by Beth Trissel
He answered by cupping her face in his palms and covering her mouth again and again with his, pressing her lips harder and harder until she was winded, wanton, and wonderful, like a foaming, frothy, sea of desire. She almost tore his jeans off.
He chuckled. “Innocent virgins aren’t to know what follows. At least, not strictly brought up nineteenth century ones.”
“Pure instinct.” Her heart drummed in her ears.
He undid the zipper and his pants went the way of his shirt. His briefs swiftly followed and she saw the shadowed silhouette of his hardened organ for the very first time.
She stifled a gasp––almost.
“I heard that,” he whispered, burying his lips in her tingly neck. “Still certain you want me?”
“Certain.” She circled her arms around his shoulders and drew him down on her. His solid body pressed hers.
“Not yet,” he breathed against her quivering skin, and trailed one hand down across the curve of her hip.
Chills flushed over her as he parted her legs and stroked between her thighs. Never, ever, had he come anywhere close to touching her like this before. And nothing he said could have prepared her for the shocking effect of his teasing fingers. Not even remotely. Moisture slicked his gliding revolutions as he circled her intimate womanhood, and then probed within her pulsing flesh.
She clutched his firm shoulders, wanting to cry out in exhilarating torment. “Cole––Will––”
He lifted his head and laughed. “Sweet Lord, why have we never done this before?”
“Never had the chance. Seize it.”
Pulling him back down, she reveled in the feel of his corded strength stretched over her. “Take me to you so closely no one can ever separate us again.”
He circled his arms around her, moving closer. With infinite tenderness, he slowly slid his extended organ inside her, and said in husky tones, “Sweet Julia, dearest Jules, my love forever.”
She couldn’t speak. His manhood throbbed within her, filling every possible space so that she hurt with the fullness of their union. She might split apart, like a sacrifice, but nothing would keep her from him. Now. Now she was as close as she could possibly be. No. Maybe not quite. She sensed there was more.
As if mindful of her sudden tension, Will eased in and out of her aching mound. “I’ll go slowly,” he said.
Gradually, she relaxed, expanding to receive him.
With a low groan, he slid tightly against her, cupping her bare bottom, rocking her harder, faster. Surging tremors swept her ever nearer him. She crested one wave after another, certain her mounting excitement could climb no higher. It wasn’t possible. She shook, the pounding intensity almost frightening her. Almost.
“Will?” She sought the reassurance of his lips.
He caught her up as her world erupted in an explosion of bliss, like dazzling white light showering her in a blaze of sparks. She burned in frenzied pleasure, from her fiery depths to the soles of her hot feet.
His ecstatic moans echoed hers.
Breathless, chest thudding, she melted to him. Now, they were as close as they could be this side of paradise.
****
What rapture. Will cradled Julia against him, listening to her even breathing. Thank God. She’d fallen into the deep slumber of a supremely contented woman.
He smiled in wonder at her transformation from wretched to wondrous. She’d been strong before, but wounded, as surely as Cole had been stabbed with that bitter blade. Through the power of their union, Will had imbued her with his strength. How he’d love to imbue her again, but she must sleep. And he must exert some self-control.
He smoothed a length of curling hair from her face, so peaceful in the faint light shining through the window. “Sweet Julia,” he whispered. “Your father is never getting you back again. And he won’t have the opportunity to rage at me for defiling his daughter. Even if you conceive this very night, I’m marrying you long before you show, the instant we have a spare moment to plan the service.”
Maybe Will could take Father Seth aside at the next play practice and give him a heads up on the impending nuptials. It seemed he had his eccentric grandmother’s blessing in a roundabout way. Even if she balked, Will was determined to wed Julia before summer’s end.
They’d see this play through and then, if they had to leave Foxleigh at the old lady’s whim, so be it. Much as he hated the thought of parting with his beloved home, Julia was vastly more important. It wasn’t as if Will had to live at Foxleigh ‘to be,’ as Hamlet phrased it, even though the house was so tied to him. He could still be himself somewhere else.
