Yesterday's Roses

by Heather Cullman

  “Mrs. Parrish?”

  Hallie glanced up as a contingent of footmen carrying an old sleigh bed stopped just inside the door to await her orders.

  “Over there.” She pointed to the wall opposite an enormous bay window. Serena’s gilt bed had stood across the room by the fireplace, and Hallie wanted the room to be as different as possible. Nodding her head with satisfaction, she quickly finished clearing the remaining items from the drawer. Someday Ariel would wonder about the mother she’d never known, and these tokens might provide her with some insight.

  “You can take the dressing table up the attic now,” Hallie told the footmen, giving the drawer a push to close it. It stuck. She gave it another shove. Still it refused to close. With a sigh of exasperation, she removed the drawer and searched for the obstruction. As she gingerly poked into the dark corners of the drawer’s slot, Hallie’s hand brushed against something soft.

  She could only stare, aghast, at what she found. Wrapped in one of Serena’s handkerchiefs was a pessary. Hallie’s forehead creased into a frown. If Serena had been using a pessary, then …

  Joy, fierce and exultant, swelled in her heart: Jake’s seed wasn’t fruitless. Serena had been using this device to prevent conception. Hallie hugged herself. She couldn’t wait to see the happiness on her husband’s face when she told him the news.

  Though he seldom mentioned it, Hallie knew how much Jake’s fruitless state pained him. Once, while lying in each other’s arms, they had each confessed their most secret yearnings. Jake’s had been for a family of his own, and it had broken her heart knowing that it was the one thing he would never have.

  That night she’d prayed for a miracle, the miracle of a child with Jake’s stunning good looks and his loving ways. And now, with the discovery of this device, came the hope that her miracle might be possible after all.

  Hallie let her hands slide to her belly with a sigh. Perhaps even now Jake’s child grew within her. That thought made her heart surge with longing.

  All through the afternoon Hallie worked, whisking away all traces of Serena’s presence and transforming the room into one that suited her own, simpler tastes.

  The furnishings, which she had discovered in the attic, were of the style of the French Empire which had been popular earlier in the century. The plain sleigh bed was of mahogany, as were the rest of the furniture pieces, all of which had been polished to a mirror shine by Celine and Hallie. Simple yellow-and-blue-patterned muslin drapes replaced the flounced pink silk ones, and the bed was covered with a yellow satin coverlet. On the floor was a soft blue carpet woven with accents of yellow, colors which reminded Hallie of the sun glinting off the bay on a spring day.

  As she stood arranging daisies and lily of the valley in a vase, pausing now and again to survey her handiwork with satisfaction, the door opened.

  Standing stock-still on the threshold, Jake quietly took in every detail of the room’s metamorphosis. With pleasure, he noted Hallie’s choice of furnishings. This had been his mother’s furniture, and though Serena had banished it to the attic, pronouncing it old-fashioned, he’d always loved it. He could almost picture his beautiful mother turning from the dressing table mirror and holding out her arms to him, arms that had always been ready to embrace him.

  A knot formed in Jake’s throat as he crossed the room to the bed and traced the contours of the headboard with his fingertips. Looking over to where Hallie stood, a stalk of lily of the valley clutched in her hand, he murmured, “I like this furniture.”

  And he liked the way she looked, too. Dressed in a flattering gown of leaf green India cotton, with her hair pulled away from her face in a matching ribbon, his wife was the most beautiful sight Jake Parrish had ever seen.

  Their gazes met, and held, as he closed the distance between them. Though his limp was still pronounced, and always would be, he now walked with a confidence he had previously lacked.

  As Jake stopped before her, a smile tugging at his lips, Hallie thought that she’d never seen him look so wonderful. He had spent the day at the wharf seeing to his ships, and his face had a healthy, sun-kissed glow which she found irresistible.

  Gently, Jake took the flowers from Hallie’s hand and inhaled their perfume, his gaze capturing hers over the delicate blooms. “I’ve heard that lily of the valley symbolizes a return to happiness,” he murmured, breaking off a small sprig and tucking it behind her ear. “The flower suits you, for you’ve returned me to happiness.”

