by Laura Parker
His touch was feather light as it rose above her cotton-clad knee, making all the more startling the moment when his fingers found the defenseless line of her garter and the warm, sensitive skin of her thigh. Her eyes widened before the blue stare that she could not look away from.
Slowly he slid a finger along the rolled cotton until he found the knot. It came free with surprising ease. The lightly abrasive palm of his hand followed the natural descent of the stocking, molding the smooth curve of her knee as she held her breath against the sensation. She jumped as his hand slipped around behind to the warm moistness at the back of her knee but sat mesmerized by his touch as his hand rode the elegant swell of her calf to the trim curve of her ankle.
“One,” he said, grinning wickedly as he held up his trophy.
“One is quite enough,” she answered, but his hand was already gliding back under her skirts, reaching for the top of the second stocking; and then it, too, was peeled away at his leisure.
She heard in acute embarrassment a soft sound escape her as he paused to stroke the inside of her knee.
“Soft, so soft and tender,” Thomas murmured. It was meant to be a test of her trust, not his command of himself. Yet his loins had tightened in anticipation as he explored her satin-smooth thigh. If only she would allow him to see a little of what he had touched a few nights before.
He rose quickly to his feet and turned away. “Now ye can enjoy the best that this place has to offer,” he said over his shoulder and bent to begin pulling off his boots. He had not expected to react so quickly to the simple touch.
Aisleen sat a moment in agitated silence. She should not have permitted him to touch her. Somehow the moment had gotten past her and regretting it now seemed the height of futility. Her knees trembled beneath her gown, resonating from the strum of his fingers, and she wondered how long the sensation would persist.
Thomas drew his socks off and then reached up to unbutton his shirt. Don’t think about her soft-as-butter skin, he told himself. Just be glad that she did nae smother ye in a great pile of disapproving words.
He did not approach her when he had drawn his shirt off. He knew how that would end. He hung his shirt on a branch and then found a large rock on which to sit a few yards away from the pool. Stretching his legs out before him, he folded his arms behind his head and reclined in the bright sun.
Surprised by his continued silence, Aisleen looked back over her shoulder. He lay among the ferns, his chest all sleek muscle and contoured bone. Black hair skimmed the bridge of his sternum and fanned out in delicate whorls to encircle his nipples.
She yanked her gaze away, a rush of blood stinging her neck and ears. She should be furious with him for flaunting himself. And yet annoyance and anxiety were not enough to keep her treacherous gaze from shifting sideways once more.
Yes, indeed, the flat, pinky-brown circles were masculine nipples. Her lids shuttered down. She had never before thought about a man’s body. In fact, she was deplorably ignorant of human bodies, both male and female.
Her lashes fluttered as if under uncertain command and then parted. The faint gleam of sweat polished the narrow shallows between his ribs. Salty droplets snaked over the edge of his rib cage and into the hollow of his belly, gathering in a shallow, tremulous puddle that rode the ebb and flow of his breath.
The day was suddenly unaccountably warm. She curled a finger into the collar of her gown, seeking a cool breeze to brush her skin. Unconsciously she licked the perspiration from her upper lip. And then, when she had turned away from him, she loosened the first two buttons of her bodice.
Behind a forest of black lashes, Thomas surveyed his red-haired wife. She was every bit as fascinating to him as he was to her. The bun she wore had slipped sideways. Poorly anchored strands buffeted up by the breeze danced and flashed and flickered against the rich cream of her neck. Watching the tip of her tongue peek through again to trace the arch of her upper lip, he imagined the feel of that luscious pink tip upon his hot skin. Doing so changed the profile of his moleskin britches.
When she turned away, the clean curve of her cheek, the smooth line of her jaw, and the intricate whorl of an earlobe were exposed for his view. He remembered the feel of her in his arms. He had been able to think of little else. Dozens of intriguing questions buzzed in his thoughts. Was she pink and cream all over? Did thin blue veins lace the globes of her breasts? Were her nipples coral or pink or berry red like strawberries?
