But fighting for him would mean being vulnerable. Telling him the whole truth of her past. Her heart gave a trill of fear at the very thought.
“Why would you come to see me, Goodman?”
“I thought you might like to take a walk with me.”
“A walk…with you?”
“Aye.” The wind blew his dark hair. Sunlight made the red and gold highlights blaze. He dropped to his knees beside her. “I think, if we were to spend some time to come to know each other as friends, I think you could accept a marriage with me.”
A little leaping sensation blossomed in her chest. Hope. Foolish, stupid hope.
Could he come to know her and see her differently?
Humour twinkled in his eyes. He smiled, showing his strong, white teeth.
Her heartbeat warbled briefly. A girlish nervousness heated her cheeks. She couldn’t help a small, tentative smile. “What?”
“Your lips…they are purple…” His voice trailed off. He reached out.
She tried to move away but trembling excitement made her too weak. The scents of blackberries, sun and sky intensified yet, in her vision, everything else in the world closed off except for him.
He touched her lip with a fingertip, tracing softly. “Your lips are purple.”
He retracted his finger. She licked her lips to erase the damning stain.
“How do they taste, my Rose?”
“Like berries,” she said stupidly, transfixed as he came closer.
He cupped her face with both hands. His expression sobered. His eyes, gone dark as pine needles, blazed with such emotion that her heart clambered into a thudding beat.
“I can’t put you from my mind. Do you not realise this?” His voice was husky, hungry.
He leant forward. His mouth brushed hers.
She reached up and grasped his broad shoulders, pressing into the leather doublet, feeling his well-defined muscles.
He swept his tongue over her lips. “Yes, just like berries—only far sweeter.” He groaned, a sound of defeat. “You are more than mortal man can resist.”
He kissed her properly. Gentle, insistent pressure. She couldn’t deny him. Never wanted to deny him. On a moan, she opened. He tasted of maleness, musk and sin. She thrust her tongue against his. Boldly. Hungrily.
He slid a hand over her bodice, cupping her breast, and his kiss grew harsher.
Her breath came very fast. Her nipples beaded.
This time he was the seducer.
She knew what he would do. She knew she wouldn’t stop him. He was already pulling and tugging at her back, loosening her laces. The bodice fell away from her breasts and, with two hasty jerks, he pulled her kerchief away.
He stared at her bared bosom, his pupils so enlarged his eyes looked almost black. Her tips grew more tightened beneath such intense perusal. With a low groan, he bent and put his lips to the flesh near her left nipple. As his velvet, wet tongue traced ever smaller circles around it, delight followed.
He drew her straining peak into his mouth, sucking on it, softly at first then growing stronger. She moaned and pressed her face as close to his head as she could. He moved his mouth to her other breast whilst cupping and lightly squeezing the one he’d just abandoned. Fierce pleasure overcame her. She plunged her fingers into his hair and threaded them into the silken strands.
He pressed her down.
In the midst of day.
Out of doors.
How shocking… Yet the bright sun rays warmed her. Made her weaker to his will. He swept her skirts up. All the way up.
She didn’t resist.
The heat of the sun radiated on her most intimate flesh, making her feel vulnerable but in the most delicious way. The risk of discovery only added to the excitement pounding through her. “My God, Rose.” His voice was a worshipful whisper.
She kept her eyes closed and didn’t respond. If she opened her eyes, if she spoke, she might think, and she didn’t want to think. She wanted only to feel. He was here with her. He wouldn’t let any harm come to her. This was right. This was good.
He stroked slowly up her limbs. “You have the most beautiful legs I have ever seen.”
He spoke with authority, as if he’d seen many. That wasn’t possible. She laughed, bemused by his relative inexperience. He probably hadn’t seen any woman naked. Patience hadn’t seemed inclined to be sky-clad. Pious Goodman that he was, he likely had saved himself for the marriage bed.
He rested his knee between her legs, gently nudging. She opened immediately. He touched her inner thigh with lips that were warm and seeking.