  Jake’s heart was filled with joy as he stared down at his wife. She was everything to him. She made him eager to start every new day and gave him a reason to cherish the nights he had once dreaded. And now she was making his house into a home.

  Tenderly, he pressed a kiss to her lips. “Thank you,” he whispered, nodding at the room.

  “I’m glad you approve.” Smiling, she wrapped her arms around his taut waist to pull him near. He had been riding hard, and as Hallie pressed her face against his chest she could smell the musky scent of his sweat. She inhaled deeply, finding his masculine scent as seductive as an aphrodisiac.

  “Want me to show you how much I approve?” He chuckled as he began unhooking the back of her dress.

  Reaching up to remove his tie, she replied, “Only if you let me show you how much I love you in return.”

  “You already have,” he pointed out, helping her remove his jacket and in turn easing her bodice off. “Now it’s my turn to pay you back.”

  Hallie smiled wickedly as she tugged off his shirt. “I’ll collect the debt later.” She paused to nip at his broad shoulder. “Right now, I have special plans for you, Mr. Parrish.”

  With that, she blazed a path of sucking kisses from the scar at his throat all the way down to his navel, stopping in between to tease his flat nipples with her tongue. It excited her to feel him quiver beneath the tender assault of her lips.

  With a low growl, Jake untied the ribbons of Hallie’s chemise and slipped the flimsy garment to her waist. Then he bent down to return her sensual favor.

  Leisurely, he kissed down the length of her torso, pausing to bite at the waistband of her skirt before nibbling his way back up to her breasts.

  “That feels … wonderful,” she sighed, arching against him as he traced slow circles around her nipples with his tongue.

  “How wonderful?” he murmured, capturing one of the hardened peaks between his lips, alternately sucking and licking in turn until her sighs of desire quickened to pants of lust.

  Her body trembled and with a whimper she strained her pelvis against his groin, crushing herself against the evidence of his need. “Too wonderful!” she gasped as the secret place between her legs began to tingle with delicious yearning.

  Moaning with his own urgency, Jake let his hands slide down the narrow curve of Hallie’s waist and in one fluid motion, he unhooked her skirts. With a soft whoosh! her garments slipped down her hips to pool around her ankles, leaving her clad only in her almost transparent drawers and silk stockings.

  “Jake!” Hallie cried, as he fondled her heated woman’s flesh through the thin cotton of her drawers. Oh! How he teased her … tormented her, his touch making her body quiver out of control.

  A smile of anticipation curled Jake’s lips as he explored the thinly veiled recesses of Hallie’s womanhood. “Do you like it when I touch you here?” he whispered, sliding his fingers between her moist folds.

  “Yes!” she whimpered, as he found the hardened nub of her pleasure. A rush of moisture soaked through the fabric of her drawers, landing proof to her declaration.

  With maddening gentleness, he stroked her, his skilled hands ravishing her most sensitive place until she moaned her urgent need. Breathlessly, she pulsed against him, the answering thrusts of her pelvis keeping perfect time to the erotic motion of his fingers.

  “Jake! I need …” Frantically, she increased the tempo of her hip
s, rubbing her swollen flesh hard against his hand. His intimate caresses sent her soaring toward heaven, straining for rapture, her body screaming for the climax just out of her reach.

  “Tell me what you need, Mission Lady,” he purred. God! How he loved the feel of her, so sweet and yielding. It took all his control not to plunge into her warmth and spend himself in one violent stroke.

  “Paradise!” Hallie whimpered. “Take me to paradise!” And as his stroking became more insistent, more coaxing, the coiling heat in her belly exploded, and with a shuddering cry she found her paradise. Over and over again, her pleasure peaked, forcing her to grasp his shoulders for support beneath the soul-shattering intensity of her release.

  As the last thundering crash of her ecstasy subsided, Hallie’s knees buckled and she would have collapsed if Jake hadn’t caught her.

