by Cheryl Holt
"And since I'm not a shrew, you must have been relieved." When he didn't jump in to agree, she added, "I'm not a shrew. Right?"
"Right." His reply was hesitant, and he sounded as if he hadn't quite decided.
"Could you be a tad more certain?"
He laughed, redeeming himself. "You're definitely not a shrew."
"Would it have made any difference to you if I was?"
"I don't think so."
The comment was ominous, as if there'd been negotiations over her, and she wasn't too keen on his having private information to which she wasn't privy. She'd meant to inquire as to how he'd learned of her, who had investigated, and why, but he grinned again, and she was swept up, unable to pull away or fight his potent allure.
He was smug with his possession of her, and as he shoved away the bodice of her chemise, baring her bosom, she was lost. Any argument or discussion was incinerated by the heat he generated.
He gazed at her, rippling with male appreciation.
"My, my, Anne, you are so lovely."
He bent to her inflamed nipple and sucked it into his mouth, and he nursed as a babe would its mother, but with none of the tenderness. He was rough and demanding, his tongue and teeth nipping and laving her.
He played with both nipples, his lips tormenting one while his fingers worked at the other. He shifted back and forth, back and forth, driving her to such a fevered pitch that she was dizzy, and she started to fret. It had to be dangerous for something to feel so good.
"Jamie, stop. Oh, do stop."
"No."
"You never listen to me."
"I would—if you ever said anything worth hearing."
"Someone might come in. They'll see."
"No one will see," he insisted. "Besides, you spent the entire evening in my bedchamber, so you're thoroughly ruined. If a maid walked in just now, you'd be doing precisely what she'd expect."
"Ruined," she muttered with dismay. In the quiet ambiance of the lazy morning, she hadn't thought about the consequences of her being imprisoned in his room. By locking her in, he'd effectively quashed any refusal to wed.
If she spurned him now, she'd be tarred and feathered and run out of the neighborhood by an angry mob.
"There's no fixing the past, my little soiled dove. You'll have to marry me."
"You're a beast, Gladstone."
"Yes, I am, and don't you forget it. And you're to call me Jamie when we're alone. Don't forget that, either."
"I hate you."
"No, you don't."
"I do. I absolutely do."
"I can't abide a surly woman. Don't pout."
He commenced again, and for a brief second she imagined herself rearing up, tossing him off, and strutting out in a huff. But with her downfall complete, it seemed so futile. His mouth was at her breast, and every inch of her—down to bone and pore—was elated.
Though she was loathe to admit it, she was possessed of a previously unobserved licentious character, and he knew that she was. He'd lured it to the fore, had teased and cajoled until she wished to do nothing but lounge in his bed and romp with abandon.
With resignation, and a bit of petulance, she joined in, drawing him close and beginning to explore. She'd never viewed a man's body before, and she was intrigued by the differences. He was so firm and muscled, so strong and solid. She wanted to touch him all over, and she glided her hands over his shoulders and arms, excited by the feel of his hot skin.
To her amazement, he had hair on his chest. It was thick across the top, but it narrowed to a thin line and disappeared into his trousers. She kept riffling through it, never tiring of how soft and springy it was. He enjoyed having her massage him, and occasionally he'd tremble with delight. The realization—that she had the power to titillate him—made her more bold, which spurred him on, too.
His hand was moving down in slow circles, dropping lower and lower. She was too overwhelmed to fully focus on his destination, and before she could clearly discern his intent, he'd eased up the hem of her chemise so that her privates were bared.
He caressed her between her legs, his fingers tangled in her womanly hair. She tried to protest, tried to wiggle out from under him, but he merely held her more tightly.
"Jamie?" She felt as if she were standing on a cliff and he was about to hurl her over. "What are you doing?"
"I'm making love to you, as a husband does to his wife."
"I don't like it." "You will."
"But... but... are you sure this is how it's done?" "Very sure."
