Nightingale

by Cathy Maxwell

  She wasn’t surprised when he pulled back. “No one forced you?” He sounded as if he didn’t believe her.

  Jemma frowned. “There was pressure from my family . . . and from Alfred,” she admitted, referring to her husband by his Christian name. “At the time, he was wealthy—or so we thought—and I would be a Lady. Lady Mosby.” The title mocked her.

  “But you could have said no?” he questioned.

  “I could have,” she answered.

  He reacted as if she had struck him. She understood. Even though he had spent years blaming her, a part of him, the part that had believed in their love, had rationalized that she’d had no choice. He pushed her hands off his thighs.

  His reaction tempted Jemma to throw her arms back around him and swear that her parents had forced her to abandon him. She hated to destroy those last, remaining delusions between them. But she couldn’t. She’d already hurt him too deeply.

  “I was very, very young, Dane,” she stressed. “Alfred was worldly and promised a life in London. Remember, my family could not afford a season . . . there were the many advantages to Alfred over you. Especially to a young, naïve girl.”

  “I thought you loved me.”

  His words seemed to hang in the air around them.

  “I did,” she said at last. “But I didn’t know what love was. Nor did I have the courage to risk all.” She pressed her fingers to her temples and leaned over, wishing she could erase all the past mistakes. But she couldn’t. What was done was done. “I wanted to wait until you returned from school for the break before I made my decision, but there was no time. I sent a letter to your school, but I later learned my parents intercepted it.”

  “Then they were to blame.”

  Jemma shook her head. “No. The letter was my telling you I had decided to accept Alfred’s offer. Dane, you want to believe the decision was not mine. It was.” How it hurt to admit her own failings. “I was young and shallow and foolish. The day I married Alfred I knew I was making a mistake, but I lacked the courage to bow out of the marriage. And then you came to Faller Hall—”

  She broke off, remembering the pain of Dane’s visit. When he’d been informed she was not at home to him, he’d stood outside and called her name until its echo had reverberated through the house.

  “Your husband ordered you not to see me,” he said tightly.

  “Alfred didn’t even know who you were,” she confessed. “By that time, I was living in my own Purgatory. If I had let you in . . .” She trailed off, unable, even now, to admit she might have run off with him.

  “Did you hear me call for you that day?” he asked. “Was that your face in the window?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Dane leaned forward. “I shouted for you until the bailiff arrived and threatened to send for the magistrate.”

  “Alfred thought you a lunatic.”

  “I was. I was half mad with grief and anger. If you would only have just seen me—”

  She cut him off. “And then what, Dane? I was a married woman. What was done could not be undone. I would only have hurt you more.”

  “But you heard me,” he reiterated quietly.

  “I heard you,” she agreed. “And I refused you.”

  Silence was his answer.

  A knot as hard as stone formed in her chest, making breathing difficult. “I didn’t realize what I had in you. Perhaps if I’d known more of the world, had traveled beyond Chipping or had been older or wiser or more beautiful or more ugly—” Her excuses tumbled out of her mouth, until she stopped. She drew a breath and looked him in the eye without apology. “Perhaps then, everything would have been different . . . for both of us.” She shook her head. “And I won’t apologize anymore for marrying Alfred. I did what I had to do at the time. I had reasons. . . . Looking back, they are still valid. I’m sorry, Dane. I wish I had known my own mind better.”

  “I would have done anything for you.”

  “I know,” she agreed with a sad smile. “But look at us, Dane. We wouldn’t be the people we are now if we hadn’t made those choices years ago. We’d probably both still be back in Chipping.”

  “We would,” he answered. “I wanted nothing more than you and a parish with good fishing.”

  “I abhorred your fishing,” she admitted. “You’d spend hours at it. I was jealous. Can you imagine? I was so spoiled and petted, I envied fish.” She pushed her hair back over her shoulder. “You are fortunate you didn’t marry me, Dane. Back then, I lacked the character to make a good parson’s wife. I would have whined and thrown tantrums. You would have been forced to find another career. And, also, my family would have been a great trial. I know their faults and their weaknesses, but they are part of my life.”

