Yesterday's Roses

by Heather Cullman

  “Of late, yes,” Hallie purred, stroking the length of Jake’s hardness. To her satisfaction, his pelvis gave a violent jerk and she could hear his breath catch as he stifled a moan. She’d show him who needed an evening between the sheets.

  “Well, then, you two run along,” boomed Eustace, nodding sympathetically at Jake’s pained expression. The boy looked to be in a hell of a heat. He cackled to himself, remembering how it had felt to be young and constantly in need. “I’m sure Maudie will be glad to serve as Penelope’s chaperon for the rest of the evening, and I’ll personally see to it that the girl gets home at a decent hour. That sister of yours has become quite the rage these days. Couldn’t disappoint all the young pups by letting her leave now.”

  “That would be most generous of you, Eustace.” Jake paused to glance down at his wife. Wicked baggage! Her expression was as prim as if she had been at a Sunday meeting, and all the while she continued to bedevil his male member.

  “And, yes, I do believe we will retire early. I’m finding myself in desperate need of my bed as well.” Silently he vowed to seek retribution from his wife for her merciless teasing.

  It was during the short carriage ride home that Jake deftly turned the tables on Hallie.

  As soon as the carriage door had clicked shut, Jake snaked his hand beneath his wife’s skirts and loosened her drawers. Seductively, he trailed his fingertips up her inner thigh, smiling with satisfaction as she began to groan with yearning.

  “Jake!” Hallie gasped as he parted her damp folds and lightly stroked the bud of her desire. Ruthlessly he teased her, stimulating her until she squirmed with passion beneath his fingers.

  As she felt a rush of delicious sensations sweep through her body, she begged, “P-Please, darling. Now!” The humming deep in her belly had intensified to a frenzied pitch, singing for release. Whimpering with urgency, she thrust against his hand.

  “Oh, no, Mission Lady.” Jake chuckled, thoroughly enjoying his revenge. “You’re going to pay for torturing my poor manhood in front of the Dorners.”

  With excruciating slowness, he eased his finger inside the sheath of her womanhood, moaning with her as she arched and gyrated against him. She felt so warm and wet clamped around his index finger, her thighs straining apart in her need as he flicked his thumb over her sensitive woman’s nub.

  Again and again he brought her just to the brink of ecstasy, only to pull her back at the last moment. When the carriage finally came to a rattling stop in front of the house, Hallie’s urgency had become such an all-consuming fever that she was certain she’d succumb from the heat. Desperate to relieve the throbbing ache between her legs, she rubbed against Jake’s fingers, moaning for her release.

  From outside the carriage, they could hear the servants shout to one another as they prepared to open the doors. Hastily, Jake replaced Hallie’s drawers and smoothed down her skirts. She groaned her disappointment.

  “Remember, Mission Lady. Patience is a virtue,” he teased, adjusting his dress coat over the straining bulge in his trousers. “And virtue is always handsomely rewarded.”

  The rogue. Hallie smiled demurely as the carriage door was opened. She would give him a lesson in patience.

  She waited until she’d been handed out of the carriage and Jake was in the process of stepping down, and then she murmured seductively, “You’ll have to catch me if you want your reward.” With that she lifted her skirts and fled into the house.

  Though Jake’s leg was much stronger these days, thanks to Hallie’s nightly massages and poultices, it still wasn’t strong enough to allow him to run up the stairs, and he was forced to pursue his wife at a more sedate pace. Nonetheless, he had an easy enough time following her.

  Like Hansel marking his way through the forest with bread crumbs, Hallie blazed a trail through the house with her clothing. There were a fan and gloves in the foyer, and a shawl on the stairs. Shoes, stockings, petticoats, and her bodice, all strewn down the hallways … all leading him to paradise. Jake’s grin broadened as he picked up the chemise lying at the junction of the upstairs corridor. His Mission Lady was truly shameless—and almost naked at this point. Except for …

  … Her drawers. Which were lying in a heap of fine white batiste in front of the door of the bedroom adjoining his. With a chuckle, he picked them up. Waving them in the air like a white flag of surrender, he pushed open the door and stepped inside.

