Perilous Pleasures

by Jenny Brown

  “Why?”

  “My mother drove him away. She insisted she’d never have married him had he been honest with her about the family taint. She vowed that if he stayed she’d never speak to him again and would raise his children to hate him. It was then that he fled to the Continent, hoping to find some medical man who might be able to prevent the disaster from occurring. But he died of a fever in Lausanne only a few months after he left home, and when Auld Annie delivered my sister, she was born twisted and mute, just as the cursed children of the Ramsays have always been.”

  He’d drawn himself as far away from her as possible on the narrow seat of the gig; his face had that wooden look again. “I should have told you before I convinced you to remain my wife. But I didn’t have the courage.”

  “Yes, you should have told me,” she repeated.

  “I expect that you’ll leave me now. But, wrong though it was”—his gray eyes grew fierce—“I’ve had too much happiness in my brief time with you to regret that I kept my secret. It’s only for our children that I mourn.”

  “You misunderstand me,” Zoe objected. “I didn’t say that you should have told me about the curse so I could have refused to become your wife. My reasoning is quite different. You should have told me so that I could have laid your fears to rest. Or did you think my character so paltry it couldn’t withstand such a challenge?”

  “My parents’ couldn’t.”

  “Then I think little of their characters.” She took a deep breath. “Accursed or not, your father asked no more of your mother than every man asks of the woman that he weds. Every time a man gives his seed to a woman he sets her on a path that may lead to her death in childbed. There’s no magic—or doctor’s skill—that can prevent it, for that is the way of the world. Eve’s curse is far older than yours. So whatever you might have kept from me, I knew what I was risking in wedding you. But even though we know what it means, we women still join ourselves to men. We dare the fates. That is the power of our love, and it is greater even than your magic.”

  His face held an expression hard to interpret. “But if you were to bear another cursed pair of twins, how could you not hate me for giving them to you?”

  “You insult me when you suggest I couldn’t love my own children.”

  “Even if your child were to be hideous? Lurching about, drooling, unable to speak?”

  “What do you take me for? Such a child would need more of a mother’s love, not less. And you wouldn’t hate such a child. You loved Charlotte.”

  “I did,” he said. “And I bowed in reverence before the strength of the spirit that sheltered in her broken body. But I was the only one who did, I, who was her twin. Though she couldn’t speak, I could hear her thoughts with my inner ear. As we grew up together, we learned to communicate in our own fashion, in a language of hands and fingers that only we understood. So I learned who she was, beneath the deformity, and I loved her.”

  “As you would love a child of your own who suffered the same way. As I would, too.”

  A tear sparkled at the corner of his eye, and she watched with fascination as it fattened, until it grew too heavy for its perch and dropped, spattering the back of his hand.

  “I thought I was falling in love with you,” he said, with wonder in his voice. “But until this moment I didn’t know what it truly meant to love. I’m humbled by what you’ve taught me.”

  Had Adam said he loved her?

  She was filled with a mix of joy and fear. The temptation to believe it was so strong, but what if his words of love were only the product of this moment of strong emotion? She mustn’t let herself be swept away. There would be time, later, to think over what he’d just said, away from his pain-wracked gaze that tore at her heart and made her want to embrace and comfort him. Only then would she dare take out his startling words and examine them, like a jeweler with newly purchased gems alone in a foreign country infested with robbers. But for now, she must just give him the comfort he needed.

  “There’s one thing more.” His voice had taken on a different tone. “Think long and hard before you answer me.” She forced herself to meet his eyes, feeling again that ache of love she always felt when they connected.

  “If you could love the damaged twin,” he said, “and I think you could—nay, I know you could,” he added fiercely, “wouldn’t you still hate the other child—the one who’d harmed his sibling in the womb and robbed it of a normal life?”

  She opened her mouth to say that of course she’d love such a child, just as he would. But stopped. “Who told you that an unborn child could blight the life of its twin?” Her voice was deceptively quiet.

  “Everyone. That was the nature of the curse. The lustful Ramsay heir is doomed to wound or kill his sibling in the womb. I heard it all my life, and if I had any question about its truth, the way my mother treated me would have answered it. She couldn’t bear to see me any more than she could my sister. She knew who had caused Charlotte’s misfortune.”

  “But that’s monstrous! How could she blame a babe unborn for such a thing?”

  “I sucked the life out of my sister, before she had a chance to grow,” he whispered. “That was what Auld Annie told her.”

  “And she believed it?”

  “We all believed it—except Charlotte herself, God bless her. But she was an angel.”

  “So you’ve lived all these years believing yourself to be a man who sucks the life from angels?”

  He bowed his head and said nothing. The weight of his suffering filled the small carriage.

  “I’ll give Auld Annie her notice in the morning,” Zoe snapped.

  “But she’s served our family all her life.”

  “Served them ill, I should say. How could she have said such a wicked thing to a small child? But, of course, it makes sense, if Auld Annie was the midwife, she’d far prefer to blame ancestral curses for your sister’s fate than have suspicion fall upon her own clumsiness.”

