“As you wish, milady,” he said, gazing into her eyes with an arousing combination of conquest and surrender.
He hastily tossed back the quilts and lowered her into his bed. Quickly, he walked around his quarters snuffing candles and lamps, then returned to stoke the stove. He left a candelabra burning beside the bed.
She stretched out in luxuriant happiness, watching him unbutton his breeches and hang them in his closet. As he moved, she weighed again her earlier opinion of his chest being his best physical feature. She’d never had as clear a look at his naked body as now. It was a tough call; he had so many alluring features.
He climbed into bed beside her and let his eyes drift over her as if enjoying the candlelight on her flesh.
Kissing her lips with tender grace, he pushed back the hair from her face. He hesitated, then kissed the crescent-shaped scar at the corner of her eye. “Who did this?”
“Nan said I hit my face on the bed. But Camisha told me it happened the night my parents were killed. I don’t remember.”
He petted her gently, his kisses slowly trailing from her face to her breasts, and then—her excitement soared—lower. A blush stained her cheeks as he clutched her buttocks in his large hands, cupping her to his mouth as if her womanhood were a fount and he a man dying in the desert.
She gasped, then cried out in pure joy, her hands playing lightly in his hair. But then he teased her, drawing back each time she felt an overwhelming pressure tightening her abdomen. With an intimacy that sent an electric current pulsing between her thighs, he casually placed one of her thighs, then the other, over his shoulders.
She stroked his hair, whispering his name, then begging him for something she had only imagined before now. Then his mouth closed directly over her most sensitive center, suckling lightly, then harder.
His name came from her in a cry of need as waves of ecstasy washed over her. As the spasms slowly passed, she felt him rising over her, her thighs still over his shoulders. He smoothed his hand along one thigh, then the other, as if he simply enjoyed the feeling of her. His hand moved between her thighs, lightly exploring, knowing her keen sensitivity. He slipped a finger, then two, within her, and the mild discomfort was eased when he finally brushed his thumb against her, setting her trembling again.
Adrift in sensation, she was surprised when she looked up to find his gaze on her with quiet affection, even as one hand extended her thigh into the air and the other played between her thighs.
“Bronson.” Her hands roved the breadth of his chest.
“Yes, my love.”
“I feel it again.”
His mouth went tight as he watched her. At last, he gave her a rakish smile. “And so shall you, again, and again.”
“But I want to … um, kiss you. I mean, the way you kissed me.” She lowered her hands from her chest toward his torso, but in his current position, he was too far away even to touch.
His face grew solemn at her words. “Then I’ll dream of that until you do. But for now—”
He lowered himself between her thighs, and her skin tingled when she felt the smooth round tip, the hard length of him seeking there. He slid lightly along the outer flesh, his tongue at the corner of his mouth, as he watched her response. He rested on an elbow, the other hand caressing and teasing her breasts. He dipped his mouth to suckle her breasts even as he sought entry between her thighs with slow, knowing thrusts that teased at her, then slipped inward into her wetness.
“Dear God, Marley. You’ll be the death of me. You’re the most sexual creature I’ve ever been with. You seem to genuinely enjoy my touch.”
Breathless laughter came from her at his phrasing. Well, there’s a big fat duh. She marveled at him, at his athletic strength and grace, the ease with which he held his body above hers, taut, while he made love to her with his mouth, his hands, his entire body. Truly, he worshipped her with his body, as if he had been created for her alone.
“Kiss me.” She raised her parted lips to him, and he lowered his mouth to hers, his body more insistent as he pressed himself more deeply into her.
He drew back, raising himself so that he could watch her face as he breached the fine barrier once and for all. He sank deeply within her, filling her. Her eyes closed at their joining, and then opened again, finding his gaze roving over her.
“All well?” he asked.
“You’re very—large.”
“Too much?” he asked, and made as if to withdraw.
She quickly curled her thigh around his back and held him close. At her frank acceptance, he lowered a hand between her thighs, caressing her swollen flesh even as he thrust within her.
