Entangled (A Private Collection)

by Fresina, Jayne

  Languid weeping willows arched over the water, branches dragging across the surface, and he directed the little boat into their emerald embrace until they were hidden from any passerby. It was peaceful there. Little ripples knocked against the side of the boat as he lifted the oars out of the water and let them drift further into the dappled shade.

  “Open the basket, Daisy.”

  There was veal pie, cheese, and slices of Mrs. Smedley’s excellent cream and jam sponge cake.

  “It’s not much of a wedding feast,” he admitted. “But it’s the best I could do.”

  She was actually hungrier than expected and soon tucked into the picnic with far more enthusiasm than she wanted to.

  “Now, you promised yesterday to tell me all the things I need to know about you, in case I’ve already forgotten them,” he reminded her.

  So, between mouthfuls of pie, she reluctantly told him about her brief childhood, her parents’ death, and going into service as under-housemaid with the Westerfields. All this she’d already told him in her letters, but now she also told him about struggling to give herself an education, how she’d known there was something more out there for her than the life of a servant.

  He listened without interruption, his eyes watching her face or her hands. There in the deep pool of willow shade, she felt calm again and comfortable with him. It was easier telling him about her hopes and dreams than it was telling Guy, who would immediately become defensive and accuse her of being ungrateful for everything her gave and did for her. Guy would remind her that she didn’t need an education because she had him to look after and guide her. He never understood her desire for autonomy and took it as a personal insult instead of seeing how it would make her a happier, more fulfilled person. Before she knew it, she’d told her new husband all this, unburdening everything, her tongue flapping on as if it had held all this inside for too long and simply had to get it out.

  After pausing for a nibble of cake, she watched Lawrence from under her lowered lashes, swallowed carefully, and said, “I found all those books in your trunk.”

  She saw the surprise and a little alarm flicker across his rough-hewn features. “You went into my room?”

  “I do have a second set of keys, of course.”

  He didn’t respond to that, but quickly shoved a large bite of pie into his mouth and chewed hard, a strangely absent expression on his face as he turned it to look away from her.

  “I didn’t pry into my gift,” she added, feeling guilty when she remembered pushing the wardrobe back and forth, trying to dislodge the mysterious parcel.

  Again he said nothing.

  “I shouldn’t have looked in your trunk, but when I found you gone this morning I…”

  Another bite of pie quickly disappeared into his mouth and she fell silent, deciding she’d talked enough already. She’d given this man quite enough information about her life, her thoughts and even, Heaven help her, her feelings. What man ever wanted to know about a woman’s feelings? He was probably quite bored of hearing her chatter.

  Briskly brushing crumbs from her skirt, she inwardly chastised herself for being such a chatterbox. She needn’t have told him she went into his room. What on earth induced her to confess?

  He wiped his mouth on a napkin, cleared his throat loudly, and said, “Now that I have you here where you can’t run away, there’s something I ought to tell you.”

  She waited, composed, hands clasped in her lap. It was his turn to do the talking.

  There was a long pause. He looked down at the water, up at the arch of willow branches, and back down at his feet in the little boat. He sighed heavily.

  She could bear it no longer. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense. What is it? What have you done?” Perhaps he was a crook, she thought. There was definitely something about him that was dangerous. She felt her heartbeat in her throat.

  “I’m in love with you,” he said.

  That was it? She didn’t believe it. Something still hid inside those dark eyes. “How can you be?” She laughed curtly. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  His brows lowered in a frown. “I didn’t expect it either, but there it is. The truth.”

  Her hands were clasped so tight in her lap that her fingers became numb. “Why would you say such a thing to me?” she demanded.

  “Don’t I have the right? And shouldn’t you have the right to know it?”

  He seemed almost angry about it. Or angry with himself for saying it, perhaps. Now he began throwing the remains of their picnic back into the basket. In the distance, through the bowers of willow, she could hear voices laughing, people walking by on the river bank. People enjoying their day because it wasn’t complicated. Unlike hers.

  “I didn’t expect it,” he said again, his voice low. “When I started this, I wasn’t planning to fall in love. I don’t know when exactly it happened or how, but it did.” He swore softly under his breath. “What the hell have you got me in to?” She sensed he was talking to someone else and not her.

  She took a deep breath, as much as her corset would allow. “Don’t worry, Lawrence. I’m sure it’ll pass.” Perhaps it was his head injury, she thought.

  His eyes finally found hers again. “Will it?”

  There was so much vulnerability and tenderness in his regard that she didn’t know what to say. Her heart fluttered frantically, like a moth trying to get in at a candle through a window. Since no words would suffice, she hitched forward on her wooden seat, leaned over the wicker picnic basket, and kissed him on the lips. Daisy told herself it was a kiss to comfort and reassure, but even she didn’t believe it.

  In the next moment the picnic basket was abandoned over the side of the boat and she was astride his lap, her skirt and petticoat hitched up, her arms around his shoulders. Even the passing sound of muted voices didn’t stop them. Sheltered by the thin, breeze-tickled curtain of bejeweled willow, they didn’t care who might see them.

