White Lace and Promises

by Natasha Blackthorne

  Internally, she fought against the pull of his demand; externally, she struggled against his hold. “Go to hell, you arrogant jackanapes!”

  Maintaining his hold with one hand, he reached down with the other and shoved her skirts up. She tried to hold her knees together but found his hard, muscled leg there quicker than she could move. He pressed between them, widening them. He pushed two fingers inside her, so swiftly she sucked her breath in.

  She wanted to deny him. To fight him, to hit at him and demand he cease. God—even to cry out and bring the servants. But exhilaration swelled deep within her belly. It held her passive. It made her tremble. Wetness gushed from her core and became audible with each thrusting move of his fingers. Oh, God, God…she licked her lips and swallowed.

  He removed his fingers from inside her. Her cunt ached for his return. He made wrenching movements as he unfastened his pantaloons with his one free hand.

  She twisted against his hold.

  His hand on her wrists and his body on hers, he held her firm. He poised himself for entry. She moaned and arched her hips up. He thrust into her with such force that it took her breath.

  She couldn’t stop struggling against him. She hated to be controlled, hated to be bested. But her inner walls clenched around his throbbing hardness, hugging him tight, and the flow of her honey became a deluge.

  He withdrew.

  A scream of pure need pushed its way up into her throat and she bit her lip to hold it in.

  “You’re mine now, Beth.”

  She moaned.

  “I want to hear you say it.”

  She panted hard and tossed her head on the coverlet. No, no, no. She couldn’t say it. Not like this. His advantage was too unfair. To give in to his power over her scared her. The strong urge to give in to him scared her even more. She’d soon be his completely, under the law. All she had was her inner will and her independence.

  With other men, she’d never allowed the balance of power to tip. But he wasn’t just any man—he was the man she loved.

  “I won’t fuck you unless you tell me what”—he rubbed the head of his cock over her erect, throbbing nub—“I want to hear.”

  Her internal walls contracted. She was empty, so empty. She twisted against him. “Damn you.”

  He slid his cock down to her entrance, hovering there. “It’s so easy to say, Beth. Just tell me what I want to hear.” He pressed inside an inch.

  Her hungry cunt contracted around him. The coverlet beneath her buttocks was soaked. Oh God, she wanted him. Wanted him to propel himself into her with real force and fire. To drive himself as deeply into her as possible. What would it hurt just to say the words? Nothing but her pride and her self-protection. “Oh, damn you, damn you.” Her voice broke with her stridence. She had to swallow, hard. “Of course I am yours. All yours. Always yours.”

  His eyes glittered with satisfaction. Triumph.

  He impaled her, filling her in one brutal plunge. The sound of her wetness echoed in the chamber.

  White-hot sensation swept up from her womb to her belly and spread through her whole body. Pure pleasure.

  He held still, his eyes seeming to devour her face. His cock, hard and huge, stretched her walls with each urgent throb. She arched her back and moaned, twisting in his hold. Relentlessly, he held her to the bed and began fucking her with savage abandon. Her hips rose to meet his again and again, their pelvic bones slamming fiercely together with bruising effect. Sensation radiated from her cunt out to her very fingers, toes and the top of her scalp. It was intense, it was raw…it couldn’t last for long.

  Her cunt contracted. His mouth came roughly down on hers and she screamed his name repeatedly, the sound muffled by his kiss as hard, fierce spasms racked her whole body. A firestorm consumed her.

  He lifted his mouth, moving his lips down her cheek to her neck.

  Euphoria flooded her. Pure emotion. She clung to his shoulders, trying to press her cheek to the top of his head. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

  His body shook against hers. His low, guttural groans reverberated from his open mouth on her neck. His seed flooded her in warm surges, sending new tremors through her. A melting sensation spread through her core. Pleasure welled within her, like golden light, all the way from head to toe.

