He propped up and watched as she lifted her uninjured leg to give him access—and quite a pleasing view of her glistening, pink inner lips.
He positioned himself at her entrance and slid inside. Her channel sucked him in, hot, wet and tight—unbearably, impossibly tight. Her inner walls hugged him, welcoming and eager instead of merely tolerating his intrusion. How long since she had responded to him like this? Ages it seemed. He groaned deeply, shoved the hair off the back of her neck, bent his head and nipped her lightly there. She pressed her buttocks back against his stomach and he groaned again, pressing his hand to the flat of her belly then drifting down.
Lazily, he touched her nub. He wanted to take his time and focus on her pleasure.
She worked her hips to and fro, up and down and all around, her wet, ridged inner walls twisting and stroking him. He caught his breath, then released it in a groan. She could move in sinful ways that were lethal to a man’s control. He continued to fondle her while she danced on his cock.
God, she was sex incarnate. He couldn’t take much more.
He grasped her hips, stilling her. He thrust into her with determination, plunging into her tight, moist heat again and again. She grew so wet the joining of their bodies made sodden noises. His balls drew up close to his body and tremors began deep within his loins. Her inner walls contracted on his cock and she milked every ounce of seed he had to give.
* * * *
Grey lay with his hand on Beth’s arse, idly stroking her as bone-deep satisfaction lulled him into sleep. As darkness had finally fallen and the shadows had shifted over the walls, he had made love to her twice more. The last time he had made her come again and again and again, and the marks from her sharp nails still burnt on his back. Her cries still echoed in his ears.
Well, he had his wife back, even if just for one afternoon. He was a happy man. Business and everything else in the world could go hang.
“Sexton Shipping is one the largest shipping firms in the nation, is this correct?”
Her question startled him out of his half sleeping state. It was not exactly what he expected for bed talk. “Yes, Beth, we’re one of the largest. William Grey has a few more vessels. But I surpass him in personal wealth.”
“Then if you are already so successful, why do you drive yourself so hard?”
The odor of sickness burnt his lungs, choking his air. A gnarled hand gripped his, digging in painfully. Here lay the driving force behind Sexton Shipping. The once tall and powerfully built frame lay shrunken beneath the heavy coverlet on the hot summer’s day. The arrogant patrician features twisted into a grayish-tinged, gruesome grimace by the months of soul rending pain.
“I will not let you down, Father.”
The glassy gray eyes stared back at him. “God help me, Grey, you are all I have and I fear you are not up to the challenge.”
After so many years of silent, stern disapproval, opiates and physical depletion had loosened Asahel Prosperity Sexton’s lips. Otherwise, he would never have revealed such a personal fear to anyone, least of all to the son he had never respected. Never even particularly liked.
But the lack of respect and regard hadn’t mattered. Grey was the only Sexton heir, and the business needed a leader.
How could Beth possibly understand, even if he explained it? He exhaled and, to his shock, found the words spilling out. “My father’s father was a simple merchant sea captain. He was on the verge of losing his one ship when the war with the French came in the fifties. He turned to privateering and made his fortune. When the Revolution came, my father also labored like a fiend, this time preying on British ships. After the war, hard times came to Boston but he gambled on the high stakes—he was one of the first to send ships to the Pacific Northwest and China. And he won again. He was always lucky. When he purchased Dalton Shipping, he doubled the size of the company his father had left him.
“He expected me to double the business yet again. But I have not been so lucky. The long years of British Orders in Council, French depredations, the embargo, the wars and even the damned Barbary pirates have slowed me. I have not made the extraordinary gains he did. I have expanded inch by painful inch. Each step requires more thought and strategy and social bootlicking than he did in his whole life.”
“You have held on to what you had and even increased in hard times. Surely you give yourself credit for that?”
His brows snapped together. “I could lose everything in this war. One misstep, Beth—that’s all it would take. Then I will have failed everyone in my life. My father, my son, you, our future children, those who work for me… I will have failed everyone in my life.”
