A Reluctant Bride

by Jess Michaels

  “The best way to help doesn’t have words,” he growled against her lips. “And it is far more wicked than I know I should be.”

  With that, he wrapped an arm around her back and slowly lowered her against the grass next to the lake. She gasped as she stared up at him, realizing in that moment what his intentions were. To have her, right here, out in the open where, in theory, anyone could see.

  But she wasn’t afraid of that outcome, somehow. It excited her to know that he wanted her so much. To know that this man of strict propriety was willing to toss it aside for the chance to touch and pleasure her.

  “Yes,” she whispered in answer to the question he asked with his eyes and his hands rather than his tongue. “Yes,” she repeated, and he caught the word with his mouth and there was nothing left to say.

  Jasper had never been a libertine. He’d grown up around two and watched how their utter lack of control damaged and destroyed everything good around them. He’d been with women over the years, of course—he wasn’t a monk either. But he’d never been the kind of man who would put a lady on her back next to a lake and ravish her.

  Until now, it seemed. Now there was nothing he wanted more as he ground his mouth to Thomasina’s and felt her answering desire in the desperate moans muffled on his tongue. She was lifting to him, already flush with erotic power.

  He was helpless to it and to her. And in that moment, he didn’t care about prudence or scandal or anything else but burying himself deep in her body and making them both forget everything but the rush of pleasure they would find together.

  He pushed at her skirts as he kissed her, gliding his fingertips along the smoothness of her calf, the gentle curve of her knee. He flattened his palm against the garter on her thigh and she hissed in pleasure as her pelvis lifted to bump his.

  “We don’t have much time,” he grumbled, reaching between them to unfasten the fall front of his trousers.

  She nodded and shoved her skirts up, bunching them between them. He positioned himself at her entrance, finding her already slick for him. With a shudder, he slid inside in one long stroke.

  She gasped, her eyes wide with surprise.

  He laughed as he ground his hips against her. “You must have known that was my intention.”

  She nodded. “Yes, I just thought it would…hurt.”

  He stilled his thrusts and stared at her. “Hurt? Why would it hurt?” He shook his head. “Did it hurt after the first time last night?”

  “No,” she said, smoothing her hands along his back to comfort him. “I just knew we hadn’t taken much time and you said that was how you readied me.”

  He wrinkled his brow, need still pulsing through the length of his cock as her body clenched around him. And yet her words still troubled him. “You thought it would hurt and you didn’t protest?” he asked.

  She swallowed. “I wanted you. Wanted this. And I knew you needed it.”

  He pursed his lips. “You wanted to please me.”

  She tilted her head. “You always say that like it’s a curse. What is wrong with pleasing?”

  “Nothing,” he said, bending to kiss the tip of her nose. “So long as it doesn’t trade your pleasure away in order to give me mine. That is not fair and not expected. Please don’t do it again.”

  She stared up at him, as if this was a foreign concept. He hated that she’d lived a life where it was. “Yes, Jasper. I won’t.”

  “Good.” He pushed aside his hesitations and rolled his hips again, jolting at the electric heat that shot up his shaft and made his balls tingle. “And now I want to show you how good fast and hard can be, my lady. Just as good as slow and gentle.”

  She nodded, reaching up to draw his mouth to hers. He drove his hips forward, grinding against her as he took her. She lifted to meet him, moaning and crying into his mouth as she sucked his tongue. The little thrill of pain made his eyes go wide as he stared down at her face. It was lined with concentration as she arched her neck back against the grass and cried out his name.

  Her sex milked him with ripples of release, massaging him until he could take no more of the pleasure. He slammed forward one last reckless time and then poured himself into her as he dropped his head into the crook of her neck and tried to find some purchase in a world that was now spinning with pleasure, spinning with her, spinning with possibilities he’d never considered.

  And a future that was suddenly seeming more possible when he held her in his arms.

  Chapter 16

  Two days into her young marriage and Thomasina had discovered one very plain thing: her husband was a man of many faces and many moods. From the laughing friend who had taught her to skip stones, to the passionate lover who claimed her by a lakeside - and countless times in their marriage bed - to the man who stood in the foyer now.

  A man who was almost unrecognizable when compared to the other two. His face was lined with dark emotion, his brow furrowed and his mouth turned down into a serious scowl as they watched his mother’s carriage pull onto the drive.

  In comparison to his dark expression, the dowager’s face was passive, emotionless. And she barely glanced at her only son and the rest as she said, “Well, the time has come. You were under no obligation to gather say goodbye, but here we are.”

  “Travel well, Mother,” Jasper said, stepping forward as if to kiss her cheek.

  Thomasina flinched as the older woman stepped aside and nodded coolly. “Goodbye, my lord. I will send word when I reach London. I think you will do the same and I will arrange for a ball to mark my approval of your bride. Some will talk of the switch, but certainly if we ignore them long enough, the scandal will fade.” She moved toward the door. “Goodbye.”

  She didn’t look back but swept from the foyer and into her carriage, as if it were nothing, even though the trip was long. Even though she might not see her only child for weeks or more.

