by Wendy Stone
Her arms came up, wrapping around his neck, her mouth seeking his with a passion unlike anything she’d felt before. She twisted against him, almost as if demanding he take her, take her now before she had second thoughts of their coupling and what it would do to her after. She pressed her breasts against his chest, hearing his gasp as her hands twined in his hair, pulling him even closer.
After the first startled moment, Jason was as lost as she was, his mouth moving across hers with demanding results. He took her in his arms, tasting the salt of her tears upon his tongue and lips, feeling the remnants of her sobs against his body as he pulled her even closer. His hands roamed her back, pulling her gown up until he could reach the hem then yanking it off of her head with one quick move that left her naked to his searching eyes.
And search they did, starting at the tip of her head, he drank her in, his eyes avidly looking for any sign of her pregnancy. Her breasts were larger, the taut berry nipples seeming even more turgid and pouting. But her stomach was still flat, her hips still lean. He couldn’t wait to see her rounded and heavy with his child, her breast full of warm, sweet milk to nurture the babe.
It made him groan, the thought of her seated before a fire, her lovely red hair pulled back, her breast bare but for the babe feasting upon her nipple. The babe, their babe, with his hair and her stormy eyes and fiery disposition. He would be warm and loved beyond all else.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered, his tone awed as he took in her form. “And you will be even more beautiful when you are rounded here with my child.” He touched her flat stomach, stroking his hand down until it rested against her silken curls.
“Jamie,” she began, only to have his fingers against her lips, hushing her.
“Please, Alyssa. Let me love you as I wish to tonight. Let all other things come second to this, to the way we feel. Let me hold you and love you until dawn’s light. And then we can talk of the things to come.” He moved closer, pulling her naked form against his clothed one, feeling her shiver at the contact. His hands roved over her back, slipping down to cup her bottom, pulling her into the hardness of his hips and the bulge that tented his breeches.
His lips found hers, not waiting for her answer, almost afraid to hear it, for he knew she would set him out. She was good and kind, and truthful, this deceit was killing her. If she could only know what it was doing to him, than perhaps she would find it in her to forgive him.
He lifted her easily, taking her slight weight in his strong arms and laying her across the soft bedclothes, following her down to lay above her, his weight distributed to his arms as he kissed her sweet lips, his tongue tracing their line before slipping between to taste of the dark passion she possessed.
She responded, unable not to when he surrounded her with his scent, with the heat of his skin, with the weight of his body. He kissed her long and longingly, putting every ounce of emotion he felt into his wooing, caressing her with his hands, seducing her with his lips. She moaned under his assault, tormented by the feel of him, her hands grasping at his shirt, fisting in the material as desire surged.
Her fingers shifted to his buttons, desperate to feel the smoothness of his skin against her breasts, wanting to know if it were as wonderful as she remembered. His shirt opened as if by magic, his chest pressing carefully against her sensitive breasts, careful to not hurt her.
Alyssa moaned against his lips, hearing his gasp as he felt the same burst of excitement at the contact. His hands moved over her, unable to stop from touching her as he had once, cupping the heaviness of her breast, his thumb brushing with heavenly pressure over her taut nipple. His mouth left hers, traveling slowly over her jaw, and laving open-mouthed kisses down the curve of her throat.
Jamie’s tongue dipped into the hollow of her collarbone, teasing her soft skin with little sucking kisses that had her writhing beneath his big body. He moved lower, finding the rounded curve of her breasts, gentle with her sensitive flesh as he cupped his big hand around it. Her nipple was ripe, taut and begging, and he teased her more with small licks and tiny nibbles on the delicate tip.
A laugh was torn from him as her hands came to his hair, digging into the dark mass under his mask and pulling his mouth down so that he was forced to take the pebbled flesh into his mouth. She whimpered at the heat of him, at the searing torment of his tongue as it stroked over her nipple, at the sucking tugs of his mouth that seemed to shoot to that fragile pink flesh between her thighs.
