by Jen YatesNZ
He turned to face her and stood still in the shaft of sunlight.
‘I love you, Jassie. You know that don’t you?’
The tone of his voice sent echoes of anxiety rippling through her body.
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
‘And did you really mean it when you said you loved me—unconditionally?’
How could he doubt her?
‘Yes.’
Her voice was a little stronger but even she could hear the note of apprehension in it.
He seemed to exhale in relief then resumed striding back and forth across the small space.
‘I went to see—your aunt.’
‘Madame Lady Bouvier? You—you went? Did she—help?’
Suddenly breathing was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do and hope and longing tangled in her chest with painful intensity.
‘She made me extremely angry!’
‘Oh!’
She couldn’t think what else to say and felt as if she would choke on hope and longing. If her aunt had not been able to help then what was the source of the suppressed excitement she’d felt emanating from Rogan since the moment he’d stepped into the small parlor?
‘First she suggested we should ask one of my cousins to sire an heir for Windermere—on you.’
Jassie felt her eyebrows fly up into her hair. Her mouth dropped open but no words would issue forth.
‘If she’d been a man I’d have called her out! I think she was just testing me, trying to see what was really important. So then she asked more about my—condition and what exactly happens—and then she said it was clear the only thing that could work was a third party intervention.’
His jaw tensed and fire flashed blue and furious in his eyes.
‘The thought of someone lurking beyond our bedroom door or watching while I made love to you, standing ready to intervene when I lost control, was beyond horrific. She saw my point and agreed and then she said—Fuck!’
His pacing became little short of manic and Jassie couldn’t think of one thing to say to stop him or intervene in any way even though she didn’t really think that word was what her aunt would have said. At last he dropped to his haunches before her and took her hands in his.
‘She thought the only way it would work would be to have the third party in the bed with us—making love to you too.—A ménage a trois, if you know what I mean?’
Wordlessly, Jassie nodded. She just kept her eyes on Rogan’s mouth that was uttering words way beyond any fantasy she could ever have imagined because she was too afraid to examine the real reason her mouth was suddenly dry and her heart was pounding like a runaway horse with the Devil on its back.
‘She said it should be someone I trusted; someone you trusted, and who would fully understand their role. It would not be so embarrassing that way.’
‘It—wouldn’t?’
Jassie managed to squeak the words out and then her mind made the lightning leap of awareness.
‘And you thought of Wolverton—and here the pair of you are—like roving bucks in the mating season! That’s why you both look—as if—’
Unable to continue she just stared wordlessly into his eyes.
‘No—I—didn’t,’ Rogan snarled, arresting the breath in her throat once more. He rose abruptly to his feet, pulling her with him to stand gripping her hands and glaring back at her.
‘I stormed out of there with murder on my mind. I’d have picked a fight with anyone who crossed my path and I walked the length of St. James Street looking for just that. It gave me a chance to cool down and realize that I’d get myself banned from Gentleman Jack’s if I went there and I ended up at White’s. Swilling brandy and playing deep. But the brandy didn’t really help because when Cockington stopped by with a snide question as to why I wasn’t with my new bride I almost throttled him with his own neck cloth, right there in the card room at White’s. Dom dragged me out before I got myself banned from there too and took me home to his place and the whole sorry tale come out—again. It wasn’t till next morning when we were both sober that he dared to offer himself. My first gut reaction was to flatten him there in his own house but then I realized it was the only chance left. If I couldn’t countenance the presence of another in our marriage bed—for long enough to break the cycle of my behavior at least—then we would never—effectively—have a marriage.’
They were still standing facing one another, their hands clasped tight enough to whiten their knuckles and their eyes locked in a mirror image of horrific hope.
Jassie couldn’t get her tongue off the roof of her mouth or even blink her eyes. She wasn’t sure she hadn’t morphed into a marble statue right where she stood.
‘Say something,’ he whispered.
She opened her mouth and closed it again, then shook her head in desperate little movements that felt oddly out of control.
‘Breathe!’ he commanded suddenly, hauling her into his arms and giving her a quick thump between the shoulder blades. Perhaps he was right and she’d been starving for oxygen for her legs had the sudden tendency to collapse as if they were fashioned from limp knitting yarn.
Clinging to his shoulders, she buried her face in his neck and breathed in the familiar manly scent of him, soaked his strength and physical power into her bones to steady herself. As her body relaxed against him, he lifted her easily into his arms and sank down onto the steps again with her nestled in his lap and her head pressed against his shoulder.
For a moment his hand stroked soothingly over the crown of her head and Jassie thought she’d never felt so cherished.
‘Talk to me,’ he murmured. ‘Tell me what you’re thinking.’
‘I’m not sure I can—think. It’s—my mind is a mess of—questions mostly.’
‘Fire them at me. Let me hear all of them. Dom and I have had a whole night and a day to talk through our thoughts and worries about it. The one thing we’re agreed on is that it feels the right thing to do. It feels as if it could work. And—you know that Dom loves you and would dearly have loved to make you his wife. Though he admits there’s an element of total selfishness in his desire for this, he maintains he can control himself—that is, be with us, loving you but not actually—’
‘—loving me.’
