The Bachelor’s Bride: The Thompsons of Locust Street

by Holly Bush

  After they’d eaten a scrumptious dinner and drank champagne, they’d taken a slow walk on the sand, Elspeth marveling at the ocean. She was down on her haunches now, her arms wrapped around her knees.

  “It is vast,” she said. “And we are not.”

  He sat down and stretched his legs out in front of him, his hands propped behind him, his fingers tunneling in the warm sand that was now, undoubtedly, in every crevice of his clothing.

  “True on both counts.”

  She looked at him. “It is reassuring to accept that we are such a small part of such a vast world. That every eye is not on each of our movements and errors, and even triumphs.”

  “But we each can have a righteous impact. We can correct a wrong. We can raise honest and loving children. We can appreciate art and the progress of inventors and hear beautiful music. You have had such an impact on me,” he said.

  She smiled at him and turned to look at the ocean again. She sat quietly for some time. “Aunt Murdoch did not give me any particulars about tonight, about what will happen later. She told me that there will be times in my marriage where you will need me, need me desperately, perhaps, and I may have to support you and just love you.” She turned to look at him with a broad smile. “She told me she would not give any ridiculous advice, as she could hardly remember what happened in the marriage bed, it was so long ago.”

  Alexander did not move a muscle. He may have been blushing, unfortunately, imagining her aunt saying something as outrageous as that. He continued to stare at her as she bent toward him.

  “She told me to let you be my guide. To follow your lead. She was certain that you loved me beyond measure and that it would mostly come naturally anyway. She said Eve had produced Cain and Abel with no dutiful instructions from some old woman to either she or Adam. She told me to trust you.”

  He continued to stare at her, unsure of himself, praying that he could make her happy. The sun was going down behind them, and the housekeeper had told him there would only be one staff member in the house for that evening, a groom who had apartments over the stables. They would be alone in the house. Totally alone with the vast and rolling sea.

  She stood, shook her skirts, and stared down at him. “Will you make love to me, Alexander?”

  He jumped to his feet and dusted his hands on his pants, calming his heart and winging his arm for her to take her through the rough grasses ahead. But she would have none of it. She arched a brow over her shoulder and took off at a run, holding her shoes and stockings in one hand and her skirts high in the other. She was laughing at him by the time they came to the low gate of the white fence around the house.

  They went in the house together and looked at each other.

  “Go somewhere and rinse the sand off of your person. Bring more of that champagne, if there is any of it,” she said and took herself up the staircase. “Mrs. Elliot showed me the bathing room, and I intend to soak a few minutes.” She glanced over her shoulder at him, her lashes dropping. Sultry was the only word to describe her look. “You may join me in forty-five minutes.”

  She should have been blushing and embarrassed, she thought as she looked in the long mirror at herself in the lacy nightdress and robe she’d purchased for just this occasion. She was not. She saw herself as she hoped Alexander saw her: as an attractive woman, as a survivor, as his wife and mate forever. She felt strangely confident and anxious to be with Alexander in the most intimate of ways. She opened the door of their suite when she heard a tap.

  “You hardly need to knock, Alexander,” she said and smiled. “It is your house, and Mrs. Elliot said there would be no one else here until tomorrow morning at eight.”

  He continued to stand in the doorway, and she realized he was not looking at her face, but rather at her breasts, barely covered by satin and lace, her nipples hardening under his perusal. He was holding a bottle and two glasses.

  “May I take the champagne?” she asked him.

  “Oh yes. Yes, of course. May I come in?”

  She took the bottle and the glasses from him and went to a small table near the door to the balcony overlooking the ocean. She had left the door partially open, and the long curtains swung in the breeze around her bare feet. She poured a glass of champagne and pushed the bottle down into the ice in the silver bucket.

  “Would you like some champagne?” she asked and turned to look at him. He was just inside the room, leaning against the closed door. He shook his head.

  “You are so beautiful,” he whispered.

  He was wearing a long dark red robe, untied, and she could see a sliver of his chest and white shorts below. He was magnificent.

  “I don’t want to frighten you,” he said.

  “I’m not afraid of you, Alexander. I love you.”

  He took a deep breath then and walked toward her slowly. He dropped the robe from his shoulders as he came. He was all muscle and manliness and masculinity, she thought, the perfect complement to her burgeoning femininity. She sipped her champagne and set it down on the table behind her. She slipped the lacy wrap that matched her nightgown off of her shoulders. He watched it slide away but did not move.

  Elspeth walked the final few steps to him and pressed herself against him, her breasts against his warm, naked chest, her arms around his neck. She ran her fingers around his ears and down through his hair. She could feel him, hard and throbbing, against her stomach, and she felt herself respond. Her breasts grew heavy and a sharp pulsing began between her legs.

  “Alexander?”

  His head shook slightly, and he looked at her face and down at her cleavage as if he’d just come out of a trance. He ran his hands up her arms and around her back, pulling her close to him and staring at her mouth.

  He kissed her then. She could have swooned with the romance of it, the waves crashing in the background, the candles’ flames swaying as the ocean air came through the curtains, the bed with its covering pulled back to reveal crisp white sheets, the smell of him, the feel of his skin under her fingers, and the broad hand at her back holding her against him. He deepened the kiss but pulled away to speak to her.

