After the Kiss

by Joan Johnston

  Father’s eyes had blurred with tears. He held his hand out to her, and she laid hers in it and let him draw her close. His arm banded her waist and pulled her and Reggie snugly against him, enfolding them in a warm circle of love.

  “Papa is home,” he said, his breath warm against her brow.

  “I love you, Papa,” Becky whispered in his ear.

  “I love you, too,” he whispered back.

  Eliza was shivering, her body pressed close to the stone wall, the only solid thing she had to hang on to. She told herself over and over that she was only afraid of the dark because she had once been locked inside a dark room when she was a child.

  It helped a little. But the feeling of being abandoned, the sensation that the walls were closing in and would crush her if she did not somehow escape, persisted despite all logic against it.

  Eliza saw the glow from the lantern long before she could distinguish the face of the person carrying it. Somehow she knew it was Marcus. “You found me,” she said, half crying, half laughing with relief as he took the last few steps to reach her.

  “I could hear you calling for me. I came as fast as I could.”

  Eliza launched herself toward Marcus, who quickly set the lantern on the stone floor and opened his arms wide.

  “I’ve missed you, Eliza,” he breathed against her ear.

  When he lowered his mouth, hers was waiting for him. As his tongue urgently probed the seam of her lips, her mouth opened eagerly to receive him. His tongue dipped inside, tasting her, letting her taste him. Eliza quivered. This was what had been missing all her life. His body impatient for hers, hers more than ready for his, a merging of body and soul, so that two became one.

  She let her tongue tease the side of his mouth, where the scar was, and heard him make a primitive, guttural sound as he pulled her close, letting her feel his arousal.

  Eliza had forgotten how wonderful the Beau’s kisses could be. She put a hand to his cheek, wanting to feel his flesh against her fingertips—and abruptly ended the kiss, levering herself back to look at him. “You shaved! I can see your face!”

  Marcus rubbed a hand over his jaw and grinned. “I did not think you were going to notice.” She saw the tension in his body when he asked, “What is the verdict? Can you bear the Beast in all his glory?”

  As if his scarred face could ever keep her from loving him! “Shaving that monstrous beard is a vast improvement,” she said tartly. “At least now I can find your lips to kiss them.”

  She suited word to deed, and it was long moments before either of them came up for air. Eliza realized he was brushing her damp lips with his thumb. His left thumb.

  “Your hand!” she cried, grabbing hold of it. “You can use your fingers!”

  “Griggs has been helping me to exercise them,” he said, thrusting his now-flexible left hand into her hair and sending pins flying. “I have learned a great deal about myself in the past six weeks, Eliza. Enough to know that I need you. Enough to know that I do not want to wait another moment to start our lives together.”

  He grabbed a handful of curls and gently angled her head back, kissing her with a passion that spoke volumes about his desire and need and hopes and dreams. “I want you with me always,” he murmured, pressing kisses against her throat.

  “I am listening,” she said with throaty laugh. “Tell me more.”

  “I need you to light the dark places inside of me. I want to make children with you, to fill your days and nights with passion and laughter.” He teased her lips with his teeth and tongue, doing all the things with his mouth that she had imagined he would do in the weeks they had been separated. Promising rapture. Offering heaven.

  “Say you will let me love you,” he whispered. “Say we can be husband and wife again.”

  Eliza looked deep into the Beau’s blue eyes for the first time since the afternoon she had kissed him in the forest, the day she had seen in his eyes the love and desire that had been missing in Julian’s.

  “Oh, Marcus,” she breathed reverently. “It is there. I can see it in your eyes.”

  He pressed his scarred cheek against her soft, smooth one and pulled her tight enough against him that she could feel the thundering pulse beating inside his chest. “I love you, Eliza.”

  “I love you, too, Marcus. I have for a very long time.”

  Their lips met in a kiss that offered more than the breath of life. It filled all the empty places inside her. Eliza heard a guttural moan of satisfaction, as Marcus took the soul she offered him, and gave her his.