  She kissed him until her lips felt swollen, bee-stung. Even through her clothes and his she knew he must feel her heart pounding so hard and remorseless.

  The boat dipped and yawed, little ripples lashing up over the sides, ignored by its passengers. She wanted him to make love to her there and then. But instead he merely teased her, laughing softly into her mouth, nibbling her ear, her chin, his hands stroking her thighs, under her petticoat, touching her intimately. His arousal was evident, but he wouldn’t give in just yet.

  “Say you love me,” he purred in her ear.

  How could she say that? How did she know what love was? She’d never said it to Guy, and surely he was more entitled than this man she barely knew.

  She reached down, scrambling to unfasten his trousers, but he captured her hands and held her off. Frustrated, she bit his neck, felt him shiver as he cursed, laughing.

  Her mind had completely cast aside the sterling common sense it usually kept and now succumbed to the primal needs of her sinful body. If he wouldn’t give her what she wanted, she would have to make do with whatever she had at her disposal. Pulling one hand away from his grip, she slid it between her spread thighs and touched herself through the lace, drawing a quick breath. He looked down and watched, his eyes fierce, his hands pulling her petticoats aside, bunching them up over her hips.

  Voices outside their little haven grew louder. Someone was looking for a spot to sit and enjoy the view. Any moment now those people would have a view they never expected.

  Lawrence was unbuttoning Lady Westerfield’s cast-off jacket, his long fingers working speedily, flicking the tiny ebony buttons aside as if they were naught but irritating midges on a hot summer day. Afraid he might pull them all off, she batted his hands away and finished the job herself, proceeding at a slower pace, deliberately teasing as she moved up and down in his lap, rubbing her soft, warm femininity on the rock hard ridge pushing at the front of his trousers. He grabbed her by the waist, holding her still.

  “Damn you,” he grunted, watching her fingers slowly open t
he top few corset laces, showing him the full inner curve of her breasts and the teasing hint of nipples. “You’re making my mouth water.”

  “Then make love to me now,” she commanded, moving her hips, grinding against him.

  With both hands he jerked her corset wider open and pulled her chemise down to expose her breasts. Instantly the cool air washed over her heated skin and her nipples tightened. She arched her back, cupped her breasts in her hands and offered them to his lips.

  He took what she offered, suckling her like a greedy babe, almost bruising her tender, sensitive skin. For balance, she gripped his shoulders and then his hair, her gaze wandering over the shifting green canopy that surrounded them, their only, flimsy protection from the world outside.

  The voices were almost upon them now and she heard someone say, “Here, under this tree. How pretty it would be.”

  Her heart raced. His tongue lapped over her nipple, his lips tugged on it, his hands spread across her back, holding her firm to his mouth. She couldn’t have freed herself had she wanted to.

  “This tree, the big willow.”

  She saw a hand parting the long fronds of greenery. A man’s hand.

  “I don’t know. Shouldn’t we stay here on the grass?” a woman’s voice daintily protested. “It wouldn’t be proper to sit together under the branches, hidden like that.”

  Proper? Daisy held back a gush of shameless laughter. Oh, they were about to get an eyeful if that young man persuaded his timid sweetheart to sit under the tree.

  Her husband switched his attention to her other breast, laving the prominent nipple roughly with his demanding tongue. His right hand still spread across her bared shoulder blades, holding her, preventing escape, while the fingers of his left hand now cupped and fondled her right breast. It felt bigger somehow, throbbing still from the devoted ministrations of his wickedly talented mouth.

  Panting, she wound her fingers in his hair, her gaze drifting over the tree branches that were about to be parted. Her body shuddered. Did he know that her left breast was the most sensitive? After the initial rush, he was treating it now like a fragile piece of china, licking delicately around the nipple as it peaked, and the more she tried to press it between his hot lips, the more he turned his face, avoiding it, making her wait.

  “Oh, darling, do let’s sit under the tree,” the strange man’s voice urged. “You’ll still be able to watch the boats in the river and we’ll be sheltered in the event of rain.”

  Meanwhile, Lawrence’s broad thumb stroked over her other nipple, pressing on it until she bit down on her tongue. Her linen drawers were wet between her thighs, but still his splendidly proportioned cock remained inside his trousers, refusing to play with her, just the way she’d refused yesterday to play with it. And his lips wouldn’t part for her left nipple. He was teasing her, punishing her.

  The tree branches rustled and she closed her eyes. Someone gasped in shock.

  She felt her husband chuckling and then her own vibrations took over as a hard, shuddering, lung-squeezing climax wrenched upward and outward through her body as if it would tear open her skin. Briefly, her eyes fluttered open and she saw two startled faces staring from the bank side, one ghostly white and the other a deep red.

  Her eyes closed again and she forgot about the two people who witnessed them. She forgot everything.

  Lawrence had seen them too, but he calmly took her left nipple in his mouth, and one suck sent her careening into oblivion for the second time and before her feet had even touched ground after the first flight.