  She came back to herself, sweat-drenched, falling to earth with a startling crash. God, this was the way of it. She was now his to command as he wished. Not even Joshua had exerted such control over her. Though he’d played teacher, she could see now most of the control, sexually, had been hers. She’d been in control with every man since, too. Now that was over and she was powerless to prevent it. Powerless to prevent Grey’s sexual domination over her. She was Grey’s, now and forever. And if he put her aside, she’d be crushed. Destroyed.

  Her mouth and throat went completely dry and a cold, sharp edge eroded the warmth of sensual satisfaction in her stomach.

  He released her wrists, lifted his weight and lay on his side. The sound of his gasps filled the air in the chamber, which suddenly seemed too thin. Panting, she rolled away from him and onto her belly. Moments passed with only the sound of their breathing.

  Then the bed rocked, his weight shifting as he sat.

  “She left me, Beth.” His voice seemed to come from a distance. “She left me to return to her father’s house. By the time she went, I was damned glad to see her go.”

  She tried to concentrate on his words, but she was completely drained, emotionally and physically. Warm darkness swallowed her up.

  Chapter Eight

  “Good heavens, look at you.”

  Mrs Hazelwood’s voice startled Beth. She staggered into the parlour, dazed. Every muscle in her body burned and her heart hammered in her ears, an echo of the hooves pounding the street’s paving stones. But she liked the punishing thunder of the horse beneath her. It took away from the aching emptiness she felt upon waking alone.

  “Go on, take a look at yourself in the mirror.”

  Beth glanced up at the mahogany framed mirror on the wall. A flushed young woman glanced back at her with wild blue eyes. Sweat coated her face and pasted curling strands of silver-gilt hair to her cheeks.

  “Would that Mr Sexton could see you like this and know what kind of hoyden he is wedding. I don’t think this is what he intended when he bought that horse for you.”

  Beth’s heart began to drop, making the chamber spin. Her empty stomach lurched hard and she put her hand to her stomach.

  “Pour yourself a glass of that claret you favour too much.”

  Yes, for once Mrs Hazelwood’s advice was spot on. Beth stumbled to the sideboard. The strong, lush scent of roses hit her. She glanced to her left and saw a vase filled nearly to tipping over with perfect pink roses. She suspected the source of those flowers.

  She didn’t want to think about it.

  She poured herself some claret then gulped it down in three swallows. It hit her stomach like fire. But she liked the burn. Just like she’d liked the hard riding. It distracted her from the memory of his hands holding her down on the bed, thrusting into her. Dominating her. Taking all she had to give.

  He would be gone for weeks.

  Weeks until he would be hers again.

  She should have been relieved. But hunger consumed her. Hunger for the sight of his face, the feel of his body, the smell of his scent.

  And that was what frightened her most of all and had sent her running this morning. Running and running with nowhere to go. Nowhere to escape from herself and her needs and emotions.

  “You will not be able to drink claret at the wedding.”

  “Oh?” She took a gasp of air, trying to aid the slowing of her heart. “Won’t I?”

  “A polite lady drinks punch or ratafia.”

  “I despise ratafia.” Beth cast a wary glance at the roses and set her glass down on the side table.

  “Ladies do not drink to excess or become intoxicated.”

  “Yes, of course the
y don’t.” Beth poured herself a second glass of claret and tossed half the glass back. Pleasant warmth spread through her, softening the harsher edges of the morning.

  “You also will not be able to ride like a wild savage in New York. You shouldn’t have done so here.”

  Beth shrugged. New York was the last thing on her mind this morning. She was doing all she could to survive from one moment to the next.

  Weeks until she saw him again…

  A flash of his face above hers entered her mind; she could feel his hands holding her down. She’d wanted him to do that. She’d wanted him to assert some control over her. It had excited her. She didn’t understand it now.

  She downed the rest of her claret.

  “Those roses are from Mr Sexton.” Mrs Hazelwood’s words startled her out of her thoughts.

  She set her glass down again and turned her attention to the vase of roses. “Are they?”

  Mrs Hazelwood chuckled. “Don’t sass me, you wicked girl. Who else would have sent them? Do you think I have an ardent admirer? There’s a note there.”

  Beth started and noticed the folded cream coloured vellum lying next to the vase.

  “Well, go on, open it.”

