Jean Pierre swallowed the last of his sherry and poured another. He answered evenly, his face impassive. “I suggested we visit Eze, but Diana finds no charm in small villages. Perhaps we’ll visit Paris in the fall.”
Bristol looked at her hands. She would have loved Eze. She would have loved being with Jean Pierre wherever they went.
Jean Pierre’s slate-colored eyes steadied on his parents. “I’m grateful for your hospitality in opening Hathaway House to us. Actually Diana hasn’t yet begun to look for a house. The wedding has kept her in a state of”—he searched for a suitable word—“excitement. I’ve discouraged her from looking until after the wedding.” He shrugged. “Perhaps I’ll be able to help then. Diana shrinks from the chore.”
“I see,” Lord Hathaway said weakly. Aunt Pru pushed at a limp orange curl, her eyes troubled. Lord Hathaway patted his wife’s hand and looked at his son. “You are welcome here for as long as you wish, Robbie, I hope you understand that.”
Forcing a smile to her wide lips, Aunt Pru abruptly changed the subject. “Are you wearing the green silk, Bristol? All the ladies will be on display. I think the green silk shows you to best advantage.”
Bristol nodded and set her glass on a table lest her shaking hands snap the stem. Tomorrow. Jean Pierre would be lost forever tomorrow.
As if by prearranged signal, they all stood simultaneously, self-conscious smiles on their faces. Aunt Pru feigned a yawn. “Well,” she murmured, “I think an early night best. Unless...” She looked at them hopefully. “Unless anyone is interested in a game of ombre?” Aunt Pru loved cards, particularly if a few coins were wagered on the outcome. She shrugged at the refusal she read in their eyes. “I guess not. Ah, well, we can all use the rest. Tomorrow will be a long day.” She accepted her husband’s arm and turned toward the door. Bristol hastened to follow.
“Bristol?” Jean Pierre’s accented voice carefully held no expression. “Would you honor me with a small moment? I have a gift for you too.”
Aunt Pru nodded happily, her orange curls bouncing. “I’m so relieved, Robbie! I can promise you Bristol has worked as hard as anyone on the wedding details. She cataloged the gifts filling the East Room.” Prudence smiled and touched the sparkling diamond buckle she’d insisted on wearing immediately upon unwrapping it. “I did thank you, didn’t I, Robbie?”
Jean Pierre smiled and kissed her check. “Several times, Prudence.”
“Yes. Well.” Aunt Pru returned to her husband, who was limping badly, and Bristol heard them arguing about Willie all the way up the staircase.
Alone with Jean Pierre, Bristol sank uneasily to the edge of her chair and watched him close the French doors. Her heart raced and she felt the rapid rise and fall of her breast. She hadn’t allowed herself to be completely alone with him since the visit to Bedlam—since she’d confessed her love. Her mouth dried and she knew her heart lay exposed in her eyes.
Without speaking, Jean Pierre turned and stared across the room, his smoky eyes narrowing and falling from her lips to the throbbing hollow of her throat, then to the sweet curve of her breast. “Mon Dieu,” he whispered hoarsely, “every time I see you, you’re more beautiful!”
“Please, Jean Pierre! You only torment us both.” Bristol’s voice was no louder than a whisper, and she lowered her eyes in pain. A familiar weakness spread throughout her body. He’d never been as handsome as tonight, on the eve of his wedding. Jean Pierre’s candlelit face seemed all angles and seductive shadows; black breeches and a maroon jacket fitted his hard body to perfection, and the frothy white lace at his throat emphasized dark hair and deep eyes.
He crossed to a sideboard and stood with his back to her while pouring them each fresh glasses of wine. “You do avoid me,” he said softly, walking toward her.
Bristol didn’t take the glass, didn’t dare risk touching his hand. He placed the wine on a table near her chair and lifted his glass to his lips, watching her with moody eyes.
Bristol plucked at her skirt. She wished she had the willpower to rise and leave this impossible situation. But she could not. “I’m sorry,” she whispered through parched lips. “I... you don’t know how difficult...” Her voice trailed.
“Don’t I?” he asked. His accent thickened with passion. “Do you realize how difficult it is to stay away from you? To respect your feelings and beliefs?” His dark gray eyes burned into hers. “Do you know I still pace the corridor before your door and battle myself? How easy... how easy to break past and take you! Can you guess how your face tortures me? How memories eat my mind?” His voice lashed across the room, harsh and deep.