Then his fingers were there, carefully parting swollen lips and dipping between, into hot wetness that made him moan. She was ready for him, eager for his touch, for the invasion of his body into her depths, for sublime pleasure followed by the long slow fall into the sunburst of ecstasy. He teased her soft flesh, running his large finger over her wetness, pushing gently inside the tightness of her body until she was thrusting against his hand, her thighs closing around it, her eyes shuttered as she savored the feelings he brought.
When he slid between, his cock at the ready, hard and eager for a taste of her, she opened her eyes, staring up at him, his face shadowed by the play of light from the moon outside. And suddenly, it wasn’t Jamie that was there; it was Jason, staring at her with that light of love she’d seen so often in his eyes. It wasn’t Jamie’s dark eyes, but sky blue that gazed down at her, his lips smiling in pleasure at something she’d said or done, or even just because they were together.
She couldn’t do this, not to him. Not to Jason, no matter what her feelings were for Jamie. Jason was the one she was spending her life with. Jason was who she owed her loyalty, what little worth it was after what she had done.
“Jamie, stop!” she cried, breathlessly. “Please, stop,” she begged, pushing hard on his chest, moving away when he lifted off of her to curl into a ball at the side of her bed, her stomach a tight knot of anguish.
“What is it, Alyssa? Are you okay? Is it the baby? Did I hurt you?” He reached out to touch her, his hand brushing her shoulder. She jerked away.
“You have to leave, Jamie. Please. Just go,” she whispered, reaching for the bedclothes to cover her nakedness.
“Why?” he demanded to know, grabbing her arm and pulling her to her back, to lean over her. “You have to tell me. Why?”
Alyssa’s eyes opened, tear drenched and red rimmed, and she met his gaze with barely restrained emotions. “I am marrying Jason, if he will have me when he finds this all out. I will be his wife in all ways and I will try never to think of you again. Now, get out. Please,” she begged when he stared stonily down at her.
He rose, uncertainty eating at him as he dressed, seeing the slimness of her back as she turned to her side once more, no longer able to look at him. “I’ll go, Alyssa, because I do not wish to be the cause of your misery. But I cannot promise to stay gone. I love you. You carry my child within you.”
“It will be Jason’s child, if that is his wish. I am hoping he is such a man as to be able to accept me as I am, babe and all.” Her shoulders shook with repressed sobs. “I don’t want to see you again. Please, I beg of you, go!” The click of the door sounded like a herald of the end and the tears fell, hard and hurtful, her body shaking with the sobs she could no longer repress.
Jason stared at the door, hearing her sobs and feeling like the conceited, arrogant bastard that he was. He could stop her pain easily. It would take the flick of a knot and the removal of this damn scarf. She would see that he and Jamie were one and the same. It would ease her pain.
But it would begin his. Would she be able to forgive him? Would she be able to overlook his deceit? With one last look at the door, he turned away, heaving himself over the balcony, hanging by his hands at the railing for a single instant before dropping to the ground below. He found his horse grazing in the flower bushes and took up the reins, flinging himself into the saddle. Kicking the poor beast, he took off at a gallop, needing to ease the pain that filled him. He felt as if he could howl at the moon like some madman.
If he’d
looked back, he would have seen her shape, standing just inside the door, her body outlined by the moon. He would have seen her hand, shaking with the grief she felt, touch the door as if to reach out to him. Then, he would have seen her turn away.
Chapter Eleven
Jason stared at himself in the mirror, his fingers playing with the knot on his cravat. It was perfect, Dobbs having outdone himself for this day. But still, he couldn’t help but fuss with it, and with the cut of his coat and the fit of his breeches. His nerves wouldn’t allow him to sit still.
“Dobbs will have your head if you muck that up,” Teddy said, slapping the Duke’s hands away from his cravat. “And I’ll have your head if you don’t settle down. Good Lord, man! You love her, she loves you, and you’re getting married this morning. Sit back and enjoy it.”