Then he drew both her thighs up around his waist, and she gasped at the sharpness of the sensation within her. He grasped her round hips in his palms as he thrust, tilting her pelvis ever so slightly to deepen the sensation. The orgasm built within her, and his fingers dug into the soft flesh of her hips. She looked up at him and was lost in his gaze.
She saw the urgency in him even as he held himself back, the frank sexuality and the breathless wonder at the electricity joining their bodies.
Again his fingers returned to play lightly, then with the practiced expertise of a man who had already come to know her body as well as his own. And he felt her own arousal under his hand, and as she whispered his name, as he felt the first pulsing of her around him, he lowered his long body over hers, kissing her throat, his love for her pouring deeply within her as his adoration spilled into her ear.
His arm curved around her head, his hand playing through her hair, then drawing her even closer to him as she felt his heart beating within her.
They lay that way for some minutes, unwilling to part. At last, he shifted to one side, thrusting a pillow under his head and gazing at her.
“I do truly adore you. I will cherish and protect you the rest of my life.”
He lightly twined her fingers in his and rested his head above hers. She took that hand and kissed his fingers, pressing her face against it.
He rose and walked to his closet, and she relished the decadent pleasure of observing him naked. “Are you sleepy?”
She shook her head, unsurprised by his abrupt change of subject. “I am utterly content.”
He retrieved a dressing gown and a thick flannel shirt from his closet and slipped on the gown. “Are you hungry?”
“Not particularly. What is there?”
He lit a candle beside the cart and removed the silver covers from the dishes. “Ah! A loaf of bread, sliced turkey, cranberry sauce, potatoes, yams, that ‘green bean casserole’ thing she makes, slices of pie, and—how I worship that woman! Her home-rolled pasta and cheese.”
“Home-rolled pasta and cheese?”
“Yes, she makes these tiny noodles and mixes them with cheese and bakes it all until it’s rich and toothsome and chewy and… you must ask her for the recipe. No one else in the entire American colonies knows of this. I might never need visit Boston again if you learn how to make it.”
“It’s macaroni and cheese! Thomas Jefferson invented it.”
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Adams invented it. And she would never have named it after those pretentious fops.”
She laughed. “Different macaroni. And the Italians invented it, but you’re right, since Jefferson hasn’t even visited Europe yet, to my knowledge.”
He stabbed a forkful and ate it. “’Tis delicious even cold.”
“Well, let me heat it on the stove.” Marley donned the flannel shirt he’d left for her—it made for a cozy robe.
She placed the gravy and casserole and yams on the small stove to warm. She couldn’t get the mac and cheese away from him to heat. The loaf had been sliced in thick, aromatic slabs—thank you, Camisha—and she set slices out on a plate, spreading one slice with cranberry sauce, then topping that with slices of turkey and dressing.
While she waited for the gravy to heat, she peered at the mac and cheese. He held it out, offering to share.
“No, I was just looking at it. It’s all handmade.” She marveled at what must have taken Camisha hours. She had known the hardships of women in the eighteenth century, had spoken of it in tours of the old town, back in her old life. But it was striking to see firsthand. “What a demonstration of love.”
A small smile went over her face as she observed his bliss. “How often do you eat that?”
“Two, three times a year, if I’m lucky. Why?”
“Do you love it that much?”
“This is perhaps my favorite food.”
She laughed in delight.
“What? ’Tis quite good, you know.”
“It’s just that in my time, children love it, and there’s so much about you that’s boyish. Adults do, too. I was just thinking … where I grew up, you can buy a box of the stuff at the store for a couple of dollars and have it ready for eight people in ten minutes. The pasta, I mean. You have to add the cheese and bake it, still. It had to have taken her hours to make just the pasta.”
He searched her face, attempting to understand as she went on. “In my life, we had so many conveniences. You can buy a meal entirely prepared and frozen at the grocery store, and heat it up and be eating five minutes later. Our entire world is disposable.”
“How tasty is that kind of meal? Is it like a seaman’s food?”