  Beth snatched the note up and tore the wax seal. Her heart began to hammer in her chest all over again. She folded the letter over as if it were a guilty secret.

  “Well, my girl, what does Mr Sexton say?”

  I am sorry, my love, the blame for our discord is all my doing. I’ll never censure you for your past again.

  The words burnt her eyes. An apology from her proud husband-to-be. God. Oh God, it was the very last thing she had expected. She wanted to run away from Mrs Hazelwood’s curious eyes. Run all the way up to her chamber in the attic and…and what? Hug herself and stare into space with the sheer shock? Dance for joy? Strip all her clothes off and touch herself until she came over and over at the memory of his body, pressing hers down, mastering her?

  Maybe all three.

  “What does he say?” Mrs Hazelwood repeated as if to a child.

  “Oh, nothing much. He says he hopes the next weeks pass quickly.” Beth stumbled over the half-lie as she stuffed the vellum into her pocket. She walked to the settee opposite Mrs Hazelwood and sat. The chamber seemed all floaty and she couldn’t focus on any one thing, her eyes jumping from the mantel with its mahogany clock to the tea table and then the window, where fat drops of rain had begun to fall.

  Was this apology such a victory? So, he felt regret. Grey was obviously capable of deep possessive feelings towards her. Yet did he truly want her as a wife or had it simply been the only way he could possess her beauty and body for his own? How would he feel once in New York, amidst his friends and family, when he presented the bastard-child as his bride?

  “Mr Sexton has deposited two hundred and fifty thousand dollars into an account in your name. You are a wealthy woman now and you haven’t even married him yet. It is certainly a testament to the power of a woman’s beauty and a man’s ability to be swayed.”

  Two hundred and—Beth jerked back to face Mrs Hazelwood. “What?”

  The sharp, ice-blue eyes narrowed slightly. “I never suspected you were so cunning.”

  The woman’s words landed on Beth like a rain of needles. She sucked in her breath.

  All the elation of just a moment past drained from her body, leaving her limp. Her throat began to burn and she blinked hard against tears. She could never remember the woman speaking so brusquely to her. “Cunning?”

  “You think you’ve gained the whole, wide world, I can see that. But I don’t think you realise what you’re getting into here, my girl. You be wary. He set his first wife aside and she was a de Lange.”

  The firm note in Mrs Hazelwood’s voice gave Beth pause. “He says she left him. To return to her father’s house.”

  A slight smile curved the woman’s lips as she drew her needle once more through the cloth. “Did he really tell you that?”

  “You’re implying it isn’t true?”

  “It seems rather unlikely Juliana de Lange would have run home to her papa of her own volition. She was a grown woman.”

  “But Mr Sexton was only nineteen—she was surely younger.”

  “She was twenty-six years old. Old enough to be settled into her skin and know her own mind. Goodness, she’d been on the shelf for years. She was such a pretty girl, petite and small-boned like you, and no one could understand it.”

  Beth stifled a gasp. She’d had no idea that Grey’s wife had been so much older.

  Mrs Hazelwood laid her embroidery hoop down, frowned and wagged her finger. “He made her unhappy. Everyone could see it—she changed from such a gay, bright-eyed young lady into a shadow of herself.”

  Indignant for Grey, Beth stiffened. “I don’t think Mr Sexton would lie to me.”

  Mrs Hazelwood’s face relaxed into a placid smile and she took up her hoop, pushing the needle through the taut cloth. The sound seemed unusually loud to Beth’s ears. “Well, dear, the point is, he has already put one marriage aside. That’s something unthinkable for a gentleman. The second time would prove a little easier, I fear. ”

  At Mrs Hazelwood’s eerie echoing of Joshua’s warnings, a thread of unease pulled through Beth’s belly.

  “And Juliana was a sweet, biddable young woman.” Mrs Hazelwood looked up over her spectacles, her eyes sharp. “You’re something a little short of that. Yes, you had better take care.”

