by Rae Summers
Tom grinned. “Of course I am. Do you want me to stop?”
“No.” She smiled up at him through her eyelashes. She was flirting with him, too. At what cost to her soul, she didn’t dare think.
He took her hand, twining his fingers between hers. His hand was rougher than Robert’s had been, but the strength and security of his touch was the same.
Not for the first time, she wished she’d met Tom before he married. He was the only man she’d met, apart from her beloved husband, who had understood her, who had made her feel safe to be herself. She had no doubt Tom would encourage her to embrace her carnal side, as Robert had.
She sighed and shook her head. It made no difference. She had not met him before he married, and they could never be anything more than friends.
#
Her hand in his, soft and yielding, was doing strange things to his head.
Jenny was a new person today. Like a butterfly emerged from its chrysalis, she’d shed her drab mourning clothes and emerged as a laughing, smiling woman who flirted. And there was no missing how her breath spiked every time he touched her. Which was as often as he could.
He took her to a shooting gallery and taught her how to hold and aim the gun. Then he won for her a bag of candy by shooting every target in quick succession. Her smile made him feel capable of anything, like a god rather than a mere mortal. Certainly he felt a far better man than he had any right to be. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and kiss her as he’d kissed her on the boat.
He had to use every ounce of his self-control not to.
He bought bottles of root beer, the real thing, and they strolled towards the beach, still holding hands as they passed the Wonder Wheel, where excited voices screamed and lively music played. The ocean opened up before them, the wide white beach spread out like a blanket at their feet, and Jenny sighed as she looked out to sea.
A light breeze billowed about them, lifting the stray curls that peeked below the rim of her hat. The damned hat. Fashionable it may be, but he was tired of seeing her always keep herself so neatly pinned, so buttoned up.
He turned her to him and deftly removed the hat. Her hair spilled like honey over her shoulders, and he stroked his fingers through its silky length, enjoying how it curled slightly, wilder when loose than it appeared when she pinned it up.
“I suppose I should cut it,” she said, her cool grey eyes holding his entranced. “It’s too long to be fashionable.”
“Don’t you dare. Shall we sit for a while?”
He paid one of the bathhouse proprietors, and they were given canvas beach chairs beneath an umbrella on a quieter stretch of the beach. Jenny took off her shoes and dug her toes into the soft sand, turning a glowing face to him. “I’ve always wanted to do that!”
“What else have you always wanted to do?”
She laughed, a carefree sound. “I don’t know where to start.”
She nibbled her lower lip as she gave it thought, and his body hardened at the sight. Her lips were full, voluptuous, and he remembered the delight of them all too clearly. Today she was a completely different woman from that cool and controlled woman he’d spent an hour with in the dark not so long ago. Or maybe not so different, just more layered than he’d realized then. The more time he spent with her, the more she surprised and intrigued him.
“I want to learn to drive. And I want to swim in the sea.” Her eyes lit up. “And I want to dance the whole night away in a gin joint, without a police raid cutting it short.”
“That was unfortunate. I would have liked to dance with you, too.”
Her eyes met and held his for the longest moment. Then she sighed and turned away.
They sat for a long time in silence, sipping their root beers, holding hands and contemplating the ocean. Their talk was desultory.
It was the perfect day, neither too hot nor too cold.
They watched a pair of laughing children in striped bathing suits chase each other through the shallows. When he glanced across at Jenny, she’d pinched her eyes closed, and her body was tense.
“You want children, don’t you?” he asked.
She nodded slowly and opened her eyes, but didn’t look at him.
“Then you should marry again.”
She sighed. “So everyone keeps telling me.”
“You don’t want to?” A terrible suspicion dawned. “You don’t like being with a man?” Please God, not another.
She shook her head slowly and refused to look at him. “No, that’s not the problem.”
“Then tell me what is,” he demanded, frustrated.
Her silence stretched out. She twirled her hat between her hands.
“Don’t avoid me, Jenny. You and I have only ever been honest with each other.”
