Tempting Torment (The McClellans Series, Book 3) Author's Cut Edition

by Jo Goodman

"I don't think I ever used the word seedy," Rae said calmly.

  "And you are cork-brained, "Jericho added, "because there was nothing the least romantic about it."

  Ashley rose from her chair and motioned to Courtney. "Come with me, young lady. It's past your bedtime. And I think it's time I explained to you those tales you've heard are only romantic in the retelling." She took Courtney's small hand in hers. "Good night everyone. I imagine I'll have this child's muddled head cleared by morning." Courtney pulled away from her mother long enough to kiss her father good night, then she followed Ashley into the house.

  When Salem was certain Courtney was out of earshot he let out the laughter that was rumbling in his chest. "Truth, Jericho," he said, nudging his brother-in-law in the arm. "Wasn't it the least bit romantic?"

  "Have a care how you answer," Rae cautioned.

  Jessa never heard Jericho's answer. She was intrigued by the easy play between husband and wife, the happy camaraderie between all the McClellans. Their laughter was infectious, their humor slightly ribald, and anyone who feigned shock was instantly reminded of something outrageous he or she had done. Charity and Robert presided over the gathering with amused calm, Charity invariably serene, Robert with a certain amount of pride. Noah took his fair share of ribbing and added his share as well. Jessa realized she was the only one who was exempt from the good-natured barbs, and the knowledge was accompanied by an odd, lonely feeling.

  Noah leaned back against one of the veranda's white columns and without quite knowing how he accomplished it, Jessa found herself sitting between his parted thighs, her head resting lightly on his shoulder. The candlelight from the interior of the house was all that lit the porch, but even in the shadows Jessa could see Robert and Charity exchange knowing glances. Jessa placed her hands over Noah's as they stole around her waist. It was not the loving gesture the others thought, but rather it was designed to keep Noah's wandering hands respectfully distant from her breasts. Noah seemed perfectly satisfied with this arrangement, and somewhat disconcertedly Jessa realized the sense of loneliness had passed.

  Gradually the laughter and storytelling subsided. Ashley rejoined them on the veranda and conversation became focused on the growing season, absent family members, the new mare Robert had recently purchased, and finally politics. Just as the last subject was provoking a little heat and the participants were choosing sides, the lines clearly defined by gender rather than spousal or familial affection, Tildy appeared on the threshold and offered everyone hot buttered rum.

  "Excellent timing, Tildy," Robert declared. "We were just—'"

  "I know, Mr. Robert," she said in long-suffering accents. "I could hear y'all at the back of the house. How's a body to concentrate on her Bible readin' with you folks carryin' on?" Ignoring their laughter, she continued to complain and huff as she disappeared into the house again.

  Twenty minutes later Noah narrowly caught Jessa's empty glass before it slipped from her nerveless fingers. He set it down beside his own then looked at Jessa closely, smiling wryly when he confirmed that she had fallen asleep. He turned her a little so she could rest against him more comfortably.

  Jericho's lips twitched. "I don't think there's any question that Jessa doesn't have her father's tolerance for alcohol."

  So that much of her past was true, Noah thought. Wonder of wonders. "I take it the baron was everything she described."

  "Worse," Jericho said, his smile fading. "I never saw him without a glass in his hand. He never cut his liquor when he was gaming and he drank continuously. Truth is, if he hadn't died in that fire, drink would have killed him eventually."

  "But to your knowledge he was never abusive, was he?"

  "No, not that I ever saw. Quite the contrary, though I didn't know him well. We only met a few times over a period of weeks and never anywhere but the gaming halls. I didn't know then that he had a daughter. I'm not certain if he ever mentioned his wife. The thing of it is, one would hardly know he was foxed even after he had been drinking heavily."

  "Jessa told me once he could charm anybody."

  "That would describe him."

  "Noah," Rae ventured quietly. "I know you don't want to discuss it, but I'm going to risk your wrath anyway. What have you told Jessa about Hilary?"

  "Very little. Why?" he asked, his suspicions aroused. "Has she asked you about Hilary?"

  "No, of course not. This is the first I've been with her since dinner. It's just that you've been very touchy about Hilary. It seems a little odd, that's all."

