by Nan Ryan
Mary Ellen listened and heeded this magnificent man who was to be her husband and who had taught her all she knew about love and lovemaking. She thrilled to the sure knowledge that he would continue to teach her through the long, happy years to come.
Proud of herself for already learning a small measure of control, Mary Ellen moved erotically with her adored lover, but in carefully reined-in splendor. They played and pleasured each other there on the straw in the shafts of sunlight while the excited stallion reared and whinnied, threatening to kick down the walls around them.
At last neither could wait any longer.
“Now, darling,” Mary Ellen gasped.
“Yes, baby,” Clay murmured hoarsely.
The delayed release was frightening in its intensity, and Mary Ellen viciously bit Clay’s sweat-slick shoulder to keep from screaming while he groaned and spasmed wildly against her.
When finally it had passed, when they lay limp and perspiring in the straw, Clay raised his dark head, smiled down at Mary Ellen, and said, “Jesus, honey, that was so good it scared the hell out of me.”
“Scared you?” Mary Ellen said. “I thought I was dying!”
And they began to laugh. Clay fell over onto his back beside Mary Ellen, and they lay there laughing deliriously for several minutes.
Finally they calmed, and Mary Ellen said, a smile in her voice, “Now about that marriage proposal, Clayton Terrell Knight…Was that just passion speaking, or does it still stand?”
Grinning, Clay rose onto an elbow, looked down at her. He picked a piece of straw from the frazzled blond braid lying over her shoulder, and the smile abruptly left his handsome face. Solemnly he said, “I love you, Mary Preble, with all my heart and soul.”
“Oh, Clay, did you miss me as I missed you?”
“Every day was a year.”
“For me, too,” she said honestly.
“I never stopped loving you, Mary, not for a minute. You’ll never know how very sorry I am for all the cruel things I’ve said and done to you since I came back. It’s no excuse, but I was badly hurt and I wanted to hurt you. Forgive me, Mary, even if I don’t deserve it. I’m sorry, I swear I am. Marry me, sweetheart. Let me make it up to you. Tell me you’ll be my wife and I promise to love you and cherish you for the rest of our lives.”
“Oh, Clay,” Mary Ellen said, tears of happiness filling her dark eyes. “All I’ve ever wanted was to be your wife. I love you so much. I thought I’d die without you.”
“I know, Mary, I know,” he said softly. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. No more tears.”
She blinked away the tears, smiled, and said, “Do you remember what you said to me in the summer-house the first time you ever kissed me?”
Clay smiled and shook his dark head.
Then he repeated the words he’d said so long ago. “You’re mine, for now and always. You belong to my heart. No other lips must kiss you but mine, no other arms must hold you but mine.” He paused, grinned devilishly, and asked, just as he’d asked that cold February day, “Do you understand?”
“I do,” she said as she’d said then, thrilled and flattered that he could remember verbatim the words he’d said to her that day. “Oh, I do. Now please, Clay. Kiss me the way you kissed me that day.”
He leaned down, gently pressed his closed lips to hers, and said against her mouth, “We’ll get married today and catch up on all the years we lost. What do you say, sweetheart?”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!”
37
AT FIVE O’CLOCK THAT same afternoon, Mary Ellen Preble finally became the bride of Captain Clayton Terrell Knight. The handsome pair stood at the altar in the old Asbury Chapel while a distinguished, gray-haired Union naval chaplain read the rites.
Suffused sunlight spilling through the tall stained-glass windows fell on the pair, illuminating them softly, giving them an almost mystical appearance. It was as if they’d been touched by the angels.
The slender, pale-skinned bride looked unusually young and beautiful in a simple low-necked summer dress of lilac dotted swiss. Her white-blond hair, freshly shampooed and shimmering with healthy life, was swept atop her and secured with a tortoise-shell comb. In her hand she held a well-thumbed white leather Bible, atop which lay a lace-doilied nosegay of fragrant hothouse flowers.
The tall, dark groom looked remarkably boyish and handsome in his starched summer whites. Medals decorated his broad chest, and the blouse’s double row of brass buttons glittered in the mellow light. A wide sash circled his trim waist. His heavy ceremonial sword rested against his white-trousered thigh, and snowy white gloves were tucked in the sash.