She laughed. “Oh, about as tasty as it sounds—although it’s generally worm-free. We are in such a rush to do the meaningless that we gladly relinquish the moments, the experiences, that matter. We spend an hour in a car getting to work. An hour at night, getting home from work. And after fifty years of this kind of living, we look around and wonder what happened.”
“What’s a car?”
“Oh, no no no. Another time. Tonight … do you really have to wear that robe?”
He looked down at himself, then at the elegantly set cart, bemused. “I’m not an animal.”
She laughed at his sense of decorum.
The corner of his mouth hooked as his eyes sparkled at her. “Do you realize how ludicrous I would look, sitting here at my table eating, entirely disrobed?”
“Ludicrous is the wrong word. Luscious, you mean.”
He poked his fork toward her with an eyebrow raised. “For such a shy and retiring lass, you have a tiny streak of the libertine.”
“How my grandmother would howl at that.”
“Why so?”
The gravy was warm, and she considered her answer as she made his sandwich.
“She only meant well, she merely found the idea of my having any other dimension beyond that of an historian and a bookworm, well, downright comical.”
She dribbled gravy over the turkey and dressing, topped it with the other slice of bread, and sliced it in two. Scooping out some vegetables, she placed it before him and poured herself a glass of wine.
She walked to the dresser, slipping the pillbox and its chain back over her head. “Almost forgot.”
“I’m quite sure your grandmother must be a delightful matron to have raised you—not to mention charming my own father. But ... I do not yet see it. What is this, by the way?”
“It’s a Thanksgiving sandwich.”
He smiled patiently. “Yes, and delicious indeed. I’ve never tasted anything finer.”
“Oh, you mean—” she held up her pillbox. “This, sir, is a silver repousse pillbox. Don’t ask me what it means.”
“I can tell you. A jeweler—or a talented smith—works on the back side of a piece, hammering out the tiny details of a design in relief. But what’s inside it?”
She opened it and showed him the miniature. “This is my sister, Rachel. It was done the last year we were together. My grandmother gave it to me, not long before the storm.”
“She has hair like you, though darker.”
“I saw her today.”
“What? Here at Rosalie?”
She recounted to him the events of the day, skipping Rachel’s mention of the death of Bronson’s mother. He was intent on her, his face showing a skepticism she still couldn’t blame him for—even when she described seeing his own brother.
“You don’t believe me.”
He briefly searched for words. “It is not that I don’t believe you. ’Tis you, someone I trust completely, telling me something I’ve always known—or thought—to be impossible. If you told me men can indeed sprout natural wings and fly, and have always been able to, it could not be stranger.”
“The Fourth of July. Your thirtieth birthday. You will see this country declare its independence then. I will be with you to celebrate. If you wish to see it firsthand, we need to be in Philadelphia, at Carpenter’s Hall.”
A distance entered his gaze briefly, until he refocused his attention on his sandwich. Then he set it back in the silver plate, covering it. “That’s a goodly portion of food. I’m saving the rest for later.”
He drank from his wineglass. After a moment, she realized he was uneasy, and her mention of his birthday had brought it on.
Not tonight. And let him be the one to mention it.
She touched the back of his hand lightly. When his eyes met hers, she sent him a look of reassurance. Then she rose, slipped out of his shirt, then removed his dressing gown and put it away.
As he stoked the fire, she crossed to hang the garments in his closet. She turned and caught him watching her, and she smiled. “Has Camisha told you about tryptophan?”
He laughed, walking to her in easy confidence. “I’ll let you rest, but I can’t imagine myself sleeping tonight.” He kissed her forehead and cupped her hips, drawing her full-length against his nakedness. “Come and lie with me.”
He snuffed the candle at the table then crossed to the bed and lay down first, then drew her down into his arms. They found a comfortable position, and she rubbed her face against his chest, just below his collarbone.
“Would you rather I didn’t tell you such things? Perhaps it’s better that way. Earlier, I was only attempting to show you it’s true. I can’t explain it, but it’s true.”
