by Karen Ranney
Oh dear, had she ruined everything?
DUNCAN WASN’T sure what he felt right now.
He knew she hadn’t found any pleasure in their lovemaking and that he’d been a lousy lover. Part of that he put down to his surprise. No, shock. Hell, if he’d known she was a virgin, he wouldn’t have been so eager to join her in bed. He would have kissed her on the forehead and locked and bolted her in her room.
Was that entirely true? Especially since she was looking at him in the same way she had earlier?
Where had his control gone? She’d somehow stolen it the moment she crossed his threshold in Glasgow. A red-haired seductress with cotton to sell.
“Damn it, Rose.”
What was he going to do with her? The better question was: what was he going to do right now?
He stood, marched to the door, grabbed her valise and threw it into the bedroom. A moment later he entered the bathroom and began to remove his clothes.
A bath right now sounded like a fantastic idea. Maybe it would cool him off, give him time to return to his even-natured self. The water was boiling and that was fine. He’d turn it to cold before he got out.
She was right; she wasn’t a virgin any longer, thanks to him. She, however, shared a bit of the blame since she’d invited him to her bed. The least she could have done was warn him.
If he made love to her again, he wouldn’t compound his sin, but he might be able to make up for it, especially if he took his time and made sure she enjoyed herself.
He used the soap the hotel had provided, something that smelled of fresh breezes and the sea. He, too, washed his hair, standing under the shower with his eyes closed, thoroughly enjoying the moment.
Rose touched his back, making him jump.
He turned to find her standing there in her shift and nothing else. No mourning. No nightgown or wrapper. Just Rose in her shift with her nipples pressed against the thin fabric.
He was rendered entirely speechless when she removed the shift and stepped inside the tub.
She was going to do that a lot in the future, wasn’t she? She was going to turn his life upside down. She was going to confuse him and bamboozle him and startle him endlessly. Why didn’t the thought of that concern him one whit? Why, instead, did it make him want to smile?
“You’re naked,” he said, his gaze sweeping from the top of her head all the way down her curvy body.
“So are you,” she said, giving him the same appraisal. “I understand it’s something one does when one bathes.”
“You’re bathing with me?”
“I thought it would save time.”
“Did you?”
She nodded. “Well, it’s better than you taking a bath and me waiting and then me taking a bath and you waiting, don’t you think?” She looked up at the shower and smiled at the water pounding down on both of them. “It’s like rain, isn’t it?”
He’d never bathed with a woman. He’d never before considered it or dreamed of a woman entering his tub, especially one as delectable as Rose.
He didn’t know what to do first.
The old Duncan, the proper and restrained man of Glasgow, would have left, grabbed a towel, and possibly even been embarrassed over the lack of privacy.
He was no longer the old Duncan. Instead, he had begun to do things he’d never before considered. In this case, he grabbed the soap and began to wash her.
She liked it. He could tell because she closed her eyes when he began to massage her shoulders and smiled when his hands dropped to her breasts. They were very clean when he was finished, with their tips pointing directly at him.
He dipped his head and licked one, then began to soap it again.
Her hands were suddenly flat on his stomach. He didn’t know what to do about that, either, or the fact that her fingers were walking their way down toward his very hard penis. It, too, was pointing.
If she touched him, he’d be useless. Whenever he was around her, he wanted her, but this, this was too much. Her hands on him, soaping him? He’d erupt in seconds.
She deserved more from him this time. He was going to love her slowly, as she deserved, with patience and more skill.
He gently turned her so that her back was to him, wrapped his arms around her and bent to nuzzle at her neck.
“There are some temptations that should be delayed,” he said.
He pulled back to wash her back. His hands froze in midair.
HOW STUPID to have forgotten. She’d been naked with him, but he’d not seen her back until now.
“He had you whipped?” he asked, his voice soft, his tone revealing none of his emotions. His trembling, soapy hands traced the lines of the scars from her shoulders to the middle of her back.
“Just twice,” she said.
He turned her around and stared at her. “Just twice?”
She’d never envisioned a conversation like this while being naked. Nor had she expected him to reach out and pull her to him, muttering words she’d never expected Duncan to use.
Perhaps she anticipated that he’d be like her father and brothers and Claire. Rose, if you’d bend more, the world wouldn’t be so difficult for you. Rose, if you only cared less, things would be easier.
Where did she bend? When a thirteen-year-old girl, barely more than a child herself, became pregnant? When it was all too evident that either Bruce or one of his friends had raped Phibba? When, one day, a month from giving birth, Phibba couldn’t move as quickly as Bruce wanted so he struck her hard enough that she fell down a staircase?
Or did she care less when Bruce was bored or sotted and bet who could race faster, his prize horses or two male slaves, and the loser was sold to the winner as if he were an animal himself?
What about the time when Susanna’s mourning brooch for her husband had gone missing and one of the maids was whipped, naked, for stealing. No one said a word when Maisie found the brooch under the dresser in Susanna’s room where it had fallen.