“Do you know how difficult it was to keep her from getting me alone this week? She’s going to want to speak to me before the wedding, you know she will.” Jason paced the floor, sinking onto the sofa and then jumping back up to pace some more.
“You’ve made it this far, Jason. And besides, isn’t it considered bad luck for the bride to see the groom before the actual ceremony?” Teddy checked his own appearance in the mirror, smoothing back his dark hair with a steady hand.
“Can you believe it?” Jason spouted suddenly. “I’m going to be a father.”
“Unless you tell Alyssa that you’re this Jamie character, then I doubt you’ll have enough blood left in you to be much more than dead.” Teddy couldn’t help but chuckle as his friend’s face blanched. “It will be fine, old man,” he said, slapping him on the back. “Don’t worry so much. Marry the girl, bed her, and then let her tell you. She can play the apologetic, eternally sorry wife, you can be the big man and offer to raise her child as your own. She’ll be happy, and better yet, she’ll be grateful.”
“You’re an ass, Teddy. You know that?”
Teddy burst out laughing. “But just think, the first time you do something to annoy her, you can bring up the baby and she’ll forgive you instantly. You’ll have carte blanche dear boy, to sin as much as you please.”
“You are so lucky that I can’t have you carried up to stand next to me today, Teddy. Otherwise, I’d be laying you out on the carpet right now,” Jason growled, wondering why he’d felt the need to confide in Teddy. He felt bad enough about his little deception. He didn’t need Teddy’s remarks to make him feel worse.
He had agonized all week over how to tell Alyssa that he was Jamie, the father of her child, the only man she had ever bedded. But every time he saw her, he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t take the chance that she would walk away from him, baby or no baby. He couldn’t lose her.
There was a knock on the door and Teddy walked over to answer it, bringing back a folded up piece of paper and handing it to Jason. “I think you were expecting this,” Teddy said, staring at him expectantly. “The footman is waiting for an answer.”
“Can’t you just tell them you couldn’t find me?” Jason asked, staring down at the piece of paper in his hand as if it were a poisonous snake.
“He saw you in here, Jason. Come on, be a man and open the note. Let’s see what it says.”
It was what he had expected, a summons. She needed to speak to him before the wedding. It was important. He should follow the footman.
“And?” Teddy cocked an eyebrow at him, a slight smile on his face. “What are you going to do, man? Are you going to tell the girl, get it out in the open so that there are no more lies between you?”
Jason glared at Teddy. “I hope that when it’s your turn to walk down the aisle, Cat puts you through this.”
“Hmmm, I wonder if I could get away with sneaking in her window some night and despoiling her virtue. Think I could borrow your mask, old man?”
“Go to hell, Teddy.”
“You need company? Because I think you’re already there, my friend.” He clasped Jason on the back and pushed him towards the door. “Tell her. You’ll feel better having her know the truth, no matter how mad she gets.”
Jason went to the door, his steps slow, almost as if he were off to face the hangman and not the woman he was to marry this day. A hangman’s noose would probably have been easier to deal with than what he had to tell Alyssa.
She was waiting in a small room off her father’s library. Cat, playing the lookout for this visit, gave him a sympathetic smile before shooing him into the room with Alyssa. Wearing an old dressing gown over her shift, corset and the hundred some underskirts she wore, she paced the floor, her mind whirling. How would she tell him? Would she lose him? Her heart sank as she thought of him turning and walking out on her.
“Alyssa?” Jason walked into the room, hearing Cat close the door behind him. She looked beautiful, her hair elaborately styled, pearls hanging from her tiny earlobes, a string of them gracing her throat with a huge emerald clasp.
“Jason, I’m glad you came.”
“Isn’t it bad luck for a groom to see the bride before the ceremony?” he asked, bending to kiss her cheek. His hand rose, his fingers brushing that same cheek before he took both her hands into his. “You’re ice cold, Alyssa.” He brought both of her hands, cupped in his larger ones to his mouth and blew warm air over them. “Are you all right, love?”
“No, Jason, I’m not. Could we perhaps sit down?”
