Lisbeth fetched a tea cup and the leaf ball from the cupboard. “I have not ‘moved in’ with him, Mignon—at least not the way I imagine you mean.”
“No? Could have fooled me, with you waxing all domestic here at his hearthside. I thought you’d decided to move on, the way we discussed—after Declan.”
“Not yet.”
“Really?” Mignon settled more comfortably on the bench. “But it’s all over town that you and Rab are a couple. Who would have thought? You and Rab! Remember how Pat and Declan used to pick on him back in school?”
“Yes, until Rab grew big enough to defend himself.”
“Declan must be spinning in his watery grave. Tell me…” Mignon leaned forward conspiratorially. “How is Rab Sinclair in bed?”
Lisbeth would not readily discuss such a thing with Frannie, let alone this woman.
“I would not know, Mignon. We aren’t together that way. Rab has merely acted as a friend and offered me a roof here in town—as I told you before, he sleeps elsewhere.” To her dismay, Lisbeth felt her cheeks grow warm. Even lacking that intimacy, she and Rab were together on a level of which she’d not dreamed with Declan.
“Still?” Mignon looked skeptical. “Ah, well, deny it as you will, people are going to think what they like.” Abruptly, she changed the subject. “How is your sister, Ellen? You know, I don’t think she ever liked me.”
A cat, Ellen had labeled Mignon right from the start. Lisbeth said, “She’s doing well. She and her husband have a fine house in Augusta, where he practices law.”
“It’s odd that you didn’t go and live with her, after Declan died. She could probably use your help with the children. Remind me, how many does she have?”
“Two girls. Ellen did offer to bring me to Augusta, but my home is here.” Always had been, since they’d come from St. John’s.
Mignon leaned toward her again, her eyes bright with malice. “So, did you want Rab even while Declan was still alive? You can tell me!”
“Of course not.”
“It’s all right, you wouldn’t be the first woman hungry for a man who isn’t her husband.”
Lisbeth stiffened. “Mignon, why don’t you tell me the real reason you’ve come?”
“Hit a sore spot, did I? As I said, I want to refurbish my wardrobe. You did such a nice job on the blue dress, I thought I’d offer the work to you rather than order out of Boston as I usually do.”
Lisbeth paused in surprise. “How many dresses were you thinking?”
“Oh, I don’t know—how many can you manage? Five? Ten?”
Lisbeth caught her breath. Such a commission would keep her all winter, and offer her some independence. “I’d be glad of the work,” she admitted. “But I fear the gowns I produce will not be up to the latest fashion.”
“Nonsense. I have pictures, and you can make them to match. Anyway, I’m looking for everyday wear in heavier fabrics for the coming season. It does get so cold up in that big house. If you agree, I’ll send for the fabrics at once.” She made a face. “I already checked, and Fred Beatty has nothing suitable.”
“I see.” Lisbeth’s thoughts raced. Was there any way she could get Mignon to advance her part of the payment, something on which to live?
At that moment Kelpie came in through the back door, which remained standing open. The big dog had been lying in the sunny yard, but the smell of new-baked bread must have drawn him.
Mignon immediately tensed. “Do not let that thing in here—he’s dirty and probably full of fleas.”
“He’s not—and he’s come for a heel of bread.” Mildly, Lisbeth went on, “You never liked animals, did you, even at school? I remember the time little Joey O’Rourke brought his kitten, smuggled in his pocket.” Mignon had shrieked when the tiny creature got loose in the schoolroom and tried to climb into her lap.
“That cat scratched me.”
“Only because you frightened it.”
Mignon drew back on the bench as Kelpie passed and only relaxed when Lisbeth distracted him with a piece of bread.
“My, how you do spoil that animal! You’ll be buttering that for him next.” Mignon sniffed. “Not but it smells good.”
“Would you like some with your tea, Mignon?”
