by Kitty Margo
Two months to the day they met, Lynna became Mrs. Michael Devereux in a simply ceremony held on a cliff overlooking the ocean. She wore a simple white off the shoulder gown that had been stitched by her own hand and cried tears of joy and regret that Aunt Judith wasn’t there. Uncle Cliff gave her away in her father’s absence and Crystal was her only attendant, scattering rose petals from a hand-woven basket. After the ceremony, Aunt Bertie insisted that Crystal visit with them for a few days while Lynna and Michael enjoyed a brief honeymoon.
Lynna was as fidgety as a schoolgirl as she slipped a lacy peignoir over her head. Would Michael stir the same feelings of passion that Joshua had? Thus far, Michael had not seemed overly romantic, since he had never once tried to kiss her. But he was by no means the forceful man that Joshua was. He was more shy and reserved. But she was comparing him to Joshua and that wasn’t fair. Michael was kind, gentle, caring, and devoted to his daughter. He would make a wonderful father for their children, and Jamaica was such a marvelous place to raise them. Passion would come in due time, hopefully tonight. She longed for someone to love and be loved in return.
She breathed deeply of the smell of approaching rain in the air. Her eyes went to the sky as jagged heat lightning flashed and low dark clouds, heavy with rain swept over the mountains. A gust of wind molded her negligee to her body as fat drops of rain began to fall. These brief thunderstorms were an evening occurrence in Jamaica.
An hour later, she paced the room, wondering at her husband’s delay. What could be keeping him on their wedding night? Surely there was not a problem at the distillery or he wasn’t in his office surrounded by paperwork, completely forgetting his bride? On bare feet, she hurried downstairs and was at once beset by a flurry of emotions. She was offended, hurt, and angry to find him asleep and snoring on the couch, with an empty rum bottle close by. Was he inebriated? He could not be. She had never even seen him tipsy. However, his drunken state was proof that he had little interest in consummating their wedding vows. She had never felt more humiliated! Feeling lonely and dejected, and with mounting despair, she climbed the stairs, and after much tossing, turning, and tears, she finally drifted into a restless sleep.
“Good morning,” Michael said, during a breakfast of hominy corn porridge, country ham, and thick cane syrup poured over flapjacks. “You slept well, I trust.”
“I slept alone,” she mused, sipping coffee and trying to keep the irritation out of her voice as she stabbed at a thick slice of ham.
“Oh that. Sorry. I guess I imbibed in too much of my own distilled rum,” he said cheerfully.
“Evidently.”
Michael was growing annoyed with her accusing tone. “Most women find that obligation more of a chore than a pleasure, don’t they?”
“This wife would not, Michael. I look forward to being your wife in every way and having your children, and I certainly would not consider making love to you a chore. If I felt that way, I would never have married you.”
Suddenly, looking mad enough to spit fire, Michael stormed out of the house without a word, leaving his breakfast untouched. Lynna could only stare after him, utterly confused by his erratic behavior. What had she said to make him so angry?
Other than the disturbing lack of intimacy from her husband, Lynna’s days on the island were filled with joy. She and Crystal spent many carefree hours at the waterfall or down by the beach splashing in the waves, chasing fiddler crabs, or finding seashells to take home and deposit in a glass vase. Lynna’s days were wonderful, but her nights were nothing short of torture.
Six weeks after their wedding, her husband still had not made love to her, or even attempted to, for that matter. His nights were spent in a drunken stupor on the sofa, and a hurried peck on the cheek was the most romantic gesture he offered before rushing off to the mill. As embarrassing as it was to admit, her husband had no desire to bed her. Was he repulsed by her? Did he already regret his hasty proposal and even hastier marriage? Was he in the habit of getting intoxicated every night to drown the sorrow he felt over being tied to her for a lifetime?
Just before drifting into an exhausted sleep, Lynna decided to have a heart to heart discussion with her husband the following morning, and ask if he would be agreeable to having their farce of a marriage annulled. She would cut her losses and move on. Surely there was someone who could love and desire her.
