“But you didn’t?” Nicole said with hope in her voice.
“I have you to thank for that. Even though I say I didn’t hear Bianca, I think that some part of my small brain must have. All I knew was that I didn’t want to return home at night, that I was working harder than I ever had in the last year. But when you were living in the house, I wanted to come home. When Bianca was at the house, I preferred the fields, especially the fields closest to the mill.”
Nicole smiled and kissed his chest through his shirt. His words were the most wonderful she’d ever heard.
“It took Wes to knock some sense into me,” he continued. “When Wes first saw Bianca, I could see how he was affected. I felt justified then for having her in my house and not you. I knew Wes would understand.”
“I don’t think Wesley likes Bianca.”
Clay chuckled and kissed the tip of her nose. “That’s a polite way of putting it. When he told me he thought she was a vain, arrogant bitch, I hit him. It made me sick, and I didn’t know if I was sick from hitting my friend or from hearing the truth. I left the house and didn’t return for two days. I had a lot of thinking to do. It took me a while, but I began to see what I’d done. And I made myself face the fact that Beth was dead. I’d tried to bring her back through Bianca, but that couldn’t work. What I had, but had ignored for the most part, was the twins. If James and Beth still lived, it was through their children and not some stranger. If I wanted to give Beth anything, it would be a good mother for the twins she loved so much, and not one who knocked Alex in the water because he tore her dress.”
“How did you know about that?”
“Roger, Janie, Maggie, Luke,” he said with disgust. “Everyone seemed to think it was his duty to tell me about Bianca. They’d all known Beth, and I guess they could sense that most of my attraction to her lay in that resemblance.”
“Why did you ask me to the party?” she asked, holding her breath.
He laughed and hugged her tightly. “When it comes to brains, I think we have equally small ones. When I realized that I was trying to replace Beth with Bianca, I also knew why I spent so much time staring at the mill wharf—which needs repairing, I might add. There’s a sawmill on the other side of the Backes’s plantation.”
“Clay!”
He laughed again. “I love you. Didn’t you know that? Everyone else did.”
“No,” she whispered. “I wasn’t sure.”
“You nearly tore me apart the night of the storm when you told me about your grandfather and said you loved me.” He paused for a moment. “You left me the next day. Why? We spent such a night together, then the next morning you were cold to me.”
She remembered clearly the portrait in Clay’s office. “The portrait in your office is Beth, isn’t it?” She felt him nod against her. “I thought it was Bianca, and it looked like a shrine. How could I compete with a woman you worshipped?”
“It’s gone now. I put the portrait back over the fireplace in the dining room. The pieces of garment I locked in a trunk to be stored with the others. Maybe Mandy will want them someday.”
“Clay, what happens now?”
“I told you. I want you to marry me again, publicly, with lots of witnesses.”
“What about Bianca?”
“I’ve already told her that she’s to return to England.”
“How did she take it?”
He frowned. “She wasn’t what I’d call gracious, but she’ll obey me. I’ll see she is paid. It’s a good thing I came to my senses as soon as I did. She’s already run up enormous bills.” He stopped suddenly and laughed at her. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever met who is so considerate of her enemies.”
Nicole moved away from him and looked up in a startled way. “Bianca isn’t my enemy. Maybe I should love her since she was the one who gave you to me.”
“I don’t believe gave is the proper word.”
Nicole giggled impishly. “I don’t believe it is either.”
He smiled down at her and caressed her temple. “You’ll forgive me for being blind and stupid?”
“Yes,” she whispered before his mouth closed on hers. The knowledge that he loved her made her especially passionate. She wrapped her arms about his neck and pulled him very close to her. Her body arched against his.
Neither of them noticed the first cold drops of rain. Only when the sky split with a slash of lightning and opened with a pure sheet of icy rain did they break apart.
“Come on!” Clay yelled as he stood up and pulled her with him.