"It seems awfully . .. physical." "It is that." "But..." "Hush."
He slid two crafty fingers inside her, and they fit perfectly, as if they'd been created for just that purpose and no other. To her ultimate chagrin, her loins flexed, eagerly trying to drag him deeper.
He smirked. "You are so right for me."
"What do you mean?"
He started pushing in all the way, then withdrawing. The tempo quickened, his gestures more precise.
"Let me show you something."
She was terrified about what it might be. "No. Don't show me anything. Whatever it is, I don't need to know."
He dabbed at a spot she'd never noticed prior, and it set off such a maelstrom of sensation that she arched up, hissing and spitting at him to desist, but he pinned her down and kept on. His thumb flicked out, again, again, until she shattered into a thousand pieces.
She cried out in wonderment and spiraled to the heavens, while he cradled her throughout the tumult. As she reached the peak and floated down, he was smug and chuckling again.
"What was that?" she asked when she could speak.
"Female sexual pleasure."
She glared at him. "Did I scream?"
He considered for a moment. "Yes, I would say that definitely qualified as a scream."
"Do you suppose anyone heard me?"
"Just the entire household—and maybe a few folks down in the village, too."
"Aah! What will they think?"
"They'll assume either that I'm beating you or that you're loose."
She blanched in horror. "I'll never be able to leave this room!"
"Poor me."
She gazed at the ceiling, mortified, but already secretly wishing they could do it again. Was it addicting? Could she become obsessed?
"Can it happen more than once?"
"Yes. Whenever you're in the mood. But only with your husband."
"We're not married."
"A minor technicality, I assure you."
"So ... we could do it in the marital bed?"
"All the time." He nestled close and whispered, "Wouldn't such bliss be worth any price?"
At the carnal promise in his voice, she shivered.
She had a vision of herself, locked in his bedchamber—unwashed, unfed, unclothed—content to loaf and wait for him to inflict his base amusements. She saw herself chasing after him, begging him to proceed. She'd offer anything, would relinquish anything, would do anything, if he'd give her more of the same.
"You're going to kill me, aren't you?" she complained. "That's your plan. For some reason, you've been sent here to drive me crazy, and if that doesn't work, you'll slay me with ecstasy, instead."
"What a way to go." He sighed like the arrogant man he was.
"I hate you," she said again, which made him laugh.
Disgusted with him, with herself, she rolled onto her side and curled into a ball. He rolled, too, and spooned himself to her. With her ardor waning, the air was cold, and he pulled a blanket over them.
She yawned. "I'm so tired."
"Why don't you nap for a bit?"
"I just might."
"When you awaken, if you're very, very nice to me, I'll do it to you again." "I'll never survive it."
He snuggled himself to her bottom, and as he took a slow, languid flex, he shuddered as if he was in pain.
'Tonight, after the wedding," he murmured, "I'll show you the rest."
Despite her
lethargy, her body rippled with greedy anticipation.
Seven
Jack Merrick stared out the window toward the park that sprawled behind the mansion. Sarah Carstairs had just walked by, headed into the woods with a basket slung over her arm. Without pausing to wonder what he was about, he hurried outside to follow her.
Their encounter on the verandah had been one of the more peculiar episodes of his long and sordid life, and he was fascinated by her.
She was beautiful and educated, serious and proper, her background the total opposite from his own, so he wasn't certain how he'd ended up kissing her with such wild abandon, yet he wasn't sorry.
The taciturn, pragmatic woman was no aging spinster, whiling away at her cousin's country estate. She was hot-blooded and eager. Jack had dabbled with whores who hadn't been as adept as she, and he was extremely curious as to how she'd come by her carnal experience.
If she was a virgin, he'd eat his hat!
Where was she going? Was she off to meet a lover
for a clandestine romp? The prospect disturbed him in ways he didn't care to acknowledge.
What sort of fellow would tickle her fancy? Probably some urbane, snooty aristocrat. He'd have persnickety manners and an annoying, upper-crust hit to his words.