‘Yes,’ Rogan breathed against her skin. ‘He also just wants to see you happy. And me? I can’t believe how fast my psyche turned the tables on me—from wanting to kill him where he stood to perceiving him as our chance at a miracle. Something in me strongly believes this could work because—perhaps because most everyone who truly matters in my life now knows the ugliest depths of my depravity—and they are still my dearest friends. Not one of them has turned their backs or run screaming from me in righteous horror. It’s as if—holding it in, protecting it from exposure all those years, fed it, empowered it and by letting the light in it has lost the hold on me it once had. I can now believe that I can change.—So—let me hear those questions.’
‘Oh God, Rogan!’ Jassie whispered. ‘I—what if—where—when—how? How could I do this? How could I allow—both of you—to hold me, touch me—to—love me at the same time? What if—someone found out? How long are we talking about? Just once? A night or two? Forever? What if—oh God—what if I liked it!’
Her whole body was trembling and she was helpless to stop it but the horror of that last thought blurting from her mouth stopped her lips from uttering more.
Now—now—he would throw her from him, look at her with the horror and disgust he’d saved for himself all these years. She wasn’t sure she wouldn’t look at herself that way.
His lips pressed, warm and soothing, against her brow.
‘I love you, Jassie, and all I know for a certainty is that I want to make love to you and I’ve discovered I will do whatever is required to realize that dream—for both of us. There are many ways a man can pleasure a woman without committing the ultimate act. So that way is for you and I alone. We want to keep this as uncomplicated as possible. The
only real goal is to allow me to make love to you without descending into that pit of vengeance that claims me and turns me into a monster. I believe he can do that for me, for us.’
She fiddled with the buttons on his shirt, longing to simply undo them and slip her hand inside to find the warm skin and muscle beneath and as if he divined her thoughts his large, strong hand came over hers, lacing their fingers together and keeping them from temptation.
‘I—don’t know what to do!’ Jassie blurted then. ‘I hardly know what to do with you. How does one make love to two men at once?’
His breath was hot on her skin as he pressed his cheek against her hair.
‘Jass, you’re an innocent. We’ve discussed that. I know you’ve read books and looked at pictures but the fact is, your only experience is a few disastrous encounters with me, which did little to teach you anything. It’s a wonder it didn’t simply give you a disgust of the whole business.’
‘I love you, Rogan. Nothing you could do would change that. How many times do I have to tell you?’
‘I don’t deserve you, Jassie.’
‘You do!’ she snapped, coming upright and glaring into his concerned eyes. ‘You do deserve me and you do deserve to be loved! What you didn’t deserve was to have your whole life, your psyche, so cruelly damaged by that wicked, brutalizing woman. You deserve to be loved. You deserve my love!’
Unable to desist any longer, Jassie reached up, cupped his rigid jaw and pulled his face down for her kiss. Their lips came together in a fierce melding that wrenched little moans of need from deep within them to meet on their lips. Boldly Jassie probed the seam of his mouth with her tongue then he opened for her and stole the initiative back and kissed her just as he’d done in her dreams forever.
They were both breathing deeply when he finally lifted his head to look down at her and she could only gaze back at him with a soft, happy smile stretching her face.
‘You’ll do it then?’ he asked, his eyes so dark she thought she would drown in them.
‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘but—I still don’t know what to do!’
His smile was slow and now wickedness lurked in the cobalt orbs making them sparkle again.
‘Dom and I do. All you really have to do is surrender—to us both.’
‘When?’
‘Tonight. That’s really why we came down early.’
Panic flared through her whole being. So soon?
‘What room had you planned for Dom?’
‘Well—he’s a Duke, out-ranking everyone else, so he obviously gets the best. The Blue and Gold Suite, I thought.’
‘Put him in the valet’s suite next door to me.’
‘But didn’t you say you brought Brixton with you? I had thought to leave that room empty—so no one would hear—’
‘When I beat you?’
She stared mutely at him.
‘God willing, I’ll never do that again. Brixton and Grigg can share a room up on the servant’s floor. We won’t need them later anyway and by morning all will appear as it should—with Dom back in his own bed.’
‘You’ve thought of everything,’ she accused, feeling just a little—manipulated.
He grinned unrepentantly down at her.
‘I told you, Dom and I have talked of little else since yesterday. We’ve thought of your every possible objection and worked out arguments to overcome them. I’m telling you, Jass, I feel very hopeful for the outcome of this—as I never have.’
Jassie stilled as she realized there was one thing she must make clear to Rogan if, God forbid, he was wrong. She placed her hands on his chest, fingers slipping beneath the folds of his neck cloth and looked up at him, seriously, openly, so he could not doubt her determination.
‘And if perchance it doesn’t work, Rogan, I will not accept your absence from my bed. I’ll follow you wherever you go. I will be your wife—for better and for worse! I meant that vow when I made it—before God and our closest friends and family. We’re married. It’s what we both wanted and I’ll accept nothing less than a full marriage—whatever form that takes for us.—And I make that vow to you again, here, now, before God in this sacred place.’