  * * * *

  Chilly night breezes caressed her face. Beth closed her eyes and inhaled the rich scents of the roses and hydrangeas from Mrs Hazelwood’s garden. She was spending her last night before her wedding to Grey in her old childhood bedchamber. But she couldn’t sleep, so she had come out to the garden.

  Last evening, she’d received Grey’s terse message. On his way back to Philadelphia, unavoidable business had necessitated a detour in Baltimore, but he would arrive in the morning. Their wedding was tomorrow at noon, yet he’d arranged business on the way.

  Her chest constricted, forcing her to take a slow, ragged breath. Well, that wasn’t the worst. This was the very first letter she’d received from him since he’d departed.

  Her three silly little letters—filled with babble about how much she missed him—must have annoyed him. How insipid, pouring out her feelings like that! But at the time her longing for his presence had been such an aching, visceral pain she’d been unable to hold back.

  Yet it was plain to see—she was the absolute last priority in his life. Maybe he’d even developed second thoughts.

  Serious second thoughts.

  Her stomach cramped and she laid a hand over it. She’d barely been able to eat a bite for days now and was almost constantly lightheaded with lack of nourishment and a little too much claret.

  A squeak of rusty metal hinges brought her back to the present. Her stomach dropped.

  No, not tonight. Surely not…

  Boots crunched on the gravel path. Aching welled in her throat. Nostalgia? Regret? She didn’t know.

  She looked up. “Good evening, Dr Wade.”

  He grinned at her and quickened his pace. “It’s half past two in the morning,” he reproached her as he sat beside her on the stone bench. He touched her muslin-covered thigh. “And you’re out here in your dainty nightdress.”

  She threw a scathing glance at his hand. “Take your hand from my person.”

  He frowned and removed his hand. “Night air is not good for the lungs and you’re just begging for a quinsy, my girl.”

  “Is that so, doctor? And how did you know I’d be here?”

  “I was walking home from a late call to a patient and I saw your lantern’s light.”

  She arched a brow.

  He sighed. “All right, I admit it. I suspected you would be wakeful, so I decided to come by. I hear your merchant prince has yet to arrive.”

  “He’s due to arrive in the morning.”

  Joshua laughed. “When, a quar
ter till noon?”

  “He had some pressing business in Baltimore.”

  “Oh, you had best accustom yourself to it, my fine lady. There will always be some business matter. I know his type of gentleman. Christ, I spend my days treating the wives of cold-blooded, business-minded men like him for their nerves and migraines.”

  She hated him more than ever for echoing the very concerns that had kept her up thus far tonight. But she tried to ignore the anxiety coiling in her belly. Tried to put her focus on her anger at Joshua. In fact, she was almost grateful for the distraction he provided from her thoughts.

  He was studying her with his dark crimson brows drawn tightly together. “A merchant—a merchant? How could you, Beth? I thought you possessed of more refinement, more sensitivity—certainly more intelligence.”

  “Ha! You’re a fine one to talk. I am sure you do treat those worthy, good wives very thoroughly.”

  His thick lashes glinted like darkest wine in the lamplight as they swept over his eyes. “It’s never like it was with you, Beth.”

  She snorted. “You insult me to even mention such a thing.”

  “It’s hard to be merely polite when the very scent of your skin fills my mind with memories.”

  Her lip curled up. “Won’t your wife be missing you?”

  “She sleeps alone in her chamber and I never…I have never disturbed her.”

  For a moment, she gaped at him. Then gladness, terrible and swift, spread through her. So he spent his nights in a cold bed, alone and aching? Good. He deserved no less. She laughed, dragging the sound out into a long, low taunt. “Oh, that is doing it far, far too brown. Even for you, Dr Wade. You actually expect me to believe that you’ve never fucked your dear, sweet little wife?”

  He flinched. “Don’t… Don’t ever use that word again…not in the same sentence with her.”

  She laughed again, this time in the wicked, practiced way she knew drove men insane with desire—and this man in particular. “Who taught me that word?”

  He gave her a hard look. “How I hate what you have become.” He clapped a hand to his neck. “God, the mosquitoes are out for blood tonight. Why the devil must you sit out here?”