Heiress Gone Wild

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  Chapter 18

  Her eyes, wide and dark, were like those of a wounded animal, and he approached her that way, moving slowly into the room and closing the doors behind him as softly as possible. He circled the trunk, then he pushed the billowy folds of her nightgown out of his way to avoid sitting on them and eased down cross-legged on the floor beside her.

  “Marjorie,” he began, but she gave him no chance to say more.

  “This is an appraisal of the Rose of Shoshone necklace,” she said. “It’s dated July 21, 1888, three years after he left me. Did you see it? Of course you did. You packed his things, you had charge of his affairs.”

  He glanced at the letter, then back at her. “Yes, I saw it.”

  “So, you knew.” Her eyes narrowed in accusation, and he felt it like an arrow through his chest. “You knew my father had come to New York while I was there, and you didn’t tell me.”

  “No. I mean, not exactly,” he amended as he saw the disbelief in her face. “Yes, I knew he’d gone to New York to have the sapphires cut and set, but that trip was five years before we met, and I didn’t learn about you until two months ago. You know that. And yes, I saw the appraisal when I packed his things after he died, but because I had thought you were a child, I took it for granted that his trip to New York was before you were born. After I met you, I didn’t connect your age with the date of Tiffany’s appraisal.”

  He stared at her, unhappily aware he’d had other things on his mind since they met. “Call me thick, but I didn’t put the pieces together until this very moment. If I had, I’d have told you. I’m sorry, Marjorie.”

  “Why?” she asked, all her earlier bewilderment back in her voice. “Why didn’t he come see me? You knew him. Tell me why.”

  He wished he could. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “If I were to guess, I’d say he meant to, and then . . . well . . . he funked it at the last minute.”

  “He was a coward. That’s what you mean.”

  “It’s hard for me to think of him that way.” Jonathan considered, trying to be objective about the man who’d been like a brother to him, but it was impossible. “We braved many things together, and he never shirked. He had plenty of physical courage, but . . .”

  “But he was afraid of a little girl?” She made a sound of contempt, one he was forced to admit her father richly deserved.

  “I’m only guessing,” he said.

  “And you called him a friend?” She shook her head. “A poor friend, who abandons his own daughter, makes promises to her that he doesn’t keep, and strings her along with hope for something that he knows won’t ever happen.”

  He couldn’t argue that, and he realized that ever since meeting Marjorie, his opinion of his friend had been steadily eroding, though his own grief and sense of loyalty had prevented him from seeing it. “Yes,” he agreed simply. “I’m sorry.”

  Her face twisted, and it took everything he had not to move. She needed a shoulder to cry on, a comforting embrace, but he could not provide that sort of solace. He didn’t dare. God help him, he wasn’t strong enough.

  Instead, he did the safe thing, the proper thing. He pulled out his handkerchief.

  “I hate him,” she choked, her words a seething rush of pain and anger as she snatched the handkerchief. “I hate him,” she repeated, but with less venom. Her head lowered, her shoulders sagged. “Hate him,” she whispered, crumpling Jonathan’s handkerchief into a ball.

  “No,” he said gently. “You don’t.”

  She looked up, the tears making her brown eyes glisten in the lamplight, and he felt as if he were sliding precariously close to the edge of a cliff. “I should hate him.”

  “Undoubtedly. But you don’t.”

  She gave a sob, acknowledging the truth of that, and more than ever, he wanted to wrap his arms around her, comfort her—no, he corrected at once, shredding any pretenses of that sort. Chivalry would just be an excuse.

  Desperate for a distraction from the dangerous direction his thoughts were taking, he turned to the trunk, rising on his knees. “If it’s any comfort,” he said as he began rummaging through the trunk, “I know how it feels to have a rotten father. And what it’s like to want to hate him. But you can say one thing about your parent that I cannot say about mine.”

  “What’s that?”