He watched the gentle arch of her spine as she bent to trail a finger in the water, and desire dragged at the back of his throat. What he needed to slake his thirst she would not offer him. Not yet. “Will ye wade about?”
Aisleen smiled. The thought had been strongly in her mind. “Do you think I should?”
“Aye,” he answered warmly. “Mind yer skirts, now.”
Aisleen stood and, as she had done so often as a child, bent over and caught the back hem of her skirt and pulled it forward between her legs. When she brought it up and tucked it into her waistband the action pulled her skirts up above her knees.
“Oh!” The water was incredibly cold, stinging her ankles. Smooth stones shifted beneath her weight. She flung out her arms to keep her balance and teetered dangerously as another yip of alarm squeaked out of her.
Thomas opened his lids a slit.
The stones settled as she took a few careful steps. It had been so long since she had experienced the simple pleasure that she was determined not to lose the moment. Gradually she learned to keep her balance in the clear rush of the stream. Once she became accustomed to the bracing chill, she waded toward the foaming hiss of the waterfall.
Enjoy yerself, wife, Thomas thought, and closed his eyes.
The gurgling water seemed inordinately cheerful, as if nature herself were pleased by the day, and Aisleen found herself smiling for no reason at all. Cold tingled her feet and legs while the heat of the sun warmed her head. The contrary sensations met in her senses as a glorious collision of pure enjoyment.
She lost all sense of time; but when she finally waded back to shore, she saw that Thomas had laid out the meal from his saddlebag on a rock. He said nothing, but because he was watching her, she pulled free the tucked edge and her skirts fell, petticoats clinging to her wet legs.
“Ye’ve never been more pleasant to look upon, and for the life of me I cannae think why ye should deny the world the simple joy of it,” he remarked with a grin.
“The joy of what?”
“Yer smile, lass. Ye’re stingier with them than O’Flaherty was with his hens.”
Aisleen came toward him on bare feet. “Who was Mr. O’Flaherty?”
“Ah, lass, now that’s a tale worth telling.” He pushed a wedge of cheese toward her and then reclined on an elbow, his legs stretched out. “O’Flaherty was the proudest man in five counties, that’s who he was. Proudest of all he was of his hens. Why, he built them a coop on the side of his cottage when everyone else said it was best to let them roost in the eaves. But being a careful and prudent man, and times being what they were, and that before the famine…”
He paused, his eyes growing darker for an instant. “Ah, well, that’s a different tale entirely. Eat.”
Aisleen bit into the wedge of white cheese and was pleased to find the taste sharp but not unpleasant. She looked across at him “Will you not finish the tale?”
He did not answer immediately, and after a moment she decided that he would not answer at all. But she was curious about him, and the camaraderie between them made it impossible to keep her curiosity contained. “What brought you out to New South Wales?”
Thomas reached for a bit of cheese and popped it into his mouth. “The answer may not please ye.”
She looked away. “I did not mean to pry.”
“Nae, lass, ye’ve every right to ask the question,” he answered, but she noted the reluctance in his voice.
“Did the potato blight send you abroad?”
“Nae, I was gone a year a
nd more before the beginning of the great famine, though, strike me, if I could have seen me leaving as a blessing at the time.”
“How did your family fare?”
“I’m the last of me line,” Thomas answered, the implication clear in his bitter tone. “I was the eldest, there being Katie and Maggie, Mary and Sinead all younger than me. Was some years before I heard that they’d perished, whether from starvation or pestilence I’ll never know.”
“And your parents?” Aisleen asked quietly.
“Broken hearts and a weariness of life have put many under,” he answered.
Aisleen waited, but he seemed content to say nothing more; and she was too uncertain of him to ask further questions. When he offered it, she accepted the piece of damper covered with a slice of lamb. The taste of curry was new to her, but she was learning to appreciate the power of the spices the cook doused upon every morsel of meat a few days after the slaughtering of a lamb. It nearly masked the faintly rancid taste of the meat. They ate in companionable silence.
“So tell me about yer illustrious self,” Thomas ventured when he had finished his meal. “I did nae think to wed the bloodline of gentry.”
