“Oh, Chris, you mustn’t!” she cried, sure that any moment Mary and Will Phips along with half of the good citizens of Boston would come crashing through the door, shouting, “Aha! We’ve caught you red-handed!” Red-faced, Alice thought with a stab of guilt. “Chris, really, we can’t,” she begged.
“Tell me to stop because you want me to, Alice, and I will.”
But his hands were so gentle, so warm, so knowing. She sighed and leaned back, letting herself relax and enjoy the things he was doing to her. When he covered both her breasts with the palms of his hands and pressed, she felt as if he were holding her heart close. When his work-roughened thumbs made lazy circles over her nipples, they rose and hardened.
“Alice, you look so beautiful,” he murmured.
“You liar! There’s no light—you can’t even see me,” she taunted.
“I can feel your beauty,” he whispered, “and taste it.”
The next instant his lips were at her right breast. His tongue smoothed over her once and then again. Finally, with agonizing, fire-filled suckling, he drew her nipple into his mouth, slowly, ever so slowly, until she thought she would faint in his arms from wanting it done. His teeth came down gently, imprisoning her. While he held her captive, his tongue lashed her tender, aching flesh, smoothed it, teased it, tortured it until Alice could bear no more.
“Bite me,” she seethed. “Oh, bite me!”
Gunn’s teeth sank down harder.
“Oh, yes, Chris, yes!”
He released her so quickly that she felt as if the world had stopped spinning. She reached out to draw him back to her, but he pressed her away from him. Holding her bodice open with one hand, he dipped his head to her left breast. Again, his mouth found the nipple, but this time he did not suck, he licked. His tongue circled, stroked, prodded, bringing new fire to her blood. She gasped, trying to speak, but words failed her as Gunn sank his teeth—not fiercely, but not gently, either—into her breast.
After a time he drew away and fell back to his side of the bed. They both lay still, staring up at the dark ceiling. The only sound in the room was their heavy breathing. Gunn reached over and touched Alice’s hand.
“Pray God I don’t die tonight,” he said in a raspy voice. “I couldn’t leave this life now, not before I… Oh, Alice, there was never any woman I ever wanted the way I want you.”
Alice lay next to him in a daze. Her whole body ached and throbbed and burned for him. But there was more, she knew that. There was the final “supreme act,” as Lord Geoffrey had called it. But when did that come? How did it happen? An idea struck her: Gunn had done wonderful things to her, but she had done nothing for him. Maybe now was the time.
She reached over and touched his chest, nimbly working at the bone buttons on his shirt until she had two unfastened. He lay perfectly still. It was almost as if he’d stopped breathing. She slipped her fingers through the opening, tugging at the thick man hair on his chest. Her palm slid farther in until it touched his nipple. A tremor ran through him. He gripped her hand in his, pulling it free from his shirt.
“Oh, no, love,” he cautioned. “I’m a strong man, but do that and you’ll bring out a weakness you’re better not knowing of. Let’s rest now for a bit. Both of us.”
Alice didn’t want to rest. Of all the things he might have suggested, this would have been last on her list. How could he rest when she was feeling so much, burning so brightly, aching to know, to do?
Gunn was aching and burning, too, but he knew all about what was happening to him. He wanted to do as much as Alice did, but he’d made a vow to himself and to Mary Phips before ever coming here tonight. He meant to pay proper court to Alice. He could and he would wait. When he was sure that he and Alice were meant to be husband and wife, then…
He lay very still, counting the stars in the heavens that he couldn’t even see. Counting helped. Slowly he cooled off. The throb in his crotch lessened. He could feel Alice twisting and turning beside him, impatient for something more. You’ll just have to wait a bit, my sweet, until it’s safe, he said silently. The stars… the stars… where was I? Two hundred and thirty-one, two hundred and thirty-two…
“Lord Geoffrey said that you were a superior lover,” Alice suddenly declared.
Gunn choked on two hundred and thirty-three and came up coughing. “What?”