  “Sweetheart?”

  Silence. The room was empty. Jake grinned as he made his way to the door leading into his own chambers. He could already picture his Mission Lady lounging naked on his velvet coverlet, eager to feel him, hungry to feast upon his passion.

  Just when he was about to open the adjoining door, a naked Hallie slipped from behind the curtains and pounced on him. Giggling, she began to pull off his clothes.

  Piece by piece, Hallie undressed him, slapping his hands away when he tried to help.

  “Oh, no. Tonight you’re my gift and I intend to unwrap you all by myself.” As she eased his shirt from his broad shoulders, she paused to kiss the scar at the base of his throat and then moved lower to lick at his nipples, knowing how much he liked it.

  Jake groaned and returned the favor, enjoying the way hers turned pebble-hard beneath his tongue. Hunger sluiced through his veins as he molded the shape of her breasts with his hands, his blood quickening at the feel of her feminine softness.

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” she gasped, as his hands skimmed the contours of her waist and eased inward to draw circles around her navel. Firmly, she pushed his hands to his sides. “Not until your trousers are off and I can touch you just as freely.”

  Dropping to her knees in front of him, her face mere inches from his groin, Hallie began the tantalizing process of unbuttoning his pants. As each fastening was sprung from its moorings, she gently kissed the exposed expanse of his belly, her breath stirring the inky strip of hair that led down to his most intimate parts. Parts that she alone was free to touch.

  At that moment, Jake was sure that if his manly parts could truly change colors, they would be the color of an eggplant. Briefly, he wondered if she ached as badly as he did. Then her knuckles grazed his arousal, and his mind went blank to everything but his own agonizing need.

  When, at last, his member sprang loose, Hallie pulled her hands away and sat still, pausing to admire his beauty.

  But that moment was one too many for Jake. With a growl, he impatiently ripped off the rest of his clothing himself. Pulling his laughing wife up into his arms, he wrestled her to the lace-decked bed, unable to wait another second to possess her. As their bodies sank into the mattress, the sweet, unmistakable scent of roses wafted up from the coverings.

  Roses. It was as if someone had thrown a pail of icy water over Jake’s body. Serena had always insisted that rose petals be scattered in her freshly made bed to scent the sheets. Apparently the servants were still indulging in the practice.

  Jake shuddered. He could almost hear Serena’s mocking laughter as he lay before her, flaccid and unable to perform his manly duty. Impotent. Half a man.

  Shaking violently, Jake buried his face between Hallie’s breasts and deeply inhaled her womanly scent, desperate to banish the cloying scent of roses from his nostrils.

  “What’s wrong, darling?” Hallie whispered, feeling his hardness begin to shrivel against her belly.

  Jake groaned and rolled off her.

  Perplexed, Hallie stared down at her husband’s naked form. He was lying on his back with one arm thrown over his eyes, almost as if he couldn’t bear to look at her. Every powerful muscle in his body was sharply delineated in his tension, and his chest was heaving as he choked in ragged gasps of air.

  “Are you sick?” she asked, concerned by the way he was trembling beneath her hand.

  Sick, yes. Soul sick. Jake felt Hallie move on the bed beside him, sending another whiff
of roses swirling into the air. As he lay choking on the scent, he felt her cup his limp sex in her palm.

  With a virulent curse, he pushed her hands away. “Don’t touch me there,” he growled, rolling to his side and pulling his knees protectively to his belly, hiding his shame from her.

  Serena had touched him like that as he’d lain in this very spot, and when he’d been unable to rise, she’d laughed at him. To his humiliation, her laughter had made him shrivel even more. Half a man. Impotent.

  And now he’d withered up in front of Hallie. Damn thing was cringing between his legs like a coward hiding from retribution. All because of the smell of roses.

  “Jake,” Hallie cried, frightened by his violent reaction to her touch. “Please. Tell me what I did wrong.” A sob caught in her throat. Desperate to make everything right again, she lay down beside him and pulled him into her embrace.