She sat up and propped herself up on her elbow. Her eyes were as wide and blue as the ocean itself and shining with that admiration and loyal devotion that had first softened his heart.
“But you are wrong—you will not have failed me.” She touched his face. “I will count myself a lucky woman just to have your devotion, your love and your name, no matter what your personal wealth.”
Oh, to be that innocent again.
An indulgent smile lifted his lips. “You don’t understand, Beth. I am Sexton Shipping. Every moment of every day, the welfare and fortunes of my investors, my captains, my crews, all my clerks and business agents, my family—everyone depends on me to make the right decisions. If I failed so many people, how would I ever live with myself?”
He sat up in the bed and readjusted his clothing. Why the devil had he told her all of that? She didn’t need to be troubled over the doubts and insecurities that were only part and parcel of being the Sexton scion.
And she could never, ever understand.
He glanced at the time. He had dallied here for over two hours. The waste of time sent tension tightening his neck. Christ, he had a pile of correspondence to pen before the day was done. He’d better turn his attention to it.
He’d never fail.
Never.
* * * *
Beth sat, wrapped in a blanket on a chaise lounge in the sitting chamber that attached to her bedchamber at Red Oaks. Mellow rays of sun streamed in the window. It couldn’t cheer her.
She still felt the brush of Grey’s lips on her cheek, before first light this morning, as he’d told her he was leaving.
Leaving.
Already.
Yesterday might have been a dream.
He had business that could not wait.
Business could never wait.
She’d been determined to remain cheerful and had smiled sleepily. But inside, oh inside, she had been crushed. She remained despondent.
A shadow moved across her line of vision, startling her. Jan flopped down into the chair across from her.
“I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Yes, I could see you were a hundred leagues away.” He folded his arms over his chest. “So he really left?”
Beth nodded.
“At least he came.”
“Because I was injured. Because he was angry with me for being careless.”
“Yes, well, at least he noticed. I half expected him to leave yesterday evening. But he did stay overnight.”
“Yes, I suppose that is something.”
“Goodness, let’s not have this sad face.” Jan unfolded his arms and reached into his pocket then tossed a deck of cards onto the tea table in front of her. “Our amusements must go on. You have to learn how to while the days away in between his gracious allotments of his time.”
* * * *
“I heard you were confined to bed with an injury.” Nellie Clark’s voice rang with curiosity and some disapproval.
Beth cringed and her face heated.
They were sitting in Nellie’s elegant parlor and they were having tea and cakes. It was her first time out of the house since recovering from her fall. Since that afternoon at Red Oaks, Grey had resumed his aloof preoccupation. No—he’d been even more distant, more unreachable. And he hadn’t returned to her bed since. The days had dragged by
in a haze of loneliness and uselessness. With Grey gone to Salem for several days, she’d decided to do some visiting.
Nellie’s lined face wrinkled with concern. “Something is wrong, isn’t it?”
“I lost my temper and did something stupid,” Beth admitted. “I am always doing something rash. I fear my mother’s reckless blood shall be my undoing as well.”
A small peal of laughter burst from Nellie. The normally dignified lady looked so overcome with mirth that Beth was shocked. Then Nellie put her hand to her lips, as if trying to stop the bubbles of laughter from coming forth. “Sorry, but your mother was not wild.” She shook her head. “Whoever put that idea into your mind?”
“Mrs. Hazelwood said she was.”
“Alice was a little mouse of a thing. Quiet and biddable.” Nellie snorted. “As if Cornelia would have accepted any other kind of girl for a servant.”
“But Mrs. Hazelwood said—”
“Oh, my sister has such strange notions. The best thing to do is to placate her and never take anything seriously. It is the only way to deal peaceably with her.” Nellie’s expression turned thoughtful, then she reached out and squeezed Beth’s hand. “If anything, your mother was too passive and too susceptible to the charms of a certain young man.” Her blue eyes twinkled merrily.
