by Karen Ranney
“What a pity you have to wear clothes. You’re so beautiful without them.”
He was silenced again, this time by her words. He’d never been called beautiful before. Nor had a woman ever looked at him like Rose was looking now, her eyes sparkling as she explored him.
“May I touch you?”
He knew what she was talking about and he didn’t know how to answer. Please, for the love of God, might be too abrupt. “Yes,” didn’t sound enthusiastic enough.
He rolled to his side, grabbed her hand and placed it on his penis. There, that was emphasis enough.
Her reaction stunned him.
She sat up, pulled the sheet back and stared. Now he’d wished he’d extinguished the light.
“Oh, my, Duncan. Perhaps it’s a good thing you do wear clothes.”
What the hell did that mean?
Her palm stroked up and down his length, only making his torment worse. She really shouldn’t keep doing that. In a minute or two he’d tell her to stop.
He put his hands on her breasts, his palms brushing against her nipples.
When he’d thought of Rose in his bed, he’d never envisioned this. Not her delight or the pink cast to her cheeks, the soft smile she wore as she tortured him with her hands. Nor did he think that she would lean over him and in a voice as soft as the cooing of doves further tease him.
“Kiss me, Duncan. Please.”
He wasn’t a fool.
He moved one hand from her breast to place it behind her head and draw her to him. The other hand gently removed her fingers from his penis. He hadn’t had enough of her, but if she didn’t stop, he’d explode in her hands.
He wanted to love her for hours, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to for this first time. He wanted to explain, to apologize, to say something, but kissing her was stripping every thought from his mind.
All he could think about was how she felt, warm and womanly, her hands on his arms, her breasts brushing against his chest, her mouth open above him, her tongue exploring his lips.
He reversed their places until he was over her, his hands sweeping over her breasts, stomach, thighs, that secret place that welcomed him with a widening of her legs. Her hips rose to meet his fingers, the wetness slicking his passage through the swollen folds, over the most sensitive places.
She moaned.
This should have lasted for hours. At least longer than it had. But he wanted her and it was evident she wanted him, too.
He rose up, supported himself on his forearms and guided himself into her. Her hips rose to meet him.
Words tripped on his tongue, were swallowed by astonishment as he met resistance.
She gasped, hands gripping his arms, nails gouging.
What had begun as something so magical, so perfect, so sensuous, was turning into a disaster.
He tried to pull out, but she locked her legs around his, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, her hips surging upward.
His body demanded release, bore down, pulled out, then back again, the endless rhythm impossible to stop. His vision grayed, his mind blurred as pleasure roared through him.
His hands dug beneath the pillow, his breath coming in hoarse gasps.
She turned her face to his, but he didn’t kiss her.
Minutes later he pulled back, moving away.
He didn’t let her escape, but rolled her to her side, facing him. She finally blinked open her eyes and looked at him.
He didn’t know if he was angry or simply confused.
“Would you like to explain, Rose, how a widow is a virgin?”
DUNCAN GOT out of bed and went into the bathroom. She heard the water run, sat up and grabbed her wrapper. The blood on the sheet startled her. She covered it up with the top sheet and walked into the sitting room, tightening the belt on her wrapper as she did so.
Opening the door to the balcony off the sitting room, she stood there, buffeted by the breeze off the harbor. When she first came to Nassau, weeks earlier, she’d thought that it had to be one of the most beautiful locations in the world. Tonight was no different, with the twinkling lights from the ships, the dark water and, above, a sliver of moon.
She heard Duncan close the door, then his soft footfalls on the floor toward her. This confrontation was not going to be easy. She’d wanted to tell him the truth, but not exactly this way.
She hadn’t even considered her virginity when she invited him to her bed. It had been like an old sweater she’d kept far past its prime, a garment that needed to be replaced. She’d chosen him, in a way, to end her maidenly state simply because she couldn’t refuse the urge. She’d wanted to make love with Duncan. Did that admission make her a harlot? If so, then label her a harlot, because up until the last, it had been a glorious experience.
He came and stood directly behind her, so close he could hit her if he chose. But this was Duncan. He’d never strike her. He might yell at her but he would never hit her.
“What the hell is going on, Rose?” he said, his voice rough. “Bruce wasn’t able to fulfill his husbandly duties?”
“I was never married to Bruce,” she said.
She bent her head, studying the floor, waiting for him to speak.
“So you’re not Bruce MacIain’s widow?”
“No,” she said.
“Just who the hell are you?”
“Rose O’Sullivan. Claire’s sister. Claire is married to Bruce.” She finally turned to face him. He was fully dressed, down to his shoes.
As he studied her, his face firmed until it looked like stone.
She knew how to look exactly the same. So many times over the last two years she’d had to mask her emotions or her thoughts. Bruce would use whatever she revealed as a weapon over her, so she vowed never to look weak to him.
Did Duncan feel the same way right now? No doubt he did, and she’d made him feel it.