Aisleen looked up. It was there in his eyes again, the strange quizzing look that was too subtle to give a name. She had told him much. Did she dare share more? “We were once more than gentry. We were royal. Our blood’s mixed with kings and tanists. Legend says there’s the blood of the Ard Righ in our veins.”
“Wirra! A man stands himself in great company to be counting himself among yer acquaintances.”
She knew that he teased her and she did not mind. “Come, sir, you must have inherited so glib a tongue. Is there not a druid or perhaps a bard among your ancestors?”
His smile was full of secret humor. “I’d be lying were I to say different. But I’ll not shame me forefathers by calling them as witnesses to me worth. Yet we were speaking of ye. Were ye a wee solemn thing as a child, all starched petticoats and lace and ruffles?”
Aisleen smiled. “I was the rarest sort of hooligan, if the truth were known.”
“Musha! I cannae believe it. With a smudge of dirt on yer nose?” Aisleen nodded. “And a tear in yer best Sunday gown? Faith! Ye’ve destroyed entirely me image of ye.” He leaned forward on his elbow to add in a whisper, “And glad I am to hear it, for I want me daughters to feel the heart that’s beating in them.”
Aisleen’s smile wavered. His daughters. Her daughters.
Thomas saw the guarded look come into her face but continued. “Since the good Lord in His most mysterious of ways saw fit to spare me, I cannae keep from thinking that perhaps there was a purpose in that.”
Aisleen watched him. “Do you not feel guilty that you lived while your family died?”
“Aye, there was a time when I hated meself thoroughly. But man is a curious creature. He can only hate himself so long. ’Twas me own fault I was not in Ireland to die with the rest of them. To me own way of thinking, the least selfish thing I can do for Da and Ma and the lasses is to live to bring honor to the family name.”
Aisleen caught her lower lip between her teeth. “I failed even that.”
“What is that?”
She shook her head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Perhaps I understand more than ye think,” he answered with a knowing gaze. “Yer da was a miserable excuse of a man who tried to shift the blame for his own failure onto the frail shoulders of his wee daughter. ’Tis no reason for ye to blame yerself.”
“What if the responsibility were greater; what if through no fault of mine my family looked to me to save and protect them?”
Thomas was quiet a long time. “What way could ye, a bairn, save them?”
Aisleen shook her head. As before, he had drawn out of her more than she meant to admit. “A foolish legend, that’s all it was. In any case, it does not matter now. I’ve lost everything.”
“All life is a struggle, lass. Did they not teach ye that in yer great schools of learning?”
“Aye,” she answered. “They taught me to live on my own, to rely on no one, that recklessness brings punishment, and that being Irish is a curse that no amount of blessing will ever completely cure.”
“Ah, well, ’tis glad I am to hear it that the English set so great a store by yer heritage,” he answered sourly. “And when they were drumming into yer head these right and morally uplifting thoughts, did they tell ye also that when a thing is lost ’tis often only in the knowing how to look that a man can recover the loss?”
Aisleen gave him a quick glance, expecting his smile of amusement to be in place. But it was not. His face was solemn. “Some things cannot be recaptured,” she said.
“What is it ye would have that ye’ve lost?”
Aisleen gazed at his handsome face, wondering why he could not read in her own face the desperate answer. “Perhaps,” she said very softly, “it is a matter of never having had it at all.”
He looked at her, and the world grew still, hushed. The breathless moment continued as if all life, even the breeze, had ceased outside his glance. “It’s in the knowing how to look. Let me show ye.”
The firm clasp of his fingers over hers brought Aisleen the first pang of misgiving, but she did not want to pull away from his touch. She wanted to trust him, wanted more than anything to believe that what she dared hope for was possible. But if it weren’t—oh, if it weren’t—then she would be utterly destroyed.
Thomas watched the shift of emotions across her face: the wariness, anticipation, reluctance, expectation, and then the tremulous hope that flickered unstably.
“Ye can make real whatever ye desire,” he said. “If only ye believe.”