  He stiffened in her arms. Was she going to try to make him rise again? A cold sweat wreathed Jake’s forehead. What if he failed? Would she too laugh at him?

  But Hallie didn’t try to coax him the way Serena had, nor did she mock him. She didn’t even touch him like that. She simply held him. Jake slowly let his body relax against her warmth.

  “I love you, darling,” he heard her whisper.

  And he knew it was true. Just as he knew he could trust his Hallie to understand about Serena and the roses.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Jake murmured after a long silence. “It’s not your fault I can’t …” he choked on the words. It was difficult to talk about his failure.

  “Hush, Jake,” Hallie whispered, aching at the pain she heard in his voice. “We don’t have to do anything. I’m happy just holding you.”

  He lifted her hand from where it was resting against his chest and kissed the palm. “Sweet Hallie. And I’m happy being held. But I want you to understand … something.” He shifted in her embrace until he could look into her eyes. The tenderness in her gaze made him long to confide in her.

  “You see, I want to love you. Very badly.” He swallowed hard. “But I can’t.”

  Hallie’s heart bled at the self-loathing on his face as he stared down at his flaccid sex. Cupping his chin in her palm, she forced him to look back into her eyes. “You’re probably just tired,” she said gently. “And no wonder, considering how much we’ve made love during the last few months.”

  “It’s not that.” Jake glanced around the room. Everything from the roses bordering the walls to the rose trellis pattern in the carpet recalled Serena and his shame. He shook his head. “It’s the room. The scent of roses. They bring back memories.”

  Hallie tightened her arms around him, cursing herself for a fool. Whatever had she been thinking, to lure him in here? Of course, Jake wouldn’t want to make love in Serena’s old room.

  “I wasn’t thinking when I led you in here,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. There’s so much I don’t know about you, I’m bound to make stupid mistakes.”

  Jake rolled out of Hallie’s arms and sat up, his back braced against the rosewood headboard. Reaching down, he pulled her back into his embrace, murmuring, “Don’t blame yourself. You’ve done nothing except try to please me. And you’ve succeeded.”

  “How?” she asked incredulously, resting her chin on his chest and staring up into his tip-tilted green eyes.

  Jake kissed the tip of her nose. “By just being you. By being sweet and understanding, and by not laughing at my failure to perform my manly duty.”

  “I would never laugh at something like that!” She reached up and caressed his lean cheek. “I can’t imagine anyone doing anything so unfeeling.”

  “Serena did. Cruelly so.” He shifted his eyes from hers to stare into the fire. Hallie sometimes dressed in this room, and Celine always made sure the fire was lit.

  “It happened right after I’d come back from the war. You see, Hallie, I hadn’t gone to war because of any noble ideals or burning desire to fight for the cause. I was running away from the battle raging within my own marriage. In my own cowardly way I deserted Serena. I couldn’t face the fact that she hated me.”

  He looked down at Hallie, locking her gaze with his, wanting to make sure she understood what he was about to tell her. “During the war, I became obsessed with the idea of making Serena love me again. I was so tired of all the hate and violence that I would have done anything to restore the peace in my marriage.”

  Jake paused for a moment, drawing strength from Hallie’s loving gaze. She was looking at him with such compassion, such tenderness; somehow she always made everything seem better.

  Laying his cheek against her hair, he continued. “Facing death day in and day out makes a man value the love of his woman and the tranquility of his home above all else. Like a fool, I believed that I could recapture both. It was that belief that kept me alive after I’d been wounded.

  Gently cupping his wife’s chin in his hand and tilting her face up to stare into the tawny warmth of her eyes, he said, “You’ll understand, then, how delighted I was when Serena tried to seduce me a few days after I’d returned from the war.”

  Jake could see Serena as vividly as if she stood by his side. She’d been naked that night, save for her silvery curtain of hair. Her skin had been ghostly white, unhealthy in its pallor, almost translucent in its delicacy, with the network of blue veins faintly visible beneath the surface.