  "I don't think there's anything odd about asking you not to speak ill of my ex-fiancée," he said a trifle stiffly. "Until I met Jessa I fully intended to marry Hilary when I returned." It was all he could do to keep from telling them it remained his intention. "Hilary didn't deserve such shabby treatment at my hands."

  "Then Hilary has no idea that you've married?" asked Charity.

  "None. A letter would not have reached her much before my arrival, and in any event, I would hardly inform Hilary in that cold manner. Obviously I'll speak to her in person. Frankly, I'm not certain I understand the nature of your concern. Is it for Hilary or Jessa?"

  "Jessa," Rae answered immediately. "I know you don't want to hear this, Noah, but Hilary has a tendency toward, umm, spite."

  "That's ridiculous."

  "It's true," Rae whispered. "I would have told you before if I thought there was the remotest chance that you would heed me. She is a vicious, nasty woman beneath that well-mannered, butter-wouldn't-melt-in-her-mouth exterior, and I'm telling you now so that you can properly protect Jessa from Hilary's cutting tongue."

  "I don't know the woman you're describing."

  Rae threw up her hands, exasperated. "Salem, you tell him! If you don't, I will."

  "God, Rae," Salem said, "you do choose your moments."

  "Tell me what?" Noah asked, cutting off his sister before she snapped at Salem.

  Salem's hands tightened around his mug of rum. "The first time you brought Hilary here," he said in hushed tones, "Ashley and I were in the midst of a quarrel, the nature of which neither of us can remember now. I only mention it because there was obviously some friction between us at the time. Naturally, since you came home with your guest we did our very best to be civil to each another. We were less successful than we might have wished. Hilary must have sensed the tension. She let me know, in her discreet way, of course, that she was, er, available if I had need of her."

  Noah's eyes narrowed dangerously. "You must have misunderstood her intent," he gritted. "If she sensed something wrong between you and Ashley, then she was willing to listen. She was offering her help."

  "She may have been discreet, Noah, but she was clear. Any help she was offering was carnal in nature." Salem's upper lip curled derisively. "I did not mistake her meaning."

  "I don't believe you."

  Salem shrugged. "That's of no consequence to me. You're the one likely to be hurt by your lack of judgment. Jericho? It's your turn."

  Jericho's boots scraped against the flagstones as he shifted in his chair. "Dammit, Noah," he said roughly. "On one of her other visits Hilary cornered me in the library one afternoon while I was working on the accounts. She came on the pretense of finding a book but soon made it evident that she had something else in mind. At first I could hardly believe what I was hearing. When I realized she was serious, I ran like hell."

  "Why didn't you say anything to me then?" Noah demanded.

  "Because I was embarrassed. Believe me, I regretted my silence when you wrote and told us that you and Hilary were engaged."

  Noah's smile was bitter. "So you all got together and conspired to send me to England, knowing full well that Hilary wouldn't marry me before the voyage."

  "We didn't know that for certain," Charity said, her voice soft with regret for her son's pain. "We merely suspected that would be the case, knowing her abhorrence of the English. It's just not natural, Noah, not with the war behind us these five years."

  "Her
abhorrence, as you call it, seems hard to credit if she was willing to throw herself at Jericho."

  "You're missing the point," said Salem. "She didn't really want Jericho any more than she wanted me. What she wanted was to destroy our marriages. Hilary completely overlooks the fact that Jericho and Ashley both did their part for America during the war. Hell, Jericho was even wounded at the same battle that took her brother's life. The only thing she cares about is that my wife and Jericho both have holdings in England, and she'll do her damnedest to punish them for it."

  "That's quite a theory," Noah said. "I had no idea you were given to contemplating the motives of others."

  "It's hardly a theory," replied Salem, making an effort to gather the threads of his patience. "It didn't matter to Hilary that her advances were spurned, first by me, then by Jericho. She deliberately set out to make Ashley and Rae think that something had happened, and she intimated that we were the ones to express interest in her. Had their trust in us been any less than what it was, Hilary could very well have been successful in making herself believed."