“Oh, Jean Pierre!” Bristol breathed. She closed her eyes and clenched her fists. “We can’t go on; please understand!” She stood then, her knees uncertain and weak. “Tomorrow you’ll be married. Married!” She stared hopelessly into the face she knew so well, and her cheeks drained of color. “It’s adultery. People are hanged for—”
“In New England!” he said, his eyes not leaving her face.
Bristol’s shoulders dropped. “Adultery is adultery anywhere in the world. Does it matter if the noose tightens on flesh or on conscience?” Her eyes beseeched him. “No matter our feelings or our desires, there’s nothing left for us. Nothing!”
“There is tonight,” he whispered, staring into her eyes. “We have tonight, little one. Tonight adultery does not enter the question.”
An anguished sound broke past her lips, and Bristol swayed on her feet. She wanted him with every beat of her heart. “It’s the same thing as adultery,” she moaned. “No, Jean Pierre, we can’t. It’s over!” Gathering her skirts, she blindly dashed past him and ran up the staircase. She knew if she remained another instant, she’d fling herself into his arms.
Her room looked barren and empty. Taunting moonlight streamed past the windowpanes to remind her of a moon-washed captain’s cabin. Her bed sat cold and large, a symbol of memories gone. Bristol passed a shaking hand over her eyes and fell into a velvet chair. She stood and paced to the window, then to the fireplace, then again to the window.
After an hour of aimless wandering, she remembered the gift he’d mentioned. What would she answer when Aunt Pru inquired? It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but him—the man she’d fled.
Angrily she pulled off the golden-red gown and dropped it in a puddle at her feet. For a moment the pale lushness of her young body gleamed in the mirror, and she stared at herself, trying to see what Jean Pierre saw. Warm breath rushed past her parted lips, and she turned away with a groan, hurrying into a soft nightgown of Collette’s creation. A white floating mist with delicate foaming lace at cuffs and plunging neckline. She loosened, the curls on her head, and a sensuous weight tumbled about her shoulders and down her back. She stood in front of the mirror and knew she’d never been more beautiful.
And for nothing. For no one. No one would see the gown cling and flow, only to mold and shape once more. No one would stroke the silky gloss of curls falling across her breast. Jean Pierre’s husky voice echoed in her thoughts: “We have tonight, little one.” Tonight but no tomorrows. Bristol’s head dropped. No tomorrows. Never again. Never to taste his lips, to experience the ecstasy of his arms and mouth and teasing hands.
A sound wrenched past her throat, and her hands rose in fists against her cheeks. “I can’t!” she whispered. “It’s damnation!” But her body moved forward on shaking legs. It’s wrong. Wrong! she thought wildly as she watched her fingers reach for the latch.
And finally: I love him, as she trembled in the dark silent corridor before his door. Her conscience blazed and melted away. As if in a dream, she touched his latch, her hand moving slowly, her heart violently hammering.
The door was open. It swung in, and she stood framed in the doorway, her eyes wide and helpless.
Jean Pierre lay against a mound of pillows, still dressed in shirt and breeches. One candle burned near his bed, and he held a wineglass in his hand. Smoky eyes met hers. “I’ve been hoping,” he said so
ftly. Putting down the glass, he opened his arms. “Come to me. Come to me, my love.”
Bristol felt faint; her legs refused to move. She held to the door for support, staring at him. Instantly Jean Pierre was at her side, sweeping her into powerful arms. His lips crushed hers in a savage kiss of need and passion denied too long.
And when his bruising mouth released her, Bristol buried her face in his neck, inhaling the scent of salt air. “I love you,” she whispered. “God forgive me, I love you.”
He moaned, his voice hoarse. Then he laid her on his bed and stood over her, his eyes devouring the lines of her quivering body. His hand touched her breast, and he pulled the white gown down and away, sucking in his breath as the candlelight warmed her trembling flesh.
An explosive urgency sparked between them. Bristol lifted her arms while he tore at the string of his breeches. “Jean Pierre.” she breathed, eager, needing, anxious with the fervid demands of her body.