She clutched at his head. “Don’t…”
“Why not? It pleased you that night.”
“I… Please don’t.”
“Oh, Rose.” He sounded pained, tracing his fingertips over her cleft. “I’ve thought of nothing else since I last tasted you.”
How seductively his voice caressed the last words. Heat spiralled through her lower belly. She couldn’t deny him. She loosened her grip on his head and arched her hips. An invitation.
Still, she braced herself, preparing for the onslaught of vigorous sucking, the rough coercing men seemed to think would bring a woman’s pleasure as quickly as possible and satisfy their need to feel all powerful.
He blew air over her flesh, warm and tantalising. She drew in her breath, holding it. His tongue traced along her folds, lightly, teasing her, taking his time and making her ache for more. He flicked that most sensitive part of her. She clutched at his head. Oh God! She was dying for him to take it into his mouth and—
He sucked on it gently, rhythmically.
“Don’t stop…oh, don’t ever stop!” She could feel her nails sinking into his scalp but, consumed with shivers of pure hunger, she couldn’t stop pressing him closer.
Patience had taught him this?
It didn’t seem likely…
The thought floated away as her cunt contracted. Hard. Over and over. “Thomas!”
She lay there, feeling the ticking, tingling aftermath. Yet hot blood still pounded in her ears.
She couldn’t wait to feel him inside her.
Needed it so desperately. “Thomas, please…”
He knelt between her legs and she wrapped her limbs about him tightly. Her hands fell to either side of her and took fists of grass, crushing the blades. The lush scent of green filled the air, mingling with his male scent. “Please, please…”
“I must get my breeches open,” he whispered hoarsely.
Velvet, wet flesh slid over her nub in circles of ever-increasing joy that spiralled higher and higher. The grass broke and she pulled her hands free as spasms consumed her. They barely ebbed as he covered her and thrust inside. He filled her, stretched her.
She cried out. A high-pitched, feline sound of pure pleasure.
He moved back and forth, plunging within her hard for what seemed a long, ecstatic eternity. Her heart pounded. Sweat poured from her body. She couldn’t catch her breath. God. Such intensity would surely kill her. She didn’t care.
He stopped and groaned deeply, breathing harshly. She hugged him with her inner walls and rolled her head. “Thomas…Thomas.”
He grasped her legs, pulled them up, wrapping them about his body.
“Here, here…” Urgency rumbled in his tone.
She let her limbs rise up as high as they would go. His cock drove deeper, touching the mouth of her womb. He took her wrists and pulled her arms over her head, pinning her hands to the ground.
Then he began fucking her again.
So ardently. So savagely. So…so…
He shifted their bodies, his thrusts coming at a different angle. Piercing delight.
She heard herself shrieking. He put his mouth to hers. His sweat washed onto her. Their bodies slid in slick madness.
The sounds of her wetness increased with each fierce, fiery thrust. She rolled her hips against his, gripping his waist with her legs. Higher and higher she soared, crying out each time hi
s crown hit the mouth of her womb. She reached the very wide, blue sky above them. Her cunt contracted and her whole world exploded into white shards of bliss.
With his grip tight on Rosalind’s wrists, kissing her with his eyes open, Thomas watched the expression of ecstasy play over her face. The pulling and sucking of her greedy cunt drawing on his cock sent exquisite shocks of sensation through him. He’d forgotten how utterly consuming it was to know a woman’s pleasure. His own climax threatened. He didn’t want this unity with her to end and he exerted all his will to resist.
She said something. He heard her words but in his focused state of mind they made no sense.
“What?” He struggled to concentrate.
“Don’t come in me!” she panted, trying to twist away.
Her motion made the ridges of her channel twist and slide on his shaft like hot, wet ripples of satin. His heart beat within his erection with an urgency to come that made him dizzy. A pre-cursory pulse of intense pleasure sparked at the base of his spine, shooting through his sex like fire.
