Cinders to Satin

by Fern Michaels

  An hour before tea, Mrs. Powers summoned Lena into the dining room. “I wish to speak to you about a dinner I’m planning for next week. I’ve invited the Tottens, and you realize they’re the most important family on the island. I do want things to go smoothly. I’ve been thinking about sending Mr. MacDuff into the city for a large ham. How many jars of applesauce are left in the pantry? And of course, I’ll be expecting your famous blueberry torte—what is that racket?” she asked, annoyed by the sounds coming from outside the window. She left her seat near the table and lifted the curtain to look outside.

  Lena drew in her breath. She knew what the racket was and wished she were somewhere else.

  “Would you look at that! Would you just look at that! Where’s my husband, Lena?”

  “In his study, Mrs. Powers. Is something wrong?”

  “Just look! Just look!” Anne Powers sputtered.

  Lena craned her neck to look through the window. Master Rossiter was carrying his shoes in one hand and the red umbrella in the other, holding it over Callie’s head, and they were both dancing barefoot through the puddles. Mary danced beside them, squealing for Callie to hold her skirts higher and not to drop her shoes. Callie was giggling, laughing, holding fast to Rossiter’s arm and smiling adoringly up into his face.

  “I can’t believe what I’m seeing! Send my husband to me immediately!”

  Jasper Powers threw his papers onto the floor, lifting his spectacles off his nose. “Now what!” he groaned. A man couldn’t get a moment’s peace in this house.

  In the dining room, his wife was still leaning against the window. “I won’t tolerate this behavior, Jasper. Do you hear me? I simply won’t tolerate it! Why, she’s acting like a little trollop. Bare feet indeed! And holding to my son’s arm so . . . so . . . intimately! In the rain, Jasper. In the rain! Are you listening to me?”

  “Of course, dear, I always listen to you,” Jasper said wearily.

  “Yes, you listen, but you don’t do anything. Callie is definitely overstepping her bounds, and her responsibility to Mary is sadly lacking. Imagine taking that child out into the rain! That girl is becoming a problem, Jasper, and I think it’s time we considered sending Mary off to school and discharging Callie. I have enough problems without having my servant frolic in the rain with my son! And in broad daylight!”

  “Would you rather they frolic at night?” Jasper quipped, hoping to lighten a situation that he clearly did not consider serious.

  “You are impossible. I dislike saying this, Jasper, but your lack of breeding is becoming quite evident. Can’t you see what’s going on under your very nose?”

  “I don’t see anything,” Jasper growled. “Callie is a good girl, and Mary adores her. And why is it you never place any blame on Rossiter? He’s old enough to know proper behavior.”

  “I will not have Rossiter cavorting around with a servants. I won’t have it.”

  “Anne, what is the harm in a little fun?”

  “Fun! I expect Callie to set a good example for Mary. Do you call that a good example?”

  “I see no harm in it. It’s time there was a little fun and life in this house. And I think you’re overlooking something. I’d wager it was Rossiter who suggested this little venture into the puddles.”

  “My son! Never! Rossiter has class and breeding—”

  “Apparently not, dear. Is that or is it not Rossiter whom I see out there? I will call the children in, but that is all. I will have something to say about what goes on in my own house, and I forbid you to mention this to them. I will have a little talk with Rossiter about his responsibilities to his sister. That is the end of it, Anne.”

  Anne Powers’s mouth formed a round O. Was it her imagination or was her husband all too willing to leap to the defense of Callie and Mary? She sniffed. If this was to be the lay of the land, she would handle any future matters concerning the children herself!

  She turned to glance out the window, watching Rossiter and Callie run back toward the house when Jasper called. Her eyes narrowed as she saw her son’s hand steadying the girl over the lawn, and she gasped when he threw his arm around her shoulder to pull her beneath the shelter of the umbrella. Callie’s dress was lifted almost to her knees, displaying a gracefully turned leg and delicate ankles. The rain had soaked through the bodice of her dress, the thin material clinging to her recently formed curves. Anne Powers’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. How had the chit grown beneath her own eyes and she never noticed? She dropped the lace curtain and turned from the window.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Long after the clock in the hall struck eleven, Rossiter still paced the confines of his room, which was directly under the nursery. It seemed to him that every one of his senses was trained upon the room above, next to the nursery, where Callie slept. He imagined her snuggled in her bed, eyelids and lips moist with sleep, her lithe body curled beneath the sheets, her breasts rising and falling with each breath.