  She paused to collect her thoughts. What she said next must be just right or she would lose him. “Adam, no babe in arms has the strength to harm another. A babe at birth is completely helpless, all the more a babe unborn. But you had no younger siblings growing up alongside you, did you?”

  “No. I’ve had little contact with children at all. It was too painful to be around them, knowing I could never look forward to having my own.”

  “And you never assisted at a childbirth?”

  “Physicians never do. Modesty forbids it.”

  “Then we shall have to remedy that, for it goes a long way to explain why you could believe something so impossible. But there’s no excuse for you to continue in such a mistaken belief.” She took his hand and squeezed it to give him courage. “I can’t control what our children’s fate might be. Perhaps you’re right and there is some family taint that might be passed on. But if we are unlucky, and one of our children should be born suffering some misfortune, I should hope you wouldn’t load such a burden of guilt on the tiny shoulders of the child who escaped unhurt. That alone I couldn’t forgive. Such a child would need more of your love, not less.”

  He shuddered again, and she felt the air quiver around him. Then he reached over and embraced her convulsively, holding her tightly to his chest as if clinging to her for his very life. Only after a long time had passed did he finally speak.

  “Our children, whatever their fate, will be blessed to have you as their mother.”

  “Don’t make so much of it.” She fought to keep her emotions under control. “Any woman with sense would have said the same thing.”

  But she couldn’t keep herself from nestling deeper within his embrace and letting the love that radiated from him engulf her. For it was love. She couldn’t doubt it. And she was hungry for it, whatever the cost might be of giving in to her hunger.

  His lips met hers and brushed against them gently, in a tender kiss of the heart and of the soul. His kiss asked nothing from her but that she open her heart to him and let hi
m in. She stroked his stubbled cheek gently, to let him know that he was safe, as they clung together in the moonlight, hearts pounding, close in a way that had moved beyond desire.

  She’d feared all this time that she was only a burden to him. She’d hated loving him, thinking she wanted so much more from him than she could ever repay. But she’d been wrong. It had been her own pain that hid the truth from her. He needed her desperately and would need as much from her as she might ever take from him.

  They were well matched, after all. She could love him safely, without fear.

  Chapter 15

  Somehow they returned to the manor, though Adam was barely aware of anything but the relief at having his lifelong burden eased off his shoulders. It wasn’t gone—no, and it would never be—but the woman he loved had offered her own immense strength to help him bear it.

  Fate might still deal harshly with the two of them, yes—but whatever lay in store for them, she would be there with him, soothing the terrors that sprang from his overly imaginative nature with her practical, down-to-earth insights—and the loving heart she tried so hard to keep hidden. He need only look at her ravaged face to understand why. But beneath the tough shell she’d grown to survive the rejection that had formed her personality, her heart beat strongly, and for him. Was it only the power of his spell that made her care for him, or was there something more? Would she have tried so hard to comfort him if her attachment was only the product of his enchantment? If her love wasn’t real, would he have found such peace with her?

  Whatever the case, he’d give her all that he was capable of and earn the love he’d stolen with his spell. And he would start now, by making her his wife at last. He would worship her with his body and unite with her in the holy rite that would join not just their bodies but their souls.

  Somehow, he brought the gig back to the stables and gave instructions to the stable boy who greeted them. Then he took Zoe’s warm hand and led her into the manor house, his steps springing with the joy that filled him as he ushered her to her chamber.

  When they found themselves alone in its privacy, he hesitated. He was eager to consummate their marriage. But he mustn’t assume that she was. With what he’d just told her, she knew now what it would mean for them to do so. She might be having second thoughts. He must not let his own relief in sharing his burden blind him to what that burden would mean for her.

  Perhaps he should leave her now and give her time to think, away from his presence and the strong pull that their bodies exerted on each other. Perhaps he, too, needed to be alone, lest his passion to possess her had blinded him to some truth.

  But the warmth in her deep brown eyes and the tender way she tightened her grasp on his hand as she led him to her bed made it impossible. It was time. It was long past time. Tonight he wouldn’t leave her bed. Not until she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was beautiful and adored. And his.

  Adam reclined beside her on one elbow, so close Zoe could smell the musky evidence of his arousal. As she reached toward the top button of her gown and unfastened it with shaking fingers, the fabric fell open, but only for an inch, revealing a tiny triangle of skin. He ignored it. Instead, he reached out and stroked her pitted cheek.

  “Your face is beautiful,” he said.

  She froze. “You don’t need to lie to me, to make me want to make love to you.”

  His fingers reached for her ruined face and stroked the craters that marred it. She went numb as she always did. Why must he do this now, when they had come so close to intimacy?

  “Zoe,” he said, in the voice he would have used with a tiny child. “I’m telling you the truth. I don’t see things the way an ordinary man might see them. Surely you know that by now. I’m a surgeon. My knife has cut through skin of a dead woman’s face. I know the name of every muscle that lies beneath this cheek. I’ve seen the bones.”

  He stroked her face again, this time with a firmer pressure that forced her to feel his hand against her skin, even through her numbness. “This body is just a shell. I’ve spent many a night in sleepless vigil, seeking to understand what inhabits our bodies and animates our flesh. I’ve learned to see with the eye of spirit and to hear with the ear of soul.”