On Mary Ellen’s left stood the tall, plain Leah Thompson. The smiling matron of honor held a bouquet of pink roses in her hands. On Clay’s right stood the young, freckle-faced Ensign Johnny Briggs. The beaming best man clutched a plain gold wedding band in the palm of his white-gloved hand.
Few witnesses sat on the hard hickory pews of the dim chapel. Old Titus was there, dabbing at his watery eyes. Mattie, in her best Sunday bonnet, was beside him. Leah Thompson’s well-scrubbed children—lectured thoroughly by their momma to keep quiet and behave themselves—gazed at the pair solemnly exchanging vows.
When Clay slipped the gold wedding band on the third finger of Mary Ellen’s left hand, she looked into his beautiful silver eyes and saw a mist of tears shining there. Her full heart instantly swelled with such a surge of compassionate love, she could hardly breathe. Never in all the years she’d known him had she seen her beloved Clay cry.
Tears of happiness spilled freely down her own cheeks. Her slim fingers clasped his lean dark hand when Clay spoke quietly, in his most even, self-assured voice, repeating the wedding vows.
“Until death do us part,” he concluded.
And for one fleeting second Mary Ellen’s complete happiness was marred by a frightening thought. Suddenly she was acutely aware of the never-before-considered possibility that her husband could be killed in the continuing war!
The fear was gone as quickly as it had come when the chaplain announced that Clay could kiss the bride and she was anxiously swept into the security of her husband’s strong arms.
The assembled guests waved and tossed rice as the pair hurried up the aisle of the chapel and out into the hot Tennessee sunshine. A large gathering of the sailors in Captain Knight’s command greeted them with laughter and shouts and whistles.
Smiling and nodding to his troops, the Captain hurriedly handed his beautiful bride up into a waiting carriage and climbed in beside her. The pair held hands and laughed on the ride south to the hotel; the clatter of tin cans and old shoes tied to the rear of the carriage loudly announced their approach.
People on the street turned to look and point. Familiar faces peered curiously at the passing coach, and Mary Ellen and Clay knew that by nightfall the entire city would know of the afternoon nuptials and all Memphis would be abuzz with speculation and gossip.
Neither cared.
At the elegant old Gayoso House, Memphis’s finest, they were immediately shown to a suite that had been readied for their arrival. The big hotel was no longer open to guests; it had been taken over completely by Union troops. But Captain Knight, as commander of all naval occupying forces, had only to issue the command and a luxurious top-floor corner suite was immediately vacated and made ready for the couple’s wedding night.
The Gayoso House was one of the city’s and the South’s greatest buildings. The stately two-hundred-fifty-room hotel had its own waterworks, gasworks for gaslighting, bakeries, wine cellar, sewer and drainage system, and, of course, indoor plumbing. It was the perfect place for a happy, if brief, honeymoon.
After the sumptuous five-course wedding supper served in the elegant sitting room of the corner suite, the newlyweds stripped and, ignoring the huge marble tub with its silver faucets, made use of the hotel’s hot shower. A novelty boasted only by the Gayoso House, the marble-walled shower was roomy enough for two. Especially when those two
preferred to stand so close their bare, slippery bodies touched and they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
Happy as they’d never been before in their lives, Mary Ellen and Clay laughed and sang and soaped each other in the steamy shower. Finally the laughter waned away to smiles. The loud singing softened and died out. Only the sensuous soaping continued. Then that too slowed and ceased as the soap fell forgotten to the floor and they stood under the strong spray of water, kissing, touching, sighing.
“I’m not sure this will work, darling,” Mary Ellen said skeptically, blinking to see him through the thick vapor as Clay pressed her back against the slick marble wall, his straining masculinity pulsing against her bare, wet belly.
“Trust me, Mrs. Knight,” he said, then bent to kiss her hotly, his tongue sliding into her mouth, tasting, questing, his hands sweeping over her sleek, bare body.