  Earlier that afternoon, when little Mary had been sent inside to rest after lunch, he and Callie had slipped out of the house into the light drizzle of rain. He’d wanted to show her his secret hiding place under the front porch, he’d told her. There, hidden beneath the floor boards, behind the lattices, they’d crouched on the pungent, damp earth. There, with the sound of the rain all about them, excited by the danger of discovery, he had kissed her again. And again. Until it seemed he could never have enough of those soft, full lips, the tender tip of her tongue captured by his own, the shudders of her breathing as she came into his arms, so young, so pliant, as he laid siege to the temptation of her throat and shoulders, pulling aside her bodice to taste the freshness of her breasts.

  She was so innocent, protesting against the liberties he was taking with her, but he also sensed an awakening of the woman inside the girl, and her defenses were washed away by the insistence of his passion and the discovery of her own.

  Now, as he paced his room, he battled with unrequited hungers, his arousal biting deep in the pit of his belly. He wanted Callie James, perhaps more than he’d ever wanted any girl. A shred of decency warned him that she was good, pure, inexperienced, and that to take advantage of her could bring about her ruin. But Rossiter was adept at turning a deaf ear to his conscience, and he wanted nothing as much as to climb the stairs to her room and take her for his own.

  Common sense and logic told him it could also be his own ruination if they were caught by the family. Jasper held Callie in high regard, and he would never forgive his son for bringing about her downfall. But the risk seemed only to heighten his desire, bringing a sense of adventure with it. Rossiter was not in the habit of being denied, by himself or by anyone else for that matter. Callie was off limits by any bounds of decency and he should conduct himself like the gentleman he was supposed to be. Yet there she was, one floor above him, and instinct told him she would not deny him what he craved.

  Rossiter picked up his sketch pad, thumbing through the pages until he found the one he’d done of Callie in her little patch of garden. In the lower right hand corner of the page he’d done a small drawing of her head and shoulders, the wayward tendrils of her hair blown by the wind, falling against her face. He had done her eyes from memory: clear, level, staring out from the page in what seemed to him a declaration of her goodness and purity. He tossed the pad onto his dresser and slumped down onto his bed, bending his head into his hands, his fingers ravaging his thick, golden hair. There was a fire in his loins and an aching need in his chest. No! No! He told himself over and over, and yet he could not find the courage of his convictions at his core, could not find the sacrifice of his own hungers in his character. He knew himself to be weak and hated himself for it. Spoiled and indulged, he was used to having his way for the price of an engaging smile or a charming compliment. His handsome face and splendid body won acceptance for him wherever he went, and yet he knew that the man within was undeserving of such approval. Callie was good, truthful, and pure, and because he was not, it added to
his torment.

  Rossiter rose from the bed, stepping over to the dresser to pick up the sketch pad once again. There was talent here: he had been told that by teachers and artists alike. He wanted to pursue that talent but doubted he possessed the necessary discipline the art required. It was easier to believe that being a painter was unsuitable for a Boston aristocrat whose father was a success in the world of finance. Frustrated, angry, he stared at Callie’s image, perceiving in the face he had drawn a challenge and a mockery, as though she knew that he would never be more than he already was.

  He ripped the page to shreds, tearing it with shaking hands, unable to complete the deed quickly enough to erase the imagined derision in those carefully drawn features. He was bad, under-serving, a worthless rogue! There was only one way to achieve an equality between himself and Callie, one way to place them on the same level. His own innocence was long gone, and the road to self-sacrifice and virtue was too long and too hard. He envied Callie’s honor, wished it for himself, but at the same time it shamed him, and a perversity in his nature compelled him to destroy it. Rossiter pulled open his door and climbed the stairs to the room beside the nursery.