  Salem drained the last of his rum. "I think you know Rae well enough to realize she doesn't let something like that go unconfronted. I'll spare you the details of that scene except to say that Hilary confessed to Rae what she had been about. Rightly or wrongly, we decided among ourselves to let it rest because Hilary swore she wasn't trying to make you a cuckold. Her actions had nothing at all to do with you and everything to do with her twisted notions of revenge."

  "So why tell me now?" Noah demanded. "I could have done very well without ever hearing it."

  "Surely that's obvious, Noah," said Rae. "You're about to leave for Philadelphia in a few days, and not only are you going to tell Hilary you've married, you're presenting her with an English bride. Can you possibly begin to imagine how she will take that news?"

  "She's going to be hurt, and she has every right to be."

  "She's going to be furious! And if you think she won't exact some sort of revenge, then you haven't heard a word we've said."

  Noah was silent a moment, choosing his words carefully. When he spoke his voice was low, slightly strained. "I think you're being melodramatic, Rae, and your talk of revenge is premature. I can accept your reasons for raising this issue were prompted by genuine concern, and I can appreciate that. However, your meddling—and I'm addressing this to everyone, not Rae alone—has already had profound consequences on my life and I am heartily sick of it. I want—"

  "Meddling?" Charity asked. "Do you mean the voyage to Eng—"

  "What profound consequences?" Rae wanted to know.

  Robert laid his hand over his wife's knee. "Let him finish, Charity," he said both gently and firmly. "Rae, that's enough."

  "Thank you, Father." Noah drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and continued. "I want you to know that I love you all. More than that, I like you as well. I suspect you return those sentiments else you would not have felt compelled to tell me these things tonight. Yet I find myself resentful because you weren't honest with me at the outset. I knew you didn't approve of Hilary, but no one saw fit to tell me the real reason you withheld that approval. You hinted. You shared glances you thought I didn't notice. And you conspired behind my back. Do you think I should thank you for that? You maneuvered me into making a trip I despised to deal with problems that could easily have been handled by any lawyer of your acquaintance."

  "But you wouldn't have met Jessa," Ashley pointed out softly.

  "No, Ashley, I wouldn't have," he said, almost without inflection. Noah paused then, lifting Jessa in his arms as he stood awkwardly. He could feel the press of her soft cheek against his shirt. "And you can make of that what you like." Bidding them only a cursory nod, Noah turned on his heel and carried Jessa into the house.

  No one on the veranda spoke for several minutes. The nightsounds they had not noticed before seemed abnormally loud now. Crickets in the hedgerow clicked incessantly. Wildlife moved in the wood, shaking the underbrush. Leaves fluttered overhead as a cool breeze swept up from the river.

  "I don't think I've ever seen Noah so angry," Salem said finally, running his fingers through his dark hair. "Certainly never so quiet and angry."

  Rae nodded slowly, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "God, I shouldn't want to face him in the courtroom," she said, her voice a mere thread of sound.

  "What do you think he meant by that remark about meeting Jessa?" asked Ashley, worrying her lower lip, her emerald eyes troubled.

  Robert lit another cheroot and drew on it deeply. "I fear any speculation on that matter would serve no purpose. Noah was deliberately vague, and given his experience with our interference, he chose exactly the right course. I suggest we let it rest."

  Once inside the bedchamber, Noah laid Jessa on the bed and lighted two candles on the nightstand. She stirred but did not wake as he loosened the laces in her bodice and eased the gown off her shoulders. Taking off her shoes, he dropped them lightly on the floor, then managed to get Jessa under the covers with a minimum amount of rolling her this way and that. He could feel himself begin to resent the way she continued to sleep, oblivious to his hurt, his bitter disappointment, his frustration. Not that she would have cared, he thought. He had certainly given her no reason to concern herself with his problems, but still he resented it.

  Noah undressed, blew out the candles, and slipped into bed, careful not to touch Jessa. He lay on his back, cradling his head in his hands, and stared unblinkingly at the snowy canopy above him. God, when had he lost control of his life? How was he supposed to cope with this overwhelming sense of aloneness? Tears welled in his eyes. The canopy blurred. Breath shuddered through him.

  "Jessa?"

  The sound of her name spoken so softly, so uncertainly, accomplished what all the movement beforehand could not. Jessa woke. "Yes?"