Jack hated the man already.
He hastened after her, keen to keep her in view. If he stumbled on her with a paramour, he wasn't sure what he'd do. He couldn't imagine spying like a pathetic voyeur, but he had to know what she was about.
The path meandered by a dilapidated cottage. The roof sagged; the window glass was missing, the holes covered with old boards. Sarah stopped in the weed-strewn yard and called out to someone. The door opened.
Jack had been expecting a grown man, so when a boy of nine or ten years emerged, he couldn't make sense of the sight. The lad was slim as a rail, half-starved, and dressed in clothes that were little more than rags.
His insolent expression was the same one Jack had observed on children throughout his youth. It was a look of accusation and distrust. He and Jamie had gazed at adults with the same sullen, bitter rage.
Sarah approached the boy, moving cautiously, as if he were a rabbit that might bolt down a hole. Chatting quietly, she set her basket on the ground, and it appeared to be loaded with food.
Jack crept nearer. He couldn't hear them, but he could see them clearly, and he was stunned to note the obvious: Sarah was talking to her son. She had to be. With his thick brown hair and big green eyes, he couldn't be anybody else.
A thousand questions spiraled through Jack's mind. When had this happened? How had it happened? Where was the lad's father? And most important, why was the child living in a hovel and being regarded as a dirty secret? Had Sarah been too ashamed to claim him?
The possibility incensed Jack. Every injustice he'd ever suffered from his own father rose up to torment Jack till he felt as if he were choking on the boy's appalling circumstance. It too closely resembled his own, and he lurched away, too disconcerted to continue watching.
He rushed to the manor, his temper at a slow boil. He'd kissed her once, and for some stupid reason he'd convinced himself that he understood her character. On learning that he didn't know her at all, he was so angry that he couldn't think straight.
Like a deranged lunatic, he proceeded directly to her bedchamber and stormed inside. He pulled up a chair and sat down to wait for her. It was wrong to enter, wrong to accost her over such a private matter, so he couldn't decide on the exact purpose of his mission.
Eventually, she trudged down the hall and slipped into the room. She collapsed against the door, pressed to it as though she might fall if she didn't have its sturdy support. She sighed with dismay and rubbed a weary hand over her eyes.
"Hello, Miss Carstairs."
At the sound of his voice, she glared at him but didn't seem particularly alarmed.
"What are you doing in here, Mr. Merrick?"
"I wanted to speak with you."
"What? You couldn't do it down in the front parlor?"
"No."
"Well, just because your brother abducted my sister and is holding her hostage, don't presume that I'll stand for the same disgraceful treatment." She reached for the doorknob. "Get out, or I'll shout the house down."
"I'll go when I'm damned good and ready."
"Don't curse at me. I've had enough of you Merricks to last a lifetime. Where is my sister?"
"Still locked in my brother's suite."
"What is he doing to her?"
"I wouldn't hazard a guess."
When it came to females, Jamie had no scruples. Any wicked conduct was likely.
"When will he let her out?"
"When the vicar arrives to perform the ceremony. Not a moment before."
"So the wedding is on?"
"Of course it is. Why wouldn't it be?"
"I won't permit that womanizing reprobate to marry my sister. I don't care how high-and-mighty he's turned out to be. I'll never agree."
"It isn't up to you." Jack was tired of discussing Jamie, tired of having his older brother be the only topic on anyone's lips. He switched to the sole subject that interested him.
"What is your son's name?"
Panic flared, but she shielded it by tugging off her bonnet and hanging it on a hook in the wardrobe. She dawdled, straightening clothes that didn't need straightening.
"I have no idea who you mean," she contended.
"Don't you?"
"No."
"I saw you, Sarah. Out in the forest."
"You were following me? How crass." "What's his name?"