  Callie tossed restlessly on her bed, unable to find sleep. Her body trembled and shivered as she recalled those moments with Rossiter beneath the front porch. She could still feel the sweetness of his mouth drawing upon her own, could still hear the soft sounds of pleasure he made when he found her breasts with his lips. It had given her a sense of power to know that this beautiful young man desired her, had begged for her favors. His hands had been so gentle, and her heart had fluttered like the wings of a butterfly when he reclaimed her lips again and again. Even now there was an ache at the center of her, an empty longing that only Rossiter could fill.

  The soft glow of her lamp created shadows and light in her spare attic room. She could not bring herself to put it out, feeling she could not bear the pang of isolation that the darkness would bring. Her eyes fell upon the book Rossiter had given her for her birthday; the gilt-edged pages gleamed in the lamplight. Under the book lay the box of stationery Byrch Kenyon had given her. The pale green sheets of onionskin paper were a sharp rebuke that she had not written to her mother in over a week. But how could she write without mentioning Rossiter? How, when there didn’t seem to be anything or anyone else in her life except Rossiter? Callie knew she couldn’t mention him to Peggy, not yet, at any rate. Her feelings were still too new, too fragile to share with anyone, her unformulated hopes for the future too delicate to bear examination.

  She heard a step in the hall outside her room, and before she could consider its source, Rossiter opened the door and loomed in the doorway. The feeble flickering of the lamp barely reached his face, but she could feel his eyes upon her, touching her face, moving downward to her breasts beneath the thin cambric of her nightdress.

  She watched him close the door behind him, unable to speak or find the words to ask why he had come. A primal instinct gave her the answer when she watched him silently cross the floor towards her bed, his slender hips moving against the rhythm of his broad shoulders, like a lion stalking the night. His shirt was unbuttoned to the waist; she could see his hard, muscular chest, could detect the fine golden hairs that streaked below his navel and downward. Her eyes moved upward to his face, saw how his mouth was set in a firm, grim line, perceived the shadow of pain in the depths of that dark gaze.

  Alarmed, she sat up in bed, the covers falling away. Her heart ached with loving him. Her finely attuned senses told her that he was deeply troubled, that he was embittered with anger and bristling with hostility. Toward her? What had she done? He sank to his knees beside her bed, roughly pulling her into his arms. She could feel the tight muscles in his neck, the rigidity of his spine. He spoke her name—it was more a sob—and the suddenness of his appearance here in her room and the way he held her fast, devouring her mouth with his own, frightened her.

  Callie struggled to free herself from his hurting hands, making little sounds of protest, always aware that Mary slept on just the other side of the wall.

  Rossiter resisted her struggles, heard her protests, felt her hands pushing against his shoulders, and realized how vulnerable she was. But he only knew he wanted her, must have her, and was glad for this raging anger he was feeling that insulated him against her complaints as well as the order of decency. “I want you, Callie,” he whispered hoarsely, hardly recognizing the voice as his own. “I need you. God, how I need you! Please, Callie, please,” his words came in a rush, his lips traced the sweet hollows of her throat, his hands held an iron grip on her soft upper arms. “Please, Callie, please, I need you,” he pleaded, feeling her resolve melt, knowing that her struggles had ceased, that her arms were taking him into her embrace. He buried his face against her beating heart.

  Because she loved him, because of his puzzling anger and heart-rending pain, Callie took him into her arms, issuing soft, soothing sounds. There were no words to comfort him; she had no magic to ease his anger and assuage his misery. She had only herself and her love to fill that need.

  He felt her resistance cease, exerted pressure to pull her forward, and before his lips claimed hers, he inhaled the fresh, clean, soapy scent of her. When his mouth took hers again, her lips moved beneath his, reciting the lessons she had learned in the damp beneath the porch. He moved over their softness, seeking her response and finding it.

  Callie offered a sweet kiss, tentatively parting her lips, allowing his tongue entrance to hers. She was aware of that fullness and the curling sensation it created within her. His thumb traced circular patterns in the sensitive hollow below her ear, arousing senses that had lain hidden from her. He made her warm, he made her tingle and shiver with expectation.