“He told me that you could have made me very happy if only you hadn’t dashed off to America. Before he ever decided that you and I should wed, he wanted me to take you as my lover. But, of course, I was there and you were here.”
Gunn stared at her, his suspicions rising. “Why on earth would your husband want you to take a lover?”
“He was an old man. He thought perhaps he didn’t please me.”
“Well, did he?”
“I loved him, so of course he pleased me. I had no one else,” Alice said, thinking how the kindly man had saved her life. “Still, he often talked of you. He would say, ‘If Christopher Gunn were here, he would do this or that to please you.’”
“Oh, God,” Gunn moaned, imagining the sick old lord saying these things while in bed with Alice. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I just thought you’d be pleased to know. My husband thought you were special in every way.”
“But you don’t?” He’d caught that tone in her voice that he thought said he’d disappointed her.
She tried to sound matter-of-fact. “No, it’s just, oh, well, it’s hard to live up to Lord Geoffrey’s opinion of you. I knew all along he was probably exaggerating.”
“And just what did he tell you I would do to you?”
“Once, I remember, he said, ‘When you find the perfect love, you will feel the earth move beneath you, you will ride a cyclone wind until you are perched upon the highest mountain peak, touching the stars.’” She paused and laughed. “It sounds silly, doesn’t it? But he was ever so serious at the time.”
“So you want me to make you touch the stars, do you?” Already, he was reaching for her.
“I thought you meant to that night in the wagon, but you pulled away and the feeling faded.”
“Stars, stars,” he muttered. In his mind a voice shouted, You’d better keep counting them, if you know what’s good for you. But Alice was in his arms again. Silently he told the voice of his conscience to mind its own damn business.
Gunn drew her close, stroking her breasts once more, while his mouth sought hers. He held her so tightly that she could feel his heat even through her ocean of skirts. He sank deeper into that foam of lace until he was crushed against the firm warmth of her thigh. Drawing his tongue from her open mouth, he trailed it along her cheekbone, over her ear, into her ear, down the side of her neck.
Alice could hardly breathe. Gunn was doing things to her that left her dizzy. But some base instinct made her want to rip off her clothes and lie naked in his arms, to feel his mouth and hands everywhere.
Her thoughts were not far from those of Christopher Gunn. He eased her sleeves down, nibbling his way along her shoulder blade. He lifted the hair off her neck, to bite her there. If only he could get to more of her, but her damn skirts and stockings and shoes were in the way. He contented himself with her torso, sliding his mouth down her back, kissing, tasting, nipping at her ribs.
Alice was frantic. She ripped at the buttons of Gunn’s shirt, finally freeing his chest for her hands to play over. He moaned and groaned and gasped, matching her bite for bite.
They twisted about on the bed, a tumble of skirts, boots, hair, and entwined arms and legs.
“Stars the lady wants, stars she shall have,” Gunn growled close to her ear.
He fought her skirts into submission and slid one hot palm up the inside of her thighs. Alice froze, then let her legs relax, opening slightly, inviting his touch. He battled his way through more undergarments to find her at last. He pulled her close, covering her waiting mouth as his fingers stroked gently, drawing her ever closer
to the stars.
She lay quivering in his arms, her eyes tightly shut. It was beginning and building, the wonder and excitement Lord Geoffrey had tried to explain to her. But mere words fell far short of what she was feeling. Her body seemed to throb and glow. She was sure that if she opened her eyes she would find the whole room gleaming like the brightest star, illuminated by her own flesh.
Suddenly she felt the glow burst from her body, spilling shooting stars over the whole world. She gasped Chris’s name, clutching him tightly, never wanting him to release her. He held her close until the enormous, unbelievable pleasure slowly subsided to gentle afterglow.
“I saw them,” she murmured with wonder, “the stars… all the stars.”
Gunn ground his teeth and silently cursed his own stupid promises to himself. “To hell with it,” he muttered, his hand going to the laces of his britches.
“What?” Alice asked dreamily.
“Nothing, love, just lie easy.”