“I will not say no, although”—an incredible, arch look came to Mignon’s face—“I really should. That’s part of the reason I need a new wardrobe. That comfort eating we spoke about, before? It seems to be having a decided effect on me. I’m not the slim girl I was.”
“None of us is who we were long ago.”
Mignon accepted a slice of bread with her cup of tea, though she did tuck her skirts well out of Kelpie’s way.
“Isn’t this fun? I should walk down more often and pass the time. Maybe I can check the progress of my new wardrobe. That is, if you want the work.”
“I do, but might you see your way to paying me a bit up front? It’s just that I do not like taking advantage of Rab’s kindness.”
“Of course.” Mignon’s eyes gleamed. “Though I am sure you more than repay Rab in other ways—least of all by baking his bread. This is delicious.” She bit into her slice again. “You know, they say new-baked bread is bad for you.”
“They say a lot of things.”
“Yes, and why is it what’s forbidden is also what’s most enjoyable? It’s so much fun to live dangerously.”
And, Lisbeth wondered wryly, just how much danger did Mignon encounter up in that big house of hers?
Mignon finished her bread and set her plate aside. “Send the dog back out into the yard and fetch your measuring ribbon, Lisbeth. You will have to take all my measurements over again.”
****
“Mignon was here this afternoon,” Lisbeth told Rab later while they shared bowls of stew and the remains of the bread. “She wants me to make her a number of dresses—five or more.”
Rab looked up and regarded her seriously. “Good news, I guess. Do you want to work for her, though? I know she sometimes puts your back up.”
“So she does. But she pays handsomely, and she’s the best custom in town. The work’s a God’s send.”
Rab’s big hand came across the table and covered Lisbeth’s where it lay beside her plate. “You know I can provide for you, Lisbeth. I’m earning enough.”
“But that’s not right. You’re a good and generous friend, but I need to be able to keep myself.”
Rab grunted. With a hint of humor, he said, “Friend, now, am I? I’d hoped for something more.”
“There’s plenty more,” Lisbeth returned with some heat. “You know I’d take you to that bed this instant if you’d but agree. Tell me again why we refrain, Rab. Mignon thinks we’re living together in fact—no doubt the whole town does. If I have the label, might I not also have the pleasure?”
He laughed ruefully. “I am trying to spare your reputation, and your heart.”
“My reputation is already accounted for.” And her heart quite lost. “Mignon says a widow can do as she pleases.”
“Oh, aye?”
“And it would please me to spend the night with you.” Many nights—an unbroken string of them, to eternity. She wanted to revel in the taste of his lips, the feel of his big hands all over her body, to belong to him in truth as she already did in spirit.
His fingers tightened on hers. She turned her hand within his grasp, laced her fingers through his, and pulled him toward her. Their lips met across the table and the sweetness of it exploded upon Lisbeth’s senses.
“Please, Rab,” she whispered against his lips.
“Ah, Lisbeth—”
She kissed him again with more heat, and heard his spoon clatter against the tabletop before his other hand came up to cradle her cheek.
“By God, lass.” This time when he broke the kiss, his breath came ragged. “I love you too much to let you regret aught we may do together.”
“You love me?” Lisbeth found she needed to hear it spoken again in his deep Scots burr.
“I have always loved you.”
“Then, come.” She got up and moved around the table. He surged to his feet also, a tangle of emotions in his eyes: desire, reluctance, and another that stole Lisbeth’s breath.
She stepped up to him and began to unbutton his shirt. The soft woolen fabric fell back to reveal the broad chest hard with muscle and speckled with a pattern of black hair. She slid her palms over his skin and he stiffened like a man singed.
“Lisbeth—”
“Hush.” She leaned in and let her mouth follow her hands, tasting him as she had longed to do these many days. He grasped her shoulders and the heat of his palms flowed into her.
Slowly she lifted her head and gazed into his eyes. “Touch me, Rab, as you will.”
Immediately, his hands moved to her hair. He pulled out the combs that confined it; with part of her attention Lisbeth heard them hit the floor. When her hair lay in a wild mass around her shoulders, his fingers moved to the bodice of her gown, where they hesitated.