Chapter Eighteen
Michael was asleep on the sofa just after midnight when the owner of Eden tied his horse to the hitching post outside. He entered the quiet house to find Michael still fully dressed, passed out cold, drooling onto the embroidered sofa pillow, and snoring like a lumberjack. Strange. The docks were abuzz with rumors of Michael’s recent nuptials to a young lady of exceptional beauty. Why then wasn’t he enjoying the fruits of his marriage? “Michael!” He shook him vigorously in an attempt to shake him out of his drunken stupor. Michael, wake up!”
Michael opened one blurry eye and saw two faces leaning over him. “Evenin’, boss.”
“And a good evening it is, Michael.” His boss grinned, although he was deeply disturbed by the sight of his overseer, who was semiconscious at best. “For some of us at least.” He had not known Michael to imbibe so heavily in years, not since the night his wife had died after a sudden illness. Then it was to be expected, but now? Surely his recent marriage did not bring about such stress. “I hear a celebration is in order. Finally tied the knot after all these years, did you?”
“Yes sher, I did,” Michael slurred the words, barely opening his eyes before passing out again.
Determined to get to the bottom of this charade, his boss shook him. “Michael, why are you turning to a bottle instead of your new bride? You have not forgotten what to do behind closed doors after so long a dry spell, have you?”
Michael partially opened one eye, closed it again, and mumbled, “You cannot forget something you never acquired knowledge of in the first place, now can you?” In his state of extreme drunkenness Michael was admitting more than he ever had before.
“What do you mean you never acquired the knowledge? Do you perhaps require a few pointers on the subject? It really isn’t that difficult… unless she is of the unattractive sort, then, admittedly, it can sometimes be a bit of a challenge to remain...attentive, shall we say. If such were the case, I might understand why you are drowning your sorrows in a bottle. However, scuttlebutt has it that she is anything but unattractive.”
“She is the most beautiful woman I ever laid my eyes on.”
“Then, forgive me for sounding dim-witted, but I fear your words make little sense to me.”
“I cannot make love to anybody!” Michael stormed. “Do those words make sense to you!” He sat up on the sofa too fast and held his spinning head as he blurted out his sorrowful tale. “When I was just a boy, I entered the barn one morning to feed and water the horses. That was my chore. I had been tending them for years. On this particular morning, for some reason I still cannot figure out, I startled Pa’s favorite stallion, Samson, and he commenced to kicking.” Michael paused and scrubbed his face with his hands before continuing. “I often wonder how different my life would be if I’d just made a noise that morning, let Samson know I was entering his stall.” He laughed harshly. “At any rate, old Samson took a deadly aim and kicked me hard, right square in my privates. They’ve been useless ever since.”
“Damn! I am sorry to hear that.” Some men would consider it a fate worse than death! “The little lady you married must be sympathetic to your…um….condition to have wed you anyway, knowing that you could not father her children.”
“She doesn’t know,” Michael admitted. “And she never will! She is probably upstairs now, imagining that I will soon join her and make wild, passionate love for the remainder of the night.” He laughed bitterly. “I pray she doesn’t hold her breath.”
“Let me see if I understand this correctly. You married a woman under the false pretense that you could make love to her and give her c
hildren?”
“I reckon that’s about the gist of it.”
“Then you are not Crystal’s father?”
“No, her mother was already carrying her when I married her, so I claimed her as my own.”
“In my humble opinion, you have done your new bride a dire disservice, Michael. Then you hurt her further by leaving her alone each night, believing that you do not desire her?”
“I don’t desire her. Thankfully, I have never known the insatiable lust that drives so many of you to distraction.” Michael held his throbbing head in hands and eyed the empty whiskey bottle. “I married her to give Crystal a mother.”
“I understand your love for the child, but if you ask me, that is a feeble excuse for a marriage. You owe her the truth.”