  He did not argue. “My mother told me once she’d feared of what would have happened if we had married.”

  “Did she know all?” Jemma asked quietly.

  “There are few secrets in Chipping.”

  Jemma nodded. She’d thought as much. “My father didn’t trust you because you were the one man who wouldn’t get senselessly drunk with him.”

  “I would rather have spent my evening with you.”

  “He didn’t see it that way. To him, a real man knows when to share a drink.” She paused, and then said, “Alfred liked the bottle.”

  “Are you surprised?”

  Jemma shrugged. “In a way. He never seemed to drink as much as my family, and yet the doctor said the overindulgence of spirits took him.” As it probably had cut short her father’s life too. And her brother was all but lost whether Dane met him or not.

  Neither of them spoke for a moment, letting the words they shared sink in. The silence was companionable. The fire was burning down in the hearth. Jemma knew it was time to leave. They had come full circle. They were done.

  The harshness was gone from Dane’s face. It seemed as if years had fallen away and he resembled again the boy she had once loved.

  “Did you ever think of me, Jemma? Over the years?”

  “Every day,” she admitted. “I suppose when things aren’t good, we long for what might have been.” She reached out and pressed her fingertips on the point where the scar ended at his shoulder. “I fared better than you.” Then, because it was necessary, she added, “I’m sorry.”

  He drew back, as if her touch burned him. He shook his head. “You didn’t do this. If anything, you kept me alive. I should have died from the wound, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t let myself . . . not until I saw you again.”

  “Why? To prove me wrong?”

  Dane leaned back. He stared at her as if her words had struck a nerve. His eyes were sharply focused, his brow frowning as if he didn’t like what he saw. “I could have married. I almost did. Several times. There were others.”

  The surge of jealousy surprised her. Then again, hadn’t she felt a jolt of that unflattering emotion every time someone had mentioned the women he kept or the ones who’d set their caps for him? “Why didn’t you?” She was proud her voice was steady.

  He didn’t answer immediately, and she realized he struggled with his own devils. “I told myself it was because you hurt me.”

  “No woman can be trusted?” she quizzed him tightly.

  “Maybe I didn’t trust myself.”

  He came to his feet and took a step toward the hearth, his manner preoccupied, as if he was working out a problem in his mind.

  Jemma rose and tossed her heavy mane of hair back over her shoulders, waiting for his verdict and certain she would not like it.

  He turned to her. “Perhaps I was making excuses . . . ?” He shook his head. “Everything I own, all that I’ve collected, every bleeding shilling has all been because of a Chipping lass who rejected me. I wanted to prove my worth and to prove you were wrong.”

  Jemma didn’t know what to say. “I—” Words failed her. She bowed her head and admitted, “Perhaps you are better off now.”

  “Better than what?” he asked. “Than being the vi
llage clergyman I set out to be?” His gaze darkened, the line of his jaw hardening. “I’ve been many places I didn’t want to be, Jemma. Places where I thought God had abandoned me. And there have been times when the faith I had once professed so strongly failed me.”

  His confession touched her soul. No other man of her acquaintance had this strength of character, this complexity. “I’m the only one who failed you,” she whispered.

  He reached out and ran a hand over her head, pushing her hair back. “No, Jemma. You were right. We had to take our separate paths. We’d not have been good for each other.”

  Jemma thought her heart would break. She loved him.

  But she had done the right thing all those years ago.

  She and Dane would not have been good for each other. Her immaturity would have held him back from being the man he could be, the man he was.

  On one hand, she felt freer than she had in years. On the other, she couldn’t wait to escape his presence, find a spot where she could be alone, and have a good, soul-cleansing cry.

  Conscious of her nakedness, she moved away from him, pulling her hair down to cover her breasts. “I think the time has come for me to leave.” She searched the floor for her dress.