The silence was suddenly more than she could bear.
“I couldn’t tell you who I was. I assumed you would be like all those ignorant, small-minded factors here in Nassau, refusing to believe I had the rights to Glengarden’s cotton.”
She hadn’t worn her gloves to bed, and in the sitting room light she extended her hands, palms down.
“You asked if I wore gloves because my hands were scarred by a fire. It wasn’t a fire,” she said. “It was from picking cotton. I thought they’d heal, but they haven’t. A reminder of Glengarden that I’ll carry with me forever.”
“Why were you picking cotton?”
“The first time was one of Bruce’s punishments. He said if I wanted to be with the slaves, I should act like a slave. I labored in the fields, alongside them. For days I was bent over just as they were, learning what it was like to be treated as less valuable than a horse or a mule. I dragged a sack behind me, listening to the shouts of the overseer, waiting to be struck because I wasn’t fast enough or too clumsy, or had looked up when I wasn’t supposed to set my eyes on his privileged back.”
She stared at her hands. “The second time was necessity. We didn’t have enough people to harvest the cotton and we had to save it. Yet those idiotic men had the temerity to tell me I didn’t have any rights to Glengarden’s cotton.”
When she’d left for Scotland, she never expected to find someone like him, a man of ethics and character, tenderness and honesty. How could she lie to him any longer?
“I always thought the scars would go away, but they never did. My face gradually got less tan, but that’s because of the sour milk and something else Maisie made me use every night. I wasn’t supposed to look like a slave, you see. I was only to be treated like one.”
She couldn’t bear it if his next words were cruel. She filled the silence with her own words, desperate to keep him silent and kind.
“I brought the cotton to Charleston myself,” she s
aid. “With two other people.”
Benny, young and strong, had helped her, along with Maisie, older yet sturdy and just as stubborn as she had assisted her. They couldn’t afford to hire men to help them, so the three of them had manhandled the bales themselves, with Benny doing most of the work. It had taken them four trips on the barge to Charleston.
She’d taken the precaution of doing business with those men who would give her a certificate for the cotton, both of which she’d kept in her valise.
He still didn’t say anything.
She had to tell him the rest of the truth. “Bruce isn’t dead.”
His face didn’t move.
“I pray for my brothers’ souls every night. I pray for my father. But I can’t push myself to pray for Bruce, God help me. I don’t know where he is, but I don’t want him coming back to Glengarden. The only reason the last year has been bearable is because he’s been gone.”
“Anything else?” he asked. “Any other secrets you haven’t divulged?”
“I don’t have friends in Nassau. I had to say something or you wouldn’t have brought me here.” She glanced over at him. “I hate lying to you, Duncan, and it seems I’ve done too much of it.”
He turned and walked toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Someplace other than here.”
Chapter 17
Slavery had ended in the Bahamas as well as the other British West Indies around 1832. That point seemed to irk a few of the Confederate soldiers, who saw a freed black men as a personal affront.
Duncan encountered one of those angry young men as he descended the steps to the lobby. The man was making an ass of himself with his remarks and was being asked by the hotel manager to leave.
Since Duncan was in the mood for a brawl, he didn’t mind adding his persuasion.
“Why don’t you run along?” he said, hoping the man gave him a reason to take a swing at him.
He was upset because Rose had lied, angry because she’d been treated so badly, and confused because he’d been blindsided by her virginity. He, who had not been in a fight since he and Lennox got into it when they were thirteen, wanted to punch someone.
“You’re English, aren’t you?” the idiot Confederate asked.
“Actually, no. I’m Scot.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“No,” a woman said from behind him.
He turned to face her, but she addressed the man who’d inquired as to his nationality.
“A dog is an animal, but he isn’t a cat. Never confuse a Scot for an Englishman.”
Strangely enough, that silenced the officer—Duncan thought his insignia meant he was a colonel—and he pushed past all of them and headed for the door.
The woman, who smiled at him, looked to be in her fifties, but there was no fading of her beauty. Her hair was black with no hint of gray. Her eyes, a striking gray-green, held a hint of amusement. A mole on her cheek pointed to a perfect mouth, one wearing a half smile. Her neck was long and elegant, her shoulders without that crepe texture to her skin that older women sometimes have. Tall and resplendent in a dark green dress, she could have easily been a doyenne of society and perhaps was.
“I would like to speak with you,” she said, surprising him. “Would you join me in the lobby?”
The Blockade Runners Bar was off-limits to women, even of a certain occupation, but this woman didn’t look like a lady of the evening. In fact, she reminded him of someone familiar, though he couldn’t place her.
He followed her to a set of two chairs and a table, one of several clustered in front of a now cold fireplace.
“You came in on the Raven, did you not?”
He nodded.
“The ship interests me.”
A strange comment to make, followed by another statement that intrigued him.
“Tell me who you are. I haven’t had a chance to make inquiries.”
