A Season of Seduction

by Jennifer Haymore

  Forgetting the other women in the room, Becky rushed to her sister-in-law and hugged her tight. “Oh, Kate, I think I am with child.”

  Kate burst into tears.

  Becky drew back. “Don’t tell me you are unhappy! You know I thought… I thought after William that I was barren.”

  Kate drew out her handkerchief and blew her nose. “No, my dearest,” she said between sniffs, “I am so happy for you. You will make a lovely mother. I’m just—well, I just had a baby myself, and I’m terribly emotional. Forgive me for weeping; what a heartless response.”

  “No, of course not.” Becky hugged her tighter. “Not heartless at all.”

  “Oh, Becky, darling.” Sophie’s amber eyes glowed with pleasure. “What lovely news this is.”

  Becky met Cecelia’s dark, serious eyes. Her friend smiled warmly and took her hands. “This is what you want most of all… Jack, and now this. I am so very happy for you.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the women made their way downstairs, smiling but with tears in their eyes. Sophie’s wedding dress was a beautiful gown of brilliant white Italian silk, its skirts full and flounced, and above the flounces, an embroidered wreath of silver and white flowers trailed around the skirts up to the bodice.

  Kate opened the door for Becky. Dropping her skirts, Becky stepped into the drawing room. All conversation ceased as everyone turned to her.

  The curate stood beside the Christmas tree. Garrett and Tristan stood to his left, and the children were seated on the sofas and chairs. Jack stood beside the curate, tall and handsome in a simple black waistcoat and tailcoat and white shirt and cravat. His smile carved deep grooves in his cheeks as he looked at her, his gaze lingering on the artifact from Fiji at her neck.

  Becky paused just inside the door, the happiness surging so powerfully inside her, she thought she might burst with it.

  Jack reached out his good hand. “Are you ready?” His voice was calm and quiet, but it resonated through the room, and Becky could feel everyone’s questioning eyes on her.

  “Yes.” She stepped forward and took his hand. He squeezed her fingers, and the curate began.

  Jack said he’d take her as his wife. He promised to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her as long as they both lived. After Becky made similar promises, the curate asked who would give her away, and Garrett stepped beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder. “I will.”

  The curate turned back to Jack and recited the vows. Jack repeated them solemnly. She watched his face, watched the passion—and the honesty—in his brown eyes as he spoke.

  “Please take Mr. Fulton’s right hand, my lady.”

  She took his hand gently, conscious of his injury and careful not to hurt him. He held her hand limply—he couldn’t quite close his fingers yet—but warmth and comfort spread from his fingers through hers. She gazed into his eyes as she recited her own vows.

  When it was done, Jack pushed a ring onto her finger. It was a beautiful gold band that glittered in the candlelight. “My mother’s,” he whispered.

  “Please repeat the following words,” the curate said, and then he began the vows.

  “With this ring,” Jack recited, “I thee wed and with my body I thee worship—”

  Becky smiled.

  “And with all my worldly goods I thee endow.”

  Rebecca fought the urge to giggle, but her lips twitched. She was still the one with the worldly goods, and she would be the one endowing them on him—and willingly, too.

  Jack saw the expression on her face and grinned through the remainder of the speech. “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

  The curate then spoke for a long while, his voice droning in her ear, but all she could do was smile giddily up at Jack. Finally, they were pronounced man and wife.

  Becky gazed up into her husband’s face. He smiled down at her, and then, drawing her close with his left arm, he bent and kissed her.

  It had been so long since they’d kissed. It was a lifetime ago. His lips were soft and warm, and they tasted like plum pudding and wassail, but there was a deeper taste, too. The rich, salty, masculine taste of Jack. She loved that taste, and forgetting everything else, she explored it, cupping her hands behind his head and sinking her fingers into his soft, sun-kissed hair.

  Jack. Her husband. It was finally true. And she’d never been happier.