Finally Gunn freed himself from the final barrier between them. He moved toward Alice, ready to position himself for the plunge. A knock came at the door. Cursing under his breath, he quickly rolled back to his side of the bed, hurriedly adjusting his clothing as Alice straightened hers.
“Sun’s up,” Will Phips’s sleepy voice called from the hallway. “Bundling’s over, folks.”
Gunn lay back on the pillows, grimacing in aching frustration. He counted slowly—ships this time, not stars. It was those accursed stars that had caused him all this anguish in the first place.
“Which of us should go out first?” Alice asked, tying the last lace at her bodice.
“You go, Alice.” Gunn was still waiting for his britches to fit properly again.
“I’ll be so embarrassed, Chris.”
“Don’t be. You’ve done nothing to be ashamed of.” Dammit! he added silently.
“What shall I tell them?”
“Tell them nothing. It’s none of their business.”
“But the bundling, Chris, wasn’t it supposed to be a time for making decisions?”
She was right, of course. And now she was, in her own gentle way, trying to prod his proposal.
“What do you want, Alice?”
She shied away from his gaze. “That’s really for you to say.”
“All right!” His lingering frustration was plain in his voice. “I want to marry you.”
“You don’t sound like you want to. You don’t have to, you know.”
“Dammit, I know I don’t have to. Are you going to marry me or not?”
“I suppose I’ll have to after what we did.” The resignation in her tone further provoked Gunn.
“We did nothing!” he answered. “Don’t act like a silly child.”
Gunn’s words infuriated her. She wanted to lash back at him, but she loved him, too. She wanted him to return that love.
“I want you, Christopher Gunn,” she said in a low, sultry voice. “I want to marry you so I don’t have to worry about you and your other women anymore. I like the way you make me feel when we’re in each other’s arms. I want you to go on making me see those stars forever.”
“Then I guess it’s settled, milady. You’ll have to trade in your title to become plain Goodwife Gunn. And it better be soon. Now go on out there and tell them the news before they break down the door.”
She started up, but he caught her arm, kissing the tender spot inside her wrist. She leaned down and kissed him deeply one last time.
“I was wrong,” Gunn said, his voice a low growl. “You’re no child, Alice. You’re all woman, through and through.”
“Don’t be long,” she told him. “I’ll be waiting downstairs, love.”
Chapter 10
Lord Geoffrey Balfour must have been smiling down from heaven when they announced their betrothal. First Alice told Mary and William Phips, who in turn told all of Boston of the wedding in the offing. Entertainment of any sort was usually frowned upon by the founding fathers of Massachusetts, but a wedding was legitimate cause for celebration.
The holiday season that winter of 1690 was the gayest on record with receptions, balls, and banquets to honor the engaged couple. The Puritans of nearby Salem Village frowned on such garish goings-on, but the blue-bloods of Bostontown ignored the zealots’ dire warnings that they were only tempting the devil with such unseemly cavortings.
Mary, who gladly took on the duties of mother of the bride, went to the highly esteemed Reverend Cotton Mather, asking him to perform the ceremony once spring coaxed the first daffodils to bloom.
He only glared at her with cold, disapproving eyes and said, “Nay, Goodwife Phips. I’ll not be a party to joining that heathen Gunn and his fancy-dressed widow-woman in the sight of man or the eyes of God. Better she was still in black and weeping for her dead husband than dancing on his grave and thinking of wedding another so soon.”
“Never mind, Alice,” Mary told the disappointed bride-to-be. “Mr. Mather isn’t the only parson hereabouts. I’ll speak with Reverend Burroughs. He’ll be more than pleased to read the vows, I’m sure.”
All through the end of the year and on into the heavy snows of January, Alice found herself in a whirl of social activity for the first time in her life. She had longed for such excitement all the years she’d been married to Lord Geoffrey, but his time for gaiety had passed long before her birth. It seemed she had been born again in Boston, into a life of fun and frolic and the happy anticipation of all her dreams about to come true.