  Instead of answering, he pulled out what he’d been looking for—a good-sized wooden box that looked rather like a pirate’s treasure chest and a ring of keys. He moved back a bit to set the chest on the floor, unlocked it with one of the keys, and lifted the lid, revealing folds of yellowed silk that he pulled back so that she could see the fat bundles of letters beneath, each one tied with a ribbon.

  Tossing the keys back in the trunk, he pulled the top bundle of letters out of the chest and held them out to her. “Yours, I think?”

  “Yes,” she whispered in astonishment, dropping his handkerchief and rising on her knees to take the bundle from his hand. “But . . .” She paused and looked up, frowning in perplexity. “Did you read them?”

  “Certainly not,” he answered, affronted. “A gentleman does not read another man’s letters, even if the man’s dead.”

  “Sorry,” she apologized at once. “But how did you know they’re mine?”

  He turned one bundle over so that she could read the address written on the back of the bottom envelope. “I don’t think he knew two girls at Forsyte Academy, do you?”

  “He kept my letters.” She looked at the chest, then back at the bundle in her hands. “It looks like he kept them all.”

  “Not only that. He stored them in a treasure chest, wrapped in silk.”

  “But—” She broke off and looked at Jonathan again, clearly confounded. “Why would he do that?”

  “Perhaps because, in his inadequate way, he loved you. Treasured you.”

  She stared at him, shaking her head as if refusing to believe it. Suddenly, her hands fell to her sides, and the letters slid out of her fingers, hitting the carpet by her hip with a thud, and then she was crying, silently, tears sliding down her cheeks, and he couldn’t bear it.

  “Don’t.” His voice was fierce to his own ears as he lifted his hand to cup her cheek. “Don’t cry.”

  “I don’t know why I am,” she whispered.

  He thought of his own lost dreams. “I do,” he murmured, his thumb brushing tears away. “Hiraeth.”

  “What?” She frowned, puzzled by a word unfamiliar to her. “What’s that?”

  “It means grief for that which is past and gone, or for things that never were, or homesickness for places that exist only in our imaginations.” He paused, aware of her warm skin beneath his fingertips and her silky, loosened braid against the back of his hand, dangerous fuel for the fire inside him.

  “It’s a Welsh word,” he went on, feeling desperate, and yet unable to do the sensible thing and pull back. “I learned Welsh at school, along with Latin, Greek, and several other languages I’ll never use. That’s what preparatory school’s for, you know. Teaching well-bred men things of no practical value.”

  She laughed, her smile like sunshine peeking between rain clouds. “Finishing school’s the same. We learned to waltz, write in perfect copperplate, and speak proper French.”

  “French is at least useful if one goes abroad. Many speak it. Try talking to a Continental maître d’hôtel or waiter in Welsh and see how far you get.”

  She laughed again, and so did he, but as their laughter faded, he felt the change between them—in the rising tension within his own body and the quickening of her pulse beneath his fingertips. He heard it—in the sudden silence between them and the hard thud of his own heartbeat. He saw it—in the parting of her lips and the lowering of her lashes.

  Jonathan felt his resistance slipping. Desperate, he tried to remind himself she was in a vulnerable condition, and what he was thinking right now was the conduct of a cad, not a gentleman. He stared at the tears still damp on her cheeks and reminded himself of his pr
omises and her innocence.

  But then, she leaned closer, her quickened breathing soft and warm on his face, and he felt a crack in his resolve.

  Don’t, he thought, desperate, uncertain if his unspoken warning was for her or for himself. Leave. Now.

  Even as he gave that order, his fingers slid to the back of her neck, honor fading away, arousal flooding his body, longing for her tearing him apart. This time, he was the one who leaned closer, his thumb moving beneath her jaw to tilt her head back.

  Slowly, he bent his head. His lips grazed hers, the barest touch, and yet, after weeks of torturing himself with memories of their previous kisses, the pleasure of this one was so exquisite, he groaned against her mouth.

  The first time he kissed her, he’d known he was playing with fire. The second time, he’d lit the match and blown it out. But now, as her arms came around his neck, and her lips parted beneath his, the fire flared so high, he simply could not contain it.