She turned toward the path to the sloop, but Clay pulled her in another direction. They ran toward the side of the clearing opposite the river. While Nicole stood in the rain, rubbing her cold upper arms, Clay withdrew his knife and slashed at some hedges.
“Damn!” he cursed loudly when he couldn’t seem to find what he wanted. Suddenly, the bushes broke away and revealed what looked to be a little cave. Clay threw his arm around Nicole and nearly pushed her inside.
She shivered. Her dress was soaked from the cold rain.
“Just a minute, and I’ll have a fire going,” Clay said as he knelt at one corner near the opening.
“What is this place?” she asked, kneeling beside him.
“We found this little cave—James, Beth, and I—and it’s what caused us to plant the hedges and trees. James had one of the bricklayers show him how to build a fireplace.” He nodded toward the rather crude structure where he was now working to build a fire. He sat back on his haunches as the fire took hold. “We always thought this was the world’s most secret place, but when I was older I realized the smoke was as good as a flag. No wonder our parents never objected to our ‘disappearances.’ All they had to do was look out a window to see where we were.”
Nicole stood up and looked around her. The cave was about twelve feet long and ten feet wide. Along the walls were set a couple of crude benches and a large pine chest, its hinges rusty and broken. Something glittered from a niche in the wall. She went to it. Her hand touched something cool and smooth. She withdrew it and held it up to the light from the fire. It was a large piece of greenish glass, and embedded inside was a tiny silver unicorn.
“What is this?”
Clay turned and smiled up at her. For a moment he was serious, then he reached out and took the piece of glass as Nicole sat beside him. He studied it as he spoke, turning it in his hands. “Beth’s father bought the little unicorn for her in Boston. She thought it was so pretty. One day we were here in the cave, James had just finished the fireplace, and Beth said she hoped we would always be friends. Suddenly, she took the unicorn off the chain around her neck and said we were going to see the glassblower. James and I followed her, knowing she was up to something. She got old Sam to work up a ball of clear glass. Then the three of us touched the unicorn and swore always to be friends. Then Beth dropped it into the hot glass. She said that was so no one else could ever touch it.” He looked at the glass one more time, then handed it back to Nicole. “It was a silly, childish act, but it seemed to mean a lot then.”
“I don’t think it’s silly, and it certainly seemed to work,” she smiled.
Clay wiped his hands together, then looked at her, his eyes dark. “Weren’t we doing something interesting before the rain started?”
Nicole looked at him in wide-eyed innocence. “I have no idea what you mean.”
Clay stood, went to the dilapidated old chest, and pulled out two of the dustiest, most moth-eaten blankets that had ever been seen. “Not exactly pink silk sheets,” he said, laughing at some joke Nicole didn’t share. “But better than the dirt.” He turned and held out his arms for her.
Nicole ran to him, hugged him close to her. “I love you, Clay,” she whispered. “I love you so much that it scares me.”
He began pulling the pins from her hair, dropping them to the floor. He stroked the black, silky mass of her hair. “Why should you be frightened?” he said softly, his lips playing along her neck. �
��You’re my wife, the only one I want or will ever have. Think about us and our children.”
Nicole felt her knees begin to weaken as Clay’s tongue touched her earlobe. “Children,” she said under her breath. “I’d like children.”
He pulled away from her and smiled. “Creating children isn’t easy. It takes a lot of…ah, hard work.”
Nicole laughed, her eyes dancing in delight. “Maybe we should practice,” she said solemnly. “All work becomes easier with…experience.”
“Come here, imp,” he said, and picked her up into his arms. He carefully laid her down on the blankets. Somehow, the musty smell of them fit the atmosphere. It was a place of ghosts, ghosts Nicole felt smiling on them.
Clay unfastened the buttons of her wet dress, and as he revealed a piece of skin he kissed it. He pulled the dress out from under her, then off as if she were a child. Nicole removed her chemise herself. She was hungry to bare her skin to his touch. Clay moved her across his knee, his arm behind her back as he touched and teased her body. “You’re so beautiful,” he said, the firelight playing on her skin.