Which part of any of that did she ignore? Who could?
“Why, Rose?”
She stepped away and grabbed a towel. “I told him I’d rather be a slave than his sister-in-law.” She smiled. “That was before I learned to keep my thoughts to myself. He told me that if I wanted to be a slave, I should be treated like one.”
“And the second time?”
“I helped a slave escape,” she said. “A young man, barely a boy, he was planning on selling. If he had to be separated from his family, it was better that he go north.”
She turned to look at him. He wasn’t calm, as she’d thought. Fire blazed in his eyes, although his fingertips were gentle as they reached out and stroked her arm.
“I hope to God the bastard is dead,” he said.
He stepped out of the tub and pulled her into his embrace again.
She went willingly.
“I’m sorry, Rose,” he said softly. “On behalf of every MacIain who is turning in his grave, I’m sorry.”
She didn’t mean to weep, but her heart was pierced by his words, so effortlessly spoken and with such grace that she had no other choice. She clung to him, wetting his shoulder and his neck with her tears.
Even when her crying stopped, she kept her arms wrapped around his shoulders. She’d never had such a champion before.
How was she to have known that she’d give this man her heart along with her virginity?
HE GRABBED a towel and began drying her, taking longer in some parts than needed. The heat in the room was such that her hair felt damp, but he wasn’t interested in her hair, only her shoulders, then arms, then a stop at her breasts. He dried beneath each one and carefully tended to their sloping curves. Her derriere, also, seemed to be of interest to him, as well as her legs. At one point he knelt in front of her, making her tremble.
He kissed her navel, making her smile
, then breathed against her abdomen, changing the smile to shivers.
“Widen your legs,” he said, and she did, allowing him to tenderly dry her there.
His breath made her insides flutter.
He startled her by carrying her in his arms to the bed. She’d straightened the bed earlier, and when he pulled down the sheet, he saw the bloodstain.
“I wish I’d known,” he said, gently setting her down on the mattress.
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” she said, placing her palm on his cheek. “I didn’t feel any pain, only a slight pinch.”
He shook his head. “You weren’t supposed to have any discomfort at all, Rose. You weren’t supposed to be a virgin. Do you think I go around bedding virgins?”
“You don’t?”
“I most emphatically don’t.”
“Then I’m most emphatically glad I didn’t tell you,” she said, reaching up and pulling him down to her.
She had wondered about passion from time to time, especially when reading. She occasionally thought about desire. But she hadn’t missed either one.
You don’t yearn for something you’d never known, like never tasting a lemon or smelling a rose. Life was plainer for the lack, but you never knew. Until you experienced it, you had no idea of the soft, sweet scent or texture of the rose, or how the oil of the lemon peel made your nose wrinkle.
Life was a series of experiences, a lesson Duncan had taught her. Or maybe she’d known all along and he just reminded her of it.
She knew now what his touch could do to her skin. The back of her neck pebbled when he kissed it. And that spot just beneath her ear made her moan if he nuzzled it softly. The backs of her knees, the inside of her elbows, it made her sigh in wonder that such places could welcome kisses and feel them so much.
He thumbed her nipples and they tightened and lengthened as if begging for his lips. When his tongue touched each one, she felt it deep inside. When he suckled her gently, her back arched, delight and wonder causing her to make a sound.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked.
“No, no. No.”
She drew his head down to her breasts again, desperate to feel the sensation once more.
She was no longer Rose, but someone else. A wanton woman, perhaps, or one of experience, whose body was a temple to pleasure.
He wouldn’t rush, but tortured her with slow and patient loving, as if to make up for their first time. She was being tormented by tender kisses and soft and delicate strokes.
She learned what desire was when he moved out of range of her touch and she couldn’t feel him. She needed to hold him, to marvel in the size and the shape of him. She tossed on the mattress, every inch of her skin feeling like it was on fire, her body heating from within, melting in response to him, only him.
When he finally entered her and she gasped in wonder at their pairing, he did the same. When her back arched and she was propelled into a world of light flaring behind her eyelids, she learned something else: passion was a wondrous thing and she would never forget this night or him.
Chapter 19
The morning was a beautiful one, almost too pretty between the blue sky, the fluffy clouds, and the Bahamian seas. Several of the sailors had taken to swimming, and Rose smiled at their freedom and their laughter.
She felt the same sense of joy and delight. The world would see her as a fallen woman, but oh, from what heights had she fallen. She would never, ever be a spinster or a maiden. She’d known the taste of passion, the drive of desire, and would be able to recall her time with Duncan at any time and place and feel it warm her cheeks.
“I have to go see Captain McDougal,” he said, “and then we need to have a talk about something serious.”
She didn’t want to have that conversation. She knew only too well what it was going to be. He wasn’t going to take her to Charleston and she somehow had to convince him to do so.
“Do we have time to climb the tree house?” she asked.
“The tree house?”
“Didn’t you notice? They’ve built a tree house in a silk cotton tree. You can have tea there if you wish.”