  He deepened the kiss instead, sliding his tongue into her mouth. She moaned in response, fanning the flame, her fingers raking through his hair, her mouth opening wider, her tongue meeting his.

  He slid his arms around her and pulled her closer. She came with all the naïve willingness of her innocence, a reminder and a warning—one last chance to protect her virtue, but her mouth was so sweet, her body so warm and her kiss so lush, he couldn’t stop, not yet.

  Keeping one arm tight around her waist, he slid his free hand up her spine, making a sound of pure masculine appreciation at the knowledge that a scant two layers of muslin stood between him and her naked skin. Still tasting deeply of her mouth, he slid his hand under her arm and between their bodies to cup her breast.

  She broke the kiss with a gasp even as her body arched instinctively closer. “It’s all right,” he murmured, uttering that lie as his arm tightened around her waist and his other hand embraced the full, round shape of her breast.

  She stirred, making a sound of agitation, and he stilled, his heart thudding in his chest, his body in chaos. But when she didn’t pull back, he began again, cupping and shaping her breast against his palm as he murmured words to coax and soothe, and his mouth trailed kisses along her cheek, over her jaw, and down the side of her neck, where the tendons of her throat were taut as harp strings.

  Under his palm, he could feel the shape of her nipple, and he shifted his hand to roll the hard bud in a gentle tease between his fingers.

  She moaned, her arms tightening around his neck, her hips stirring against him, reminding him he’d have to stop soon, but not just yet. Keeping one arm around her waist, he let go of her breast and pulled apart the edges of her wrapper.

  “Jonathan?” she whispered.

  A question or a plea or maybe both. “It’ll be all right,” he said, praying he had enough strength to keep that from being a lie, and bent his head. He opened his mouth over her nipple, dampening the fabric of her nightgown as he suckled her breast.

  She gasped, arching her back, her hips brushing his groin. He was fully aroused, and the contact was an exquisite torture that sent shards of pleasure through his body, flaring his arousal into lust and reminding him that he didn’t have much time before he’d have to stop.

  He reached down, working his free hand beneath the hem of her nightgown. Just as he’d imagined, she was naked beneath, and her skin was scorching hot. He slid his palm up her thigh, across her hip, and down her buttock over and over, burning the contours of her shape more deeply than ever into his memory, as his mouth suckled her breast, his tongue using the damp fabric to arouse her further.

  She said his name, a soft, muffled moan, her body stirring against his, telling him what she wanted.

  Glad to comply, he eased her onto her back, following her down, capturing her mouth again. Slowly, gently, he slid his hand between her thighs and cupped her mound.

  She broke the kiss with a sound of shock, her hips jerking sharply as he slid his finger into the crease of her sex. She was slick, ready, and the knowledge of what was so close threatened to overwhelm him. But he knew this moment was not about him, and he strove to banish any thought of his own need. He caressed her, relishing her agitation, and her soft, panting sounds.

  “That’s right, darling,” he murmured, watching her face as she approached orgasm. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks flushed with rosy color, and he knew that no matter where he went from here, or what he did, or how long he lived, he would never see anything more beautiful than Marjorie was at this moment. “You’re nearly there.”

  Even as he said it, she hit the peak, and as she came, the sight of her face as she climaxed was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

  She collapsed, panting, against the carpet, but he continued to stroke her, building sensation and bringing her to orgasm again, and then again.

  At last, he eased back, and as he slid his hand from under her nightgown, he once again became aware of his own need. He knew he had to leave her now, while he still had a scrap of resistance left in him.

  He kissed her once more, then he sat up, agony ripping through his body at the withdrawal. Taking a deep breath, he pulled her nightclothes back down. He didn’t add to his torture by peeking down at her ripping legs and lush hips, but instead, he looked into her face.

  The sight of it was like an arrow straight to the chest.