“You’re not disappointed that I’m not blonde?”
“Hush!” he commanded in a mock stern voice. “I wouldn’t change one color of you.”
She turned to look up at him, then began to unbutton his shirt. His chest was smooth and hard with muscle, lightly covered with hair. His stomach was strong and flat. Nicole felt her own muscles tighten at the sight of his beautiful body. His lean hardness was such a contrast to her own softness. She enjoyed his body. She enjoyed watching him walk, the way his muscles played beneath his skin as he worked to control an unruly horse. She liked to watch him throw hundred-pound bags of grain onto a wagon. She shivered as she pressed her mouth to the warm brown skin that covered the ridges of his stomach.
Clay was watching her, saw the range of emotions cross her expressive eyes. When at last they turned to the smoky brown of sheer lust, he felt chills run up his spine. The woman fired him in a way no other ever had. No longer did he care for the words of love, but he wanted her. He nearly tore his clothes from his body, pulling off the long, tight boots faster than he ever had before.
No longer were his kisses sweet and gentle, but as he took her ear in his mouth he threatened to tear it from her head. His lips, tongue, and teeth ran down her neck, across her shoulder, then back again to her breast.
Nicole arched under his touch. His tongue on her breast sent little sparks of fire through her veins. His mouth traveled down her stomach, making it contract under the sweet torment of his kisses. She buried her hands in the thick richness of his hair, dragging his mouth back to her own.
“Clay,” she whispered before his mouth on hers stopped her words.
He moved his body on top of hers, and she smiled, her eyes closed, as she felt the weight of him. He was hers, thoroughly and completely hers.
When he entered her, it was, as always, a surprise to her, a shock of delight as she reexperienced his maleness He filled her completely until she thought she would die from ecstasy.
They moved together, slowly at first, until Nicole felt she could bear the slowness no longer. Her hands caressed the round, hard smoothness of his back and buttocks, feeling the muscles work, feeling the power that lay just under his hot skin.
When they came together, Nicole could feel the contractions in her body from her waist to her toes. When Clay rolled off her and gathered her close to him, her legs throbbed. She smiled and snuggled against him, kissing his shoulder, tasting the salt of his sweat.
They fell asleep together.
Chapter 13
WHEN NICOLE FIRST AWOKE, SHE THOUGHT SHE WAS back in the cave with Clay. But the sun across the bed, shining through Ellen’s lacy curtains, soon reminded her where she was. The place beside her was empty, but the pillow still bore an indentation from Clay’s head.
She stretched luxuriously, the sheet falling away from her nude body. After they’d made love in the cave last night, they’d slept for hours. When they awoke, the moon had risen, the fire was out, and they were both cold. They had quickly bundled into their damp clothes and run for the sloop. Clay sailed it slowly down the river to the Backes’s house.
Once inside the house, Clay had raided the kitchen and returned to Nicole with a large basket of fruit, cheese, bread, and wine. He laughed as Nicole became amorous after only half a glass of wine. They made love again amid the food, kissing and eating, teasing and laughing, until they fell asleep again in each other’s arms.
Nicole moved and pulled a piece of apple out from under her right hip. She smiled at it before setting it on the bedside table. She knew Ellen’s sheets would be stained for life after their antics of last night. But how did one apologize for that? Could she say she’d poured wine into the small of Clay’s back and then sipped it out, unfortunately spilling some when he grew impatient and turned over before she could drink it all? No, that wasn’t something you could tell your hostess.
She threw back the covers, then rubbed her bare arms. There was the first nip of fall in the air. In the wardrobe hung a velvet dress of just the color of the wine she and Clay had shared last night. Quickly, she put it on, buttoning the tiny pearl buttons to her neck. It was long-sleeved, high-necked, fitting tightly across her breasts and then falling away in a gathered skirt to the floor. It was a simple, elegant gown, and it was warm, just what she would need for today’s coolness.