One matter still troubled him, though, the mysterious curse that he couldn’t swear their coming together had lifted. But he felt more equal to dealing with it now and trusted Julia did too.
What was it she had said earlier in warning?
There’s a worm in the lily.
He heard the words in his mind almost as if he’d uttered them himself. Maybe he had. This was the strangest, most magnificent night. All was divinely right, even though something was still very wrong.
A chill ran through Will and he held Julia to him with almost fierce possessiveness. God had given them this chance, and by heaven, no one would rob them a second time.
Will hadn’t been at the top of his law class for nothing, and he’d sailed through the bar. Now was the time to summon every bit of cunning to outwit the fox he sensed still lurking.
****
Maybe it was as Will suspected and he’d found his fox. He stared unflinchingly, face to face, at Lyle’s tightly drawn glare. Rehearsal was about to commence for the evening and the big Aussie appeared on the verge of snapping at his throat.
“You had her, didn’t you, Wentworth?” Lyle growled, in obvious reference to Julia.
Will hissed his reply. “None of your damn business. And since when do you have any claim on her?”
Lyle fixed him with eyes glowing in red-hot anger. “Since you screwed with her mind and sent her into a tailspin.”
Will couldn’t repress a slight smile. “She’s swiftly recovering in my care.”
Lyle snorted. “Until she nose-dives again.”
“Does this protest stem from heart-felt concern, or does it emanate somewhat further down your anatomy?”
Bristling like a reddish dog, every hair on his ruddy arms standing on end, Lyse growled, “I don’t have to justify my sentiments to you.”
“Nor I, my devotion to Julia.”
“Is that what you call it?”
Will itched to seize Lyle by the shoulders and throw him into the white plastered walls. He refrained, barely. This was just the sort of confrontation he’d hoped to avoid for as long as possible. Julia had agreed that it was best to conceal their passionate encounter and feign normalcy––Will sleeping in his bed and she in hers, apart––until after Midsummer’s Eve. But once unleashed, the fervor between them had been almost impossible to contain.
She’d tried her best to appear nonchalant, failing adorably. The gold heart Will had given her was back at her throat this morning. All day long, her melting gaze searched for him wherever she was, whether guiding plant-lovers through the garden or dashing down the steps in yet another enchanting––on her, costume. When she spotted him, her eyes shone like sunlight through forest leaves and her soft mouth curved beguilingly, as if he weren’t already under her spell.
His heart swelled with delight just to glimpse her and he yearned to do far more than that. It took every shred of discipline he possessed not to suspend whatever he was doing at that instant and take her in his arms. He couldn’t wait to declare their engagement the moment this play and ball were dispensed with and his duty to Grandmother Nora fulfilled––that very night. Until then, he was bursting with the secret, not one he cared to share with Lyle.
More actors assembled in the hall. Apparently disinclined to cause a scene, Lyle clenched his jaw and stalked off in his work boots.
Charlotte t
apped Will on the shoulder. He met her close inquiry with an open glance. Nothing got past this woman.
“I’m relieved to see Julia looking so happy. Remember, she’s still fragile emotionally,” Charlotte cautioned.
Will gave a nod, his attention wholly on Julia as she drifted into the hall. What sweet distraction. Lustrous hair spilled down over her high-waisted pale green gown. A pink sash was tied beneath her mounded breasts and long skirts swept the floor. She held a bouquet of herbs to her nose, inhaling their scent, as she met his eyes in unveiled expectation.
Will doubted she even realized what she did, but she was so damn irresistible. He felt weak. It was all he could do to reply sensibly to Charlotte and not rush at Julia.
“I’m aware of Julia’s uniqueness.” God knows he was poundingly, achingly aware. “And guarding her well.”
Grandmother Nora arrived on Millicent’s arm in a swish of red satin. The Queen Elizabeth styled evening gown lent a royal air to her already regal bearing. She lacked only the bejeweled crown. Enthusiasm bright in her rouged face, she tapped across the floor with her cane. Settling in her high-backed chair, she gestured for practice to begin.