  Gently, he pulled away. Becky blinked, and he came into focus. Dark shadows loomed behind him. Garrett, she realized, was scowling at them. Tristan, too, though his expression was somewhat more benevolent. Kate, Sophie, Cecelia, Lord Stratford, and the children crowded around to congratulate them. Her cheeks heated, but Jack smiled at her, and she couldn’t help grinning back.

  Epilogue

  On New Year’s Eve, the weather was cool but not frigid. Last week’s wind had given way to calmness, and most of the Christmas snow had already melted. After they made certain their luggage had been packed in their cabin, and their servants—Josie and Sam had volunteered to go with them to America—were properly situated, Jack and Becky huddled together on deck beneath a blanket. The sailors went about their duties behind them, silent for the most part except for an occasional harsh order from a superior.

  “Good-bye, England,” Becky whispered as the Washington slipped through the waves and the busy Portsmouth waterfront vanished into the fog.

  Jack tightened his arm around her. Since they’d married, he’d felt a swirling combination of jubilation and guilt for taking Becky away from everything and everyone she’d ever known. The guilt had intensified when he’d witnessed their tearful good-byes.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I know how much it hurts you to leave your family.”

  She smiled wistfully. “They are all that I’ve ever had, until now. But I know that they will always be herefor me. We will write to one another. I hope that someday, when we are settled, some of them will visitus.”

  “I hope they will.”

  She leaned against his left side, her warmth permeating the thick wool of the blanket he’d wrapped around their shoulders.

  “Jack?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think Tom Wortingham will survive?”

  Jack sighed. “I honestly don’t know. In his warped way, Tom cannot forget Anne. He always loved her, but she never returned his affection. Not in the way he wanted. And he was never able to move beyond that.”

  “Even if she had returned his affection,” Becky mused, “he was only a vicar’s son, and she was untouchable.”

  Jack’s chest went tight in mourning for the loss of his one-time friend. “Yes, exactly. His actions were his means of vengeance, rooted in jealousy and competitiveness. And what did he gain from them? He had no money, no vocation, for he never followed his father’s footsteps and took orders. He dwelled only in the past. How long can a man live in such a state?”

  “But now there is hope for him.”

  “There might be.”

  “What about you?” she asked quietly. “Do you dwell in the past?”

  In a way he had. When he returned to England the memories had surged back, and Tom’s blackmail had pushed those memories to the forefront. But now they were sailing away from Tom, away from the past, away from England. He was gliding toward a new life, with a woman he loved beyond his wildest imaginings.

  Jack sighed, and with the release of breath, he released the last vestiges of those feelings he’d kept bottled up inside for so long. Anger, grief, guilt, bitterness, despair. All of it blew away, leaving him clean and whole, and ready to live again.

  “No,” he murmured. “I don’t dwell in the past. Not anymore.”

  She sighed contentedly, and he continued. “Tom has existed in a perpetual state of anger and resentment. He believes happiness is unattainable.”

  “That is sad.” She slid him a glance, her eyes reflecting the blue-gray of the ocean. “Yet despite his unhappiness, I cannot bring myself to like him. He caused yo
u to be accused of a crime for which I cannot fault you. No one could, if they knew the story behind it.”

  “The law could.”

  Becky shivered, and he moved to stand behind her, wrapping the blanket around them both, careful of his shoulder, which still hurt like hell whenever anything touched it. She clutched its ends together in front of her while he slipped his good arm around her waist and rested his chin atop her blue velvet bonnet.

  “Are you warm enough, sweetheart?”

  “Yes.” She paused, and her stomach drew inward as she sucked in a breath. “Jack?”

  “Hm?”

  “I… should tell you something.”

  His skin prickled at the hesitation in her voice. “Oh? What is it?”

  “I…” Dropping the blanket, she turned within the circle of his arm and looked into his face. Her changeable eyes had deepened and darkened. “I think… well, I might be with child.”

  Everything went still and hollow. Nothing seemed to move. Even the ship seemed to pause in its glide through the waves.

  Finally, he found his voice. “Is… is that what you want?”

  “I…”

  “I mean, are you happy?”