As he kissed her Clay drew her arms up around his neck and put his hands to her narrow waist. Feasting on her open lips with sensuous relish, he urged her up onto tiptoe. Then, with the greatest of ease, he lifted her slightly up off the wet shower floor.
His burning lips finally left hers and his hand slid down her left thigh. His lean fingers curled around the back of her knee and eased her leg up. Getting only glimpses of his handsome face through the impenetrable mist, Mary Ellen clung to his neck while he hooked her bent leg over his arm. Mary Ellen sighed when Clay bent his knees, crouched down, and with his free hand, guided himself up into her.
“Ohhhhh, Clay,” she murmured, her arms wrapped around his neck, her head pressed back against the shower wall.
“Told you,” he whispered, and began the slow, erotic movements of loving.
By nature a sensual woman, Mary Ellen instantly loved this new method of mating. How unconventional, how incredibly thrilling, to make love standing up! Especially standing up in a marble shower so hot she could hardly breathe and so steamy she could barely see the brand-new husband who was doing such wonderful things to her.
Mary breathed through her mouth and clasped handfuls of Clay’s wet raven hair while he held her fast and drove slowly, gently, into her.
Transported, Mary Ellen, smiling foolishly, said, “Clay…”
“What, sweetheart?”
“How much do you suppose it would cost us to install a shower at Longwood?”
Clay grinned, leaned down, and kissed her open lips. Then he flexed his hard buttocks and increased the length of his stroke, letting himself sink fully into her, his granite hardness piercing her velvet softness.
The naked newlyweds stood in the steamy hot shower, making steamy hot love. And it was wonderful. Everything about it. The billowing clouds of mists swirling about them, one second concealing them from one another, the next revealing them to each other. The wetness of their bodies, causing them to slip and slide so seductively together, up and down and back and forth.
And in and out. The moist, enveloping heat raising their temperatures, flushing their faces, and making them so weak they could hardly stand.
It was out-of-this-world wonderful, and when their simultaneous climax came, neither made any attempt to muffle their cries and whimpers and moans and shouts and groans of ecstasy.
The last tremors finally subsiding, Mary Ellen sagged back against the shower wall, her eyes closed, too spent to move.
“Baby, you okay?” asked her worried husband.
Her eyes opened and she smiled at him. She said, “If you want me clean again, you’ll have to see to it yourself. I haven’t the energy.”
Clay laughed, kissed her, and said, “Sweetheart, it will be my pleasure.”
He took her arm, gently drew her forward to stand under the strong, peppering spray. He stepped behind her, urged her back against his tall, supporting frame, and washed away all traces of their love-making—first from her body, then from his own. When both were as clean and fresh as newborn babes, Clay led his lightheaded wife out of the shower and dried them both with half a dozen white towels.
Thanking him, Mary Ellen reached for the satin nightgown and lace-trimmed negligee she’d packed so carefully.
Clay laughed and said, “You won’t need that.”
Mary Ellen clutched it to her, suddenly shy about her nudity. “Please, Clay,” she said, looking and sounding like a little girl, “I’d feel better with it on.”
He saw she meant it, so he said, “Then put it on, baby.” He reached out, touched her cheek affectionately, and told her, “I’ll give you a little privacy while I put on my pants.”
“Thank you, darling.”
“You’re very welcome,” he said, thinking that she was surely the cutest and sweetest of women. Over his shoulder he said, “When you’re dressed come on out and we’ll watch the sun set.”
“I’d like that.”
“I like you.”
Smiling as he left her, Clay found it utterly enchanting that she was suddenly modest and self-conscious. After having just been about as intimate as two people could possibly be, all at once she was uncomfortable with her nakedness, and his.
In the bedroom Clay stepped into his white trousers and buttoned them over his brown belly as he walked into the sitting room. He stood before a tall open window and looked out at the timbered Tennessee countryside as the hot August sun set across the Mississippi River. He sighed, and his bare chest expanded with a happiness almost too great to bear as he gazed contentedly at the lush land that was his home.
Abruptly he shuddered, as if someone had walked across his grave. He rarely considered his mortality, but now he was struck by the very real possibility that he might be killed in the war.