“Why would you want to know? I’m not averse to giving you my name, but why are you interested in the Raven?”
“It’s my son’s ship,” she said, tilting her head back and staring at him.
He was immediately reminded of Mary, Lennox’s sister, how when she was pushed past politeness and stood up to someone her chin could look as pointed and the expression in her eyes as glacial.
“Mrs. Cameron,” he said, “I’m Duncan MacIain, and the last time I saw you I was twelve years old.”
He didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t delighted laughter.
“You’re as handsome as you promised to be as a boy, Duncan MacIain. Are you as smart?”
He didn’t know what kind of answer she wanted, but he gave her the truth. “I thought I was until about three weeks ago. Now? I don’t honestly know.”
“Well, I certainly hope you are because you and I both have a problem and we need to solve it.”
HE HATED her. That was obvious. She knew he might be angry, but she’d never considered that he might be disgusted by what she’d done.
What did she do now?
She needed to find passage to Charleston on another ship, one where the price wasn’t astronomical. She’d come to depend on Captain McDougal. Hopefully, the captain she chose would be as knowledgeable and lucky running the blockade.
She couldn’t afford a room at the Viceroy, even if there was one available. She should go see the widow who’d rented her a room a few weeks ago. Perhaps she would have accommodations or might know where she could stay.
It wasn’t going to be here, that was for certain.
At least she had the memories of being in Duncan’s arms, having him touch her and kiss her.
If he’d known she wasn’t a widow, would he have treated her differently? Would he have made love to her? Probably not. He would have stormed out of the suite just as he had now, only after a blistering lecture.
At least she wasn’t a virgin anymore.
She’d been carried away by his kisses, intoxicated by his touch. She’d wanted him to do everything he’d done. If she left now, she’d never get the chance again, but it was clear he didn’t want her here.
The shame that flowed over her was like boiling water, burning her skin. She felt her insides quiver and curl up, feeling the aching humiliation of her own actions.
Old feelings.
The thought came to her so suddenly she was startled. Those were old feelings. Old feelings spurred on by Bruce’s words.
You’re not a lady like your sister. Why can’t you be more like Claire?
You shouldn’t have made that remark at dinner, Rose. Next time, perhaps it would be best if you had a tray in your room.
My mother tells me you’re being too familiar with your maid. You have to set a tone, Rose, and it’s obvious you don’t know how to do that.
Old feelings Bruce had made her feel, as if she weren’t capable of a thought unless he’d given it to her. As if she were a poor shadow of her lovelier sister, a sister who’d become silent in the face of his constant criticism.
To hell with Bruce.
She wasn’t going to feel those old feelings. Not now and not in the future. Very well, she might have done something shameful, but no one was going to take the memory of it from her.
She might be a doddering old lady or a matriarch like Susanna, a queen in her own carefully constructed kingdom, but she was always going to have the memory of this night to keep her company. Whatever happened to her from this point forward, however long the war might drag on and despite any privations it brought, she would know that for one night she was loved.
Even Bruce couldn’t destroy that memory.
Only Duncan could.
WHEN HE was twelve years old Olivia Cameron scandalized all of Glasgow by leaving her husband. Not only did she
abandon William Cameron, the owner of a prosperous ship-building company, but she left behind her two children, Mary and Lennox.
For years, Olivia Cameron was considered the most wicked woman in the history of Glasgow.
She didn’t appear touched by her tarnished reputation.
He’d resented her, not for his own sake, but for Lennox’s. His friend had never discussed his mother, her absence, or her once-a-year letters that had abruptly stopped when Lennox was sixteen.
“What do you want, Mrs. Cameron?”
“I knew the Raven was a Cameron and Company ship the moment she appeared in the harbor,” she said. “I also knew that Lennox designed her. William’s ships were more utilitarian. They didn’t have that spark of beauty, that magic about them.”
“How do you know? He was only twelve when you left Scotland.”
She smiled. “I may not be in Glasgow, Duncan, but I know what goes on there.”
“He’s brilliant at what he does, Mrs. Cameron. He always has been.”
“You’re still friends, then.”
He nodded.
“You’re running the blockade, aren’t you?”
“You surely don’t expect me to answer that question, do you?” he asked, smiling.
She responded with a smile of her own.
“I was sorry to hear about your father,” she said, surprising him. Evidently, she did know what went on in Glasgow. “You’ve inherited the mill, haven’t you?”
He nodded.
“I understand my daughter’s not yet married.”
His mother had once confided in him that she and Olivia, who had been friends, thought a union between he and Mary would be a lovely thing.
“We’re friends,” he said. “But I rarely socialize with her. I understand, from Glynis, that she’s seeing someone. Perhaps she’s even contemplating marriage.”
Olivia Cameron didn’t say anything, even when a waiter appeared and he ordered tea for them both. He would have liked something stronger at the moment, but now was not the time.