  Noah found himself saying words he never thought he would utter—and saying them with absolute sincerity. "I need you, Jessa. Please... I need you."

  And Jessa misunderstood. "All right," she said. She hardly knew where she was but it didn't matter. Noah had said anytime, in any manner. Easing herself across the space that separated her from Noah, Jessa slipped one arm across his chest and curved her body into his. Catlike, she rubbed her cheek against his naked shoulder. Though Jessa's senses were dulled by sleepy exhaustion she still felt Noah stiffen when she touched him. His response, the kind he would make if he were trying to shrug her off, struck her as odd. But because he had said he needed her and because her body was the only thing he had ever needed, Jessa persisted, raising herself until her mouth hovered above his.

  She wet her lips in a way that usually made Noah suck in his breath with the first urgings of desire. This time he did nothing. A frown puckered Jessa's brow as she lowered her mouth to his, tracing the line of his lips with the tip of her tongue. One of her legs slid between his. Her knee nudged his inner thigh and she was vaguely aware that she was still wearing her stockings.

  Jessa wondered if Noah disliked the slightly abrasive sensation.

  While she was kissing the corner of his closed mouth the tips of Jessa's fingers threaded through Noah's thick hair, stroking the sensitive curve of his ear with her thumbs. When his lips did not part under the gentle persuading pressure of her tongue, Jessa's mouth moved lower and trailed along his jawline. She waited for his hands to touch the small of her back, cup her buttocks, or sift through the wave of hair which fell over one shoulder. None of those things happened.

  What did he want?

  Confused by his lack of interest, Jessa sat up and removed her stockings then pulled her shift over her head. Tossing the garments to the foot of the bed, she leaned over Noah so the tips of her naked breasts just brushed his chest. Finally she got a response.

  Noah's fingers curled around Jessa's upper arms in a bruising, hurtful grip and in a single motion filled with contempt and disgust he pushed her away from him. "God, you make me sick," he said tightly, bitterly. "Get a
way from me."

  Stricken, Jessa scrambled to the far side of the bed and snatched the counterpane to cover herself. She was fully awake now and wishing she were dreaming. Tears clogged her throat and the enormity of her shame left her mute. She stared hard at Noah, trying to discern the reason for his anger in the rigid set of his profile.

  Noah sat up, threw his legs over the side of the bed, and reached for his breeches, which were lying over the arm of the nearby rocker. He jammed his legs into them, stood, fastened the laces at the back with stiff, quick motions, and walked over to the window. Drawing back the curtains, Noah leaned forward, pressing his palms and forehead to the cool panes of glass. Beads of moisture formed on the glass.

  "I make myself sick," he said at last, his voice strained. He turned away from the window and looked at Jessa's curled figure on the bed. With the curtains pulled aside a sliver of moon cast pale bluish shadows in the bedchamber. Noah's face was gray and drawn in the beam of light. He ran a hand through his hair. "I'm going to Philadelphia in the morning, Jessa. In spite of what we've discussed before I think it would be best if you remained at the landing. I need to be able to concentrate on the work I have to do."

  Jessa pressed her knees closer to her chest, closed her eyes, and wondered why she wasn't rejoicing. Wasn't he giving her exactly what she wanted? Hadn't she already decided to leave him? Then why did she feel so horribly empty at the thought of him running to Hilary? Surely that was his intention.

  "I'll return in a few weeks," Noah said, "and perhaps then we can discuss how we mean to go on. I meant what I said before about providing for Gideon. You needn't worry on that account. And I'm not making a decision about divorce now. I need some time to think."

  As far as Jessa was concerned he had already decided. But then, hadn't she?

  "You mustn't think that you won't be welcome here, Jessa. I'll tell my parents that I want to make some changes in my home to accommodate you and Gideon. No one will find it odd. We have just spent the better part of six weeks in each other's pockets."

  Jessa didn't doubt that she would be welcome to stay at the landing. But how could she? All the time Noah was gone, she would know the truth, know that he would be with Hilary, know that he would only return to end the marriage. How could she stand to be with his family, perhaps even come to feel part of them, then sever every tie when Noah made it clear he wanted a divorce? She was tired of the lies that governed her life, and though she could not be free of them, she could free herself from others.