A Basket of Wishes

by Rebecca Paisley

  “And you were his first friend. ’Tis a supremely sweet thought.”

  Emil smiled a faraway smile then, pondering the day he’d first met his cousin. “When I first learned that I was related to the duchess of Heathcourte, I recalled she had a son. I didn’t know how old he was, but I couldn’t wait to see the aristocratic cousin I never knew I had. I really didn’t hope to meet him face-to-face, but I thought perhaps I could catch a glimpse of him. So, I sneaked onto Amberville lands, and Lady Luck went with me—”

  “A wonderful being,” Splendor said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Lady Luck. She’s supremely marvelous. Why, think of how dismal the world would be without the good fortune she spreads!”

  “Uh… Yes. Yes, quite right,” Emil responded, and laughed. God, what a fanciful woman she was! A sheer delight to be with.

  “You were saying, Emil?”

  “What?”

  Splendor bit into a piece of soft bread. “You sneaked onto Amberville lands, and Lady Luck went with you.”

  “Yes, and not ten minutes after setting foot upon the Heathcourte estate I discovered a well-dressed lad walking along the edge of a dense forest.”

  “Jourdian,” Splendor whispered.

  “Lonely Jourdian.”

  “Poor lonely Jourdian.”

  “Lonely, yes, poor, no. His suit of clothes cost more than my mother spent on food for a year. I summoned up my courage, walked straight up to him, and told him the entire story about how he and I were related. He was just as surprised to learn he had a cousin as I had been. He was nine and I was eight then. We met frequently after that. I tried to teach him childhood games, but he never caught on well. Still, I think he enjoyed trying to learn. And after we’d played for a while, he tutored me in all the classroom subjects he studied with his private school master.”

  Splendor nodded, remembering seeing the two of them romping through the meadows and reading books together.

  “The duke and duchess never knew Jourdian and I were meeting,” Emil continued, watching Splendor pour a glass of the heavy cream. “But I confessed to my own parents. And when they learned how lonely Jourdian was, they encouraged me to continue seeing him. My mother even knitted him a pair of stockings, and Jourdian wore them until they were threadbare. I remember thinking how odd it was that he preferred the homemade stockings to the ones he already had, which were of the finest quality. Now that I’m older, I understand that he liked my mother’s stockings better because she’d taken the time to make them especially for him.”

  Splendor tried to comprehend what Emil said. “My Grace likes things made especially for him?”

  “Well, they mean more, don’t you think so?”

  Splendor didn’t know what to think, and soon decided that delight over specially made things was a human emotion she was incapable of feeling. “Tell me more, Emil.”

  Her interest in Jourdian pleased Emil very much. “As often as he could without getting caught, Jourdian would slip food from the Heathcourte kitchens and bring it out to me to take home to my family. He gave me many of his clothes and shoes, and once he gave me a set of solid gold candlesticks that he’d pilfered from right beneath Ulmstead’s nose. My father sold the candlesticks in Telford, and the money kept us warm, dry, and fed for months.”

  Splendor grinned. She remembered the bright summer day when Jourdian had carried the candlesticks to a small structure built near one of the estate gardens. That was the day she’d chased the snakes out of Jourdian’s path. If she hadn’t forced them away, he’d have walked right on them.

  “As I said, Isabel died when Jourdian was eleven,” Emil went on softly. “Jourdian wept uncontrollably, but do you know? I don’t believe he cried because his mother was gone, but for all the years of days and nights she could have been with him but wasn’t. He never tired of listening to me tell stories about my own loving mother, and while I envied him his wealth and high social status, he coveted the affectionate relationship I had with my parents. He—”

  “Why did you not take him to your home so he could enjoy your mother and father?”

  “I used to beg him to come to Mallencroft to meet them, but he never did. He was probably right not to go. Someone would have recognized him, and then word might have gotten back to Isabel, who would have most likely found a way to keep him from ever seeing me again.”

  “How frigidly frosty of her.”

  “A regular ice maiden,” Emil agreed. “When she died, Jourdian did everything he knew how to do to establish a relationship with his father, to no avail. Barrington withdrew into a world of grief after Isabel’s death. He neglected his son and his estate, which had already begun to fall to ruin due to Isabel’s excessive spending and the fact that Barrington was not in residence long enough to see to his holdings. Sorrow finally killed the man when Jourdian was seventeen. The funeral buried Jourdian’s last hope for a loving relationship with his sire.”

  “A loving relationship,” Splendor whispered, yearning to understand what such a thing was like.

  Emil stuck his finger in the cream pitcher. “Jourdian left Heathcourte soon after the funeral,” he said, licking the cream from his finger, “and with what was left of the Amberville fortune, he attended universities in Cambridge, Paris, Strasbourg, and Seville. He was even in Athens for a while, studying philosophy at the University of Otho. I didn’t see him again for five long years, and when he returned he was different. He—”

  “The five years,” Splendor repeated, remembering those years when she hadn’t seen him. “Away studying. He must have learned a supremely vast amount of things.”

  “Yes, but when he returned, he’d become hard and resolute. And when he set about repairing the damage done to his inheritance, he was ruthless in his dealings. Especially with Percival Brackett, the man you met yesterday.”