"Oh, you must be referring to Tim." She'd sufficiently composed herself that she could face Jack, and she tried to be nonchalant, but she couldn't quite manage it. She went to her dresser and pretended to search for something in the drawer. "His mother died recently, and he doesn't have any other family, so he's all alone. I take him food occasionally."
"Liar," Jack hissed, and he uncurled from the chair and stalked over to her.
He leaned in, trapping her against the dresser.
He should have known she'd had a child. While she looked very much like slender, willowy Anne, Sarah had a mother's body. She was pleasingly rounded, with the type of lush bosom and curvaceous hips that only came after childbirth.
"How could you abandon him like that?" Jack charged.
She shoved him off. "If you're caught in here, there'll be a big ruckus. I'm not in the mood for it."
"Tell me about him!" he bellowed.
"Leave it be, Jack. It's none of your affair."
She skirted by him and flitted to the other side of the room, the bed between them as if it were a barrier that could keep him from asking the questions he was desperate to have answered.
"How old is he?"
"Nine."
"So you were sixteen when you became pregnant. Where is his father? Why wouldn't he marry you?"
"I have no details about his parentage. He was a foundling, given to a widow to raise."
With each volley, Jack was advancing on her, and she'd wedged herself into the space between the mattress and the wall. Her only escape would be to crawl across the bed.
"Who is his father!"
"How would I know?" she insisted through clenched teeth, her temper spiking in direct proportion to his own.
"And why is that?" Jack cruelly taunted. "Have you had too many lovers to count?"
She slapped him so hard that he staggered. His ears rang; his eyes watered. He stood like a fool, rubbing his burning cheek, clearing his muddled head.
"Go away," she said with a quiet dignity that shamed him.
"I'm sorry; I'm sorry. I'm being an ass. Forgive me."
He reached out to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder, but she batted it away.
"Go!" she repeated, tears threatening to fall.
"Who forced you to renounce him? Your aunt? Your cousin Percy?"
She was stoically mute, but he could see
in her expression that he'd hit close to the mark. Her aristocratic relatives had been scandalized, had coerced her disavowal, and from her distraught state it was obvious the situation was eating away at her.
He couldn't fathom the attitudes of the wealthy and privileged. He'd come from a rough world, where babies were the natural result of illicit deeds. A child wasn't forsaken simply because the parents had behaved badly. An unwed mother wasn't shunned or cast out. It was the affluent who punished their pretty girls for doing what was normal, for having base drives that were impossible to ignore.
"Sarah," he said, reining in his fury, "Jamie wouldn't give two figs about that boy's pedigree. Let's talk to him. You can publicly claim Tim, and bring him into the house."
"Are you mad?" she responded, dropping the pretence. "I could never claim him."
"But... why? Who cares what others would say?"
"I care! Me! I've lived here all my life, and the only thing I have to show for it is my good name."
"So Tim should continue to suffer merely because your neighbors might gossip about you?"
"You don't understand anything," she wailed, and she spun away from Jack, but the only place she could go was farther into the corner. She burrowed herself against the wall as if she yearned to become part of it and disappear.
"Then make me understand," he coaxed, and he stepped in and snuggled himself to her.
"Anne never knew," she whispered miserably. "They sent me away for a whole year, and they told her I was at finishing school. She believed I was off on a lark, having a holiday. She'd write me these chatty letters, and -I'd have to write back and pretend that... that..." Her voice trailed off. "If she found out now, I'd die of shame."
"Is Tim aware that you're his mother?"
"No, and I could never tell him. How would I explain that I reside in this grand mansion, but he's not welcome in it with me? How could I admit that I dumped him off on a stranger as if he were a pile of rubbish?"
"You can't leave him out in the woods to fend for himself."
"Oh, I don't know what to do."
The yoke of her secret was too much to bear, and she started to cry. Jack hated that she was so sad, and he turned her so he could take her in his arms.
He stroked her hair and murmured soothingly. Gradually, her tears slowed, and he reclined on the bed and brought her down with him. They stretched out together, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