  Pressing her lips together, she nodded.

  He touched a fingertip to her stomach. “Our child?”

  “Yes. I am not certain it has truly happened… but I’ve read about the symptoms—” a pink flush suffused her cheeks, “—and they are all there. I’d been distracted and hadn’t noticed…”

  He pressed his hand flat over the thick, dark layers of her stays, bodice, and coat. Shouldn’t she have told him sooner? Was she frightened he wouldn’t want to marry her if he discovered she was with child? He shook his head, confused.

  “How long have you known?”

  “Since Christmas. Moments before I came downstairs to… marry you.” She shifted uncomfortably and looked up at him, a frown creasing her brow. “Everything has been too hectic since then, what with arranging for everything and saying our good-byes to everyone. I was waiting for the right time to tell you.” She hesitated. “Are you unhappy?”

  “God, no. No, Becky. I…” He swallowed hard. “I’ve never been happier.”

  She buried her face in his coat. “I’m happy, too,” she murmured, her voice muffled. “So happy.”

  “I love you,” he said fiercely.

  The ship seemed to resume its smooth motion, and he saw glimpses of the shoreline through the fog as they moved away from England and toward their new life. One he would spend every moment savoring.

  She shuddered.

  “Are you still cold?”

  “A little.”

  “Let me take you below. Your maid said there would be some tea ready. That should warm you.”

  She looked into his eyes, and her lips curved into a beautiful smile. A seductive indigo sparkle lit her eyes. “Nothing can warm me as you do, Jack.”

  Her words heated him from the inside out. His heartbeat thrummed through his veins, flushing his skin. “Well, then,” he said with a grin, “I’d best lock the door.”

  He led her down to their sumptuously appointed cabin, and as promised, he drew the bolt behind them. Turning back to face the interior of the room, he smiled at Becky as she untied the ribbons of her bonnet. Steam wafted lazily from a silver tea service set on the table, but he ignored it.

  Jack tugged the bonnet from his wife’s head, tossed it aside, then pulled her into his arms and proceeded to warm her.

  Thoroughly.

  After five years in the West Indies,

  Serena is back in London.

  But so is the one person she never

  expected to see again…

  Jonathan Dane—her very own

  original sin.

  Please turn this page

  for a preview of

  Confessions of

  an Improper Bride

  the first book in Jennifer Haymore’s

  sensual new series!

  Available in 2011.

  Off the coast of Antigua

  July, 1822

  Serena had not slept well since the ship had left Portsmouth. Eventually, the roll of the Victory always lulled her into a fretful sleep, but before then she’d lie awake for hours next to her sleeping sister, her mind tumbling over the ways she could have managed everything differently. How she might have saved herself from becoming a pariah.

  Tonight was different. She’d started off the same, lying beside a sound-asleep Meg and thinking about Jonathan, about what she might have done to counter the force of the magnetic pull between them. Sleep had never come, though, because a lookout had sighted land yesterday afternoon, and Serena and Meg would be home tomorrow. Home to their mother and younger sisters, and bearing a letter from their aunt that detailed her disgrace.

  Meg shifted, then rolled over to face Serena, her brow furrowed, her gray eyes unfocused from sleep.

  “Did I wake you?” Serena asked in a low voice.

  Meg rubbed her eyes and twisted her body to stretch her back. “No, you didn’t wake me,” she said on a yawn. “Haven’t you slept at all?”

  When Serena didn’t answer, her twin sighed. “Silly question. Of course you haven’t.”

  Serena tried to smile. “It’s near five. Will you walk the deck with me before the sun rises? One last time?”

  The sisters often rose early and strode along the deck before the ship awakened and the bulk of the crew made its appearance for morning mess. Arm in arm, talking in low voices and enjoying the peaceful beauty of the sun rising over the bow of the ship, the two young ladies would stroll along the wood planks of the deck, down the port side and up the starboard, pausing to watch the sun rise over the stern of the Victory.