  “That is the man who sets a great store by his hair. He patted it as though each touch filled him with great joy.”

  “He’s an eel who thinks he’s a whale.”

  At Emil’s description of arrogance, Splendor laughed.

  “Percival, like his father before him, harbored deep resentment toward the Amberville name,” Emil explained, smiling when he saw Splendor drink deeply of her glass of cream. “A resentment born of greed and jealousy. The Bracketts had always been the second wealthiest family in England next to the Ambervilles, but they’d always desired to be first. Excluding the royal family, of course. For a time—while Barrington squandered his fortune on Isabel and while Jourdian was out of the country studying—the Bracketts were the richest in the land. Indeed, they managed to acquire many of the Amberville holdings. And when Jourdian returned to his ducal lands, Percival wasted little time making sure Jourdian was made aware of the fact that the Bracketts had had a part in the destruction of the Amberville estate.”

  A deep frown scored Splendor’s forehead and wrinkled her nose. “Percival deserves to be punished.”

  Emil chuckled. “Jourdian has been punishing that narcissistic dandy for ten long years. Every time some sort of promising business venture presents itself, Jourdian beats Percival to it, a fact that has made Percival Jourdian’s one and only enemy.”

  “What is a narcissistic dandy?”

  Emil folded his arms across his chest. “The eel who thinks he’s a whale. According to Percival, he’s all the go. But he does feel threatened by Jourdian.”

  Reaching for a plump red grape, Emil got back to his story. “As I said, almost as soon as he returned from his studies abroad, Jourdian began to rebuild the family fortune and regain society’s respect for the family name. Your husband has a sixth sense when it comes to investing, Splendor, and within only one year’s time he not only brought the Amberville estate back to its original financial status, he’d increased the family fortune several times over. And I watched him do it. My parents had both died while he was abroad, and he moved me right into Heathcourte with him for a while.”

  Emil pau
sed then, his poignant memories affecting him deeply. “As a nobleman to be reckoned with by that time, he then set about carving out a place for me in society. Me, a common peasant… Jourdian took me to London, to every aristocratic gathering held. Members of the ton might have wanted to reject me, but they didn’t dare insult Jourdian. It was difficult for me at first because I sensed that most of the aristocracy merely pretended to hold me in high regard. But, as I’m sure you’ve noticed,” he said with a smile, “I am exceedingly handsome and personable. My looks and charismatic personality soon won everyone over, and I have been welcomed into society’s bosom ever since.”

  Splendor returned his smile. “He has been very good to you.”

  Emil sobered. “Good does not begin to describe how he has been to me.”

  Hearing Emil’s voice tremble, Splendor looked intently into his eyes. “His being good to you… Why does that make you sad?”

  He looked at her curiously, unsure how to answer such an odd question. “Haven’t you ever been deeply touched by someone’s kindness toward you? So affected that you… It’s not sadness. It’s…it’s profound gratitude. And affection. And an overwhelming sense of tenderness. It seems to pull at your heart.”

  Splendor strained to understand. “Does it hurt when your heart is pulled?”

  He couldn’t believe she was so completely unfamiliar with the emotion he was trying to describe. “That is only a figure of speech. The heart is not really pulled. It only feels that way.”

  Splendor remained confused. “And that is how love feels as well?”

  His disbelief soared. “Are you saying you don’t know what love is?”

  She was quickly silenced when the door opened and banged into the wall.

  Jourdian filled the threshold.

  “My Grace!” Splendor cried, her smile reaching from ear to ear.

  Jourdian kept his cold gray gaze frozen to his cousin’s face. “Emil, what the bloody hell are you doing in bed with my wife?”

  Not realizing or remembering that he’d joined Splendor on the bed, Emil did not reply. He looked at Splendor, then at the mattress and canopy, and finally back at Jourdian. “I— She— You left, so I—”

  “So you thought to take my place in her bed?”

  “What? Jourdian, for pity’s sake—”

  “I don’t recall giving you leave to stay here tonight.”

  “I would be in my own home in my own bed if I had not spent the entire evening trying to hunt you down.” Emil rose from the bed, nodded to Splendor, and crossed to the door. “You’re in a black mood, cousin,” he murmured. “Don’t take it out on Splendor.”

  Jourdian’s foul mood darkened further. “Am I to understand that you have appointed yourself her guardian angel?”

  “That’s as good a description as any I can think of.”

  “I see. In that case, you may sleep in the next room. There, you will be sure to hear her screams. Good night.”

  After one last look at Splendor, Emil quit the room.

  Jourdian closed the door. “You are never to allow a man into your bedchambers.”

  “Then what are you doing in here?”

  “I refer to other men. As your husband, I have the right to come in here as often as I am inclined.”

  “Very well. Will you join me, My Grace?” Splendor asked, gesturing toward the tray of fruit, bread, and cream.

  When she leaned forward to reach for a bit of pear, Jourdian received a brief, but extremely enticing glimpse of her breasts.

  His breakneck ride through the countryside had not eased his fury, but it had helped him to resign himself to his fate. He knew he could do nothing to change his situation, and although he was livid, he could not resist the damnable power Splendor had over him.

