dour smile. “And by the same token, you’d best watch your back.”

“I’m a past master at that, Oliver.” There was a small pause as the possible significance of the remark sank in. “However, I don’t expect to look for the knife in the hands of my friends,” Cato continued deliberately.

“I’ve no wish for a falling out,” Cromwell said gruffly after a minute. He held out his hand. “Godspeed, Cato.”

Cato took it in a brief firm clasp, then shook hands with the others and left, calling for Giles Crampton as he emerged into the bright sunlight.

Chapter 18

“But how long will you be gone?” Phoebe asked in dismay, pushing herself upright against Cato’s bare chest.

“I can’t say for sure.” He reached up to pull her down again, but she resisted his encircling arm.

“But Italy is such a long way away. And this mission… it’ll be dangerous, won’t it?” She knelt on the bed, looking down at him.

“No more dangerous than anything else,” Cato said. “Come now, Phoebe, if I told you I was going to be away at a siege, you wouldn’t give it a second thought.”

“Oh, yes I would,” she declared. “I’d give it dozens of thoughts! You could be killed at a siege, and that’s not a matter for indifference. How could it be?”

“Maybe it isn’t,” Cato conceded. “But this journey will be no more dangerous than anything else I’ve been doing in the last several years.” He smiled up at her with a hint of placation, twining his fingers in the luxuriant fall of her hair obscuring her face. “And a damn sight less dangerous than a pitched battle. And I’ve been in a good many of those.”

“But you could be gone months!” she wailed. “Across the sea. You could sink and be drowned.”

Cato laughed. “No, that’s not going to happen. Although I admit I’d sooner not have to go anywhere by ship. I’m a terrible sailor.”

“How?”

“Sick,” he said with a grimace. “Sick as a dog from the moment the vessel puts out of harbor.”

“I wonder if I would be,” Phoebe mused, her imagination caught by a whole range of possibilities.

“Well, you’re not about to find out,” Cato declared. “Now, come back down here and let’s go back to where we were.”

Thoughtfully Phoebe nibbled her lip for a second. Then she grinned mischievously and said, “I’ve a mind to try something different, my lord.”

She swung herself astride him as he lay supine, and ran her hands up over his chest, her fingers playing in the dusting of dark curls clustered around his nipples.

Cato brought up his knees so that he was supporting her back and then watched her lazily through hooded eyes.

Phoebe moved her hands down over his flat belly and then up over his rib cage. She loved the feel of his body, the surprisingly soft skin stretched taut over the ridged muscles. She cupped his biceps in her palms, ran her hands down the corded sinews of his forearms where the hair grew thick and dark. She loved his wrists. They were slender, bony, amazingly strong; and his hands, broad yet elegant, hard yet so surprisingly tender, the fingers long, the nails pared and pink.

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth as she concentrated on an exploration that never failed to delight her, never failed to reveal new areas, new possibilities, however often she made it. Leaning against his legs, she reached behind her to run her hands down the long, firm length of his outer thighs, then behind to the backs of his legs, the deep hollow behind his knees, the corded muscles in his calves, the sinew that ran from his knees to his buttocks.

Playfully she kept her exploration away from his sex, even as she felt his penis harden and flicker against the base of her spine.

Cato reached up and took her breasts in his palms, caressing them languidly before he brought his mouth to her nipples, inhaling the delicate scent of her skin mingling with the sharper fragrance of arousal. The cleft of her body was hot and moist against his belly as at last she stroked his engorged and needy shaft of flesh. His teeth grazed the erect crowns of her breasts as he sucked upon them, flicking with his tongue, knowing how she loved such caresses, how they never failed to bring her to a peak of delight.

Phoebe moaned softly and when his hands slid down her body, beneath her bottom, lifting her, she guided herself onto him, taking him deep within her with a little crow of triumph that made Cato chuckle through his own pleasure.

Leaning back against his drawn-up knees, she moved herself upon him and around him, glorying in the control she had over her own sensation. Her eyes widened in delighted surprise as she understood how she could heighten her own pleasure by discovering where deep inside her the point of contact was the most sensitive.

Cato continued to play with her breasts, content to let her bring them both to fruition in her own time and at her own pace. Her movements became more rapid, her skin damp and glowing with the growing intensity of sensation. She pressed the heated cleft of her body hard into his belly and cried out with delight as the waves of pleasure radiated through her loins, streaming into every cell and pore.

At the same instant, Cato dropped his knees and drove his hips upward to meet her, and Phoebe fell forward, unable to contain a pleasure so exquisite it verged on pain. She felt his climax throbbing against her womb, and the hot flood of his seed laved the tight sheath that held him, and again, impossibly, the wave broke over her and she thought she couldn’t endure such joy.

Cato stroked her damp back as she lay against him, her heart beating as fast as if it would burst from her chest.

“How was that possible?” she murmured after long minutes. “I don’t know what happened.”

He pushed her hair away from her forehead, catching it at the nape of her neck so that the cool air could get to her heated skin. “You have a gift for loving,” he said with a soft laugh. “It’s not given to everyone.”