They were both shaking with cold by the time they returned to town. Lucas yelled for Perry to return the horse and wagon to the blacksmith, then hustled her up the stairs. Alice met them in the reception area.
“Get hot water,” he told the girl. “Plenty of it.”
She nodded, gave Emily a reassuring smile, then hurried to do his bidding.
“I’ve never been so cold,” Emily said between clattering teeth. Her skin was pale, except for the hint of blue around her lips. Lucas didn’t like the looks of that.
Ignoring his own chill and the way they were dripping on her clean floor, he picked her up in his arms and headed for the hallway.
“Which way?” he asked.
“Lucas!” She was completely stiff in his arms. Her fists flailed against his chest and shoulders. “What are you doing?”
“Carrying you to your room. Which one is it?”
“You can’t! Put me down at once. I insist.”
“Yeah, I know. Which room?”
She squirmed a couple more times, then gave in and pointed to the right. He walked to the end of the hall and opened the door she indicated.
He had a brief impression of a small room decorated in shades of blue. There was a screen in the corner and plenty of room by the small fireplace for the tub. He walked behind the screen and set her on her feet.
“Take off your clothes.” He pulled the coverlet from the bed and draped it over the screen. “Wrap yourself in this until the hot water arrives. I’ll be right back.”
He was already pulling off his dripping jacket as he walked back into the hallway. He saw Mary carrying an armful of coal.
“Mary, go tell Perry I need some dry clothes. He can send one of the boys to get them at my house. And bring us some towels.”
Her eyes widened, but she nodded in agreement. Lucas returned to Emily’s room. He agreed with her assessment that he didn’t remember ever being this cold. His fingers weren’t cooperating as he unfastened his vest. He was soaked to the skin, he thought as he closed the bedroom door behind himself.
“How are you doing?” he called.
“F-f-fine.”
He pulled off his boots and socks, then shrugged out of his shirt. He thought about removing his trousers but figured that wasn’t a good idea. He and Emily were alone in her bedroom and he might find out he wasn’t all that cold after all.
Still shivering, he rubbed his hands up and down his arms. There was a light knock at the door. He opened it and saw Mary standing there with an armful of towels. Her mouth parted when she saw his bare chest. She blushed, thrust the towels at him and ran down the hall.
“I just embarrassed Mary,” he said as he closed the door.
“How?”
“I opened the door and I’m not wearing a shirt.”
“O-oh.”
He hung a towel over the screen. “Here. This should help.” Then he dried himself off and hoped that his clothes arrived soon. His wet trousers were freezing.
He crouched by the fire and quickly lit the kindling. While it wasn’t that cold in the room, the extra heat would help. As he watched the flames dance around the coals, he listened for the sound of Emily undressing. There was only silence from behind the screen.
“Em? Are you all right?”
“Y-yes.”
Her teeth were still chattering.
He grimaced. “Are you taking off your clothes?”
There was a long silence. “I’m t-trying.”
“What seems to be the problem?”
“M-my fingers are sh-shaking and I c-can’t unfasten the b-buttons.”
Damn. Just his luck. If Emily were any other woman, he would think she was teasing him. But not his Emily. She was too innocent by half and it would never occur to her to tempt a man by showing off her body.
He thought about calling for Alice. He thought about leaving Emily to take care of undressing herself. Then he sighed and straightened. He was her husband. Until the marriage was annulled, she was his responsibility. He was just going to get her out of her wet things. That was all. He could do that, he told himself. It wouldn’t be difficult.
He shifted the screen so he could slip behind the protection. Emily looked up and gasped when he came around the corner. Her eyes widened and she folded her arms protectively over her chest. A particularly foolish gesture considering she’d only managed to unfasten the buttons on one cuff and had barely started on the other.
“What have you been doing?” he demanded. “Just standing here?”
“I’ve been trying to undo the buttons. The wool is wet, which makes the unfastening more difficult. Not that it’s any business of yours. Go away.”
He noticed that her face was bright red, which contrasted oddly with the blue around her mouth. She was shaking, but had managed her speech without once stuttering.
“You’ll freeze to death before you finish,” he grumbled, and reached for her left cuff.
She tried to step away from him, but the movement only settled her in the corner.
“Lucas, I’m warning you.” She glared at him.
“I know. I’ll consider myself warned. Now be quiet and let me help you.”
He grabbed her arm and worked at the buttons. She glared at him but didn’t pull back.
The buttons did not cooperate. Lucas had to push them through the wet wool with more force than he would have thought. He concentrated on his task and tried to ignore the fact that she was standing so close to him.
He also ignored the way her gaze had settled on his bare chest. He could feel her studying him, visually exploring him. Her attention made him realize that she’d probably never seen a man’s chest before. Which reminded him that she’d never seen other parts of a man, either. Just as well. She was too ignorant to notice that certain parts of him were larger than they had been a few moments before, and continuing to grow.