Aisleen could not answer him. Too many unspoken desires stood on the precipice of her hopes and dreams. She prayed, Let it be enough, now, this moment. Let me ask for no more than this.
Wordlessly she watched him push aside the remains of their meal with a hand and then spread his shirt on the rock. Then he turned to her, his eyes a deeper blue than the sky, and he pulled her down beside him as he reclined on the shirt. He curved an arm about her, pressing her to his chest, and stilled.
For a moment Aisleen could not think, could only feel the thunderous pounding of her heartbeat. Gradually other more subtle things made themselves felt. Heat rose from the stone beneath her hip and shoulder while the sun blazed upon her cheek, her throat, and her feet. The musical gurgle of the pool serenaded the day. The piping notes of birdsong were repeatedly interrupted by raucous laughter from the kookaburra.
Then, overwhelming all else, Thomas himself invaded her senses. His heartbeat was a slow, steady throb under her ear. His warm skin cushioned her cheek. The scent of his skin distracted her more than the exotic fragrances of the bush. And the pressure of his arm at her waist encircled her with a protectiveness she had never, never before known. For the first time in her life she felt as if she belonged somewhere—here, in her husband’s arms.
Serenity, so rapt and complete all else faded before it, enveloped her. She thought she would never let the moment go. Yet sleep came stealing.
She awakened in shadow. The stinging heat of the sun suddenly eclipsed. He stood above her, his features blotted out by the halo of sunlight behind his head. She sat up and grasped the hand he extended.
She did not speak and neither did he. He turned his face from her as he led her away from the rock. She saw then, away from the blaze of his eyes, that he was naked. She knew who he was, and yet he was a stranger. He paused at the edge of the pool and turned to face her.
He reached out to frame her face and lay his lips on hers. He tasted of sunshine. His hands, strong and gentle, moved from her face to her shoulders. Wherever they touched, her skin warmed and tingled. They moved to the neckline of her gown, and as they trailed downward her gown opened before them. With a wanton whisper, the gown slipped past her hips to the ground.
Aisleen did not move to stop him. She could not. There was nowhere t
o go, nothing to say, nowhere to look but into his serious face. All will, all fear, all desire to be separate from him disappeared. He found the ribbons of her chemise. She had taken his advice not to wear a corset in the bush. A whisper of batiste pantaloons was all that lay between her and him. And then even that was gone.
He pulled her against him, and she sighed as the heat of his skin met the cooler plush of her own. He held her a long time, as though to impress upon her his own ease with his nudity. The soft breeze blew gently along her back, but where he touched her, warmth spread through her, a rush of blood brought to the surface by the stroke of his fingers. She turned her face upward voluntarily, thirsty for his kiss.
He was as needy as she, and they kissed in urgent anguish. She thought the stroke of his tongue too much pleasure to be borne until he found the tender weight of her breasts. He filled his palms with the generous curves and closed his thumbs against the budded nipples to rub them gently.
She whimpered in pleasure, unable to believe, only to feel, the utterly devastating joy of desire. And there was more. His mouth left hers, skimming over her cheek, the side of her neck, downward to the breasts he held in capture. The corded velvet of his tongue sailed under one rosy bud before the hot, wet hollow of his mouth drew it in.
She wrapped her arms about his back, holding onto him against the buckling of her knees as he suckled her. She closed her eyes, adrift in the timeless luxury of sensations too intense to be disturbed by sight.
When, at last, he raised his head, the smile of pure pleasure on his face was more flattering than words. He placed her arms about his neck and then lifted her off the ground by the waist. She tightened her arms as his hands moved under her buttocks. He pulled her legs up astride his waist and locked her feet behind his back. The repeated contact of her loins against his naked waist made her tremble as he stepped into the pool.
He was surprisingly agile as he traversed the slippery bottom, wading in deeper and deeper until the water eddied about their hips and mist from the waterfall sprayed them.
She shivered in laughter as the cold spray dewed them in rainbow droplets. He laughed with her, and then his lips found hers again and the heat of the kiss evaporated the chill.