She cast a shrewd eye at Julia, and then at Will. “As Ophelia has made a remarkable recovery from her unfortunate shock––” Here, she paused to look narrowly at Paul, who made a study of his scuffed shoes. “We shall commence with last evening’s neglected scenes. Do try to appear less radiant, Miss Morrow, and a bit more ‘tetched’ as the Scottish say.”
Lyle grunted under his breath, but confined his comments to himself with the old lady present.
Will watched in bemusement as Julia trailed to the center of the hall, eyes cast over her shoulder seeking him. Thus far, they’d fooled no one. And all he wanted to do was kiss her, endlessly. Was anything else really necessary?
A violinist struck up a poignant chord and he swiveled his head at the bald man in a shiny black suit seated at the back of the hall. Who in the world?
Waving diamond studded fingers at the musician, Grandmother Nora enlightened the dumbfounded assembly. “I brought Marv along to assist with the mood. Laertes, you’re in this scene,” she alerted Lyle. “Douglas and myself. Actually, most of the cast is. Ah, yes, the setting: first the castle courtyard, then the graveyard. For those of you who’ve forgotten, Laertes is enraged with Hamlet for accidentally running his father through with a sword.”
“A trifling matter, compared to some,” Lyle said in muffled sarcasm, then took his place center stage.
The perpetually sweaty Douglas sat in his chair-throne beside Queen Nora, his royal contribution a substantial paunch and flushed face which gave him an overly indulged appearance. To his credit, he was attempting to grow a royal beard, which he mopped with his handkerchief, along with three chins and a beaded forehead.
Lyle strode to Douglas in a convincing display of anger. Drawing a sword from the leather carriage at his waist, he pointed it at the uneasy monarch. “‘Let come what comes. Only I shall be avenged most thoroughly for my father.’”
Douglas shifted nervously with the blade uncomfortably near his throat. “‘Good Laertes, is it writ in your revenge that you will draw against both friend and foe?’”
While Hamlet’s treacherous uncle planted seeds of hatred against him––not difficult with this particular Laertes––Will’s attention strayed back to Julia. She’d settled on the floor and was arranging her nosegay. The empty expression in her eyes gave him the creeps considering how ardently he hoped to keep her from such a fate. She added a chilling touch by humming an aimless tune. Either she was a fine actor or the part came rather too naturally.
He further cringed as Nora prompted the extras to gather around “poor mad Ophelia.”
Paul seemed especially affected, as though he’d forgotten it was a play. Perhaps he had. Lyle and Douglas broke off at the murmur of the crowd. The two men and Queen Nora walked over to Julia. She lifted her head, seeing, and yet not seeing them.
She held out a leafy stem to Lyle. “‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance.’”
He bent and took it from her in a credible performance of disbelief, this being the first Laertes knew of his sister’s recent insanity.
“‘Pray you, love, remember,’” Julia said, rising. She gave him a crushed blossom. “‘And there’s pansies, that’s for thoughts,’” she continued in the once well-versed language of flowers. She handed blades of grass to the queen with a demented smile. “‘There’s fennel for you and columbines,’” she said and skipped, child-like, to the king.
Will was impressed and spooked.
Holding out a handful of herbal stems to the monarch, she said, “‘There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me. But you must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I’d give you some violets but they withered all when my father died. They say he made a good end,’” she added to Lyle. With a final glazed look at him, she wandered off the stage.
Lyle stared after her. “‘O heavens, is it possible a young maid’s wits should be as mortal as an old man’s life?’”
Will fervently hoped not.
“We’ll stop here,” Grandmother Nora directed. “Skip the scene where Ophelia drowns, and return to the funeral.”
A circlet of daisies wreathed her hair like a maiden bride as Julia lay down on the stretcher. Lyle and Paul, subbed in for the actor taken ill, lifted either end, Lyle in front. Father Seth covered her with a white sheet, then raised the Holy Cross and took his place at the head of the mournful procession.