He reached for the buttons trailing down the front of her dress. As his knuckles grazed her throat, they both caught their breath. Emily’s eyes widened.
“Lucas?”
“It’s fine,” he lied. “Pretend I’m your brother.”
“I don’t have a brother and, if I did, I would never let him do this to me.”
Yeah, well, that was the best he could come up with under the circumstances.
He worked as quickly as he could, concentrating on pushing the buttons through the thick fabric. He ignored the way her damp chemise left her small, perfectly shaped breasts nearly bare. He didn’t think about what it would be like to slide his hand up from her narrow waist, along her ribs to those two breasts. He never let his gaze linger on the tight points of her nipples or notice the way her chest rose and fell with each breath.
When the last button was released, he shoved her dress over her shoulders and down her arms until it pooled at her feet. He crouched low and unfastened her boots, then eased them off her feet.
She still wore her undergarments, but there was no way in hell he could take those off her. He tried to think of himself as her brother, or even her father. But the familial thoughts wouldn’t stick in his head and he found himself wanting her naked, on the bed, with him touching every inch of her. He wanted to taste her and discover her. He wanted to be inside her, changing her from a virgin to a wife in one slow thrust. He ached in a way he didn’t recall ever aching before. The need was so powerful he didn’t know how he would survive not having her.
A knock on the door made him jerk the coverlet off the screen. He wrapped it around her shoulders and hurried to the door. Perry held a change of clothes for him in one hand and a bucket of steaming water in the other. Behind him was a teenage boy with a tub. Alice and Mary each had buckets of water as well.
Lucas stepped back to let them enter. He would let them fill the tub, then he would change his clothes and get the hell out of Emily’s room before he did something they both regretted.
Five minutes later, he jerked off his wet trousers and reached for clean clothes.
“I’m nearly finished,” he called to her. “When I’m gone you can take a bath and get warm.”
She didn’t answer. Lucas felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Never a good sign, he thought. Something was wrong. He stood there, naked, not sure if he should ignore her silence or ask. He really didn’t want to know. Every instinct warned him that he was inches away from the worst kind of trouble. The ache in his body threatened death if he didn’t give in to his need. It hadn’t been a very good day.
Then he heard it. A soft, muffled sob. His gut tightened and he dropped his head to his chest.
She was crying.
Not that, he insisted to himself. Anything but that. Tears. He hated tears. Why did women cry?
Cursing himself, his need, the world and, most of all, Uncle Simon, he pulled on his dry trousers and walked toward the screen.
“Em, what’s wrong?”
He heard her sniff. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
She was anything but, he thought grimly. He swore under his breath, then walked around behind the screen.
Emily crouched on the floor. She’d pulled the coverlet around her but she still shivered. Her hair dripped onto the floor, but it was her tears that captured his attention. They spilled out of her beautiful blue eyes and slipped down her cheeks.
He reached for her hand and carefully drew her to her feet. He grabbed one of the towels and placed it across her shoulders, then reached behind her and removed the pins from her hair. It tumbled down her back in soggy strands. Tears still trickled down her cheeks.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” he said quietly.
She shook her head.
He brushed his fingers across her cheeks. “Tell me.”
She wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I can’t. It’s not important.”
“Of course it is. I don’t want to make you cry.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. A sob ripped through her. Not knowing what else to do, he pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her.
It was torture. Pure, gut-wrenching torture. While she was completely covered, he couldn’t forget the fact that her dress was in a pile on the floor. She was practically naked, they were alone and there was a bed only a few feet away. That most male part of him wanted to know why they were waiting.
He risked his self-control by lightly kissing her cheek. “Why are you crying?”
“B-because I’m ugly.”
He’d been expecting nearly a half dozen different answers, but not that one. Lucas set her away from him and stared into her face.
“I don’t think you’re ugly.”
She wasn’t. Even wet, her hair was nearly the color of gold, and her skin was lovely. He adored her big eyes and the way she looked when she smiled.
Emily stared at the floor. “You must. I don’t know what happens between a husband and wife, but I remember hearing friends of my mother’s talking once. They said that when a man undresses a woman, he loses control and becomes an a-animal.” Tears filled her eyes and leaked down her cheeks. “They laughed about it. How they only had to let their husbands see their…” She hesitated and made a vague gesture toward her chest.
“Their bosoms?” he asked.
She nodded. “See that and they became wild.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “You aren’t acting wild or like an animal. So I must be more ugly than I thought.”
It would have been easier if she’d cut out his heart, Lucas thought as he stood in front of her wondering what he was supposed to do now. He’d tried so hard to do the right thing. He’d married to keep his inheritance, but he’d told Emily the reasons why and he’d never once lied to her.