  He placed his forefinger on her chest. “Can’t you understand? It’s you that I find beautiful—the you who dwells inside this gown of flesh.”

  She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “If only I could believe that.”

  “I will make you believe it,” he said gently. “I will make love to the soul that inhabits this body until you cannot doubt it.”

  She blinked back tears. His gaze had dropped so that his long lashes veiled his eyes. “You aren’t the only one with fears,” he said. “Though my body may be fair as the world judges such things—” He stopped, choked with emotion. “When my soul meets yours and is fully revealed to you, I fear that you will find me hideous.”

  “How could I? I can sense your inner beauty, too, though I don’t have your training, just a woman’s heart.”

  “We men must study long to learn what women know by instinct.”

  “That instinct tells me you are beautiful inside. Despite your scars.”

  He pulled her close. The wrenching feeling that came with tears rose within her, though whether it was hers or his she couldn’t say. She took a convulsive breath, and a moment later, he matched it with one of his own. Then his lips brushed over her ravaged cheek and met hers in a deep and soothing kiss.

  She gave herself up to it, searching for him in the touch of his lips, knowing he was there, inside the body he was wearing. His soul called out to her and begged her to join him. She must do so, despite her numbness and her fear.

  She would be beautiful for him. She must be, if he were to find the courage to show her his deeper, hidden wounds.

  When their lips broke contact, his strong hands kneaded the tight muscles of her shoulders, patiently, as if summoning her body to life. His fingers pressed on delicate spots along her neck, hard at first, until the pent-up tension released in a long, slow ache that turned to pleasure. Then they moved on with a touch so light that when he took his hand away, she could still feel his touch reaching her through the empty air.

  As he massaged her, waves of energy radiated down her spine, flowing through all of her body, and awakening a new kind of hunger. It was delicate and yet compelling, peaceful and rousing at the same time. Not the gnawing ache of the virgin’s sickness, or the desperation brought on by his spell, but something new that she didn’t dare to name, which came from a new place, filled with trust instead of madness.

  Her fingers fumbled at the next button on her gown, but they were shaking so badly she could barely unfasten it.

  “May I help?” he asked.

  She nodded and he undid it with fingers not much steadier than her own. As each button gave way, she felt a betraying blush spread over her body. She’d practiced shame too long to be able to entirely prevent it. But as the old familiar feeling rose, crying that he couldn’t want her flawed body, an answering voice replied, His body is just a shell. And she knew, then, it wasn’t her body that attracted him, but what dwelled within. That was what he loved, her inner self, which he saw with that wizard’s eye of his.

  Finally, when all the buttons were opened, she shrugged out of her gown and turned so he could untie the laces of her stays. When he’d released them, she turned back to face him, covered in only her shift. He reached toward the bed and pulled aside the heavy quilted counterpane, making a place for her. She climbed in, and safe under the shelter of the sheet, she removed her shift.

  He sat up and let his legs dangle over the edge of the bed. For a moment she couldn’t help but fear he’d changed his mind yet again and that he’d leave her. But the rustling as he removed his shirt and the sound of more buttons coming undone as he loosened his breeches reassured her. He’d only turned away out of respect for her modesty. She huddled more closely under the sheet, torn between a desire to see everythi
ng and the fear that she would do something to ruin the encounter.

  At last, he climbed into the bed, stretched out beside her, and took her again into his embrace. She felt the hard bands of muscle on his bare arms rippling beneath the tattooed serpents as he drew her close to him. She buried her nose in the wiry hairs on his chest, no longer impeded by cloth. Yet skin-to-skin with him in nakedness, she grew rigid. As much as she yearned to be his, she couldn’t help but fear that something would drive them apart again.

  But with that sensitivity that she was coming to expect from him, he released her and said, “This time will be different. I’m yours now, if you want me.”

  “I do.”

  “Then my only wish is to give you pleasure.”

  “But what of your pleasure? I don’t wish to make you suffer.”

  He laughed. “You’re too late. I’ve been suffering ever since you climbed into my bed in the inn. At least now there’s some hope that my suffering, in time, may be relieved.”

  She welcomed his joking tone. Somehow it made it easier to find her way to him in this perilous state where they had failed to connect before.

  “I’d like to give you pleasure, too,” she said, “if I knew how. But I didn’t attend my mother when she offered to teach me about such matters. I didn’t think I’d ever need to know of them.”

  He smiled. His gray eyes gleamed impishly in the candlelight. “That’s probably just as well. I’d like to be the one to teach you about pleasure.”

  “Did you study that, too, when you learned your magic?”

  He shook his head no. “Like you, I didn’t think I would need to know of such matters. Until I received the Dark Lord’s deathbed command, I expected to live out my life celibate.” His long lashes dropped. “I hope I won’t disappoint you.”

  “It’s possible, I suppose,” Zoe replied, taking up that joking tone that made it easier to be with him. “But if you would but kiss me as you did a moment ago, I imagine I should be able to make the best of my situation.”