“If that’s what you want to do,” he said, smiling.
“According to the pamphlet, the tree is almost a hundred feet high, although the top of it was felled during a storm a few years ago. Its trunk is ten feet in diameter above the buttresses.” She looked up at him. “What’s a buttress and why does a tree have them?”
“Support, I’d imagine,” he said. “A tree that tall must need support.”
“I think having tea in a tree would be a wonderful adventure.”
She glanced up at him, wishing she had a pretty frock to wear, something with flowers embroidered on the gauzy fabric. Or a bright yellow dress to match the perfection of this sunny day.
As they made their way from the carriage to the Raven, she placed her hand on Duncan’s arm, meeting the eyes of those Confederate officers who tipped their hats to her or nodded in a way of greeting. Here in Nassau, if a woman wore black, it was more often than not because of a loved one who’d fallen in battle against the North.
Her mourning was for her three brothers, all killed by men in the same uniforms she passed. Sometimes, she looked at those men who met her eyes in sympathy and wondered if he had been the one to kill Jeremy. If his gun had slaughtered Robert, or left Montgomery dying on the operating table.
Yet none of them had known her brothers as people. They were simply enemy combatants, a fact she found difficult to understand. How could you fire on someone from the same country? How could men who’d once been friends now try to kill each other?
Civil war? Was any war civil? You might as well call it family war. Her family had been affected by it. Claire had always supported the South because her husband did, while Rose desperately wanted the North to win so that slavery would be a thing of the past. How many other families were torn apart by similar thoughts? How many cousins fought cousins? At least her brothers had been on the same side.
More than once, Duncan was deliberately jostled. When it happened the third time, he stood his ground and faced the man who’d elbowed him.
“Is there something you wanted?” he asked.
“Just to know where you’re from.”
“Glasgow. Scotland. Before that, my family hailed from the Highlands. And yours?”
The other man surprised her by smiling. “Georgia. A little town you would never have heard of. Before that, England, I’m told.”
The two men simply nodded at each other as if a safe passage had been issued.
Not even Nassau was exempt from small battles.
From here, the Raven looked to be the largest ship in port. Her lines were distinctive, making her appear slightly alien among the other steamships. Captain McDougal had gotten them through the monstrous storm leaving Scotland. According to him, the moon dictated the departure for Charleston. That meant time was running out.
Catch your joys where you can. A saying her father quoted often. How long had it been since she’d thought of it? Very well, she’d do exactly that. Perhaps she could even suggest to Duncan that they return to their room this afternoon. A wicked thought, one that set her cheeks to flaming. Could she truly do something like that? What would he think of her if she suggested such a thing?
She greeted the sailors while Duncan spoke with the captain. The ship was being loaded with coal and it looked like every able-bodied man was helping.
The discussion looked intent, and twice both Captain McDougal and Duncan looked over at her as if she were the subject of their conversation. She kept a smile on her face with some difficulty.
Would tears help? Would they change Duncan’s mind about taking her to Charleston? She hadn’t been that southern a lady on their voyage, had she? She couldn’t recall one instant when she’d batted her eyelashes or tried
to charm Duncan.
It was too late now.
When he joined her, she kept her smile in place. “Is your business finished?” she asked.
“For the moment.”
His voice sounded somber, and she hoped he’d delay their conversation until they returned to the Viceroy. Otherwise, she was very much afraid she was going to cry. A lady, from South or North, did not weep in public.
“Are you ready to climb the tree house?” she asked. “They say the view of Nassau is spectacular from the top.”
Once back at the hotel, they veered into the thick forest around the hotel, following the well-marked path. Climbing the steps arranged around the old silk cotton tree was a challenge. She was breathless by the time they made it to the very top and settled at a square wood table along the railing. She couldn’t imagine how the waiters constantly carried trays up and down all those steps the whole day.
The bark of the tree looked to be smooth to the touch. Horizontal branches fanned out from the main trunk, some of them nearly skimming the ground. The leaves were large, nearly twice the length of her hand, with elliptical fruits, some of which had broken open. She was immediately reminded of a cotton boll, with the multitude of seeds and the white fibers filling the air.
The sweeping panorama of Nassau, the harbor and the houses, might have taken all her attention if she hadn’t been so worried about their coming conversation. Part of her wanted him to just say the words: she was going to be left behind in Nassau.
Duncan settled in opposite her and ordered tea for both of them.
“Miss O’Sullivan, what a surprise to see you here.”
Her thoughts stopped as she stared at the man who spoke. He halted beside the table, giving them no room to escape. She blinked a few times, but George Breton was still there, looking raffish in his grays, almost as if he’d never seen battle.
His blond hair was bright in the sun, his brown eyes filled with amusement. Not a mark appeared on his face, not a line or crease or sign of worry. A handsome man, she’d more often than not seen him laughing. Life was a source of humor for him, because he was as wealthy and privileged as her brother-in-law and one of Bruce’s closest friends.
