If she could.
“Forgive me,” Albert Davis said smoothly. “It seems I’ve touched a nerve.”
Bliss sighed. Mr. Davis was only trying to make polite conversation, she was sure, but there was something so watchful about him. Something shrewd.
“Does your husband love you, Bliss?”
The audacity of that question stunned Bliss. She was speechless for a moment, then her eyes shot indigo fire. “How could such a thing possibly matter to you?” she countered.
He sighed; the sound was long and thin and ragged—like a bit of tattered, dirty cloth. “Saucy,” he said with a nod, as though confirming something.
Bliss was prepared to leap to her feet and make a dash for it if Mr. Davis started to rise out of his invalid’s chair or wheel it closer. She wished now that she hadn’t agreed to stay here until the other man returned. “I beg your pardon?”
Mr. Davis began to laugh. “I fear I’ve frightened you.”
Bliss sat up very straight. “You flatter yourself if you think that,” she said stiffly.
Again that laugh sounded; it was like the shrill caw of a crow. “Delightful!” he cried, slapping one blanket-covered knee. “Absolutely delightful!”
Bliss rose from her chair and moved to stand discreetly behind it. “I really don’t understand—”
The old man was waving one hand in a shooing motion. “You may go, my dear,” he said, dabbing away tears of laughter with his shirtsleeve. “I’ve learned all I need to know.”
Bliss was eager to leave, but there was the small matter of a promise given. “I did tell your grandson I’d stay until he returned,” she said.
But Mr. Davis waved his hand and wheeled himself around so that his back was to Bliss. He began to mutter, speaking as though he were already alone.
Bliss didn’t need to hear more. She hurried out of the suite, across the hall, and into her own. Jamie was there, still wearing his hat and coat.
“And where ’ave you been?” he asked with a curious frown.
Bliss decided to evade the question. “I’m dying for some fresh air, Jamie McKenna, and if you won’t go out walking with me, I’ll go by myself.”
Jamie grinned at her and spread his hands. “It just so ’appens that there’s something I want to show you,” he agreed. “So if you want to walk, Duchess, we’ll walk.”
Bliss kept her eyes on Jamie’s profile as the lift carried them down to the lobby. It didn’t seem possible that she would be gone in the morning, never to look upon that face again.
She wanted to cry.
“Why are you so sad, Duchess?” Jamie asked as they stepped out of the lift. His voice was very gentle, and tears welled in Bliss’s eyes.
“I’m not sad,” she lied.
He ushered her across the crowded lobby and outside. The sun was shining brightly, but the air was crisply cold. Although the brim of his hat mostly hid his features, Bliss could tell that Jamie was annoyed.
“All right, I’m sad!” she admitted. She’d taken Jamie’s arm and they were walking steadily south.
“Why?”
Bliss could not answer that she was leaving for America in the morning and that she would miss her husband with all her heart and soul. She said the first thing that came to her mind. “Because you’ve never given me a wedding band.”
She saw a muscle along his jawline tighten momentarily. “I see,” he said in an expressionless voice. “Well, Duchess, as it ’appened, your father didn’t give me much chance to go buyin’ you a golden ring.”
Bliss’s throat felt tight and her eyes went all blurry with tears. How she wished Jamie’s ardor extended beyond the edges of his mattress!
When her vision cleared, she realized that they were entering an elegant residential section, where town houses stood back from the brick-lined streets, behind stone walls and iron gates. She was just thinking that living there would be like being incarcerated in a sumptuous prison when Jamie stopped and extracted a key from his pocket.
While Bliss watched mutely, he opened the gate and drew her through. There was an unnerving clanging sound as it closed behind them.
The house they were approaching was a small mansion, with an empty stone fish pond and bare flower beds in front. Jamie pulled Bliss up the steps and used another key to open the towering double doors.
The inside was dark, but there was electricity, and Jamie turned a switch, revealing an elegant entry hall and curving stairway. “There’s a fireplace in our room,” he said, taking Bliss’s hand and starting up the stairway.