  “How many children do you want?” she murmured, thinking of the one growing inside her. “I mean, aside from the two you already have.”

  “The twins are not mine, Eliza,” he said, looking earnestly into her eyes. “I have just explained to Alastair that it is an impossibility.”

  “Oh. So you never … with your brother’s wife.”

  He shook his head. “Never.”

  Then she realized what else he had said. “You just now explained this to your brother? The duke is here? He has returned?”

  “He is so changed, Eliza! I hardly recognized him. The bitterness is gone, and he seems so much happier. He is determined to be a better father to Reggie and Becky.”

  “The twins!” She flushed. “I had completely forgotten about them.”

  “You have been a bit distracted,” Marcus said with a grin.

  “Have they been found, then? Are they all right?”

  “Alastair went to search for them down another passageway, while I came to find you.”

  Eliza turned to look into the gloom. She thought of her own experience, calling and calling for help that never came. “Dear God. If the twins are still lost inside here somewhere, Marcus, they must think we have abandoned them. We must find them as quickly as we can!”

  “Alastair gave me directions how to find him. He will know the quickest way to get you out of here, so I can continue the search.”

  “I am not leaving your side until we find the children,” she said stubbornly, following closely behind him as he began to move through the narrow tunnel.

  “Your aunt told me how frightened you are of the dark.”

  “She would.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at her. “You should have told me why you wished me to leave a candle burning,” he accused. “It is another sin for which I must be forgiven.”

  “I was not afraid with your arms around me, Marcus. Truly. And now that I know what caused the fear—it is another story and can be told later—my dread is not so strong as it used to be. I will be fine if we are together.”

  It seemed they made a great many right turns before they finally saw the glow of a lantern in the distance.

  “We must be in the very bowels of the Abbey,” Marcus muttered. “It must be the dungeon! Hurry. Alastair may need our help.”

  But when they reached the door and looked inside, they saw Alastair with his arms around the twins, and the twins holding him tight and chattering like magpies.

  “This is quite a family reunion,” Marcus quipped, setting his lantern on the boxes stacked just inside the door. “May we join in?”

  Eliza saw that, for the first time, the twins did not jump up and race to Marcus. She wondered if they still had not forgiven him for hiding away the past year.

  But Becky piped up, “Papa is home, Uncle Marcus. Papa is home!” She seemed glad to see Marcus, but she clung to her father, rather than running to her uncle.

  Reggie lifted her head so she could see Marcus past Alastair’s shoulder and said, “I hit my head, Uncle Marcus. But Papa has promised it will feel better soon.”

  Eliza saw the momentary flash of pain as Marcus realized he was no longer first in their lives. And then his smile, as he turned to her and squeezed her hand, accepting what had always been meant to be.

  “The twins seem to have survived their ordeal,” Alastair said. “Becky has a bump on her head that bled, but aside from a headache and a couple of ru
ined shifts, the twins got off lightly. I think we must take the door off this dungeon, Marcus,” Alastair said. “It is far too dangerous for our progeny.”

  “I think you might be right.”

  Eliza saw how longingly Marcus looked at Alastair’s daughters. “You will have one of your own soon,” she whispered in his ear. She looked down and laid her hand on her belly. “She is already growing inside me.”

  Marcus looked stunned for an instant before his face broke into a broad grin, crinkling the web of scars near his eye. He grabbed her and whirled her in a circle so fast it made her dizzy.

  “Put me down,” she warned with a laugh, “or I shall cast up my accounts.”

  He set her down and pulled her against his side, his arm cinched around her waist. “I am going to be a father, Alex. Congratulate me. Eliza says it is a girl.”

  Alex grinned back at him. “I hear daughters are easier to raise than sons, Marcus,” he said, looking with adoration at his incorrigible twins. “They are quiet, retiring, polite, and they never get into trouble.”

  “Did you hear that, Eliza? Daughters only, please,” Marcus teased.

  “I don’t care what it is,” Becky said. “As long as I get to hold it!”