“I don’t owe her a damn thing! She has a beautiful home, an attentive husband during daylight hours, and a child who adores her. That’s all any woman needs. I am going back to sleep now, boss. We can continue this discussion in the morning if you feel the need, but I believe everything has been said.” Thus said, he passed out on the sofa and was snoring in seconds.
His boss climbed the stairs, shaking his head in pity for Michael’s bride. She was waiting for a husband who would never, could never come to her. First thing tomorrow morning, he would have a discussion with the little lady and find out for himself if she was content with the arrangement or if she had an interest in having their sham of a marriage annulled. It might not be any of his concern, but he could not tolerate the thought of the poor girl lying in her bed, in his house, prostrate with grief at finding herself in such a loveless marriage. At the top of the stairs, he paused outside her door. He really should not get involved. This was between Michael and his wife. He should wait until morning, but as owner of the plantation, he felt the need to right any wrongs being carried out under his roof.
Michael had said she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. That was intriguing, to say the least. One little peek could not hurt. She had most likely cried herself to sleep hours ago. Quietly opening the door, he saw the woman in question stretched out on the bed in a sheer nightgown, peaceful in slumber. He moved closer to the bed to see her more clearly by the moonlight filtering through the open balcony doors.
A startled gasp filled the room as he whispered, “Michael was correct, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen as well.”
The deep voice penetrated Lynna’s sleep-drugged mind, causing her to awaken with a start. Believing her husband had finally decided to join her in their marriage bed, she smiled seductively and purred, “I was beginning to worry that you did not desire your bride.” She reached out to him and pulled his face down to hers.
His lips found hers in a kiss filled with longing and passion. Lynna smiled as he swiftly removed her nightgown and sighed deep in her throat as he crushed her against his broad chest. Thank God! She would not have to pretend to enjoy making love to her husband. His touch thrilled her, making her body squirm beneath his and yearn for more.
Lynna turned on her side and pressed her soft, warm torso against his. Wrapping her arms around his neck and her leg around his waist, she behaved like a woman starved, for she was.
Placing his hand on her hip, he gently pushed her to her back and nudged her knees apart with his thigh and entered her. Neither of them could hold out for more than a few strokes, and they desperately clung to each other as they found their glorious release. After several minutes had passed, he rolled to the side and raised up on his elbow. Burying his face in her hair, he breathed, “Lynna, you don’t know how long I have waited for this moment.”
His voice immediately froze her ebbing passion. She knew the voice immediately. “Joshua! It cannot be…turn me loose and get out of my room at once!”
“Yes, my love! It is me! At long last, I have finally found you,” he whispered against her throat. “After an endless search, you were right at my own front door.”
“Get out,” she cried, enraged that he would leave Suzanne’s bed and think to slither into hers. “I am a married woman, and if you do not leave this room immediately, I will…I will scream for my husband!”
“Go ahead, my sweet, but neither your husband nor anyone else at Eden will come to your rescue, so save your breath,” he replied sharply, angered both by her rejection and hearing her refer to another man as her husband. “By the way, your dear husband is passed out cold on the sofa.”
So, Joshua knew her own husband did not desire her and was callously throwing it in her face. She wanted to claw his eyes out of their sockets for the pain he had caused, and was continuing to cause her. “Do you want everyone in this house to know what a vile, disgusting cretin you are? Don’t you care what people think of you?”
“I care not what others think,” he answered
harshly.
She opened her mouth to scream, but he clamped his hand over her mouth and said in a lethal voice, “I am going to make love to you, again, Lynna. I have thought of nothing else since the day of the Harvest Ball, and what just transpired was far too hasty for my liking. I will have you. If you try to scream and alarm Michael or the servants, I will use force if necessary. It makes little difference to me one way or the other,” he lied, but Lynna didn’t know it. He would never harm a hair on her head, but he certainly did not have fighting on his mind right now.