“Of course,” he said, drawing her over to a small sofa that was at the side of the room. It was a chaperones sofa, a place for the elders to sit to give an unmarried couple a little privacy with their talk, yet still allowing them to keep an eye out for inappropriate behavior.
“What is it, love? What has you so upset?” he asked turning to face her as she sat on the sofa next to him. He studied her face, her skin was pale and shadows bespoke of sleepless nights. The guilt of his duplicity sank even further into his conscience.
“I need to tell you something, Jason. It is important. And if you do not wish to marry me after you hear the truth of my actions, then I will understand.” She clenched her fists in her hands, worrying a small square of linen that had at one time been a handkerchief. With her mauling, it now resembled an old rag.
“I don’t think there is anything you could tell me that would make me turn my back on you, Alyssa. You know how I feel about you, don’t you, love?” He scooted closer to her, lifting her chin and kissing her gently on her trembling lips.
She responded eagerly for a moment before pushing him back. “You must let me tell you, Jason. You must let me talk. Please?” she begged, tears gathering in her eyes.
The tears were his undoing. He felt her sorrow and guilt and it made his own ten times worse. He opened his mouth to speak, to tell her he was Jamie, to get it out in the open, and felt her fingers press against his lips.
“We don’t have much time, Jason. I still have to put on my gown, if you still want the ceremony to go forward after we speak. So please, don’t say anything until after I tell you.”
Jason closed his eyes, swallowing back the words that had been about to rush from his lips. Opening his eyes, he nodded.
“I have been unfaithful to you, Jason. I…I no longer possess my maidenhead. It happened the night the highwaymen tried to hurt me. A man rescued me. He took me to an old barn. We…we made love in the hay, Jason.” She looked down at her hands, unable to meet his eyes any longer. “And then he came to me again one night, coming into my room while I slept.”
Jason swallowed as she paused, opening his mouth to speak, but she continued before he could.
“Those times were before I knew you Jason, I mean, we had met but you hadn’t begun to court me. After that, well he came twice more, but both times I sent him away. I couldn’t betray you like that. I couldn’t!” she insisted.
“Is that all?” he asked slowly, keeping his voice even.
“No.”
“Then what is the rest of it?” he asked.
“I…I am with child,” she said in a rush, looking up at him,
then quickly looking down at her hands, tearing the handkerchief into small strips of material.
“Y…you are sure?” he asked, hating himself for not speaking the words that would ease her conscience and put the guilt where it belonged, on his shoulders.
“Yes. I mean…” she paused, wiping her eyes with what little material was left in her hands. “I think I am.”
Jason sat back on the sofa, staring at the fireplace, out the glass doors that led to the garden, at the picture that stood above the mantle. Anywhere but at Alyssa. She only thought she was pregnant. She wasn’t sure yet. Perhaps there was no baby and he wouldn’t have to confess to his own guilt in the matter. They could put the whole of it behind them and never think of it again.
Alyssa stared at him, trying to guess his mind. But his face was blank, his body slumped against the sofa. She reached out a trembling hand, tentatively touching his arm. “Jason? I will abide by whatever decision you make. If you wish to end our engagement, I shall take the blame. It is my fault this happened. I should never have…” She couldn’t finish her sentence.
Jason turned his head, his eyes finding hers and recognizing in them the determination to see this thing though. “Then I suppose you should get dressed. You can’t marry me in that old dressing gown, can you?”
Her eyes huge, Alyssa felt her heart jump into her throat. “Does this mean you forgive me?”
“There is nothing to forgive, my love. You turned the bounder aside when he came to you after our engagement. What happened before, well, there is no changing it. I wasn’t a saint or a choirboy before you, and if you can forgive me those indiscretions, I see no reason not to forgive you.” He leaned over, kissing her wet cheek. “Now go bathe your eyes, or else people will think I’m forcing you into this.”
“But…but what about the baby?” Alyssa said, enjoying his hand on her arm, helping her up off the couch. “What if I am pregnant?” Her cheeks flushed as she said the word.