  Eliza laughed along with Marcus and Alastair. She slid her husband’s scarred hand down to her belly and covered it with her own. “Very well, Marcus,” she said, her gaze locked with his. “A meek and docile daughter you shall have.”

  “I only hope she is as wild a hellion as Reggie and Becky,” he whispered in her ear. “I can hardly wait.”

  “Neither can I,” Eliza said, imagining a daughter as fun-loving, as dauntless, and as hopelessly unmanageable as the twins. She grinned. “Neither can I.”

  Epilogue

  “Matchmaking is a dangerous business,” Olivia warned.

  Eliza looked up from nursing her daughter, Alexandra, and met the troubled gaze of the Duchess of Braddock, who was sitting on the sofa across the room. “I only thought, since Alastair is already married to Katherine, that we should invite her here from Scotland for a visit,” Eliza said.

  “If Blackthorne wants to see his bride, he is perfectly capable of making the journey to Scotland himself,” Olivia said.

  Charlotte wrinkled her nose. “Where is your sense of adventure, Livy?”

  “I left it safe at home!”

  Olivia had come with Charlotte to see the renovations Eliza had made to the east wing of the Abbey. And, Eliza suspected, so they could both make sure that Eliza and the Beau were living happily ever after. And they were, Eliza thought, as she looked around her.

  Reggie and Becky were playing with Olivia’s two-year-old son, William, and Charlotte’s one-year-old daughter, Margaret, who were settled on a blanket in the center of the room with a selection of colorful wooden and cloth toys.

  Of course children belonged in a nursery, not in the middle of a drawing room where guests were received, but Eliza enjoyed having the twins close by. And she knew Becky would not be happy unless she had a chance to hold the babies. Besides, the duchess and the countess had not missed a step when she had suggested they allow the children to join them.

  In a chair directed toward the fire, Aunt Lavinia’s knitting needles were clacking industriously. Eliza could tell she was listening to everything that was going on, merely by watching her expressive face. A sleek black cat lay curled on her lap, purring contentedly.

  Eliza smiled to herself. It was not until Alexandra had been born that she realized her aunt had been knitting baby clothes all these years. Alexandra wanted for nothing. Now Aunt Lavinia was working on a wardrobe for the next Wharton child. Considering the ball of blue yarn in her lap, Aunt Lavinia was expecting a son to make his appearance next.

  “I found matchmaking a perfectly delightful endeavor, Livy,” Charlotte said. “And you must admit, my efforts have not turned out so badly.” She glanced smugly from Olivia to Eliza.

  Olivia made a very unduchesslike sound of rebuttal.

  “I only intend to invite Alastair’s wife for a visit to the Abbey. Surely there could be no harm in that,” Eliza said, adjusting the lace-edged blanket over her daughter, who was greedily inhaling her luncheon. “Despite the fact none of us has ever laid eyes on her, the mistress of Blackthorne Hall is my sister-in-law.”

  Charlotte thumped the heels of her black patent leather half boots against the side of the wingback chair in which she was sitting crosswise. “I say Eliza should do it!”

  “Do what?” Marcus asked, entering the drawing room with Lion and Reeve on his heels. He crossed immediately to his wife and gave her a kiss on the mouth, caressing her breast beneath the blanket that hid the nursing child. He grinned at her rosy face and settled himself on the carpet at her feet.

  Eliza blushed. Her friends must have seen how Marcus had touched her breast. Perhaps they thought he had caressed the baby’s cheek.

  When she finally got the courage to look up, Eliza realized from the other two sets of rosy cheeks across the room, that both women had been too busy enthusiastically greeting their own husbands to notice what she and Marcus were doing. She rearranged the nursing cloth but did not remove herself from the company. Over the past year, the three couples had become fast friends, and Charlotte made sure they treated each other as family.

  When Reeve was settled beside Olivia on the sofa, and Lion had relaxed his arm across the top of Charlotte’s wingback chair, Marcus repeated his question. “What is it you are planning, Eliza?”

  “I want to invite Katherine to Blackthorne Abbey for a visit.”

  “Alex has no wish to see his wife,” Marcus said flatly.