She had no choice but to follow. This, of course, was the house Jamie meant to cage her up in, and by rights, she should have been angry. She supposed she wasn’t because he’d said “our room,” like they were going to be a real married couple.
Then Bliss remembered that she was never going to live in this house, with or without Jamie, and she couldn’t help it. She started to cry.
Inside the spacious master bedroom, with its floor-to-ceiling windows and gracious ivory fireplace, Jamie pulled her close, his hands resting on the small of her back.
“What’s the trouble, Duchess?” he asked.
Bliss rested her forehead against his chest, her shoulders trembling as silent sobs shook her. Tell me you love me, Jamie, she wanted to say. Tell me that you’re going to live here with me, and that I’m going to have your children.
When Bliss didn’t speak, Jamie reached inside his coat pocket with one hand and produced a small box, which he rubbed against the underside of her chin. “Maybe this will make you feel better,” he said.
Bliss stepped back and he put the box in her palm. She sniffled inelegantly and lifted the satin-covered lid. “Oh Jamie,” she marveled as an emerald ring, with a halo of diamonds, winked and shimmered at her.
He took the ring from the box and slipped it onto the very finger where a wedding band would go, and Bliss’s heart nearly stopped at the significance of that. She lifted her eyes to Jamie’s face, but his features looked watery.
He laughed and raised her hand to his lips. “What do you think of your gilded cage, Duchess?” he teased.
Bliss pulled her hand away, prepared to give back the ring if it came to that. She hoped, of course, that it wouldn’t. “I won’t live in a cage, Jamie McKenna,” she warned. “No matter how splendid it is.”
He caught hold of her again; his lips were brushing her palm and the inside of her wrist, where the skin was sensitive. Little heated shivers went through her. “Ummhmm,” he agreed.
Bliss trembled. “I’m serious,” she insisted.
Jamie dropped her hand and drew her up hard against him, his head tilted to one side so that his lips were only a hair’s breadth from hers. “Shut up,” he said.
His kiss threatened to consume her. All thoughts of America and of the strange, scary old man she’d encountered fled her mind as Jamie’s magic began. He filled her thoughts and her senses until there was no room for anything or anyone else.
She was never sure whether he lowered her to the cool marble floor or she simply sank there because her knees would not support her. Without breaking the kiss, he laid aside her cloak and opened the buttons at her bodice. She knew, when his hand slipped in to cup her breast, why he’d shown such partiality to that particular dress when she’d tried it on at the store.
Bliss pushed Jamie’s battered leather hat away so that she could plunge the fingers of both hands into his rich, brown-sugar hair and moaned as he drew away from her lips to attend one swollen nipple. Meanwhile, with his other hand, he was lifting her skirts.
Jamie wanted to draw their lovemaking out to excruciating lengths, but Bliss would not permit that. Her need of him was too desperate and too great.
She opened his belt and then the buttons of his trousers, freeing him to her caress. He drew in a harsh breath as she stroked him, then whispered, “You win, Duchess. You win.”
In one forceful thrust he had entered her, and Bliss did not allow him his usual
lingering retreats; her hands clasped his buttocks, and each time he would have withdrawn from her, she drove him back to the very core of her. He seemed, in fact, to be touching her soul.
All the same, it was Bliss setting the pace, and she loved the joyous triumph of that. Her release came in a series of sweet, rippling waves, while Jamie’s, occurring moments later, was almost brutal in its intensity, buckling his powerful body as though it were no more than a leaf in the wind.
He sank to cover Bliss’s lips with his own, but he was breathing too hard to kiss her properly, and he finally raised his head in glorious defeat. She hadn’t realized she was crying until she saw the fact reflected in his eyes.
“Duchess—”
She was shaking her head wildly from side to side. “Don’t say anything, Jamie,” she pleaded. “Please, don’t.”
He honored her request, giving her the distance she needed, turning away to adjust his clothing so that she could straighten hers in private.
Finally, she felt ready to speak. “I love you, Jamie,” she said, to the broad expanse of his back. He turned, slowly, to face her. “But I won’t share you with Peony Ryan or anyone else, and I won’t sit in this house waiting for you to put your boots under my bed.” She held up her left hand, and the beautiful emerald, with its circlet of diamonds, twinkled in the light. “If I’m going to wear this ring, I want to be a real wife, not a mistress.”
