by Linda Jones
“Marido, “Anya whispered softly, “if this is what our lessons will be like, I believe I will enjoy having you as a tutor.”
Julian dropped his hands and took a step back, as he realized how close they were, how intimate. Good Lord, Anya had done nothing blatant, and still he had allowed his thoughts to take a dangerous path.
“Just… observe your cousin Valerie. She walks quite properly.”
Anya turned and smiled up at him. “I rather like the way you assist me, marido.”
A test, he reminded himself. The test of a lifetime.
Chapter 5
She had never been afraid of storms. The cottage she had lived in on Puerta Sirena had been much less substantial than this house, and yet she had never quaked at the sound of thunder.
Tonight Anya quaked. She quaked so hard her bones rattled.
Without making a sound, she crept through the sitting room and into Julian’s bedroom. She eased the door open and closed it again, tiptoed to his bedside and stood there, looking down at the indistinct lump in the darkness. Somehow knowing he was close made her shake a little less.
For more than two weeks he had attempted to reform her. He taught her how to speak, how to walk, how to dress. And she indulged him because it suited her to do so. She had not thrown anything in days.
She did not know why she liked Julian DeButy so much. He would not allow her to seduce him, even though it was clear to her that he did desire her. Like everyone else, he wanted to make her into something she was not. A lady.
And yet there were times when she knew he preferred her just as she was. Those moments were rare, but she had begun to treasure them.
Lightning flashed, the room was bathed in bright light for an instant, and in that moment she saw Julian staring up at her from the bed, where he lay wide awake and suspicious.
“What are you doing here?”
Thunder shook the house, too soon after the lightning, and she jumped out of her skin. When she had recovered, she answered confidently. “I thought you might be frightened by the storm.”
“No,” he said calmly. “I’m fine, thank you.”
Well, she was not fine—and if her husband was any kind of man at all he would see that! “That is good,” she said softly, turning to go.
“Anya,” Julian called as she laid her hand on the doorknob and prepared herself to weather the storm alone in her own room. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
She heard the rasp of a match behind her, the rattle of Julian’s bedside lamp. A moment later a warm glow filled the room, and she breathed deep in relief. Yes, that was much better. Still, she did not turn around.
Julian left the bed. “You’re shaking,” he said, his voice low.
“I am…” Another flash of lightning interrupted her, and she braced herself for the thunder that would follow. Something she did not like at all welled up inside her. “Not,” she finished when the rumble faded.
Julian laid his hand on her shoulder. “Is it the storm? Are you afraid?”
Ashamed, wanting to deny the fear, Anya forced herself to nod and whisper, “Yes.”
“There’s nothing to be frightened of.” His voice was calm, soothing, reasonable, and kind.
Anya turned to face her husband, tilting her head so she could look him in the eye. “I do not know why I am afraid. Until I came here I was never afraid of storms, but now… each one is worse than the last. It seems they always come at night.” Her heart hitched.
“Does the storm make you remember when your ship went down?”
Anya shook her head fiercely. “No. I remember nothing before Puerta Sirena. Nothing at all.” But lately she did remember. Pictures in her mind, mostly. Small remembrances. Sitting on the steps with Valerie, the two of them playing with their dolls. Eating gingerbread in the kitchen. Seymour, as mean then as he was now, pulling her pigtails. And sometimes, for brief flashes of time, she remembered her mother. A tall, slender redheaded woman with a warm smile and… and… she didn’t want to remember. Remembering hurt her heart.
“Come and sit on the bed,” Julian said, taking her arm and leading her there. “We’ll wait out the storm together.”
Together. It was such a nice word. She sat on the edge of the bed, but Julian did not. He stood before her, his head cocked to one side so he could study her face. And she could not help but smile, just a little.
His nightshirt was the silliest thing she had ever seen. It hung to his knees, and beneath the hem he had very nice, strong legs, dusted with dark hair. Fine man’s legs that should not be constantly hidden. Usually his clothing fit him snugly, showing off his frame, but this nightshirt was misshapen, horribly baggy.
She wore his other nightshirt, as it was more comfortable than the gowns her grandmother had provided. The garment she had taken from her husband was soft and worn, and it smelled of him, just a little. She had put it on before coming to Julian’s room, knowing that if he woke and found her there naked he would surely throw her out.
Her smile disappeared when the lightning came again, and again. Her heart thundered and she could not breathe. Most of all, she wanted to scream. She did not.
“It’s all right.” Julian was obviously concerned. He paced before her, stopping only to study her face on occasion.
The storm grew fiercer, and her body shook. She hugged herself tightly, but no matter how she tried she could not make the quaking stop. Julian finally sat on the edge of the bed and placed his arm around her. She turned her face into his shoulder and buried it there. Yes, that was better.
She took a few deep breaths, but when the thunder came again she lurched. Julian tightened the arms that encircled her.
“I should awaken your grandmother,” he said, starting to move away. “Perhaps she’ll know what to do.”
“No!” Anya clutched at his nightshirt and held on. “Do not go. I… if I can only stay here until the storm ends.” Not just here in this room, but right here with Julian’s arms around her and her face buried against his shoulder.