Beth’s breath caught. “You know who my father is?”
A sad light in Nellie’s eyes juxtaposed her answering smile. “Yes. Cornelia thought the truth should be kept from you. To prevent you from getting ideas above yourself. I never agreed, but then one does not often successfully disagree with Cornelia.” She patted Beth’s hand and sighed heavily. “But you are of an age now and I do not see how the truth may be kept from you any longer. Indeed, if you are in society, someone is bound to recognize the resemblance.” She stood and walked over to her writing desk and opened a drawer.
She came back and handed a gilt-edged miniature to Beth. “See the truth for yourself.”
A handsome young man with a shock of silver-blond hair stared back at Beth, his sky-blue eyes blazing with passion, his mouth quirked up with careless amusement.
Except for the strong, masculine jaw, she might have been looking into a mirror.
Chapter Fifteen
Beth almost dropped the frame. “Who is he?” she asked.
“He is your father, dear,” Nellie replied with maddening obliqueness.
“Yes, yes, of course, but who is he?” Beth struggled to keep the impatience from her voice. She’d waited her whole life to know. Why must Nellie drag it out like this?
“He is my younger half-brother, Peter van Moerdijk.”
Beth pulled the frame closer and gazed hard at the portrait. Peter? Really? Yes, she remembered Peter. A tall, blond man with a ready laugh—but how time had muted that shining silver blondness and those piercing sky-blue eyes. She remembered a man. The handsome face staring back at her was almost boyish. A boy in a man’s body.
Peter?
But then—
“Peter…but he can’t… That means…” Beth placed her fingertips to her temples. Mrs. Hazelwood’s Peter was— “Oh, I don’t understand.” Surely, Mrs. Hazelwood couldn’t have kept this truth from her? She would be the woman’s blood relative. It was too much to take in at once. Had Joshua known? Beth’s head was spinning. She thrust the frame back at Nellie. “It can’t be. It just can’t.”
The older woman—her aunt—thrust the picture back at her. “I think you should have this now. You’ve been denied your past—your truth—for too long.”
“I don’t understand at all. Mrs. Hazelwood would not have—could not have—kept all of this from me. She spoke of her brother Peter all the time. She never betrayed the least clue to me. She just couldn‘t have done that. She wouldn‘t.”
“I know—it is new and it is a shock.”
“Tell me,” Beth breathed. “Tell me everything.”
A wistful smile curved the older woman’s lips and she sighed. “When I was thirteen, my father married a quiet woman with hair as silver-gilt as yours. She was a Swede. She died when Peter was two. My sisters and I were overwhelmed to have a young brother to lavish attention on—we quite spoilt him. Everyone loved Peter. He was a charming rogue—and only became more so as he grew.
“When he was twenty-seven, while visiting Cornelia in Philadelphia, he fell into the water. He was skating on the Schuylkill when the ice was too thin—on a dare, you see. He was always game for a dare, or a wager. He caught a horrible lung fever and had to spend time recuperating at Cornelia’s. Your mother was still a very pretty woman for being over forty.” Nellie laughed softly and shrugged. “I am afraid there isn’t much more to tell. When he recovered, he went home to his young wife. Pretty, willing women were plentiful in his life and your mother was nothing special. You mustn’t be angry with your mother. Peter just had a way with women—they could not resist him.”
Beth gaped at Nellie. All this time, she’d assumed that no one had known who had fathered her. She had suspected that perhaps not even her mother had been able to ascertain which man’s seed had taken root. Because if anyone had known, then surely they would have told her. Yes, surely. No one could be so cruel as to have kept this knowledge from her.
No one who truly cared for her.
“Well, your mother certainly found herself at a loose end with Mr. McConnell, let me tell you. He was not a happy man. As you know, he was many years older than your mother and I am given to understand they had not been on intimate terms for many years by then so there was no hiding the deed. Oh, Cornelia was furious with Peter—for all the good it did her. No one stayed angry with him for long.”