  Almost frantic with his own aching need, Jake swept his wife into his arms and carried her to the bed. In one quick motion, he divested her of her drawers.

  He hesitated for a moment as his hands hovered over her white silk stockings. He liked the way they clung to the slender contours of her legs and with a roguish grin, he decided to leave them. It made his groin surge with excitement to imagine those silk-clad legs wrapped around his hips as he took her. Experimentally, he ran his hand down the length of her thigh, enjoying the way she moaned in response.

  Still moaning, Hallie reached up and unbuttoned Jake’s trousers. His arousal was so intense that his sex was straining hard against his muscular belly. As she slipped his pants down to his knees, she pulled him onto the bed and then rolled over on top of him, straddling his thighs. Impatiently, she tugged off his boots, tossing them across the room. With a kick, Jake sent his trousers flying after his boots.

  “Oh, no,” Hallie murmured, trying to wrestle his hands to the mattress as he reached up to touch her. “It’s my turn now, and I expect you to he still while I have my way with you.” Lightly, she teased the hair on his belly, tickling lower and lower until she touched the thatch of dark hair at the apex of his thighs.

  With a primitive half-growl, half-groan, Jake surrendered to Hallie’s loving ministrations. Down her fingers slipped, stroking his groin and lightly tracing the junction of his thighs. He gasped and squirmed uncontrollably, sobbing as she teased the flesh of his inner thigh, maddened with urgency as she touched him everywhere except where he ached the most.

  “Touch me!” he begged, as she spread his legs wide apart and lay on her belly between them, tenderly kissing the scar on his thigh. Dear God! He’d die if she didn’t relieve him soon. He ached worse than when he’d been a youth and had snuck into a bawdy show with two of his friends.

  Jake groaned and thrashed his hips. “Sweetheart, please!” he cried hoarsely. She was lying between his legs, her chin propped up on his thigh, staring at his hardness.

  “Please, what?” she prompted. “Tell me what you want.”

  He jerked his pelvis frantically. “Touch me! Please … release me.”

  Her hand traveled inward. “Touch you … like this?” He cried out as her fingers encircled his shaft. Lightly, she traced his length with her thumb, studying his frenzied response.

  He gasped and moved against her. This was worse, far worse. She was tormenting him, touching him like that!

  Suddenly Jake felt her move nearer, felt her warm breath fan across his inflamed sex and he knew what she meant to do. The thought made him freeze.

  “No!’ he choked, as she tentatively tasted him. “Don’t! I can’t …” He tried to squirm away, certain that his sex would shrivel, terrified that any moment he would hear Serena’s cruel taunts and mocking laughter.

  “Relax, darling,” Hallie murmured, firmly bracing his hips between her hands, steadying him.

  “Hallie …” He couldn’t bear it. He tried to shrink from her, to escape, but she merely clutched his hips tighter.

  “I want to taste you. To give you the same pleasure you give me when you use your mouth.” Boldly, she nipped at his silky tip. “I love you, Jake.” She nipped him again.

  A sob escaped him as Jake felt his manhood surge beneath her exquisite probing, and his back arched involuntarily in response. He trusted Hallie and to his astonishment, he liked what she was doing to him. It felt … wonderful.

  Then her lips encircled him, fully engulfing him.

  “Hallie!” he screamed, thrusting his pelvis up to meet her. And as she moved down his shaft, Jake’s groin muscles tightened and he lost himself in the violence of his release. Never had his man’s flesh felt so deliciously sensitive as it did at that moment, never had his climax been so blinding in its intensity.

  Every fiber of his body was alive with pleasure and his blood pounded in his head. Mindlessly, he was caught up in the whirling vortex of his all-consuming passion.

  And his cries resounded through the room, cries of victory as he conquered the last of his crippling demons.

  Jake groaned one last time as he collapsed against the mattress. Spent, he surrendered to his delicious lethargy.

  “Hallie?” Drowsily, he opened one eye to watch as she cleansed him of his spilled seed. “I never thought I’d be able to bear being pleasured like that again. But I liked the way it felt when you did it to me.”