  He shook his head to chase away the disturbing specter. “When she lured me in here that last time, desperate to make love to me, to blame the child she was carrying on me, she had covered herself with rose oil. It was her favorite scent and she knew how much I’d once loved it. I thought everything was going to be all right. And it was … until she kissed me. Instead of purity, I tasted the depravity of her opium, and beneath the sweetness of the roses, I could smell the sickly odor of the drug clinging to her skin. She’d obviously had to use a great deal of the stuff in order to be able to stomach my touch.”

  Jake hugged Hallie close to his heart, needing the reassurance of her nearness. “My sex fell limp … and stayed limp, though she worked hard to make it rise. When she finally used her mouth on me, remembering how much I enjoyed being pleasured like that, my manhood shriveled up completely. I hated her for coaxing me like that … hated her persistence.’

  He buried his face in Hallie’s hair for a moment. With his voice half-muffled, he confessed, “When it became obvious that I was unable to get an erection, she laughed at me. She called me impotent. Half a man.”

  A sob escaped Jake’s lips. “She was right. After that, I was incapable of performing. Not even when Seth took me to Coralie’s and treated me to her best whore. I didn’t dare try again after I failed with her as well. I was too afraid to face the humiliating truth that I was no longer able to function as a man.”

  “That’s all over now, darling,” Hallie whispered, kissing his chest just over where his heart beat. If Serena hadn’t already been dead, she would have strangled her for hurting Jake.

  “You’re right. It is over.” He rubbed his cheek against her hair. Sitting up like this, he could no longer smell the roses. There was only Hallie. Fresh, womanly Hallie.

  Reassured by her familiar scent, he confessed, “It was over the first moment I met you. You were honest and good, and I wanted you. You showed me you cared and I needed you. And when you came to love me, you healed the wounds of my shame. You gave me back my manhood.”

  “I love you, Jake Parrish,” Hallie whispered, his words making her feel breathless with emotion. “That’s all that matters now. We have a lifetime to make our own memories, and I intend to make sure they’re all proud, happy ones.”

  Jake groaned and crushed her against his chest. “Sweet Jesus! I love you, too!” And then he claimed her lips with a kiss that gave truth to his words.

  Coiling her arms around his neck, Hallie returned his kiss—with a kis
s that clearly expressed her love and compassion, a healing kiss. One that made Serena’s hovering ghost dissolve and put all the destructive memories where they belonged—in the past.

  As Hallie parted her lips, responding like a spark to kindling beneath the probing heat of his tongue, her hand slipped downward and came to rest on his manhood.

  Jake gasped as fire flared through his loins and he hardened completely. “No, Hallie,” he murmured, pushing her out of his embrace and rising from the bed. “Not here. I want our new memories to be free from the taint of the past.”

  Then he reached down and scooped her up into his arms. For the first time since the war, Jake’s leg was strong enough to allow him to carry his beloved Mission Lady to his bed.

  And that night, in expressing their mutual love, they created what they hoped would be the first of a lifetime full of sweet memories together.

  Chapter 25

  Hallie sat cross-legged on the floor, carefully removing the contents from the bottom drawer of Serena’s dressing table. In the months following the first Mrs. Parrish’s death no one had thought to clear away her personal effects, and the room had stood virtually untouched.

  Even Hallie, who sometimes used the room for undressing after returning home from late-night emergency calls, had never spared the Rose Room more than a passing thought.

  But that had been before last night, before she’d seen how devastated Jake was by the memories of the room. It was in the early hours of the morning, after her husband had finally drifted off to sleep, that Hallie had vowed to sweep away the pain of yesterday and turn the rose-decked room into a haven where her love could at last find peace.

  As she lifted the last of Serena’s possessions, the final sum of a wasted young life, Hallie caught glimpses of the once happy, carefree girl whose life had turned out so tragically.

  It was the seemingly insignificant tokens, such as the bundles of yellowed letters, tattered dance cards, and faded ribbons that spoke most eloquently of a treasured past. With a surge of bittersweet longing, Hallie wondered what it would have been like to have childhood memories worth cherishing.