“All right,” he agreed softly.
The storm did not let up, and Julian did not release her. It was very nice, the way he held her so close. He mumbled a lot, and she could rarely tell what he was saying. Sometimes he seemed angry. Other times he did not seem angry at all. But he did not let her go. Not once.
Julian was a good man. A good husband, even if he would not lie with her.
The storm lasted longer than any of the others she remembered. A couple of times she started to doze off sitting up, but she never quite went to sleep. Julian quit mumbling. Her heart stopped pounding like it was about to burst through her chest, and settled into an even, steady rhythm.
Anya was not sure how she and Julian ended up lying on his bed, but it was very nice. She rested her head on his shoulder, and he kept his long, strong arms around her. He breathed deep and even, and when she hid her face against his shoulder she was not so afraid. Still, just before she drifted into a deep sleep, she thought of a wild ocean and a raging storm and a wildly tossing ship she claimed not to remember.
*
Julian turned his face from the intrusive morning sun and buried his nose in the soft and fragrant hair that fell across his chest and neck. Hair. He opened one eye, and saw the sun gleaming on red strands. He took a deep breath, and his lungs were filled with Anya. Wild and sweet-smelling and arousing Anya. His forbidden wife, the temptation of a lifetime.
She slept on her side. Her head rested on his shoulder, one leg—bare since the nightshirt she wore had ridden up to her hip—entwined with his, and her arm rested familiarly across his midsection. Her breathing was deep and even and peaceful. He lifted the hair that covered half of her face, to see that last night’s terror no longer showed there. He was taken with the notion that if he kissed the freckles on her nose he would find them sweet.
He had never slept with a woman in his arms, and the experience was quite disturbing. Anya’s body skimmed and pressed and
intertwined along one side of his own, and the sensation of flesh to flesh was more than he could bear. He should extricate himself at once and leave Anya to sleep, peaceful and alone.
But he didn’t move. Half asleep and vulnerable, holding her for a while longer seemed more important than his principles. Besides, there was nothing wrong with enjoying the warmth and comfort of another human being’s presence. As long as they went no further. He closed his eyes and almost drifted off again. A sleeping man could not be condemned for taking liberties with his own wife.
A return to sleep eluded him, and he was nagged by doubt. Stubbornly, he pushed those doubts aside. He knew he was right in his convictions. Studies had shown conclusively that chastity was best for mind and body. It wasn’t as if he loved Anya madly and could not tear himself away from her. He had known her for less than a month, and while he had come to like her, anything more was out of the question. What he felt for her was lust, nothing more. Common lust. And he knew from experience that with lust, which might be pretty and exciting when one was caught in the throes of it, there was always a price to pay. A high price.
One of the things he most liked about his wife was her honesty. She might not be able to express herself in a proper way, but she also never lied. Well, except for that moment last night when she’d tried to tell him she was not afraid. But her lie had been so obvious, and so quickly rescinded that he forgave her that one transgression.
Some women were much better liars than Anya. Consummate liars. Demons of deceit.
The woman at his side squirmed and moaned. Her leg lifted, skimming along his and lifting his nightshirt. The activity beneath his nightshirt belied his insistence that he did not want this woman in his bed. He closed his eyes. He was only human, after all.
Anya was waking, thank goodness. Her body stirred slightly, her breathing changing. In a moment she would realize where she slept and crawl out of the bed. Surely she would.
But she didn’t. Eyes closed, breathing deep and even, she shifted her head until it rested on his chest and her soft breasts pressed against his ribs. She sighed, curling herself around him. Her warm breath touched him through the linen. Her body, from end to end, was unbearably soft and sweet. He throbbed and ached, wanting her. Needing her in a way he had never needed anything.
She continued to move—an inch here, a subtle shift there—until she practically rested atop him. Her nightgown, the nightshirt she had confiscated from him on his first night in the house, rode up almost to her waist. Her hair spilled across his chest, and he buried one hand there, hoping to wake her as his fingers threaded through the red locks, moving so gently he knew he likely would not. Like it or not, he was not ready to give her up.
And she was right there. Her femininity so near to the evidence of his desire. Her body and his so close to coming together, that with a shift of his hips he could be inside her. More than anything—
“Good morning.” She purred like a cat as she lifted her head and looked down at him. And smiled. Everything in him tightened, some part of his mind spun out of control. For a moment, a long, terrifying, oddly beautiful moment, he felt the beast Anya said slept inside him. And then she yawned and rolled away.
Julian yanked up the coverlet to conceal the embarrassing tent his nightshirt had become, and Anya sat up and lifted both arms above her head. He watched her stretch and come awake, and it was an amazing sight. He wanted her, still, but dammit he should not—could not—have her.
When she laid her eyes on his face, she smiled. It was not one of her blatantly brazen come-hither smiles, but one of the real, open grins he had come to love. To like, he amended. To like.
“Thank you,” she said softly, and he knew the words did not come easily—or often—to her luscious lips. “I do not know why lately I am so afraid of storms. They have come to the island all my life, and I have never before shuddered at the sound of thunder.”