On fire for him, Lisbeth breathed, “Go ahead.”
He shook his head, so she did the job for him, her fingers stumbling over the buttons in her eagerness. As she had in the stable, she shed her bodice without shame. But this time he could see her in the soft light of the lantern that stood on the table.
“By God, you’re beautiful.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
He raised both palms and cupped her gently. Desire rushed through her like a nor’easter and settled low in her belly.
“Please,” she said again, and caught his hand and drew him to the bed.
Would he, could he resist? The light came from behind him now, and she could no longer see his eyes, just the radiance washing over those big shoulders, making a halo of his black hair.
“Come to me,” she bade.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rab stood motionless as Lisbeth’s hands moved to the ties on her skirt and worked their magic; the garment fell about her ankles with a billow, revealing her naked but for a pair of thin drawers—and stockings.
His heart began to pound like the hammer in the forge, and he fought to keep from reaching for her again. How many nights had he lain in that bed and longed for her, ached for just this? Ten thousand fantasies had possessed him; now the reality stood at his fingertips. How could he say no?
Yet through all those fantasies she had been another man’s wife. And was still.
He could see what lay in her eyes: desire enough to warm them both, to melt away the last of his self-imposed restrictions. His Lisbeth wanted him. That alone made a gift that should warm him to the grave. He longed to give himself in answer, spill his need into her heat, throw himself into the sea of her desire and never surface.
But what if, when the morning came, once the flames died and the cold light streamed in, she looked at him with dismay in those beautiful eyes?
He never wanted her to regret anything they did together. He did not want the word adultery to rear its head between them.
“Lisbeth.” He whispered it with longing.
“Touch me. Why don’t you touch me?” Almost angrily she untied the laces on her drawers and he saw how she trembled. The thin fabric fell away and she stood only in her stockings—easily the most tantalizing sight Rab had ever seen.
He had imagined her so, aye, yet the truth exceeded any imaginings: breasts just full enough and now peaked in the cool air, a tiny waist, and those slender legs, skin like cream everywhere. Lisbeth, his Lisbeth.
She reached for the buttons on his trousers, a woman determined for this thing, do or die. He already stood for her, hard as an iron ingot. Once she saw the state of him, could he deny her anything?
She succeeded in her fight against the buttons and thrust her hands inside to capture him. Ah, God—he was lost!
“Lisbeth—” It seemed all he could say.
With her fingers wrapped tight around him, she looked into his eyes. “I love you, Rab Sinclair. I don’t think I knew what love was, not till I realized what I felt for you. For better or worse—so it is!”
Rab’s chest heaved as if he had just run up the shore. “There has never been anyone for me but you.”
She stepped forward into his arms with a shocking contact of skin on skin. Rab struggled to shuck his trousers, and they tumbled onto the bed.
And oh, she made an armful—a mouthful—as he began to explore her soft warmth. Need burgeoned through him, reined only by tenderness. The flesh of her stomach felt like silk, the scent of her rose to enfold him. He had been born for this woman, had sailed the watery miles from Scotland for her, endured all the loneliness in fair exchange for this one night.
Aye, a fair exchange.
His lips skittered across her belly, made one foray downward, and returned to her breast. She fit into his mouth as if formed for it—just the right amount and no more. She sighed as he suckled her and buried her fingers in his hair. Her slender legs wove around his body, capturing him tight, and the weight of him settled very nearly where it needed to be.
An image of Declan O’Shea arose in his mind—face filled with mockery, tawny eyes full of malice.
He released Lisbeth’s breast and rested his face against her, breathing raggedly.
“I canno’. We both know Declan is still alive.”
“No, we don’t know. Anyway, was Declan faithful to me?”
“No.”
“Why should I then be faithful to him?”
She had asked this same question before. Rab had barely been able to refute it then and struggled as against a monstrous burden now.