  “Will you come to my bed, Elspeth?”

  She nodded and touched her mouth to his. She drew away and walked to the bed. She knew he was nervous, scared of hurting her or frightening her. In this, she thought, she must ignore Aunt’s advice and take the lead. She bent down and pulled the nightgown up and over her head. He swallowed and stared at her, letting his eyes drift down her body.

  He cleared his throat and pushed his shorts down his legs. She’d not been prepared for just the sight of him to affect her so much, but it did. His broad shoulders, slimmer waist, the dark nest of hair, and of course, his hard sex jutting out, did strange and wonderful things to her insides. She sat down on the bed, lay back, and reached her hand out to him.

  Alexander lay down beside her, a hand on her hip, and kissed her open-mouthed. Her breasts grazed his chest as he did, eliciting a moan from them both. He touched her breast then, cupping it, and she arched against him and murmured his name. She turned on her back as he leaned over her, kissing her neck urgently and finally settling as his tongue swiped her nipple and he closed his mouth over it, sucking gently and letting his hand wander down her body. She squirmed with need when his fingers moved through the curls at the juncture of her thighs.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, love,” he whispered and pushed one finger inside her.

  She groaned and tilted her hips. “I know there’ll be pain the first time. But I want it,” she said against his ear. “Please. Please, Alexander.”

  He climbed over her and spread her legs with his knees, kissing her and touching her breasts. He pressed his sex against hers and pushed inside slowly.

  “I love you. I will always love you,” he said, looking down at her. “Why are you crying?” he said suddenly and began to pull away.

  One tear fell, and she put her hands on his hips, holding him tightly in place. “It is so beautif
ul. So beautiful. You and me together. Joined. I love you, Alexander.”

  He pushed fully inside her then, through her maidenhead, until he was fully sheathed inside her, and he began to move slowly, letting the fleeting pain drift away. She was looking at him, at his blue, blue eyes and the constricted muscles of his neck and shoulders as he held himself over her, moving himself inside of her, in and out, gaining speed with his harsh breaths and her equally uneven breathing. She could feel a fevered flush on her chest and arms, tilted her head back and her hips up, and let a wave of pleasure crash over her. She heard a guttural cry and felt his weight bear down on her.

  “Not yet,” she said when he began to lever himself off of her. She liked the feel of him, spent, sweat-glistened, and totally relaxed on her, and the sounds of his harsh breathing quieting. After a few minutes, he moved off of her, pulling her against his side.

  A warm breeze blew through the curtains, and she rested her head on his shoulder. There was peace in his arms. Peace and safety. And love. She was his for all time.

  “You are mine,” she whispered against his chest.

  His hand tightened on her shoulder. “And you are mine as well, dearest love. Forever.”

  Afterword

  I hope you have enjoyed Alexander and Elspeth’s story, the first in the new Thompsons of Locust Street series. Please follow me on FaceBook, Twitter, or on my website hollybushbooks.com, for announcements about the next book in this series, The Bareknuckled Groom, due out in March 2021.

  Other American set historical romance series:

  The Crawford Family Series includes Train Station Bride, Contract to Wed, companion novella, The Maid’s Quarters, and Her Safe Harbor and tell the tales of three Boston sisters, heiresses to the family banking fortune.

  The Gentry’s of Paradise chronicle the lives of Virginia horse breeders and begins with Beauregard and Eleanor Gentry’s story, set in 1842, in the prequel novella, Into the Evermore. The full-length novels are set in the 1870’s of the next generation of Gentrys and include For the Brave, For This Moment, and For Her Honor.

  Reader favorites Romancing Olive and Reconstructing Jackson are American set Prairie Romances and Cross the Ocean is set in both England and America.

  Politics & Bedfellows and All the News are my general fiction titles published under Hollis Bush.

  Please leave a review where you purchased The Bachelor’s Bride or on GoodReads or other social sites for readers. Thank you so much for your purchase. I love to hear from readers!

  The first few pages of Into the Evermore and the second book in this series, The Bareknuckle Groom follows.

  Into the Evermore Excerpt

  Into the Evermore

  * * *

  November 1842 Virginia

  “Twenty dollars and you can have her. Don’t make no never mind to me what you do with her. I just want to see the gold first.”

  The filthy-looking bearded man waved his gun in every direction as he spoke, including at the head of the young woman he held in his arms and at the three men in front of him. The trio all had handkerchiefs covering the lower part of their faces and hats pulled down tight, revealing six eyes now riveted to the pistol as it honed in on one random target after the other. The woman was struggling, although it was a pitiful attempt as she was clearly exhausted, and maybe hurt. The wind whipped through the trees, blowing the dry snow in circles around them. Beau Gentry watched the grim scene play out as he peered around a boulder down into a small ravine. He’d been propped against the sheltered rock, dozing, and thinking he’d best start a fire, when he heard voices below.

  “Ain’t paying twenty dollars in gold for some used-up whore,” one of the masked men said.