They came together violently, wild with each other, blind to everything but their need. Jean Pierre’s fingers bruised her tender flesh, his plunging body rose above her. And Bristol met each fierce thrust with a searing fire of her own, urging him closer, deeper, harder, until each shook with sensation and rapture.
Spent and gasping for breath, they lay tangled in each other’s arms. When their breath had slowed, Jean Pierre leaned above her and tenderly cupped Bristol’s face in his hands. He stared down into her soft eyes. “I love you,” he said simply. His lips traveled her eyes, her cheeks, her swollen mouth. “Why does one woman enflame the body and travail the mind? Is it the curve of lips?” He kissed her gently. “Or the spirit behind the brow?” His mouth brushed her forehead. “The carriage of your wonderful body, or the luster in those green eyes?” His lips found the hollow of her throat, and Bristol felt the velvet strength of his erection growing against her inner thigh.
She moaned, feeling her body respond as his teasing mouth closed over a rose-tipped nipple. “Jean Pierre.” she whispered, embracing his name, calling to him again and again. She guided him down, down. As his tongue moved over her moist silky skin, he groaned and whispered in French Bristol did not understand. But she understood the meanings in her heart and in the heat of his hands as he teased open her legs and made circles on her belly with his tongue. And then his dark head moved lower yet, and she whimpered and lifted to him, falling back into the pillows with a strangled cry of bliss.
They made love throughout the moonlit night, unable to quench the fires of urgency and passion. And when they rested, Jean Pierre’s arms circled her and he murmured into her ear, and they drank wine and touched each other with embraces born of loss.
“I would stop the dawn if I could,” he said, tenderly brushing a long strand of red hair from her cheek.
“There is tonight,” she whispered. And reached for him again.
Tints of gray and faint pink shaded the sky when Jean Pierre gently lifted her exhausted body and carried her slowly through the dim hallways. Bristol clung to his neck, her face hidden against his shoulder and covered by a tangle of damp hair. She didn’t let herself think past this moment. It was enough to be with him now, to feel his powerful arms holding her, to smell their musky scent, and to know he loved her.
Jean Pierre laid her tenderly in the pink bed, and his lips lingered at her mouth. “Sleep well, my love, my little one,” he murmured in a hoarse whisper.
“I love you. Oh, Jean Pierre, I love you!” For an instant the drowsiness cleared, and she stared up into his sober face with her heart shining forth in green splendor.
Gently he brushed her cheek; then he placed something on her bedside table. And he was gone.
17
Although Aunt Pru had sent scores of invitations for the lavish wedding reception, both civil and religious services were small, attended only by family and close friends. Reverend Cornwell officiated at the Tri-Trinity chapel, where Bristol found it less shattering to focus her attention on the reverend than to look toward Jean Pierre and Diana. Arriving direct from the magistrate that married them, the couple knelt at the altar and received Reverend Cornwell’s blessing with bowed heads.
Bristol listened to the reverend’s monotone with a weary, disbelieving mind. She welcomed her exhaustion; it insulated her from the pain of watching another woman wed the man she loved. With every aching breath Bristol wished herself anyplace on earth but here in this unyielding pew, seeing, listening, and feeling a cake of ice encase her heart.
It didn’t seem possible the man at the altar had left Bristol but hours ago. Yet her pale cheeks and the violet shadows smudging her eyes were proof of their night together.
Valiantly Bristol struggled to push those memories into a separate room of her mind. A secret room to be closed and forgotten until she could examine it without the bitter agony of loss. Bristol chewed the inside of her cheek and wrung her hands in her lap. If she failed to submerge her memories, her emotions, life would be intolerable.
She sighed. Even with the best intentions, reminders of their relationship would exist; Bristol couldn’t banish them all. Her hand crept to touch the emeralds and diamonds lighting her throat. Earlier this morning, when she’d unwrapped the package at her bedside, she’d discovered these magnificent gems: perfect for her green silk gown—arid a wildly generous gift.
Aunt Pru had arched a brow in breathless admiration, having immediately noticed the jewels against Bristol’s milky-white bosom. “From Robbie?” she asked needlessly. And her thoughtful blue eyes searched Bristol’s tired face. Then her pumpkin curls had bobbed in a quick headshake, as if speculation added complications too unsettling to bear close scrutiny.