  Eliza watched Lion and Reeve exchange a meaningful glance. What did they know that she did not? Did Marcus know it, too? Maybe she should not be interfering in her brother-in-law’s life. But she could not understand how Alastair could simply ignore his Scottish wife.

  “Better yet,” Eliza said, half to herself. “I shall find a reason why Alastair must go to her.”

  Marcus reached out a finger, and Eliza watched as Alexandra grasped it. Marcus played tug-of-war with the baby, who held on tight.

  “Alexandra is already obstinate,” he remarked. “I shudder to think what a few years of experience will do for her temper.”

  “She will twist you around her little finger,” Lion remarked with a grin. “Believe me, I know.”

  The women exchanged amused glances. Little did their husbands know, but their wives were as adept at getting what they wanted as their children were.

  William began to cry, which started Margaret to wailing.

  Aunt Lavinia’s knitting needles stopped clacking. She set her knitting aside and said, “Would anyone like to play a game of hide-and-seek with me in my room?”

  “I would!” Reggie said.

  “I would!” Becky said.

  The twins jumped up and pulled Aunt Lavinia to her feet, upsetting the cat, who leapt to the floor and followed them all—indignantly but regally, tail held high—from the room.

  “I think it may be time for someone’s nap,” Charlotte said, eyeing her husband coyly. She walked over to pick up Margaret, who stopped crying immediately.

  “Will you come help me lay her down?” she asked Lion.

  “Excuse us, Eliza,” Lion said. “Marcus, I will see you later this afternoon for billiards.”

  Eliza could not believe how blatantly the countess had cozened her husband into taking her upstairs—where it was obvious exactly how they planned to spend the afternoon.

  To her amazement, Reeve picked up his son—who also left off wailing in seconds—took his wife’s hand, nodded to Marcus, and left the drawing room without another word.

  Within moments the room was empty except for Eliza, Marcus, and the baby.

  “Well,” she said, clearing her throat. “I guess we know what they all have on their minds.”

  Marcus turned and faced her on his knees, trapping her between his arms, which were braced against the
chair on either side of her. “I suppose we do,” Marcus agreed.

  Eliza felt a primitive thrill of excitement when she saw the feral gleam in his eyes.

  He bent over to kiss her breast, just above the point where their daughter suckled. Eliza felt a rush of pleasure between her thighs and bit back a gasp.

  “There must be something we can do to help Katherine and Alastair mend their differences,” she said breathlessly, determined to get Marcus’s help, or at least his acquiescence to her plan.

  “She lied to him,” Marcus said between kisses. “She kept him prisoner in a dungeon. He cannot forget or forgive her deception.”

  “Fiddlesticks!” Eliza bit back another gasp of pleasure. “Alex could not even remember his own name. Katherine needed a husband to keep Blackthorne Hall. She only used her wits to resolve a difficult situation. And as for keeping him prisoner—that lasted only a month.”

  “Until he escaped,” Marcus interjected, “and made his way home. Alex is liable to strangle the chit the next time he sees her. Better to let well enough alone.”

  “I still think—” Eliza moaned. Her daughter had fallen asleep, abandoning the nipple, and Marcus had taken her place. Her milk let down with an exquisite sensation as he began to suckle her as a lover would.

  “I need your help to get Alastair and Katherine together,” she rasped as her head fell back and her eyes fell closed.

  “I want no part of this, Eliza,” he said.

  She felt him lift the sleeping child from her lap and watched with dazed, lambent eyes as he wrapped Alexandra snugly in the nursing cloth and laid her on the blanket the other babies had been using in the center of the room.

  When he returned, he met her gaze, all the love he felt for her shimmering in his blue eyes. His mouth gently touched hers, then withdrew.

  “Please help me get them together,” Eliza implored.

  “No,” he murmured.

  She nuzzled him beneath his ear. “Pretty please.” Her lips caressed the scar at the edge of his eye, then moved down his cheek to the drawn-up corner of his lip. She teased his mouth until he opened to her with a guttural sound of surrender.