  “Jemma—,” he started, but she cut him off by holding up her hand. The tightness in her throat was a warning that she’d best escape quickly if she wanted to keep her pride intact.

  “Please, Dane, enough.” She scooped up her dress and awkwardly hunted for the sleeves. “We’ve both said enough.”

  He came up behind her. Her body tingled with awareness. She froze, uncertain. “Please,” she pleaded.

  “What is it?”

  Jemma closed her eyes. How easy it would be to fall back against his chest. But then what? It was too late for them. A declaration of love surrounded by such wealth would sound callow.

  “We’ve come full circle,” she said. “We’re done.”

  “Are we?”

  Oh, dear God, please help me. “Yes.”

  He pressed his lips against the nape of her neck.

  She dropped her dress. She should tell him to stop. Words died in her throat when he did it again. She struggled for sanity.

  “No, Dane,” she managed. She took a step forward, but his hands came down on her shoulder, holding her in place. She caught a glimpse of the two of them in the mirror’s reflection. He was smiling.

  Jemma looked away. “This isn’t good,” she insisted.

  His hand slid down her arm to her waist. He pressed his palm against her abdomen and pulled her back to him. She could feel obvious evidence of his intentions.

  Deep muscles clenched. He knew.

  “We shouldn’t,” she said, but her words had lost their insistence.

  “We need to.”

  “We mustn’t. Dane, we can’t live in the past.”

  He moved his hips against her. “I was thinking of the present.”

  But do you love me?

  Her question echoed in her mind. What did lie between them?

  Dane’s hand moved lower. The heat of his touch destroyed all resistance.

  “We’ll not know if we aren’t willing to take the risk,” he murmured in her ear.

  Her poor heart . . .

  There would be a price to pay. There always was. But right now, Jemma didn’t care.

  She turned in his arms and kissed him fully on the mouth.

  Chapter 9

  Dane’s need to make Jemma understand how deeply she had hurt him was gone. Poof. Disappeared. Years of anger and resentment no longer weighed him down.

  He was free . . . but his attraction to her was still here, and it was stronger than ever.

  Perhaps they had been too young to have fallen in love so completely years ago, and yet the tension between them now was as if they had never parted.

  Love. The word reverberated in his mind as he kissed her back with all his being. He wanted to be sophisticated, to be wiser. As he slid his palms over her smooth skin, he told himself he must not confuse lust with love. Jemma attracted him as no other woman ever had, but that didn’t mean he was falling in love with her again.

  Or did it? Did their bodies know something their wary minds refused to consider? Was a second chance possible for the two of them?

  Tentatively, her tongue touched his. Dane’s blood hit the boiling point. What man cared whether or not a woman loved him when they were both naked and aroused . . . ?

  The time was ripe to teach her new tricks. He hefted her up in his arms. Her long legs circled his waist; her breasts pressed against his chest. Their lips never parted as he walked to the bed.

  His one coherent thought as he placed her on the rumpled bedspread was this time, he’d be more cautious. Let her declare herself first. He’d already made a fool of himself once. This time, he would protect his heart—and then she laughed.

  He greedily began kissing the line of her neck, tickling her enough to laugh. To laugh! Had he ever thought of laughter and lovemaking? With his mistresses it had been their business to please him, and they’d been very serious about their work. They’d been seductive women who’d known what he liked and done it.

  Jemma was merely reacting to the pleasure of his touch.

  Dane pulled back. Their bodies were stretched alongside each other. Only two candles still burned, and in their flickering light, her expressive eyes appeared more alive than ever.

  She lightly ran her fingers down his whiskered jawline. “You tickled.” Her nipples were hard and tight.

  “Is that bad?” he whispered, reveling in the warmth of her body against his.

  Her mouth silently formed the word no. She focused on his lips and reached up to kiss him. Her tongue traced the line of his lower lip, tickling him and making him smile.