“I want to wed you, Lisbeth.” It was what he’d always wanted from the first day he beheld her outside the schoolhouse. He had decided then that she—and only she—would be his wife. He had never truly looked at another woman.
He wanted this thing done honorably, not quick and desperate.
She went still in his arms. “Oh, Rab.”
“I canno’ ask you to wed me, now.”
“You can.”
He pressed his forehead against her breast. “You are still another man’s wife.”
She held him tightly, and he felt her tears come. He gathered her to him in the bed, still hopelessly hard for her, and aching. Slowly he began to kiss her tears away from her cheeks, the corners of her eyes, and her mouth.
She came to life suddenly and pressed herself against him. “Rabbie, Rabbie, if you will not complete the act—if your honorable heart will not let you—at least let me pleasure you. I know how.”
She knew how. Declan had showed her, for she had certainly been with no other man. That knowledge fairly choked Rab, yet how could he refuse when her fingers once more found and cradled him, when her lips touched the skin of his chest and began moving downward? He had not wanted their first time to be like this; he had wanted to cherish her, worship her, and now there was this terrible need and her willingness, the heat of her mouth when it closed on him, and the rush so like the fire when it flared in the forge.
At the last instant he found the strength to withdraw from between her lips even as she moaned in protest, to draw her up and fuse his mouth to her breast, part her legs and put his fingers inside where she desired him. He felt the waves of pleasure wrack her, and she held to him like a drowning woman.
“Rab, Rab—” She spoke his name as he had never heard it, like a prayer. “What miracle is this?”
A year wed, and though Declan had made sure to instruct her in the other act, she did not recognize her own pleasure. What had the man been about? But nay, Rab did not want to think of Declan during this moment of intimacy—and embarrassment. For he had shamed himself after all, released his seed onto Lisbeth’s soft skin even as she climaxed.
“Rab, look at me.”
“Nay.” He groped for his shirt, within reach of the bed, and used it to mop her flesh.
“Look at me,” she insisted.
“That was not what I intended.”
&
nbsp; “Maybe not, but it was what I needed this night. Thank you for not being so cruel as to deny me.”
“Lisbeth, I would deny you nothing. But you deserve better than this: honor and beauty, a lovely wedding—”
She smiled tremulously. “What a romantic heart you have, Rab Sinclair. You are not to regret this, nor be ashamed of what we share, either.”
He sat up and reached for the rest of his clothes, feeling wretched and, all at once, cold.
“Stay with me, Rab,” she beseeched. “Stay the rest of the night. Lie here with me.”
And if he did, the same would happen again—that or more. He could not stand to be near her now without touching, tasting.
“Let me go, Lisbeth.”
Her hands fell from him as if singed. She lay quietly while he climbed into his clothes, found another shirt, and told Kelpie, “Stay, lad.”
At the very last he looked at Lisbeth lying in his bed, a vision from a dream.
“Be sure and lock the door behind me.”
She scrambled obediently from the bed, catching up a blanket to cover her nakedness as she came. Her hair made a halo around her head as it caught the lantern light.
She seized hold of him with both hands; the blanket slid down.
“Rab—are you angry with me?”
“Nay lass, not with you.”
“With yourself, then? Please do not be. This was my choice. Have I not a right to choose?”
Unable to look at her, he repeated, “Lock the door behind me.”
And he went out into the dark.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Come in; I have something to tell you.” Frannie snagged Lisbeth’s arm and virtually towed her into the Beckers’ kitchen, out of the gray morning.
Lisbeth had something to tell Frannie, as well; it was why she had come by. If she could express to anyone her feelings for Rab and the confusion that dominated her heart, it would be to Fran.
But, as usual, cheerful madness reigned at the Becker household. Ed had already left for work—Lisbeth had seen him go—and Bess squealed in Frannie’s arms, no doubt wanting to be fed. Little Eddie ran around the kitchen like the wild creature he so often resembled. Frannie, wearing a stained apron over her nightdress, did not appear to have combed her hair for days.
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