Jamie looked baffled. He retrieved his hat and put it on, and Bliss knew that he was stalling. “I’m not sure I know what you mean by that, Duchess,” he said quietly. “You’ve been me wife, in every sense of the word, for some time now. And I’ve explained about Peony again and again—”
Bliss shook her head, her throat so constricted that she could barely speak. Everything, everything depended on Jamie’s understanding. “I’ve been your lover, not your wife. Once your needs were satisfied, you were willing to pat me on the head and put me back on the shelf until the next time.”
She saw his jaw clamp down tight before he looked away from her and said, “There are places where a woman doesn’t belong.”
Bliss closed her eyes for a moment. Feeling faint. She’d forced this showdown, and she was losing it. “And Peony?”
“She’s me friend, Duchess,” Jamie said, looking exasperated. “If it weren’t for ’er, I’d ’ave been dead a dozen times over. So if you’re askin’ me to turn me back on ’er, I’ll ’ave to tell you no.”
Bliss’s pride was in shreds. “I see,” she said. Before leaving the room she and Jamie would never share, she pressed the emerald ring into his hand.
Chapter 17
JAMIE TOSSED BACK THE LAST OF HIS WHISKEY AND SET THE GLASS down hard on the bar. “You an Australian, mate?” he asked the man next to him. “You talk funny.”
The bloke looked wet behind the ears. He still had bad skin, and his hair stuck out every which way. Jamie’s question made him smile, and he nodded as the barkeeper refilled both their glasses.
“I won’t ’old it against you,” Jamie said, feeling magnanimous. “I ’ave a brother that’s an Aussie.”
Having made this pronouncement, Jamie sighed and assessed his glass. He’d lost count of how many drinks he’d consumed since he and Bliss had parted company in the lobby; he’d headed straight for the pub while she’d gone back to the suite.
“Ever been to Australia?” the stranger asked.
That innocent question brought the place back to Jamie’s mind so strongly that he could feel the bark of that tree against the insides of his wrists and smell the scent of his own blood. He shivered, as though a chill wind had caught him naked. “Aye,” he said. He couldn’t talk about that part of his life, not when he’d been weakened by whiskey. “I ’ave a brother there, like I told you.”
“So you did. What business is he in?”
Jamie looked at the stranger curiously. He was a nosy little bleeder, he’d say that for him. “Shippin’, sugarcane—that kind of thing.”
The small man nodded. “I don’t believe I’ve introduced myself. I’m Walt Davis.”
Jamie had already bought the bloke several drinks and considered him something of a mate. Still, it was good to know what handle a man went by. He nodded and concentrated on his whiskey.
Davis cleared his throat. “You in some kind of trouble, Mr. McKenna?” he asked.
It wouldn’t occur to Jamie until much later to wonder how Davis had known his name when he hadn’t offered it. He nodded and signaled to the barkeeper. “The worst kind, mate. The worst kind.”
“Woman trouble,” Davis said knowingly.
“Aye,” Jamie agreed.
“Mistress?”
Jamie shook his head solemnly. “Wife.”
“Oh,” Davis replied with proper sympathy.
“Can’t make ’er ’appy no matter what I do,” Jamie complained. “If I say ’stay put,’ she’s got to go. If I say ’go,’ she stays put.” He paused and shook his head, marveling at the enormity of his dilemma. “I buy ’er a ’ouse, she won’t live in it. I give ’er a ring, she won’t wear it.”
“Do you love her?”
Now that was a strange thing for a mate to ask, Jamie thought. But his brain was too whiskey-fogged to move beyond this observation. “Aye,” he answered. “More than me life.”
With that, he finished his drink, tossed a bit of money on the bar, and walked out.
* * *
Bliss sat huddled in the middle of the bed, misery personified. Promptly at ten the next morning, Mrs. Wilmington would collect her and, probably with a great deal of fuss and ceremony, the two women would set out together for the harbor. Their ship was scheduled to sail at noon.