  The eagerness of Callie’s response brought an instant and demanding reaction from Rossiter. She felt as though she were being devoured, consumed by his ravishing hunger for her. The sweet yielding of her lips, the enticing touch of her tongue burned Rossiter with a raw, primal need. His hand glided down her elegant throat, paving the way for his lips. He wanted to kiss all of her, to taste her inch by inch, taking her between his lips, his teeth, nibbling and feeding his appetite for her. Her nightgown parted beneath his fingers; he pushed it aside, baring the hollow of her neck and the soft roundness of her shoulder. He felt her tremble beneath his touch, heard a faint moaning sound and knew that she was as close to the edge of this great yawning abyss as himself. He meant to carry her up and over with him, falling, falling into a place where the hungers of the body would be met. He knew he was affecting her with his caresses, drawing her into swift currents of passion. Encouraged by the heated throb of her body, he took her hand, lifting it and placing it between his open shirt front. He guided it to the expanse of bare chest, and even though the touch was anticipated and expected, he gasped as her fingers splayed over the heat of his skin.

  Callie thought she was drifting into a world beyond reason. Nothing existed to her but this moment and Rossiter. He encouraged her to explore his body, and she felt his muscles contract beneath her touch. Soft, almost invisible golden chest hairs rubbed against her palm as she caressed his breasts and grazed her fingers over sensitive nipples that, to her amazement, became rigid and puckered with excitement, just like her own. His mouth returned to take hers in a driving possession, pushing her backwards onto her pillow, following with his body. His breathing came in gasps as he murmured his delight in her, sending new thrills through Callie that this beautiful, powerful man could find pleasure in her.

  He was impatient with the boundaries set by her chaste nightgown, and he rucked it up from her legs and over her hips, pulling it over her head, leaving her naked and exposed to his hands and lips. Callie made a movement to prevent him, but he murmured, “Don’t be frightened, Callie, don’t be frightened! I’ll never hurt you, don’t you know that? Don’t you know?”

  Her small hands wound around his shoulders, smoothing over his skin, holding him close against her, wor
dlessly assuring him that she wasn’t afraid. She could never be afraid as long as he held her, kissing her as he was, loving her. When he lowered his head to claim her breasts, her fingers burrowed into the thick golden hair at the base of his neck, holding him there while his lips opened upon the soft, tender flesh to take the taut, rosy pink between his teeth. Callie writhed beneath this new assault, clenching her thighs together in an effort to assuage the building pressure she was experiencing there.

  Rossiter let his hand travel downward while his lips continued their attention to her breasts. On the slow, teasing descent, his fingers caressed the slimness of her waist, the swell of her hip, and the flatness of her belly. At the instant her hips arched against his hand, he slid his fingers into the silky patch between her thighs, roaming there in soft, barely traceable patterns.

  Instinctively Callie’s hips began to move with the rhythm he set, her thighs parting beneath his pressure to allow him a more intimate search for the warm moistness of her center. Soft, panting sounds of pleasure emanated from her throat as he dared to claim her entry. She experienced a separateness from her body; her mind and heart were filled with Rossiter, tenderly loving him, wanting to impart to him something of herself, imprinting him with her devotion. All the while her body was answering his demands, instinctively moving beneath him to excite and stir his passions, inflaming him with her innate provocativeness.

  Fire licked his veins at her uninhibited response to his caress. Tearing himself away from her breasts, he reclaimed her mouth, bruising her lips, driving them apart to invade the warm recesses within. His own fevered need was throbbing urgently, driving him to satisfy the screaming need within him. His clothing was a barrier between his flesh and hers, a separation that could not be tolerated. Fast, ruthless fingers tore away his garments, removing his shirt and trousers before she even realized he had left her. He stretched out full length beside her, fitting the gentle curves of her body against his. She opened herself to his touch, arched her hips to bring herself closer to the lean length of him. He wedged his leg between her thighs, pulling her under him as he mounted her. A hot eagerness pulsed through him as he probed between the incredibly soft folds of her sex, riding into her with slow deliberation. When he reached the tremulous barrier of her virginity, he thrust forward, piercing it, prepared for her cry of pain by muffling her mouth against his own.