Maybe he shouldn’t have kissed her, he thought grimly. Maybe he shouldn’t have started dining with her in the evening. Maybe…
But the maybes didn’t matter anymore. The past had already occurred. There was only this moment and Emily’s tears. How could he possibly make her understand?
He knew he had to try. He owed her that and so much more.
He touched her chin and raised her head so that she could see his face. “It’s not what you think,” he told her. “I do have those feelings for you. If you knew more about men and their bodies, I could prove it, but for now you’re going to have to trust me.”
He read the doubt in her eyes.
“Not all men act like animals,” he said. “I very much enjoyed looking at your bosoms. They’re very pretty.”
She grimaced. “They’re too small.”
“Not for me.” His hands ached to show her all the possibilities, but he could not.
She frowned in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“I know.”
He took her hand and led her around the screen. When she was by the bed, he urged her to sit, then settled next to her on the mattress.
“Emily, my reasons for not taking you into my bed have nothing to do with you. Last night you asked me if I had ever considered marrying. The truth is that many years ago I assumed I would take a wife and have a family. Then something happened and now I can’t.”
“Why?”
He didn’t want to tell her. He didn’t want to see the scorn and loathing in her eyes. But he wanted to see the self-doubt and pain even less.
He took her hand in his, fully knowing that it was probably the last time he would be allowed to touch her.
“It happened during the war,” he said at last.
And so he told her his deepest, darkest secret. The one that shamed him so that he could no longer worship in the house of the Lord. The one that kept him up nights, filled with questions and self-hatred.
“During the war, I killed a man,” he said.
“Many men killed.”
“I know, but this was different. Jonathan was a friend of mine. We’d served together for nearly three years. We were of an age. Although he was from Boston and I was from here, we found we had much in common.”
He told her about the summer battle, and how many lay dying. He explained about the retreat of their army and how he and several men had been trapped behind Confederate lines.
“I knew we could escape in the dark,” he said, not daring to look at her, but instead staring into his past, seeing the forest, smelling gunpowder, blood and death. “But we had to survive the rebel patrols.”
He remembered the silence of the forest. And then he’d heard it. A low moan.
“I walked toward the sound and saw that Jonathan had been shot in the stomach. Blood seeped from the wound. There was no way to save him, and it’s a slow way to die.”
He remembered his horror and tasted the rising bile, just as he’d tasted it that long-ago summer day. He closed his eyes, but that didn’t help block out the memories.
“He was in so much pain,” Lucas said slowly. “He begged me to put him out of his misery. He knew that he could take several days to die, each hour more painful than the last.”
Something settled on his arm. He glanced down and saw Emily had put her hand on him. “Lucas, you don’t have to tell me this.”
“Yes, I do. You need to know the truth about me.” Staring into her bottomless blue eyes, he continued. “I heard several rebel soldiers in the distance. They were getting closer and I knew it was just a matter of time until they found us. So I killed him.”
He waited. Emily stiffened but didn’t pull her hand away, for which he was grateful.
“I covered his mouth and nose with my hand, and he let me.” He remembered staring into his friend’s gaze as Jonathan died.
“You were merciful,” Emily said urgently.
“Was I? Or was I a cowardly bastard who didn’t want to be captured?”
Emily read the doubt in her husband’s expression. She felt his pain, his anger and his guilt. He blamed himself and every day he wondered why he’d taken his friend’s life.
“That is why I never married. I don’t know my measure as a man. Not anymore. I can’t be a husband or a father. I can’t be sure about myself.”
His steady gaze reminded her that he awaited her judgment of what he’d done. She suspected he thought she would be repulsed by his confession.
She wanted to tell him that his past mattered only because it still had the power to wound him. She wanted to say that the fact that he questioned his actions meant that he was a good and honest man. She wanted him to know that saving his own life was not a sin, but the act of a man who had something to live for.
She wanted to tell him that she loved him. For the act of hearing his darkest secret had allowed her to see the truth about her own feelings for Lucas MacIntyre. She loved him from the very bottom of her heart.
Despite the feelings welling up inside of her, she somehow knew that he would not want to hear any of those words; that he wouldn’t believe them. So instead of speaking, she shrugged off the coverlet and wrapped her arms around her husband.
He resisted, pushing her away and starting to stand. She didn’t let him go. Instead she clung to him, silently begging him to stay with her. He hesitated. His gaze drifted down to her chest. She knew that her—she could barely think the word he’d spoken so casually—bosoms were clearly visible under the damp cloth.
His expression hardened. For a heartbeat she was afraid he was lost to her, but then she saw the fire in his eyes and knew that he was experiencing that animal desire she’d heard tell of.
Gathering every ounce of courage she had ever possessed, she reached for his hand and gently placed it on her chest.
Lucas jerked back as if he’d touched fire. Then he groaned low in his throat and gathered her close. His mouth came down on hers, stealing her breath and igniting her heart.
Shotgun Grooms Page 11