A feeling of dreadful homesickness washed over Bliss—and her not even gone yet—leaving her shaken and sick. She loved Jamie so much that it was all she could do not to go to him on bended knee and beg him for the privilege of living in his house and wearing his ring.
But Bliss’s pride wouldn’t let her do this. A marriage based on such cowardice would be no marriage at all.
The suite’s door opened and closed and she waited, holding her breath. Instead of joining her in their room, however, Bliss heard Jamie knock softly at the door of the other bedchamber.
Jamie had gone to Peony for his comfort.
Despair made Bliss sway and cover her mouth with one hand. In agony, she rocked back and forth, back and forth, hugging herself as if to hold in the terrible pain of Jamie’s betrayal.
He must have been with Peony for an hour or so, but that time was an eternity to Bliss, during which she suffered all the torments of hell. Then Jamie came to their bed, at last, and sat down heavily on the edge. He reeked of whiskey.
Bliss, pretending to be asleep, was all but choking on her rage; her throat was raw with the effort of holding back screams of fury, and her hands were knotted into fists. She wanted so desperately to batter that broad, impervious back with them.
Jamie was unbuttoning his shirt. After that, he kicked off his boots and then stood to unfasten his trousers. Bliss ached to think that this was the second bed he’d undressed beside that night, and not the first.
A tormented sob tore itself from her throat, betraying her.
“Are you all right?” Jamie spoke hoarsely, as a guilty man might. Then he drew back the covers and climbed into bed with Bliss.
She could bear no more. With a shriek, she flung herself at him in wrath, striking him in as many places as she could, as many times as she could. He finally grasped both her wrists in his hands to halt the siege, and when she continued to struggle against him, he hurled her onto her back.
The breath had been knocked out of her; Bliss could only stare up into Jamie’s glittering eyes in anguished silence.
“Why, Duchess?” he rasped after a few moments. “Why?”
A strange hysteria possessed Bliss; she fought him still, her legs thumping against the mattress, her head tossing wildly from side to side. Jamie stunned her by wrenching her clo
se and holding her as the ragged sobs began, rising from the depths of her spirit like the wails of an injured creature.
Bliss’s hands moved up and down Jamie’s bare back, the scars lying in smooth ridges beneath her palms. Her grief was fathomless; she had been forced to share the only man she would ever love, and tomorrow she would lose him forever.
His lips were gentle against her temple. “Duchess, listen to me,” he pleaded in a broken whisper, still holding her fast. “Please, listen. I don’t know what it is that’s so terribly wrong, but I promise you this: if you’ll just give me the chance, I’ll make it right. Whatever it is, I’ll make it right.”
Bliss would have given anything short of her soul to believe Jamie, but she didn’t. She couldn’t, for he had just come to her from Peony’s bed. No matter what happened, she must not let herself forget that.
She almost told him then that she would be leaving in the morning, but in the end, she couldn’t. Jamie stretched out on the mattress, drawing her with him, holding her in an embrace that would leave her wondering, when she looked back on that night, whether he had been seeking to give comfort, or to obtain it.
Sometime before sunrise, Bliss lapsed into a fitful sleep. When she awakened, Jamie was gone.
Despondency twisted, spiky, in her throat.
There was to be no time for regrets, however, for a glance at the clock on the bedside stand sent her flying out of bed to have her bath and prepare for the momentous day that lay ahead.
By five minutes of ten, she had bathed, dressed, done up her hair, checked and rechecked the contents of her satchel, and composed a short note to Jamie. She propped that in front of the clock in the suite’s sunny parlor and, after one last look around, crept out.
Mrs. Wilmington had commandeered a carriage, and she was supervising the carrying out of her trunks and valises when Bliss reached the lobby. To her moderate annoyance, Walter Davis was there, too, reading a newspaper. The group of potted palms and ferns behind his chair made him seem to be sitting in darkest Africa.
“There you are,” Mrs. Wilmington thundered good-naturedly to her new companion. At the sight of Bliss’s solitary valise, however, she frowned. “Is that all you’re bringing?”
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