Christopher Gunn, however, did not seem to share his fiancée’s elation. When he and Alice were alone, he was sweet and kind and loving, but at parties in their honor he acted stiffer than a barn beam. When he smiled at anyone, the unnatural expression seemed painfully frozen on his handsome, clean-shaven face. Something was troubling him, Alice knew, but she had no idea what it could be.
One night in February, after an especially spirited gathering in their honor, Gunn walked Alice home in dead silence.
“What’s wrong, Chris?” she finally asked.
“Nothing.” The force of the single word told Alice that it was far from the truth.
“You haven’t changed your mind about the wedding?”
He uttered a short, dry laugh. “Lord, the wedding… the plans you and Mary have made sound more like a royal coronation. If it were left up to me, we’d go back to Maine, find us a horseback preacher, tie the knot, and fall into the nearest bed.”
Alice frowned. “If it pains you so, I’ll have Mary cancel all the plans,” she offered.
Gunn abruptly turned and caught Alice in his arms, pulling her close to his chest. She felt a great sigh escape him.
“Oh, Alice,” he said, sighing again. “Why can’t we just do it, make it so? I can’t wait any longer. I want you so bad…”
He didn’t bother to finish his sentence. His mouth came down on hers, cutting off his own words. For a long time he held her, searching the sweet depths of her mouth with dizzying thoroughness.
After the kiss Alice cast about for some response. “I want you, too, Chris. You know I do. But Mary says it wouldn’t be proper for us to wed until a year’s passed since Lord Geoffrey’s death.”
“He wanted us to marry, Alice. You told me so yourself.”
Alice nodded. “That he did. But Lord Geoffrey was also one to always observe proprieties. It would go against everything he believed in for us to rush things. It won’t be much longer. Just a few more weeks.”
Gunn knew she was right and didn’t press her further. But he remained unhappy about the wait. Boston still made him nervous. Years ago he had fit right in with the dandies and the popinjays who’d frequented the salons of London. He’d worn the feathers of that office with great pomp and conceit. He’d flirted and connived with the rest of the young rakes and thought that the best game in the world. But he was different now—he was a mature man, not a reckless boy. He longed for the man’s world h
e had left far to the north. And more than that, he needed his woman, all to himself, to satisfy the ache that burned deep inside him.
Some dark threatening shape lurked just at the edge of his brain, warning him that to wait any longer would prove disastrous. But how could he explain to Alice this ominous premonition when he did not fully understand it himself? Still, there it was, day and night. Until they had spoken their vows and were bedded down as man and wife, he would not know an easy moment.
Alice saw this fear in Gunn and spoke of it to Mary. “Perhaps it would be better if we tossed out our grand plans and maybe moved up the wedding date. A quiet ceremony seems more befitting a widow, don’t you think?”
Mary’s face went pale. “Alice, dear, what can you be thinking? You told me about the pitiful affair that passed as your first wedding—a second-hand gown, an ailing groom, only servants for witnesses. I want everything to be perfect for you this time. You’ve only a short while left to wait. Believe me, Christopher will survive. It’s being away from his woods that’s making him so jumpy. And, my poor child, I’m sure he’ll haul you back up to that godforsaken land the moment you’ve said, ‘I do.’ Don’t rush things. Enjoy civilization while you still have the chance.” Mary leaned over and kissed her young friend’s cheek, smiling a bit sadly. “Besides, dear, at my age I’m not likely to have a daughter of my own to fuss over. Please let me do this for you.”
None of Mary’s other arguments could have swayed Alice, but her final plea did the trick. She nodded her agreement and smiled back at Mary, happy that her friend had talked her out of changing their plans.
That wonderful day finally approached. The harsh winds of March died, giving way to gentle rains in April that melted the last of the winter’s soiled snow, and daffodils lifted their faces to the warm sunshine that heralded the coming of May.
Alice breathed a sigh of relief as she sat next to her fiancé at the final banquet the night before their wedding. She glanced up at Chris and shook her head. He had told her that he would not breathe easy until they were man and wife, and apparently, he meant to hold to that, although she still didn’t know why. His face wore a tired, drawn expression, yet his eyes were alive, darting suspicious glances about the room.
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