  “And I liked doing it to you.”

  “I’ll never be able to look at this bed again without thinking about how good you made me feel. Thank you.”

  Hallie set aside the towel and stared down at the magnificent man stretched before her. As impossible as it seemed, he had grown even handsomer during the months they’d been married. She reached down and rubbed her hand against his sculpted chest. He smiled and drew her into his arms.

  Contentedly, she curled up next to him.

  “I was born in this bed, as was my mother,” Jake explained, coiling one of Hallie’s bright curls around his finger. “This furniture is one of the few things I have left to remember her by. She gave it to me when I came to California, saying that I’d need a proper bed if I found a bride out here. Most of our keepsakes were destroyed when our New York house burned.” His voice caught. “It was the same fire that killed my parents.”

  Hallie’s heart went out to him. She knew how wrenching it was to lose everything, and she said as much.

  “Poor Mission Lady,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head. “You truly did lose all your keepsakes. At least I still have my mother’s furniture and my father’s watch.”

  “The musical watch?”

  “Yes.” With a contented smile, Jake rested his cheek against his wife’s hair. “On my parents’ wedding trip to Vienna, they became enamored of the waltzing gardens. They claimed they spent every evening dancing beneath the stars. Their favorite waltz was “Invitation to the Dance.” So for their first anniversary, my mother commissioned a watch that played the tune. She said that every time my father opened the case, he would be reminded that he was on her mind.”

  “They must have been very much in love,” Hallie whispered, glancing up at her husband’s handsome face. By his expression she could see that his thoughts were a million miles away.

  “Yes. My parents had a very happy marriage. My father would open the watch case and dance my mother around the room to the melody. As I got older, I remember hoping that someday I too would find such joy with a woman.” He looked down into Hallie’s upturned face. “This time, I think I’ve succeeded.”

  “We’ll find our joy together,” she declared, lightly kissing his lips.

  His expression grew tender as he returned her kiss. “And what about you, sweetheart? Surely you have some happy memories?”

  She glanced away from his loving gaze with a shrug. “Very few. Every time my mother tried to do something special for me, my father ruined it.”

  “I can’t imagine what possessed your mother to marry such an unfeeling beast. I remember her as bein
g an intelligent woman.”

  “He was handsome and my mother fell in love with his pretty face. I suppose he was charming enough when he courted her. After all, he was penniless and she was a wealthy heiress.” Hallie sighed. “He detested me from the beginning, saying that with my whey-faced looks he’d be saddled with me for the rest of his life. He made me feel worthless … unlovable. The only reason he let me go to medical school was because he saw it as a chance to get rid of me.”

  “Miserable bastard! I’m half tempted to go to Philadelphia and wring his neck.”

  “He was a miserable bastard. Still, he was right about my not being beautiful. I’ve seen myself in the mirror.”

  Jake raised his brows in wonder. “And what did you see?”

  “My nose is too long.”

  “Ridiculous,” he protested. “It’s just the right length for about—” he kissed down her nose. “Three kisses. In my opinion, a three-kiss nose is perfect.”

  She smiled at his fanciful remark. “My hair is too red and too curly.”

  He twisted his hands through the coppery length and squinted at it, his expression serious. “I happen to like your hair. It reminds me of the autumn leaves, warm and vibrant. Besides,” he pressed her curls to his nose and sniffed, “it smells good.”

  “My jaw is too square.”

  “Stubborn, maybe. But then, I like a woman with a mind of her own.”

  “My mouth is too wide.”

  “Your mouth is amazing, as you so recently proved. And beautiful too.” Jake gave her lips a lingering kiss. “And sweet. I’m a lucky devil to have a wife with such an excellent mouth.”

  Hallie shook her head, giggling. “Now I know you’re teasing me. Excellent mouth, indeed!”

  “Look at me, Sweetheart.” He cupped her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. “Do I strike you as the type of man who would settle for anything less than the best?”