  It became a game between them. Dane delighted in trying to tickle her with his lips. The sound of her delight was a potent aphrodisiac. He kissed her shoulder, over her collarbone, down to her breasts.

  Jemma was no cold lover. She gasped and sighed her pleasure. It urged him on. He gave his attention to her full, beautiful breasts, then kissed his way down the flat expanse of her abdomen, steadily working his way lower.

  When he circled her navel with his tongue, she whimpered. He went lower, and lower still until he could have all of her.

  The moment his lips touched her intimately, Jemma startled and tried to close her legs. He placed his hand on her waist to let her know this was right and natural. Slowly, she relaxed, and he drank deep.

  Her fingers buried themselves in his hair as if to hold on for dear life. Her body curved to him, her legs over his shoulders. She whispered his name. He couldn’t help but smile; so sensitive was she to him that she felt the movement and found her release. Her body tensed and arched up off the bed. A sharp cry escaped her, a gasp of discovery.

  Dane gave her one last kiss, and she fell back to earth. He rested his head on her stomach, listening to her breath return to normal, inordinately pleased with himself.

  Jemma sat halfway up, propping herself up on her elbows, her hair back over her shoulders. “What was that?” she asked.

  His chin on his hand on her stomach, he met her astonished gaze and smiled. “Did you like it?”

  She released her response on a shivery sigh before adding, “Certainly it is nothing the Church has ever sanctioned.”

  Her dry response startled a laugh out of him. His own laughter sounded rusty, as if it had not been in use for a long time . . . and it hadn’t.

  He climbed up to lay beside her on the bed. Jemma turned in the curve of his arms. “And what of you?” she whispered, her fingers tracing the line of his arousal. She kissed him beneath his chin. “What can I do for you?” Her fingers closed around his erection, and now it was Dane’s turn to whimper.

  He rolled over on his back, bringing Jemma with him. Her eyes widened when she found herself sitting on his abdomen. He didn’t want to enter her yet . . . not quite yet.

  Her hair c
reated a silky curtain over her breasts. He reached up and caught a shiny strand, measuring its distance down her body.

  “I used to wonder how long your hair was,” he confessed.

  “It’s too long for fashion. I should cut it.”

  “No, you shouldn’t,” he said quickly.

  The stain of a blush colored her cheeks as she admitted, “It’s my one vanity.”

  “And a good one it is. More precious than gold.” He slid his hand up her arm to her neck and brought her down to kiss him. She tasted sweet and willing. He bent his knees and entered her in one smooth push.

  She tightened around him. Their kiss broke.

  “Sit up,” he ordered softly.

  Jemma did as he asked, impaling herself on him, and he thought he could die from the pleasure of being in her this deep.

  “Dane—?” Her voice sounded husky and dark, uncertain.

  “Trust me.”

  She swallowed and then nodded. He felt her movement all the way to the core of her. Using his hips, he thrust up, and knees tightened around him. And again, Dane heard himself laugh with pleasure.

  She smiled in agreement, a goddess in her glory. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask if she loved him. He didn’t. Instead, he began rhythmically moving. She found following his movements awkward at first. Her hands fluttered as if she wasn’t certain what to do with them. He placed them on his chest, one of her palms flat over his heart, and drove himself deeper.

  There was part of Jemma that feared such unbridled wantonness. And another part, a newly discovered part, that hedonistically wallowed in it.

  The need for release built inside of her, and she wasn’t alone. Beneath her, Dane’s face reflected a wide range of emotion. There was tenderness and hunger, urgency and desire.

  He placed his hands on her waist and showed her how to move the way he liked. His breathing grew heavier. His soft words of praise and encouragement drove her in a way she’d never known before. His pleasure became hers.

  Disappointments evaporated. Regrets faded from memory. All that mattered was this moment as together they strove, searching for the same pinnacle. Satisfaction lay within their grasp. Anything was possible. Anything.