She went to the mirror to arrange her hair. She wanted to look especially nice today. Clay had said that at the noon dinner he’d announce their plans for a second marriage and invite the people to his house for a Christmas wedding. Nicole had been able to persuade him to wait and prepare a party for the event. Ellen’s guests would begin leaving this afternoon, and he wanted to make the announcement before they left.
Nicole got lost only once before she found the garden door that led to the lawn where the tables had been newly set up. Several people milled about the tables, talking slowly and eating quietly. Everyone seemed to be tired and ready for the long party to end. Nicole looked forward to returning to Arundel Hall—as its mistress.
She saw Bianca sitting alone at a little table under an elm tree. She felt a twinge of conscience at the sight. In a way, it didn’t seem fair that the Englishwoman had come such a long way, expecting to be married, only to discover her fiancé was already married. Hesitantly, Nicole took a step forward. Then Bianca looked up, over a plate of food, at her. Bianca’s eyes were filled with the fires of hatred. Her look was lethal if not fatal.
Nicole’s hand flew to her throat, and she backed away. Suddenly, she felt like a hypocrite. Of course, she could afford to offer Bianca sympathy, since she—Nicole—had won. Winners can always afford to be gracious. She turned toward the tables and picked up a plate, but her appetite was gone.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Armstrong,” said a man who towered over her.
Nicole looked up from the food she was pushing around on her plate. “Yes?”
She saw a tall, strong young man, but his eyes bothered her. They were little and close together, and now they glittered wildly.
“Your husband asked if you’d meet him at the sloop.”
Nicole rose instantly and walked around the table toward the man.
He chuckled. “I like an obedient woman. Clay sure knows how to train his.”
Nicole started to make a retort to his statement, but she stopped herself. She knew any answer she made would not give him the setdown he deserved. “I thought Mr. Armstrong was at the horse races,” she said, purposely using the formal title. She followed him across the lawn toward the river.
“Not many men let their women know where they are all the time,” he smirked, eying her up and down, his little eyes lingering on her breasts.
Nicole stopped where she was. “I think I’ll return to the house. Would you please tell my husband that I’ll meet him there?” She turned on her heel and started back toward the house.
She hadn’t
taken two steps before the man’s hand clamped hard on her upper arm.
“Listen to me, you little Frenchy,” he said, his lips drawn back in a snarl. “I know all about you. I been told about your lyin’, foreign ways. I know what you done to my cousin.”
Nicole stopped struggling and stared at him. “Cousin? Release me or I’ll scream.”
“You do, and that husband of yours won’t live till mornin’.”
“Clay! What have you done with him? Where is he? You hurt him, and I’ll…I’ll—”
“What?” he said avidly. “You sure are hot for him, ain’t you? I told Pa you were little better than a bitch in heat. I seen the way you flaunt yourself around him. No good woman’d do that.”
“What do you want?” Nicole said, her eyes large.
He smiled at her. “It ain’t what I want so much as what I’m gonna take. Now, are you listenin’?”
She nodded silently, her stomach rolling.
“You’re gonna walk with me to that wharf where my family’s boat’s tied. It ain’t fine like you’re used to, but it’s good enough for a woman like you. Then you’re gonna get on the boat real quiet and we’re gonna take a little trip.”
“To Clay?”
“Why, sure, honey. I told you he was gonna be all right if you just did what I said.”
Nicole nodded, and the man’s hand moved to her elbow, but the grip was just as hard as before. All she could think of was that Clay was in some kind of danger and she must help him.
He led her to the far end of the wharf where two other men waited in an old, patched sloop. One was an older man, skinny and dirty, with a Bible under his arm. “There she is!” he said loudly. “A Jezebel, a fallen, sinful woman.”
Nicole glared at the man, then started to speak, but the man who’d held her arm gave her a sharp push. She landed hard against the young boy.
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