The love and hope shining from Rogan’s eyes was Jassie’s undoing. With tears welling in her own, she clasped his face and sealed her vow with a kiss.
Their mouths were heated, hungry, suckling and probing accompanied by soft moans of need and urgency. Of their own volition their hands started seeking buttons, openings, bare skin. Rogan lay back, taking Jassie with him then stopped with a muttered oath as the hard ridge of the step behind him dug into his back, reminding him where they were and what they were risking.
‘Damn,’ he muttered against her mouth. ‘Not here. Not yet!’
Gently he held her away from him and searched her face.
‘Not here. Not yet!’ he growled again. ‘I’ll not risk thrashing you in God’s own house!’ he muttered fiercely.
Putting her gently aside he leapt to his feet and extended his hand to help her up.
‘The carriage should have arrived by now and Dom and I can have baths and get changed—and I can see to the arrangement of the rooms. Tonight you’ll retire early. No one will see anything odd in that! Dom will wander off to the library to get a book after we’ve had our port and I’ll follow you upstairs. With no one else about to entertain him it’ll be no strange thing if he takes the book to his room and then—’
He bent and kissed her startled mouth, grabbed her hand and began pulling her out of the chapel to find the sun had already faded from the day.
‘You really have thought of everything, haven’t you?’
‘Yes!’ he said and Jassie hugged to her soul this vision of Rogan exuding a confident, buoyant happiness so reminiscent of her old childhood hero. The light might have leached from the day, but the brightness of it illuminating her heart was blinding.
Just as well his grasp of her hand was firm and that he led the way for she was so enveloped by happiness she saw nothing but him.
Ruby was laying out her nightdress and turning back the bed covers when Jassie arrived in her room directly after the ladies had risen from the dining table, leaving the men to their port.
‘My Lady! I wasn’t expecting you yet!’
‘Why not, Ruby? My husband is home and we are newly married. I can’t imagine why you’d be surprised that we’d wish to retire early,’ she said, hoping she sounded quite nonchalant and that Ruby didn’t notice the bright color in her cheeks.
She needn’t have worried, she realized as she watched a dull tide of color flood Ruby’s cheeks and her pale blue eyes suddenly blazed quite ferociously.
‘Oh my Lady! If he’s going to hurt you again—’
‘Say no more, Ruby.’ Jassie said sternly. ‘Lord Windermere is my husband and whatever happens between us stays between us. You can do nothing—and even though I know you will think a lot, I ask you to say nothing. Not even if my body is beaten black and blue. Do you understand, Ruby?’
The maid looked inclined to argue.
‘Please,’ Jassie added a little more gently. Ruby scrunched her face into a grimace.
‘All right, Miss Jass—my Lady,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll say naught but it won’t stop me thinking!’
‘I know Ruby, but truly, I think things will be much better now.’
‘I hope so, my Lady.’
‘You may have the rest of the night off, Ruby—and don’t be too early in the morning!’
The maid went off muttering and Jassie dropped to the chair before her mirror and lifted trembling hands to remove the pins from her hair. Her eyes were very bright and her cheeks a little pale. Not surprising, she decided when she considered the evening before her. Rogan’s whispered instructions just before she left the dining room were still echoing in her head.
‘Get rid of Ruby. We’ll be your maids and undress you tonight. I expect to find you sitting at your duchess brushing this beautiful hair—waiting for us.’ Then d
ropping a kiss on her brow, he’d added, ‘We’ll be up soon.’
And throughout the short exchange she’d been supremely conscious of Wolverton’s smoldering emerald gaze burning into her shoulder blades. Just as each time she’d looked up during dinner he was watching her, his eyes warm and just a little hungry. It had felt strange knowing that later he would come to her along with Windermere—and they would all get naked together and—
Lord, her mind was fragmented, wanting to dart in several directions at once, and none of it was productive. Her thoughts only seemed to agitate her more and it was likely by the time the men arrived she’d be a quivering mess of nerves.
In an effort to divert the channels of her mind she began counting the strokes of the brush through her hair and thought of the nurse she’d had when young, Old Mallie, who’d insisted she give her hair one hundred strokes each night and count them out loud.
She’d reached two hundred and sixty one and her arm was getting tired by the time Rogan entered through the dressing rooms. Dressed only in a dark blue brocade dressing robe tied loosely at his waist, his strong muscular legs were bare and the sight was somehow shocking and exciting all at once.
He crossed the room to turn the key in her door and then came to stand behind her with his hands on her shoulders. Jassie’s had dropped to her lap.
‘How are you feeling?’
Their eyes met in the mirror and Jassie saw concern for her behind the excitement glittering in his.
‘I’m not sure. I don’t know what I feel or what to think! I was simply counting brush strokes trying not to do either.’
‘Ah, Jassie,’ he murmured, his eyes dropping to where her fingers twisted restlessly round the handle of her brush. Slowly he reached down and plucked it away to begin drawing it through her hair with sure, languid strokes. She loved having her hair brushed. Her eyelids wanted to drop so she could drift away on the beauty of the sensation but she forced them to stay wide so she could watch Rogan’s every movement in the mirror.