  The filthy man wrenched his arm tighter around the woman and put the gun to her temple. “Tell ’em, girly. Tell ’em you ain’t no whore.”

  She shrank away from the barrel of the gun and moaned. “Please, mister. Let me go,” she begged.

  “Tell ’em you ain’t no whore!”

  She shook her head and pulled at the filthy man’s arm around her waist. “I’m no fallen lady,” she whispered. “I’m just, I’m just . . .” The woman went limp, and Beau thought she’d fainted but instead she vomited into the snow in front of her. He watched her choke and gag, bent over the man’s arm, and that’s when he realized she was barefoot.

  Beau leaned back against the rock and checked his pistols and shotgun beside him. He hoped his horse wouldn’t bolt from the tree she was loosely tied to when the bullets started to fly. It’d be a long walk back to Winchester if she did, especially as he’d most likely be carrying the woman. “Shit,” he muttered. “Shit and damnation. She doesn’t have any goddamn shoes on.”

  From his angle, he’d need to drop the three bandits with the two shells from the shotgun, and finish off any of them still breathing with one of his pistols. They’d be surprised and hopefully slow if the liquor smell floating on the wind meant anything. He was counting on the filthy man being hampered by the woman’s struggling. He was hoping she didn’t get shot in the cross fire, but then she’d be better off dead than facing what was in store for her if the filthy man was the victor. The argument over the gold was getting heated, he could hear, making this as good a time as any.

  The snow fell away from the fur collar and trim of Beau’s coat as he stood, lifted the shotgun to his shoulder, and aimed at the first man. He pulled the trigger, sighted in the second man, and pulled the second trigger right after the other, marching forward through brush and snow, letting the shotgun fall from his hands as he went. Two of the men dropped and the third fell to his knees, aiming his pistol at Beau as he did. Beau lengthened his stride, pulled a pistol from his waistband as he made the clearing, raised his left arm straight, and dropped the kneeling man to the ground with a shot to his face, letting the spent weapon fall to the ground. As he turned, he pulled his new fighting knife free of its scabbard and brought his right hand up, wielding a second pistol, side-stepping to get an angle on the filthy man.

  “She’s mine! You ain’t getting her.”

  “Drop the gun.”

  “Twenty dollars in gold and you can have her!”

  He wondered how much longer the woman would last. She was white-faced, except for the dirt, and her hair hung in clumps, matted together with blood. Her mouth was open in a silent scream. She raised and lowered her arms as if paddling in a pool of water. Most likely she was long past terrified and all the way to hysterical.

  “Fine,” Beau said. “You want twenty dollars?”

  The filthy man nodded, and Beau dropped his knife in the snow and reached his hand in his pants pocket as if intending to retrieve a gold piece. The man lowered his weapon by an inch or so as his eyes followed Beau’s hand, and in that moment Beau brought up his right hand and fired his weapon. The bullet tore through the man’s neck, sending blood gushing into the snow as the man tumbled sideways, releasing the woman. She fell in the opposite direction, covered in splattered blood, clawing and crawling away from her captor, turning on her back and shoving off in the mud and snow with bleeding feet, pushing herself away. Her cry echoed in the silent cold night.

  Beau pulled his knife from the snow, kicked away the filthy man’s gun, and walked to where he lay, now writhing as he slowly drowned in his own blood. The hair on the back of Beau’s neck stood and he turned. The last of the three men, missing part of his cheek and ear, had retrieved a loaded pistol from the belt of one of his companions and was now aiming it at Beau with shaking hands. Beau released the knife with a whip of his wrist, landing it dead center on the man’s chest. He turned to the woman and watched as her eyes rolled back in her head and she crumbled the last four or five inches, until her back hit the forest floor.

  The Bareknuckled Groom Excerpt

  Coming March of 2021

  December 1868

  Philadelphia

  * * *

  James Thompson eyed the dainty brunette and the others as they approached him. S
he was dressed in festive colors with matching ribbons, sparkling up at him, her lashes fluttering, her cheeks pink. He was at some infernal December gathering, one of many that the Pendergast family hosted, being a prominent Philadelphia family, and not as snobby and stuck on themselves as he’d expected when his sister Elspeth first took an interest in her husband, Alexander Pendergast.

  But the guests at their parties were exactly the kind of people James expected them to be, including the brunette, the two men on either side of her, one of them puffing out his chest, and certainly the tall blond goddess with the wide pink lips and pale blue eyes. She looked at him as if he was the lowliest of the low, barely a servant, one of the unwashed, or even a beggar. He did not know how a woman could convey so much disdain for a person with a smile, but this woman did exactly that.

  And he had plenty of experience with women. He loved women and they loved him. It mattered little if they were tall or short or brunette or red headed or coltishly thin or buxom. He loved them all. But those women were young widows or ones he met at the clubs he frequented or just women working at one of the many factories and offices in Philadelphia, his home since the age of eleven when he came from Scotland with his family. They were definitely not the women at this party. A quick toss with any of these women would not happen and if it did, exile to some remote location would be expected shortly thereafter.

  “I was telling my friends that you’re a famous boxer, Mr. Thompson,” the brunette tittered.