“Be still!” He spoke the words harshly, holding her hands tightly, pressing his hips to hers, trying to immobilise her.
She writhed wildly beneath him, as if suddenly possessed by a demon.
Inextricable surging began in his balls, deep within his loins, fierce spasms that he couldn’t defy. He could only groan in the grips of pleasure that made him shudder as if he were freezing cold.
He jerked himself from her. Warm wetness spurted everywhere as he withdrew.
But it was too late. He’d spilt some inside.
“Dear God… I am sorry.” He panted the words out, unable to catch his breath.
He looked down at her.
She glared back. “I’ll never forgive you. If your seed takes root, I swear I shall never forgive you.”
Her eyes grew wild with the look of a trapped animal. His heart panged with the notion. Didn’t she know he’d never allow her to come to harm?
He laid his hand on her stomach. “Don’t worry. It will be all right. It’s nature’s way that we should lust for each other and be drawn together to make a child. It’s no great sin so long as we marry.”
“You did this, on purpose, hoping I might be compelled to wed you!”
“I did not, I swear it.”
“No man shall force me to do aught!”
“I was not thinking of force. Listen to reason, Rose—”
Her eyes turned cold. “Why won’t you believe me? I shall never marry you, Goodman Marlowe. I shall never marry a man who will not let his late wife go.”
“What the devil do you mean?”
“I mean you make a pleasure out of mourning. You are happy to sate your hot lusts with me, but it’s Patience you will always love and respect.” Her lip curled up. “You canonise her, hold her memory above all things—even your precious faith, your image of God.”
Thomas’ jaw dropped. “You’ll take that back! It’s a lie.”
“It’s no lie. And, what’s more, it’s all falsehood! An illusion!”
Her illogical words, hurled at him, locked the gears of his mind. “What?”
“Patience never made you happy.” Her face was flushed, her nostrils slightly flared. “Never!”
Her words crashed over Thomas with the shock of icy, cold water. She stood there, still flushed, her dark red brows drawn tightly and her hands on her hips. He blinked hard.
Patience held you to blame for another man’s sins.
No. He wouldn’t listen to the traitorous whisper. He swallowed and forced himself to speak softly, “You’re wrong. I loved Patience. I respected her above all women.”
“Then why—all those weeks on the Abigail, before her death—did you look at me with softness and longing?”
It was as if a hand had tightened about his throat, choking his air. He couldn’t speak.
“Admit it. Admit you knew unhappiness with her and I shall gladly wed you.”
He put his hands up, trying to push her words back. “No!”
Her face softened. Something like pity flashed in her eyes. “Thomas, please—”
“No, just no!”
He jerked his breeches closed and made his fingers fly over the buttons, refastening them. He might have lusted for Rosalind. Yes, of course he had. But he had not felt softly towards her while his wife lived. He had not put Rosalind above Patience in his heart.
He still did not.
He bolted to his feet. Then he looked down at her, narrowing his eyes. “You’ll take back what you just said about my wife.”
She met his gaze without flinching. “I shan’t. It is the truth. I cannot lie.”
So that was it. He would not reach for Rose again. “I withdraw my offer of marriage.”
She paled. Did she care? Had she lied before? It didn’t matter. Sin or no sin, he couldn’t wed her now.
He turned and walked away.
* * * *
Rosalind stood in the backyard. For two days, the weather had turned cool and thunderstorms had pelted the land. She’d been trapped inside, haunted by the remembered pain of her afternoon with Thomas. What madness of her to think she could break through his fantasy of what his marriage had been. He would never look on another woman without comparing her to his image of Patience. A paragon who had never existed.
Well, no more wallowing. She thrust the matter from her and turned her face up. The gently misting rain wet her lips. Nature’s kiss. The only kind that was safe to enjoy. She hugged her shoulders and twirled.
“Rosalind!”
Rosalind startled. She froze and turned. “Yes, Goody Wilson.”