  * * * *

  Despite his confident prediction, the rain came down like a shower of stinging spines. They barely had time to re-button her jacket and return the boat before the first onslaught hit. Within seconds they were drenched, his hair sticking to his brow and falling in his eyes. Semi-blinded, he grabbed her, lifted her into his arms and ran the distance to the hotel, while she alternately squealed in protest and laughed, her head buried in his shoulder. She couldn’t seem to make up her mind whether she was happy or angry. He knew the feeling. He’d been suffering the same dilemma since yesterday when he realized his father’s true intention in sending him there to return her portrait. He never liked being manipulated, and he felt that he had been.

  He just didn’t know whether he could forgive his father for doing this to him. Or to her. It wasn’t fair to either of them.

  But what would his life have been like if he had never come here, never saw her, never let her become entangled in her mistake?

  Puddles sprang up quickly, and as he leapt one, she lost her bonnet. It fell into the puddle and he ran on, lengthening his stride, not bothering to go back for it. He’d buy her a thousand bonnets. He’d give her anything she wanted.

  If only she’d tell him she loved him. If only she’d forgive him for what he’d done.

  Chapter Nine

  Like two drowned rats, they stood in the hotel foyer and looked at one another. She felt her hair dripping down her back, falling in stringy tendrils to her shoulders. It was a good thing, she mused, that Lady Westerfield’s clothes were always dyed with expensive colors and wouldn’t run.

  Ginny came over to offer her congratulations, smiling at them both. “The post came late today,” she said. “I put it behind the counter for you to sort through Miss— I mean, Mrs. Bailey.”

  Daisy nodded. “Thank you, Ginny.” She saw Lawrence pale a few shades, and she wondered if the fact they were actually married now had just hit him with as big a slap as it had hit her outside the church.

  Time to get back to the routine and forget what just happened. On with the plan as scheduled.

  But suddenly he took her face between his hands, leaned down, and kissed her. In full view of all the guests currently passing through the foyer, and with Ginny looking on.

  Her face was so wet his lips slipped off hers and he had to try a second time. Despite her soaked clothes, she was very warm. How strong he was to carry her all the way home from the river, she mused. He didn’t even appear to be out of breath.

  He was supposed to be weak and sickly. He was supposed to be many things.

  “Can we go upstairs now?”

  There was no mistaking his intention. He was primed; so was she. There was no way they could possibly get through the remainder of the day without touching one another again. She tried to think of Guy Westerfield and of her independence, but those fat raindrops caught in her lashes and temporarily dazzled her. When she looked up into her husband’s face and saw him smile shyly, pensively, hopefully, all else faded away to nothing.

  “No one but the two of us,” he whispered, “need ever know what goes on behind closed doors. That’s the privilege of being husband and wife.”

  “Yes,” she said, breathing the word with more yearning than she’d ever felt.

  Somehow they made it up the stairs without seeming too eager. Then he swept her up again and carried her speedily down the corridor to his room.

  And that was where she gave in. That was where Daisy decided it didn’t have to be a marriage in name only. As he said, no one else need know what they did behind closed doors. She was his wife. He had a right. After twenty-six hours of wanting, the passion exploded between them and they made love as if the world was about to end.

  * * * *

  He should tell her. Damn it. He’d meant to tell her the truth before they went this far. He’d meant to tell her the truth at the church that morning, before the ceremony. Now she was married to Lawrence Bailey and rolling about in bed with Luke Blackwood. Dimly he wondered if she had a weapon anywhere in the hotel. If so, he’d better hide it before he confessed.

  If he ever did.

  As he wildly pounded into her, his rigid shaft plowing slick, fast, and deep, his last thought was that perhaps he need never tell her. Perhaps he could simply become Lawrence Bailey and she’d never know. Luke Blackwood need never exist again. After all, what did he have to go back to? A pile of old dead things dug up out
of the ground.

  This was what he wanted, this woman with her chattering tongue, pouting lips, wide green eyes, lush curls and infectious laughter. If he had to transform into another man in order to have her and keep her, so be it.

  He came in an exultant rush, groaning into her rain-dampened hair, straining into her, wanting to plant his seed and, for the first time in his life, considering the possibility of children without immediately shrinking in horror. They would have a dozen, he decided swiftly. He, Luke Blackwood, the man who usually went out of his way to avoid the evil little buggers, suddenly longed for a child.

  Sweating, he fell forward, his arms finally giving in, his body weight crushing hers to the bed. “I’m sorry,” he grunted, breathless, a strand of her hair in his mouth.

  “Whatever for?” she gasped. “It was wonderful.”

  He hadn’t meant that, of course. He opened his eyes and stared at her hair sprawled across the pillow by his face.

  Tell her now. Tell her, you cad.

  But she closed her warm arms around his back and they tightened, just as her legs wrapped around his in the same manner. He was blissfully trapped, his limbs and muscles too relaxed to move. He’d wanted this from the first moment he saw her in that portrait. Now she was his, fully. If he said something now, all this would be spoiled, wrenched away from him.

  Her skin was so soft, better than silk. His eyelids drifted downward until only a spark of copper remained in his view, a lock of her hair curling as it dried against the pillow. Her breath slowly found the same rhythm as his.

  “Was it really wonderful?” he asked drowsily.