Julian took a deep breath and tried to compose himself. Outwardly, at least. Inside he was dancing. Exploding. Falling apart. But his voice and face remained calm. “If you’d like, we can discuss what has happened since you returned home. Perhaps we can discover the reason for your newfound fear.”
Anya’s smile faded. “Perhaps I do not want to know.”
“If you do not understand the fear, you will never be rid of it.”
Anya reached out to him. Her soft fingers lightly brushed his cheek. “You need to shave, marido.”
It was her way of neatly changing the subject, and Julian allowed her to get away with it. “I imagine I do.”
“And your hair is such a mess.” She very briefly and lightly ruffled his hair, using both of her hands. “You probably should have a haircut, but I like it as it is.”
“I usually get so lost in my research that I don’t even think about getting a haircut when I should. Sometimes Aunt Helen will remind me.”
“I like it as it is,” she said again, and he believed her.
If she continued to look at him like this, he might never cut it again. He wished he could tease Anya about her messy hair, that he could casually run his fingers through the red strands without being overcome with the desire to ravish her.
Anya’s eyes were so open and real. He was struck with the notion that she would never lie. That she was incapable of deceit. What a rare woman she was, if that were true.
“I have not always been kind to you,” she said, “as you have been to me. You are a good man, Julian DeButy.”
No, I am a common man, inches away from attacking my wife. “I try to be.”
“Last night you were…” Her eyes went a little misty. “Wonderful. How can I ever thank you?”
He should take advantage of this opportunity and ask her to stop trying to seduce him. Or to quit throwing things when she did not get her way. Or to come back into his arms and help him break all his promises to himself. He might ask her to wear clothing when they were alone, to quit smiling at him, to stop smelling so good. But he didn’t.
“No thanks are necessary. I’m just glad to see that you’re feeling better this morning.”
Anya bound from the bed. What magnificent legs she had! They seemed to be made for bounding. And… other things.
“I am feeling much better. Shave and get dressed, and we will go down to breakfast together. I am starving!”
When she was gone, Julian collapsed back onto his bed.
*
One amenity of her new home Anya had learned to love was the bathtub. Large and deep and situated in its own room on the second floor, it was Anya’s idea of decadence. There were fat towels and scented oils and hot water, and she could sit in the tub for as long as she wished.
Julian usually bathed late at night, after Anya had gone to bed. She suspected he did so in the hopes that she would leave him be. And she had, up until this point.
The night before, when he had held her as the storm raged, something had happened. Her husband had comforted her, tried to take away her fear. That was the action of a kind man, a man who cared, at least a little, for his wife. He could have accepted her assurance that she was not afraid and sent her back to her room, but he had not. Instead he had held her, sheltered her.
She had begun to lose hope where Julian was concerned. He did want her, but he was doing his best to prove that his blasted morals were stronger than his desire.
But something had changed as he had held and comforted her. They were closer than they had been. They were one step closer to being man and wife in truth, as well as in name.
So tonight as he bathed, she opened the door on the cozy room where the tub was located and stepped inside, wearing nothing but his confiscated nightshirt and a smile.
Julian almost jumped out of the water, then thought better of such a move. Anya tried to peer beneath the water, as nonchalantly as possible, and Julian laid his washcloth across it. The cloth floated and obscured her view. “What are you doing here?”
“I have come to wash your back,” she s
aid sweetly.
He held aloft a long-handled brush made just for that purpose.
“But is it not a wife’s duty to see to the well-being of her husband?”
“Of course, but…”
“I am trying to be a good wife. Truly, Julian.” She knelt beside the tub and whisked the washcloth from the water.
She was tempted to look blatantly, reach beneath the water, and arouse him. But Julian was not affected by such open advances. Physically he would respond, but his bloody brain always interfered. No one had ever taught her subtlety, when it came to seduction, but she was certain she could learn.
“Lean forward,” she said, scooting to the side so she could take the washcloth to his back. Oh, and a fine back it was; muscled and lean, hard and shapely, the way a man’s back should be. She gently worked the washcloth up and down his back, and eventually Julian relaxed.
“Soap,” she said simply, offering one hand. He complied, depositing the bar of soap on her palm. She worked up a nice lather and continued. Sometimes she ran the cloth all the way up to his neck, adding a touch of lather to the ends of his hair. Then she would wash down his spine, allowing her hand to dip beneath the water.
“You are my favorite teacher,” she said softly. “You teach me new things without making me feel stupid.”
“You are many things, Anya,” he said lowly, “but stupid is not one of them.”
She gave a half-smile to his back. “I have felt stupid often since coming here. The other tutors, they despaired of ever teaching me anything. Grandmother never said I was stupid, but I see that look in her eyes, sometimes. That look that tells me she is disappointed that I am not more like Valerie.”
“You have your own attributes, Anya,” he said kindly. “I’m sure your grandmother does not compare you to Valerie.”
She raised the washcloth to his neck and made small circles with her fingers, watching the lather build on his skin and creep into his dark hair. “What attributes?” she asked lowly.