It went right out of his head when his beautiful bride silently entered the sitting room, stepped up behind him, wrapped her arms around his bare torso, and laid her cheek on his back.
“I love you,” she whispered, and brushed a kiss to his smooth olive flesh. “If I live to be a hundred, or if I die tomorrow, I could never possibly be any happier than I am right here, right now with you.”
Clay swallowed hard, and Mary Ellen felt his chest and stomach muscles tightening, rippling as he said, “Mary, you can’t imagine how many times I’ve dreamed of the two of us being here like this.” He gently withdrew her hands from around his waist and turned to face her. “Not a single day went by that I didn’t think of you, want you, love you.”
“I know, my darling,” Mary Ellen said. “It was the same for me.” She reached up, touched his lean jaw with loving fingers, and said, “Promise you’ll never leave me again.”
Clay exhaled heavily, settled his hands on her narrow waist, and said, “I can’t promise you that, Mary Ellen. But I do promise to love you for the rest of my life.”
“And I you,” she said, leaning into him, laying her cheek to his naked chest.
“Now what about that sunset,” Clay said, smiling. He set her back, crossed the room, and dragged a long camel-backed sofa up to the windows.
He extended his hand to the couch, and Mary Ellen sat down. Clay dropped down beside her, smiled, and undid the tiny hooks at the throat of her lace-trimmed negligee. He swept the frothy fabric apart to reveal the shimmering beige satin nightgown beneath.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he said, awed. “And you’re mine. I still can’t believe.”
“Believe it,” she said.
He leaned down, pressed a kiss to the bare swell of her breast, then, catching Mary Ellen totally off guard, he dropped his head into her lap, turned about, and stretched his long body out on the sofa.
Laughing softly, Mary Ellen lifted a hand and with her fingers slowly, caressingly, traced the line of his strong features, touched the blue-black hair of his temples, then the place where it curled so appealingly around his ears.
“Have you ever known total peace?” she asked him.
His silver eyes closing, the long lashes sweeping down over his tanned cheeks, he said, “Not until now.”
They fell silent then. Mary Ellen continued
to stroke Clay’s face, his hair, his wide shoulders, as the last blood red rays of the dying Tennessee sun washed over them.
She smiled with amused pleasure when she realized her lusty bridegroom had fallen asleep. In slumber his face had lost its hardness. In repose his beautifully chiseled features were again those of the sweet young boy she had fallen in love with when she was a girl. He might have been eighteen, not thirty-two.
Mary Ellen never considered waking Clay. She sat there cradling his dark head, enjoying the sweetness of the moment. Her lips turned up into a smile of pleasure as she thought to herself that a man would never have understood it, but to a woman this sweet sexless interlude was every bit as enjoyable as the ecstasy in the shower.
With the dark head of her sleeping husband, the only man she’d ever loved, resting in her lap, Mary Ellen Preble Knight silently ordered time to stand still.
38
TIME STOOD STILL.
A moment carved out of eternity.
Mary Ellen felt a sense of serene contentment as she sat there in the fading summer light, studying the noble contours of her husband’s head and face.
Her bliss far exceeded imagination’s fondest dreams.
She was so completely happy, she was afraid it might actually be a dream. A beautiful, longed-for dream that would vanish when she awakened.
Mary Ellen closed her eyes and took a long, slow breath. Praying this was no dream, that her beloved Clay was really here and really hers, she waited several long seconds. Then, almost fearfully, she opened her dark, hopeful eyes.
And immediately laughed with girlish delight.
Clay was wide awake and smiling impishly at her. He lifted a leanly muscled arm, hooked a hand around the back of her neck, and said in a deep, low voice, “From now on I want your face to be the first thing I see when I awaken. Think you can manage that?”
“I’ll do my very best,” she promised smilingly, leaned down, and kissed him.
By unspoken mutual consent, the couple migrated to the bedroom and the big comfortable bed. While twilight deepened into darkness, they made slow, sweet, married love. Then they lay there and held hands and cuddled and laughed and talked and planned and dreamed until late in the night. And they promised each other they would spend every anniversary in this same room. This same bed.