Beside Bristol, Aunt Pru puffed up and heaved a sigh; with a start, Bristol realized the religious service had ended. She straightened her shoulders and mentally stiffened her courage. Then Bristol joined the short line of well-wishers, her feet dragging.
She advanced in the line with downcast eyes and managed to offer her best wishes without meeting the gaze of either bride or groom. Bristol knew if she looked into Jean Pierre’s eyes, her heart would shatter.
Thankfully, the reception was crowded and noisy with festive gentry. Occasionally Bristol noticed a guest pause and regard the newlyweds with a curious eye, as if wondering why Lord Hathaway’s heir had chosen as he had; but good breeding decreed that no mention of Diana’s eccentric behavior be uttered aloud. Aristocratic peccadilloes were politely ignored and consigned to the dust bin of memory unless further erratic conduct brought previous acts to mind. Which frequently occurred in the instance of Diana Thorne Hathaway, some whispered—most guests were not so ill-bred as to make like comments in public.
“But they’re thinking it, I know they’re thinking it.” Aunt Pru fidgeted nervously. She mopped her powdered forehead and glanced over the gardens bright with flowing gowns and satin breeches in colors to rival the brilliant beds of June flowers. “I keep worrying Diana will do something terrible.” Aunt Pru wrung dimpled hands. “I wish Mary had attended the reception.” England’s young queen had graced the religious service but offered regrets for the reception. “Why Diana’s mother doesn’t stand by her side and calm her, I can’t guess. Lady Thorne’s been dealing with Diana for years. I’d think her more qualified than I in soothing our bride through this long day. But she’s left everything to me!” A servant passed along the terrace with small iced cakes and glasses of champagne. Aunt Pru accepted one of each, but ate her cake with little evidence of pleasure.
Bristol peered over her fan at a sallow, aging woman reclining in the shade of a leafy oak. “I think Lady Thorne may be ill, Aunt Pru. She doesn’t look at all well.”
Aunt Pru shaded her eyes and scowled at the thin, tired woman beneath the tree. “If Lady Thorne dies and leaves me alone with Diana, I shall never forgive her!” Prudence grinned weakly at her niece. “And Lady Thorne strikes me as spiteful enough to do it.”
Bristol’s smile faded as she spied Duke Charles Easton threading
through the crowded gardens, coming toward her. Her shoulders lifted in a delicate sigh. More than ever he reminded her of Caleb Wainwright. His sandy hair tousled in a slight breeze, and his face was a freshly scrubbed pink. He wore an expression of bland cheerfulness that was almost doltish in his single-minded intent to claim Bristol’s company.
Watching the duke, comparing him with Caleb, Bristol wondered how she could possibly have once imagined herself in love with Caleb. She hoped Caleb Wainwright had forgotten her and found someone else, for if fate could snatch Bristol from the Hathaway gardens and instantly deposit her on Salem’s soil, she knew she’d never again be romantically interested in Caleb Wainwright, if for no other reason than that Caleb would always remind her of Duke Easton. She hid a contemptuous twist of lips behind the spread of her fan.
“Bristol!” Charles Easton bent over her fingers, his wet lips cool and rubbery on the back of her hand. “I’ve never seen you more beautiful!” He spoke in an irritating nasal tone. “I daresay there’s a melancholy softening in your eyes and... yes, I believe a touch of sadness becomes you.” A red flush climbed his neck. “May I dare to hope that sorrow will ease now that I’ve found you?”
Bristol was glad the fan hid her expression. Exhaustion made her irritable. For an instant she was tempted to tell him how boring he was, how she suffered his company and fought to keep from yawning in his cheerful bland face.
But of course she did not. Sighing, she accepted his arm and listened with half an ear to his brimming summer plans. Bristol nodded absently, realizing she’d need Charles Easton. To remain in Hathaway House with Jean Pierre and his bride would be a torment. She’d need outside activity. Either that or surrender her own sanity. Besides, Charles Easton was no better and no worse than the others paying her court.
Louis Villiers, the Marquis de Chevoux, rescued her from Charles, clasping her arm possessively and contriving to brush her breast; he detailed a round of parties and hunts and river picnics and country outings he hoped she’d grace with her presence. Then came young Lord Babbington with his summer arrangements, no less ambitious. A succession of men appeared to beg her company for upcoming events, and Bristol discovered she needn’t spend a single painful day at Hathaway House unless she wished it.
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