  Thomasina watched Jasper as he waved to her. His jaw was set and some might see him as just as cold as his mother was, but Thomasina saw the truth. There was a flicker of regret in his countenance. A flash of pain that he buried deep under propriety and pride.

  The dowager’s disregard hurt him. Thomasina wanted to know more about that. She wanted to dig deeper so that maybe one day she could soothe that ache in him.

  “Well, that is that,” her father said, breaking the mood with a shake of his head. “I suppose we will follow soon enough.”

  Thomasina turned toward Mr. Shelley and then to Juliana. Her sister looked exhausted, and why wouldn’t she? When Nora hadn’t been able to find further evidence in Anne’s room, Juliana had begun work to convince him to stay. That had gone on for days and he still persisted in his plans.

  Thomasina gave Juliana a brief look filled with meaning and then took her father’s arm. “Let us take a walk, Papa,” she said, reverting to a more familiar address than she normally used. “That will do you good. Juliana wanted to read, I think.”

  Her father jerked his head between her and her sister. “Ah, I thought you were Juliana. Thomasina then. You wish to walk?”

  She bit back the painful reaction to his continued lack of differentiation between her and her sisters and forced a smile. “I do. And Jasper—”

  Her husband looked at her as if he had all but forgotten she and her family were there. “Yes, good. I have some work to do in the library. I’ve been putting it off too long. I’ll see you all later.”

  Thomasina flinched as he departed the foyer with very little further interaction. But she was driven to the course of turning her father’s mind. She had to focus on that, not Jasper’s dismissal.

  She edged her father out the door and down the path that led to the stable and beyond toward the beach below. As they walked, he drew in a breath and made a face. “I’ve never liked the sea air,” he said. “Sour, I think.”

  She tilted her head. “No? I find it bracing.”

  “Then you will be happy here,” he said. “And you should thank me for my quick ag
reement to give you over as replacement for Anne.”

  “That is what I hoped to speak to you about today,” she said softly. “You cannot truly think to leave before we know Anne is safe, can you?”

  Her father stared off toward the sea as they crested the bluff and picked their way down the narrow path to the beach. “Juliana has been haranguing me enough on this subject, and now you start. I thought you were the quiet one.”

  Thomasina sighed. “I am not only that, Papa. I have other parts of my personality, you know.”

  “Well, I like the one,” he grunted. “But I suppose you think, like your sister, that I owe it to Anne to stay.”

  “Don’t you care what is happening to her?” Thomasina asked. “Does it not wake you at night to picture it?”

  He seemed to consider that question, and then he sighed. “Anne was always wild. If she made bad decisions and does not like the consequences, then I suppose she will learn a lesson.”

  She drew back in horror at that dismissive response. She felt a sudden desire to rail at him, tell him what his disregard had meant to her, to her sisters, over the years. To demand the respect and care he ought to have given since their mother’s death.

  But she didn’t. Not only did she not have the strength to confront him on the subject, she knew it would do no good. Her father wouldn’t change. He didn’t care to change.

  He didn’t care at all, and now that fact slapped her harder than it ever had.

  If she wanted him to give in to her desires, she had to use a different tactic than the mere fear for Anne’s safety. That wasn’t enough to tempt him.

  “Don’t you worry that if you return without Anne, it will reflect badly on you?”

  “How could it? No one knows anything but that your sister was replaced as Harcourt’s bride.”

  “But that explanation won’t hold up if she isn’t with you when you return to London. You must worry that it will be said that you abandoned your daughter to some unknown fate? Versus if you stay here—if we are able to find her, you can either pretend that her potential marriage to this…this Ellis monster…was part of a greater plan. Or you can play on the sympathy of your friends for her terrible position.”

  He stared at her and she could see her words had sunk in. “I suppose that is true,” he said slowly. “I can play the grieved father, clucking my tongue at how poorly my motherless daughter turned out.”

  She flinched once more at his coldness and barely held her rage in check. She would get what she wanted if she could maintain control.

  He nodded. “You have convinced me,” he said. “I will stay here at least another two weeks and we will wait for your sister. I’m certain some word of her will come back to us by then.”

  “Yes,” Thomasina said, and didn’t have to pretend her utter relief. “Especially if you put some money into the proposition.”

  He wrinkled his nose as if the prospect were distasteful. “Seems like throwing good money after bad, but I suppose you’re right. Fine, I will discuss it with Harcourt after supper. Now I want to go examine this piece of flotsam that might be from a ship. You wait here.”

  He strode off down the sand, leaving her to wait for him in all his selfish glory. And yet she had obtained what she wanted, even though it didn’t feel like much of a prize.

  And it made her long all the more for Jasper, and the comfort she now felt in his arms as they settled into the life that would be theirs for many years to come. She only hoped he would open those arms to her. She needed it.

  Jasper cursed as he tossed aside yet another of his brother’s frivolous date books, marked with long lines of parties and games and meetings that couldn’t help him determine anything about Maitland’s claim of a treasure. They only proved how foolish his brother had been as he dragged centuries of their family name behind him through the mud.

  “I fear I’m interrupting you.” He jerked his head up and found Juliana Shelley standing at the library door, leaning on the jamb as she watched him through a hooded gaze.