  “I will, indeed, join you, Splendor, but not in dining.”

  She finished her pear, then drank more cream. “If you nay wish to eat, then what is it that you would like to do with me?”

  He saw a drop of cream clinging to the left corner of her mouth, and ached to kiss it away.

  “My Grace? I asked what it was you wanted to do with me.”

  “What men and women do in bed, Splendor.”

  She saw that luster in his eyes again. That gleam of excitement she’d seen yesterday, and she knew that whatever it was he wanted to do in the bed with her would make him very happy. “Aye, My Grace, but please remember that I do not know what men and women do in bed.”

  Unbuttoning his shirt, Jourdian sauntered toward her. “The time has come for you to learn…”

  Chapter Ten

  An unfamiliar feeling came over Splendor as she watched Jourdian take off his shirt. She’d been in awe of his strength for many years, but as she watched the play of hard muscle in his chest and arms now, she felt a mysterious but pleasurable sense of anticipation wind through her.

  “I am looking forward to something,” she murmured when he arrived before her. “Something… The power in your chest and arms makes me want to lick my lips the way I sometimes do when I am hungry and about to eat something of which I am supremely fond.”

  At her description of desire, Jourdian almost smiled. “I suppose that’s one way of explaining how you feel, but I assure you that your feelings will deepen before we’re finished.”

  She wiggled on the mattress. “That is not possible.”

  “Yes, Splendor, it is.”

  “My feelings do not run as deep as yours.”

  He took her statement as a dare, and knew he would meet the challenge with ease. Already she was squirming on the bed, and yes, she truly was licking her lips.

  But the drop of cream still remained at the corner of her mouth.

  He tossed his shirt into her lap.

  His action intensified her feelings of want. She lifted the shirt to her face. It was still warm with the heat of his body, and its fragrance was of nighttime air. Of trees and fresh soil and moonbeams and starlight.

  And another scent as well.

  The smell of a man. A strong man. It was a dark scent, a potent one.

  It was Jourdian’s scent. It called to her as if with a husky, mesmerizing voice, and her need for the inexplicable something swirled and warmed inside her until she could think of nothing else but fulfilling her hunger for it.

  “My Grace,” she whispered.

  “Jourdian,” he corrected her.

  She gave a slight nod. “This yearning I feel… And this thing men and women do in the bed together… The feeling and the bed activity are somehow related, are they not?”

  “How astute of you to come to that conclusion.”

  She fidgeted on the mattress again. “I am ready for you to show me what men and women do in the bed now.”

  He removed his boots and stockings, and stretched out upon the bed. “We’ve got all night. I’m going to show you just how much more ready you can be. Now, come here.”

  Splendor lay down beside him and placed her hand on the swell of muscle beneath his nipple. “Jourdian,” she murmured.

  He liked the way his name sounded on her pretty pink lips. Liked the airy resonance her soft voice lent to it.

  Her fresh scent of flowers aroused him further. He moved closer to her, and when his face was almost touching hers he licked the drop of cream from her lip and tasted her honeyed sweetness as well.

  “This is very nice, lying here on the bed with you,” Splendor said. Sighing with contentment, she raised her leg and draped it over his thigh.

  He began to throb with need for her. He wanted to bury himself inside her, take her fast, wildly.

  He would go slowly. Somehow, he would find the will to control himself.

  “Oh, how sweet,” Splendor said through a smile.

  “What are you doing?” Jourdian asked when she pressed her hips into his leg.

  “I’m—”

  “Stop that,” he ordered, in no mood to resist his desire for her any longer. He’d wanted her since first setting eyes on her in the meadow, an
d he would not be denied now.

  “But Jourdian, I only want—”

  “I know exactly what you want, Splendor, and I’ve told you before that it doesn’t come from my leg.”

  “Then from where does it come?”

  “I’m trying to show you.”

  “You are not trying quickly enough, Jourdian. If something is important, it must be done with the utmost speed, and you are taking your time—”

  “Cease this chatter. What we are about to do has little to do with talking, and everything to do with touching.” He began to unfasten the buttons on her shirt.

  She moved his hand away and held it tightly. “You told me that ’tisn’t proper for a man to see me without clothing. Granted, you saw me naked this morning, but that was because you took my piece of satin. ’Twas nay my fault, but yours.”

  “It’s permissible for me to see you without clothing now because I’m your husband. Let go of my hand.”

  She released his hand and allowed him to continue the task with her shirt buttons. “And do you enjoy seeing me naked, Jourdian?” she asked, hearing her breath tremble when his knuckles brushed her nipple.

  He cupped his hand over her breast. “I do. Now be quiet.”

  “Your touch sends heat through me, as if you were made of fire.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” Slowly, he slid the shirt off her shoulders. “Take your arms out.”

  “You are glad that I am so hot?”

  “Yes, now take your arms out of these sleeves.”

  “I was going to suggest we open those doors and allow the night air to cool us.”

  “I want you hot, Splendor, and no night breeze is going to cool you. Now, if you don’t take your arms out of these sleeves right now—”