“Tell me all you wish. I am a man full grown, I need no protection. I wish for nothing to ever be between us. You are my wife, my heart. The truth is, I can’t imagine a more awful, fearsome burden to bear than yours. What if I ask you a question each night about the future, and you answer it? And other than that, you tell me what you need to, when you want to. And in exchange, I shall tell you something I’ve learned, in this time.”
She nodded. Several minutes passed as he caressed her—lightly, tenderly, still learning the curves and hollows of her body.
“Ah. So as not to surprise you, tomorrow we must travel into Williamsburg.”
“Why?”
He chuckled at her whine. “I don’t wish to leave our sanctuary, either. But I’ll not have my wife outfitted in Rashall’s mother’s old clothes, or dear God traipsing about my ship in my baggy old breeches. And we’ll be back here by tomorrow evening.”
“But I can’t move around on this ship in all those silly skirts women wear today.”
He hesitated, and she knew what he was about to say.
“No,” she said, with resolute force. “I will not stay behind. You told me you would never leave my side. And you need me to help. If you don’t let me go, I’ll stow away.”
For a time, he declined to respond. He lay, still stroking her absently, as if neither of them had spoken.
“I shall bring along my tankard. An added incentive.”
He exhaled in a comical snort. “Well. Then the argument is at an end.”
Something in his voice gave her pause. “Do you resent me doing what I did with Falligan?”
He looked off at his closet. “I resent your having had to. You get in the way of that resentment at times. ’Twas not your fault, and in truth I owe you my life.”
“Yes, you do.” She lightly kissed the base of his throat, where she felt his pulse.
“Very well.” He sighed in resignation. “A sailing we shall
go.”
She beamed with pleasure, inhaling in excitement, hugging him hard.
“Bronson?”
“Aye.”
“What does the posy say? In my ring?”
After a moment, he murmured with odd stiffness, “Ah. Providence divine hath made me thine.”
She looked up at him. “Doesn’t that old posy go the other way? ‘hath made thee mine’?”
“That, only you can say. That I am thine, I know to be true.” This, he said with his usual inflection.
For another long moment, she gazed at him, until he looked down from his random perusal of the ceiling to meet her eyes.
“All right, ’tis a falsehood. Dear God, I tremble at how well you know me. I cannot even tell you the whitest of lies.”
“Well, the second part didn’t sound like a lie.”
“That’s because I did come quite close to using that exact engraving, and for that reason. I am thine indeed, and God wrought that.”
His words moved her, and she tried to find a way to explain to him all that he had come to mean to her. But he went on.
“However, I did not. Instead I used one that’s perhaps less romantic, but the dearest truth in my heart. ‘Memento mori.’”
“Remember … death?”
He nodded silently.
For perhaps a minute she didn’t speak. What a grim motto to consider one’s dearest truth.
“What on earth does that mean?”
“’Tis how I live this life. It means each moment we share—all of us here—is stolen from the grave. None of us is immortal.”
And if his earlier reaction to her mention of his thirtieth birthday weren’t enough proof, then she knew now that he took seriously the so-called curse. She held her tongue, uncertain yet the most polite way to attempt to tell the brilliant man she loved that his long-held superstitions were rubbish. For now, it did not matter.
“I have loved you more since the moment I saw you, plummeting into the depths of the ocean below me, than many men love in a lifetime. I have seen the same joy for life in you. We are not promised tomorrow, Merrilea. And so, today, we live. We live. This moment for me is the warmth and softness of you in my arms, the river rustling outside, the smell of the hickory fire keeping us warm, the faint aroma of that dismal whale oil that never leaves this ship, the smell of the turkey gravy, the memory of that sandwich—savory, tart, sweet, all the flavors of all foods in a few bites—and the enflaming memory of the flavor of you. The fulsome joy within me to love a woman so singular and unique, with a smile to break my heart—and to be loved by you. And, yes, the warmth of your tears on my chest now.
Immortal (The Trelawneys of Williamsburg Book 2) Page 30