She stared at him, too terrified to move or speak, but her mind worked furiously. She knew she could not depend on her husband to arrive and save her; he would be useless in his inebriated state. Nor was her strength any match for Joshua’s, but there had to be a way to stop him. And what was he doing in Jamaica, anyway? In this house? How did he find her? “Joshua, please do not do this. I beg of you. You told me once that rape was a heinous crime against women.”
“It will not be rape,” he growled. “And you damn well know it!”
“What do you call it then, when you force yourself on me against my will?”
“I call it giving us both what we desire. Do not deny it. After what we just shared, you cannot deny you desire me,” he said upon seeing her open her mouth to protest. “You cannot lie to me, Lynna.”
“Joshua, I am a married woman now,” she whispered brokenly. “What gives you the right to take by force that what belongs to another man?
“You belong to me!” he insisted, shaking her roughly by the shoulder, his emerald eyes blazing. “Do not ever say otherwise! You have since that first night on my ship, Lynna.”
“Joshua,” she began, but stopped, losing the will to fight. What was the point of trying to make him listen? “Then get it over with,” she snapped, close to tears. “Satisfy your lust and leave!”
“Satisfy my lust, indeed!” Joshua calmed down somewhat and smiled wickedly. He would enjoy making her beg.
He knelt beside the bed and leisurely kissed his way up her leg, feeling her tremble as he neared her tightly clenched thighs. She relaxed somewhat when his mouth moved down the opposite leg, only to draw in her breath sharply when his tongue flicked the tender spot beneath her ankle. She steeled herself against his sensuous onslaught, praying that it would be over soon. Clenching her teeth, she remained perfectly still, willing her body not to respond as he left a burning trail across her stomach towards her breast. One traitorous moan escaped when his mouth traveled to her neck without touching her throbbing breasts. She willed her hands not to pull his head back to the throbbing peaks. Please! Let me be strong enough to withstand this torture and not give in to him!
“Tell me you want me, Lynna!” he demanded huskily.
“Never! I want only to be left alone.”
His tongue went to her ear, where he nibbled the tender lobe as his warm breath served to further weaken her resistance. But she would not admit defeat, even as she silently cursed her betraying body. His soft lips outlined her own, causing them to part, allowing his tongue to dart through her smooth, even teeth and bring the desired response. “Tell me you want me, Lynna.”
She cooled instantly. “You black-hearted seadog! I want no part of you!”
Grinning, he blew warm breath on the rosy peaks of her full breasts as she bit her lip to keep from crying out and dug her nails into her palms. She knew she was fighting a losing battle and why resist something she wanted so badly? Something her body craved? He continued to explore her body for what seemed like hours. When his soft mouth at last closed over her hardened nipple, his teeth nibbling and tugging ever so gently, she lost the will to fight.
“Oh, Joshua,” she moaned. “I cannot stand another moment of this torture.”
“Tell me you want me,”
“I want you, Joshua!” she cried. “I want you! All of you! Now!”
Her body was on fire, every nerve alive to his touch. She arched against him as her hands moved to press him into her eager body. Her hands on his buttocks pressed harder still as their passion climbed before slowly and, oh, so sweetly, they were wrapped in the dizzying aftermath of their love. Joshua rolled to his side as a silent tear slid down her cheek. How could she be so wanton in Joshua’s arms when she was wed to another? If only Joshua were her husband she would be the happiest woman alive.
Her tears were too much for Joshua. “What is wrong now, Lynna?”
“How can you ask me that?” she cried, angry he wasn’t as distraught over the situation as she was. “Do you have no feelings?”
“I fear my feeling are too strong.” He brushed her tear away and caressed the line of her jaw. “I love you, Lynna.”
How she had longed to hear him say those very words, but they came too late. They were both wed to others and she would not fall under his spell again. This night of passion would have to last them for an eternity.
“Did Suzanne present you with a son or daughter?”