  She was radiant, smiling, so lovely in the afterglow of what had just happened, and never had he wanted a woman more. His groin ached, his heart hurt, even his soul burned with longing, but he’d sworn to see that she was cared for, looked after, protected. Taking her virtue on a library floor wouldn’t just break that promise, it would annihilate it, and him, and any sense of honor he’d ever had.

  He hauled himself to his feet. He held out his hand to help her up, but he did not meet her eyes, and the moment she was on her feet, he let her go. “We’d best go to bed,” he advised, staring determinedly at the wall beyond her shoulder. “Before I forget—”

  He stopped, because he’d forgotten he was a gentleman over half an hour ago. “Before anyone finds us here like this,” he amended and turned away, relieved to discover he’d had the wits to at least close the door before coming in here.

  “Goodnight, Marjorie,” he said and turned away. “Sleep well.”

  “You, too,” she called as he left the room, and he couldn’t help a caustic chuckle, for he knew he wouldn’t sleep a wink. In fact, as he went up the stairs and across the house to his own room, he feared the memory of what had happened tonight would haunt him for the rest of his life.

  Unlike Jonathan, Marjorie didn’t go straight upstairs, for to her, sleep seemed impossible. Never had she felt more awake, more alive, than she did at this moment. Or more confounded.

  For weeks, he’d been polite and distant, driving her to distraction. Then, with a suddenness that had taken her breath away, he’d kissed her on the Mary Louisa and made that amazing admission.

  Being friends with you is killing me.

  His words and actions had conveyed a passionate regard for her. At least, she’d thought so at the time, and she’d been left in a dizzy state of glorious anticipation as a result, dying to see him again, living on tenterhooks, only to spend the next two weeks being ignored once again. In fact, she’d hardly seen him at all, a development that had left her chagrined, insulted, and more confused than ever. In light of all that, what was she to make of tonight’s events?

  Marjorie had no past romantic experience to go by. And in any case, to deem what had happened tonight romantic seemed such an inadequate description. His caresses, so hot and tender, had ignited a passion within her she’d never known she was even capable of. And the pleasure, wave after wave of it, so unexpected and so intense, she felt shattered to bits in consequence. It had all been terribly wicked, even carnal. But what did it all mean?

  There was no way to answer that question, but Marjorie spent most of the night trying, and as she went over everything that had happened between them
since the moment they’d met, her emotions bounced from joy to perplexity to desire to anger and back to joy again, over and over, round and round.

  By dawn, exhausted and cross and more confused than ever, she gave it up. There was only one way to make sense of all this and that was to ask him.

  This, however, proved to be no easy task. As had become his habit of late, he was not in for breakfast, and a discreet inquiry of Boothby informed her that he had breakfasted before everyone else and gone out, though where, the butler could not say.

  He remained equally elusive for the reminder of the day, but Marjorie had no intention of spending another two weeks in this state of agonizing uncertainty. The family was going to a ball that evening, and she decided she’d find a way to corner him before he departed with the others and demand explanations. Jonathan, however, managed to thwart her plans, sending a note to Irene late that afternoon that he would dine at his club and see them at the ball afterward.

  Marjorie, unable to attend because she was still in half-mourning, knew full well what Jonathan’s note actually meant. He was back to avoiding her like a disease, and she was not going to stand for it. Once the rest of the family had departed for the ball, she ensconced herself in the library to wait up until they returned, determined that before the night was out, she’d find a way to speak with him alone.

  As she waited, she tried to occupy her mind with the estate papers Jonathan had given to her to study, but dry-as-dust legal and financial documents were no distraction at all from the stunning events of the night before.

  The trunk was gone now, taken to the attic by a footman this morning, but Marjorie’s eyes had no trouble homing in on the exact spot where Jonathan had kissed and caressed her. She bit her lip, staring at the patch of carpet where they had lain, and even twenty-four hours later, the memories made her blush. She wasn’t ashamed, exactly, but she was a bit shocked, for she’d never known herself to possess such primitive, corporeal feelings, or even that such feelings existed.