  What an inappropriate name, Serena thought, for the ship bearing her home as a failure and a disgrace. She’d brought shame and humiliation to her entire family. “Rejection,” “Defeat,” or perhaps “Utter Failure,” would serve far better for a ship returning Serena to everlasting spinsterhood and dishonor.

  Serena lit the lantern and they dressed in silence. It wasn’t necessary to speak—Serena could always trust her sister to know what she was thinking and vice-versa. They’d slept in the same bedroom their whole lives, and they’d helped each other dress since they began to walk.

  After Serena slid the final button through the hole at the back of Meg’s dress, she reached for their cloaks hanging on a peg and handed Meg hers. It was midsummer, but the mornings were still cool.

  When they emerged on the Victory’s deck, Serena tilted her face up to the sky. Usually at this time, the stars cast a steady silver gleam over the deck, but not this morning. “It’s overcast,” she murmured.

  Meg nodded. “Look at the sea. I thought I felt the ship being tossed rather more vigorously than usual.”

  The sea was near black without the stars to light it, but gray foam crested over every wave, and up here on deck, the heightened pitch of the ship was more clearly defined.

  “Do you think a storm is coming?”

  “Perhaps.” Meg shuddered. “I do hope we arrive home before it strikes.”

  “I’m certain we will.” Serena wasn’t concerned. They’d been through several squalls and a rather treacherous storm in the last few weeks. She had faith that Captain Moscum could pilot this ship through a hurricane, if need be.

  They approached a sailor coiling rope on the deck, his task bathed under the yellow glow of a lantern. Looking up, he tipped his cap at them, and Serena saw that it was young Mr. Rutger from Kent, who was on his fourth voyage with Captain Moscum. “Good morning, misses. Right fine morning, ain’t it?”

  “Oh, good morning Mr. Rutger,” Meg said with a pleasant smile at the seaman. Meg was always the friendly one. Everyone loved Meg. “But tell us true, do you think the weather will hold?”

  “Oh, aye,” the sailor said, a grin splitting his wind-chapped cheeks. “I think so. Just a bit o’ the overcast.” He looked to the sky. “P’raps a
splash o’ rain, but nothin’ more to it than that, I daresay.”

  Meg breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, good.”

  Serena pulled her sister along. She probably would have tarried there all day talking to Mr. Rutger from Kent. It wasn’t by chance that Serena knew that he had six sisters and a brother, and his father was a cobbler—it was because Meg had hunkered down on the deck and drawn his life story out of him one morning.

  Perhaps it was selfish of her, but Serena wanted to be alone with her sister. Soon they would be at Cedar Place, and everyone would be angry with her, and Mother and their younger sisters would divide Meg’s attention.

  Meg went along with her willingly enough. Meg understood—she always did. When they were out of earshot from Mr. Rutger, she squeezed Serena’s arm. “You’ll be all right, Serena,” she said in a low voice. “I’ll stand beside you. I’ll do whatever I can to help you through this.”

  Why? Serena wanted to ask. Serena had always been the wicked daughter. She was the oldest of five girls, older than Meg by seven minutes, and from birth, she’d been the troublemaker, the bane of her mother’s existence. Mother had thought a Season in London might cure her of her hoydenish ways; instead it had proven her far worse than a hoyden.

  “I know you will always be beside me, Meg,” she said. And thank God for that. Without Meg, she’d truly founder.

  She and Meg were identical in looks but not in temperament. Meg was the angel. The helpful child, ladylike, demure, and always unfailingly sweet. Yet every time Serena was caught playing with the slave children or running on the beach with Bertie Parsons, the baker’s son, or hitching her skirts up and splashing into the ocean, Meg stood unflinchingly beside her. When all the other people in the world had given up on her, Meg remained steadfast, inexplicably convinced of her goodness despite all the wicked things she did.

  Even now, when she’d committed the worst indiscretion of them all. Even now, when their long-awaited trip to England for their first Season had been cut sharply short by her stupidity.

  “As long as you stand beside me,” Serena said quietly, “I know I will survive it.”