Wind flapped the elderly lady’s white cap and her grey eyes were stern. “Foolish girl, out in the chill and rain when there’s sickness about.”
Inwardly, Rosalind shrugged. She’d always been healthy. Shamefully healthy while those around her had fallen to illness.
“Get yourself inside and into some dry clothes.” Goody Wilson’s eyes raked Rosalind’s loosened and wildly curling dark red hair. “And make yourself look decent. Goodman Marlowe has come to fetch you home with him.”
Rosalind’s heart seemed to stop. She struggled to conceal her dismay. “What?”
“His housekeeper fell ill last night. That terrible summer’s ague that is going around.”
“But we shall be busy here, too!”
Goody Wilson waved her off. “I can spare you, girl, a day or two. I am not so old that I cannot manage the borrowed field help on my own. You go and tend his house and take care of Sally and little Hannah and old Goodman Hopton shall stay here away from the contagion.”
* * * *
“You think I arranged this?” Thomas’ chuckle was an empty, cynical sound. It sent shivers through Rosalind as they rode in the horse-driven cart on their way to his house. “I assure you, having you under my roof is the last thing I should ever want.”
His cutting tone made her throat burn. She glanced away, taking sudden interest in the dark green woods as they rolled slowly by. Rain tapped on the oilcloth she held over her head, jarring her already frazzled nerves. She compressed her lips. How foolish. He could never have loved her. His celibacy had overcome his better nature and he’d tumbled her twice. Now he had sated himself on her, he would never look at her as anything except his discarded harlot.
She pressed her hand to her throat, willing the choking sensation to ease.
* * * *
Rosalind closed the book and sighed deeply. After an hour spent reading aloud to Sally, she longed for a long cool drink of water.
“How lovely your voice is. It has been a long time since anyone entertained me so. Goodman Marlowe reads the Bible on the Sabbath evenings but it’s not the same as poetry and stories.”
Rosalind had wondered at Thomas possessing a book of plays. But then he’d taught literature and languages at Oxford. Perhaps he couldn’t bear to leave all trappings of the past behind.
Sally frowned. “Couldn’t we ha
ve just one more story, love?”
Recovering rapidly now, the housekeeper had become a gentle tyrant in the past couple of days. Still, there must be few joys in her usual life. Unable to find the meanness to deny her, Rosalind opened the book. “What shall it be, then?”
“Oh, Romeo and Juliet, I think.” Sally’s words were almost a sigh.
Rosalind reached the part where Romeo was imploring Juliet as she stood on her balcony when an acrid scent filled the air. She sniffed. Yes, definitely. The bread!
She jolted out of the chair and went scurrying into the kitchen.
Thomas stood staring down at the smouldering black loaf in the open, cast-iron Dutch oven.
“Goody Wilson always sang your praises.” He raised his brows.
In the past couple of days, with the urgency of caring for a seriously ill woman behind her, she’d been all jitters and nerves. She’d broken a pitcher, spent all day on laundry only to foul it in the mud and dropped a box of precious blackberry preserves meant for the Boston market.
“I cannot wait for Sally to recover,” he said at length.
What could she say?
“Mistress Abramson, why don’t you start some flat cakes so we shall at least have something to eat this night.” His tone was cool, censuring.
“You don’t understand…” She dropped her voice. “Sally is very demanding. It is difficult to naysay her.”
“If she is well enough to be a nuisance then she is well enough to be about her work. Thank the Lord I can take you home tomorrow before you lay waste to my entire house.”
“You speak as if I were doing things purposefully.”
“It’s not out of the question, is it? You were not happy to have to come here.”
“I go where I am needed, just as anyone else would.”
He scowled. “I think you want to bedevil me.”
“Why should I want to bedevil you?”
“Because of what happened. I know women. You were willing. More than willing, but, now that some time has passed, you have convinced yourself that you were unfairly seduced by an evil, lecherous man.”
A Midsummer's Sin Page 5