The chamber seemed overheated and Beth’s head swam. She held up her hand. “Wait.” She paused and swallowed, struggling to put the terrible truth into words. “He knew?” Her throat constricted, forcing her voice into a squeak. “Peter knew?”
Nellie’s brows shot up. “Well, of course he knew.”
“Oh God, he knew.” All this time Beth had thought her father hadn’t known. That if he had known, he would have come for her. Claimed her as his child. Taken her to live with him and cared for her and cosseted her.
Nellie frowned. “Child, you must understand. You were not unique in his life. There were several children—several that I know of.”
A hard lump settled in her stomach. Heavens, she’d been fathered by a man who had no more care for where he scattered his seed than a tomcat.
“He was quite proud of you. He said you were a pretty, taking little thing.”
“H—how did he die? Mrs. Hazelwood never spoke of it.”
Nellie nodded. “He died in a duel over some hasty and thoughtless insult he’d levied at someone in a card game. He could be so careless. All the broken bones and the wild visions and silly plans he had—oh my goodness.” She smiled and wiped at her teary eyes, then gave a little sniff. “I vow that boy was left on the doorstep by elves. When Cornelia speaks of the wild blood you inherited, she is really speaking of your father.”
Beth shook her head. “She never told me. How could she keep this from me? I thought she cared for me, in her own way, but she couldn’t have. Not if she would keep this truth from me.”
Nellie smiled and touched Beth’s face. “You were a spirited child—oh, good Lord, how you gave Cornelia fits. She worried you would be like Peter and come to a bad end. She never really got over his death, you know. She hates the things she cannot control.”
* * * *
As she rode back to Broadway in the carriage, Beth stared out of the window, seeing everything differently. She was not a pretender to this world. Not entirely. And the wildness in herself that she’d fought her whole life was not from the servant side of her parentage but from her well-born father.
Her hand clamped tenaciously on the miniature frame, as if it would vanish into thin air if she slackened her grip. She hadn’t been able to stop glancing at it. Each time she saw those sky-blue eyes and the features so like h
er own, it made her head light. Here was the truth she’d waited her whole life to know.
But what did it mean?
Had he cared for her at all? Had he considered the pain he’d brought to her by siring her so fecklessly? She glanced at his devil-may-care expression and suspected he had not.
She was connected to Mrs. Hazelwood by blood. Had been denied the love of her own family, even as she’d lived in their very midst. It was too much to accept in one lump like this.
Who was she? The child of a servant wench, a member of the lower sort? The child of a disreputable rake? Elizabeth or Beth?
She didn’t know.
* * * *
Three days later, Beth sat in the parlor, trying to read but seeing none of the words on the page. With Grey gone, she’d been alone with all the new revelations and it still felt unreal to her.
“Mrs. Sexton?”
Beth looked up. “Yes?”
Mary stood in the doorway. “Madam, Dr. Joshua Wade and Mrs. Ruth Allen are here.”
Beth’s mouth dropped open in pure surprise. She stood and her book dropped to the floor. “Well, show them in,” she said coolly.
“Right away, Mrs. Sexton,” Mary said, her lace cap fluttering as she hurried away.
Beth’s spirits lifted. Ruth was here. God, she could use an understanding face.
Joshua came in first. He was losing his looks. Truly he must be, for he no longer possessed the devastating handsomeness that had once made her heart squeeze each time she looked at him.
She fixed him with a fierce look. “What you doing here, Joshua?”
“I am accompanying Mrs. Hazelwood here.”
His words jolted her low in the stomach. She couldn’t help flinching. “Mrs. Hazelwood is here, in New York?”
“Yes.”
What were the chances of that? Just her luck to have this now. “What are you doing here in my house, Joshua?”
The skin strained over his cheekbones and his lips pursed. He tilted his head ever so slightly and his brows rose. His special look of chastisement for her.
Wild, Wicked and Wanton: A Hot Historical Romance Bundle Page 36