Ignorant of Ophelia’s death, Will and Dave entered the stage as if in secret and studied the funeral procession. “‘The king, the courtiers, who is this they follow?’” Will asked his equally clueless friend, Horatio, and they both edged nearer the somber assembly.
Their guest violinist sawed plaintively on his strings as Lyle and Paul lowered the stretcher to the pretend earth beside the imaginary grave. Father Seth peeled back the sheet to reveal Julia, unmoving, eyes closed, in assumed death. He solemnly intoned, “‘Lay her in the earth. And from her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring,’”
Whoa. This play had taken a jarring turn. Will had no difficulty in acting dismayed. He could hardly bear to see her like this, even in pretense. Why couldn’t they be performing one of Shakespeare’s comedies?
Queen Nora gazed down at Julia with misty eyes and tossed a handful of rose petals over her lifeless beauty. “‘Sweets to the sweet. Farewell. I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife. I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid. And not to have strewed thy grave.’”
Goosebumps scattered over Will. This was too eerie.
The matriarch turned away, and Lyle fell to his knees beside Julia. “‘Hold off the earth awhile, til I have caught her once more in mine arms.’”
He slid his arms beneath her, clutching her to his chest more ardently than Will thought necessary.
Lyle wailed, “‘O rose of May, dear maid, kind sister.’”
Will approached the mournful gathering ready to pry Julia from Lyle. His vile uncle, thinking him assassinated by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, greeted him with a sweaty glower. His queenly mother was stunned, and Laertes eyed him as a wolf guarding its prey.
So much for Hamlet’s welcome home. What a dysfunctional bunch. It made Will wonder about Shakespeare’s family.
Exuding reluctance, Lyle laid Julia down and flew at him, seizing him by the shirt and yanking it up around his neck.
“‘The devil take thy soul, Hamlet!’”
Will leveled ready scorn at him. “‘I prithee take thy fingers from mine throat for I have in me something dangerous which let thy wiseness fear. Hold off thy hand.’”
He threw Lyle off and they grappled convincingly––very.
“‘Pluck them asunder!’” Douglas ordered.
Ron the brick mason/grave digger grabbed Lyle, and Dave caught hold of Will. He stared down at Julia, terribly still, and blasted Lyle f
rom his depths. “‘I loved Ophelia! Forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make up my sum.’”
Hamlet had an odd way of showing his feelings for the afflicted girl he’d driven to an early grave, but the words rang true to Will. Again, he rounded on Laertes. “‘What wilt thou do for her! Show me what thou wilt do?’”
“Shhhh,” his queenly mother hushed him, touching his cheek in attempted comfort, a trait Nora had in short supply.
Will softened his rough tone and spoke again to Laertes. “‘Hear you, sir, I loved you ever.’” Tough words to force from his lips. Will preferred his parting lines. “‘But it is no matter. Let Hercules himself do what he may. The cat will mew and dog will have his day.’”
While onlookers pondered the meaning of that utterance as had legions before them, Will knelt beside Julia. Marv poured his soul into the violin as Will gathered some of the petals, fluttering the pink spray back over her, and then adlibbed his own tribute.
“Fairest, Ophelia. I love thee still,” he said huskily, and pressed his lips to her cool brow, satin cheek, and finally her warm mouth.
Julia returned his kiss with the slightest pressure of her soft lips.
Thank God for that. She’d pretended death too well. She smelled seductively of musk, with a hint of the deep forest and moss roses. Will wanted to do so much more than plant a parting kiss on her folded hands. But he did, then stood and crossed himself. Touching his fingertips to his forehead, he lowered his hand in tribute. “Adieu.”
“Bravo!” Grandmother Nora applauded.
Lyle shot daggers through him with his eyes.
The impending duel between them had begun in earnest.
Chapter Eighteen
Clear midnight blue spread across the vaulted sky, hung with the first glittering star. A thousand blossoms scented the evening, and the breezes were as mild as a baby’s sigh. Alone now, Julia strolled in the garden thinking of Will—Cole, still not certain who was who, even though Will had said he was both.