  “What is it, Miss Juliana?” he asked as he shuffled the disorganized books on the shelf around and found the next journal in his brother’s collection.

  Her eyes went wide. “You really can tell us apart,” she breathed.

  “No,” he snapped, his frustration getting the better of him when it shouldn’t. “I can recognize Thomasina. Since Anne has taken off to God knows where…”

  He trailed off at how her expression fell, but she nodded slowly. “Ah, so a process of elimination,” she said.

  He stretched his back and tried to find some level of gentlemanliness in his ill humor. “Yes.” He sighed and softened his tone. “Were you in need of some assistance?”

  “I’d like to talk about my sister,” she said softly.

  Jasper squeezed his eyes shut. He had enough guilt about this subject when it came to Thomasina, he didn’t need Juliana’s worries on top of all that. “As I have told Thomasina numerous times, Anne is—”

  She moved a step closer. “I wasn’t asking about Anne.”

  His jaw tightened, and for a long moment, they just stared at each other across the room. Then he nodded. “I see.”

  Her expression collapsed a fraction and she worried her hands before herself gently. “It isn’t that I’m not worried about Anne. But she is resourceful.” She arched a brow. “And I somehow don’t believe you are as cold as you pretend to be when it comes to her safety. So I must believe that she will be found or return on her own.”

  “Then your concern is Thomasina,” he said.

  She nodded. “Yes. She is…gentle, my lord. She is kind, sometimes even to her own detriment. If her heart were broken…”

  “You think I would break her heart?” he asked, and was surprised how much that idea stung him.

  “Perhaps not on purpose,” she said.

  “Because I’m not so cold as I seem.”

  She pursed her lips. “Nor are you immune to her. I’ve seen you look at her. But that is the trouble in the end. She’ll see it too. She’ll want some kind of…some type of fairytale that people like Anne or you or—or me know doesn’t truly exist. But when Thomasina discovers it doesn’t, it will crush her.”

  Jasper bent his head. And there it was, the fear he felt spoken out loud by a woman who shared his wife’s face.

  “If she loves you, my lord, she will do anything in the world to please you. Anything to find some tiny hope that you might feel the same about her.”

  He nodded slowly. He could see that about Thomasina. He had felt it. “I’ve noticed how desperately she wants to please,” he said.

  Juliana flinched as if that observation were a pain to her. A heartbreak. “Yes. We all had our way of coping, I suppose.”

  He cocked his head as he examined Juliana. He had thought very little of her during his engagement, focusing instead on Anne because he felt he had to and then Thomasina because he couldn’t help himself. Now he found himself curious about this third Shelley sister.

  “And what was your way?” he asked.

  “I fix things,” she said softly. “But I might not be able to fix this if it goes too far.”

  “So you’re doing it now,” he said.

  She shrugged. “I’m trying. I couldn’t protect Anne. I don’t want to see Thomasina hurt.”

  Jasper opened his mouth to respond, but before he could there was the sound of a clearing throat at the door, and then Thomasina’s voice said, “Juliana?”

  All the color bled from Juliana’s cheeks and she pivoted to face her sister in the entryway. “Thomasina,” she gasped, her breath short.

  Thomasina entered the room, her gaze focused on Jasper and Juliana. Normally he could read his wife’s expression, he had become adept at parsing out the fine movements that told him her desire or her happiness or her fear. But in that moment she was emotionless. It was only the paleness of her cheeks and the tightness of her smile that made him realize she had likely heard some of their conversation
.

  It was evident from how Juliana’s hands shook that she knew it too.

  “I didn’t see you there,” Juliana said, coming closer to her sister.

  “No, I think you didn’t,” Thomasina said softly, and her stare held Juliana’s for a long moment. “Do you mind if I have a moment with my husband?”

  Juliana nodded, but as she moved toward the door, Thomasina caught her hand. They stood, eyes locked, and then Thomasina squeezed gently. Juliana seemed to relax and then exited the room.

  Thomasina sighed before she shut the door behind herself. Jasper smoothed his hands against his jacket as he watched her begin a slow stroll around the perimeter of the room, looking at all the books on the shelves. “Did you and your father enjoy your walk?” he asked.

  She jerked her face toward him and gave a wan smile. “You know he is always a pleasure. I did convince him to stay two more weeks, to at least look like he gave a damn about his missing daughter once the truth comes out.” She shook her head. “So it was not for nothing.”

  “Good,” he said.

  “Do you want to speak to me about what you and my sister were talking about when I came in the room?”

  He pressed his lips together. “About you.”

  “Yes.” She moved toward him. “She ought not have come to you to speak about me. I am an adult, after all. My marriage is not her business.”

  “She worries about you,” he said softly. “Don’t be too hard on her, it is a kindness not every person has from a sibling.”

  Her gaze relaxed a fraction and she sighed heavily. “I know she worries. It is her nature to look at each situation, find the problems and then try to fix them. I still object to her involving herself in my marriage.”

  He tilted his head, for this was a rare glimpse at a Thomasina who didn’t want to please. She was angry, though she barely showed it. But there was a fire in her eyes that drew him in.

  “Will you tell me what was said?” she pressed.