“I’m afraid, Tom.” She swallowed against some unfathomable emotion. “I’m afraid that if I let myself love again, I will be punished. Or he will be punished. And I couldn’t bear to let that happen.”
He didn’t understand. “Why would you be punished for loving someone? Love isn’t a sin.”
“Not love, but…” She lifted her tortured gaze to his. “Robert and I indulged in many things we shouldn’t. We were wild and young, and… The night he got sick, we’d been at a party. There’d been drink and drugs and… It doesn’t matter now. On our way home it started to rain and we were out of our heads, and we…” She blushed furiously and he could just imagine what they’d done, bodies slick with rain, inhibitions banished.
They’d done what he would have done. What he wanted to do with her.
She bent her head away, covering her face with her hair, and realization dawned. He stared at her, incredulous. “Your husband didn’t die as a punishment. People die. It’s just a part of life.”
He was Irish, and Catholic. He knew all about guilt. It had been easy for him to turn his back on it, but he knew how many hours his mother spent on her knees, fingering her rosary as she prayed for him, so he understood how hard this was for Jenny. But he also knew that since he’d managed to set aside a lifetime’s worth of belief, she could too.
He wanted to ease her torment and had no idea how. He slipped from his chair and knelt in the sand before her, tipping her chin up so he could see her face. So she could see his. “Love is not a sin. Pleasure is not a sin.”
She turned her chilled cheek into his hand, and a lone tear tracked down her cheek. He brushed it away, stroking her soft skin with his thumb. He wanted nothing more than to kiss her, to banish her demons and to bring her back to life.
But a promise was a promise.
The sun glinted off the water as it slid lower across the sky, and a breeze played over the waves.
“It’s nearly three,” he said at last, heart heavy with regret. “We can get ice creams while we wait for the car.”
As they wandered up the beach, to where work had just begun on the much-vaunted new boardwalk, she regained her composure and her color. He bought them Eskimo Pies and they stood on the sidewalk outside Feltman’s famous hot dog restaurant to eat them.
“I wish this day didn’t have to end.” She sighed, licking the dripping ice cream from her fingers.
“It doesn’t.”
“Of course it does, Tom. You know we can’t see each other again after today.”
“And if I weren’t married?”
She smiled sadly. “Even if you weren’t married. I gave in to my passions once before, and I lost everything. I won’t risk that again.”
“You haven’t lost everything. You are still here. You still have a life to live. Make it worth living.”
The honk of a car horn broke the moment. He frowned and dropped his hand from her cheek. “It’s pumpkin time.”
She sighed and climbed into the automobile as he opened the door for her.
They might have been back in the quiet isolation of the elevator, just the two of them alone in the world. Though Jenny remained lost in thought, she allowed him to take her hand, and the heat that radiat
ed from their connected hands was undeniable.
She smiled up at him, and he prayed his words had made an impact, that she would be brave enough and strong enough to set aside her fear and her guilt and take a chance.
But when they crossed the bridge into Manhattan, she pulled her hand away, righting herself and looking again like the prim and proper governess he’d once taken her for.
“The library, or home?” he asked.
“Home.” She smiled, and he was gratified by the daring spark in her eyes which gave him hope.
The chauffeur pulled up in front of a brick townhouse that overlooked the park, three elegant stories that spoke wealth and prestige. There’d been a time when he wouldn’t have dared hope to own a house like this. Though money was no longer an obstacle, he doubted the neighbors would approve of an Irishman from the Lower East Side moving into their midst. But with Jenny at his side, anything seemed possible. It was the kind of grand house she deserved. He could see her turning it into a home.
He helped her down to the sidewalk and they stood awkwardly, separated by more than just the few inches of air between them.
He kept his voice low. “I’d like to see you again.”
Her mouth twisted in a wry smile. “You need to forget about me. There are other women more suited to that life, as you once told me.”
“You are unlike any woman I’ve ever met, Mrs. March.” He drew her hand to his mouth, kissed her palm, and felt her shivered response. “I won’t forget you. I can’t sleep without dreaming of you. I can’t live without knowing you. Every moment, I wonder what it will be like sharing that moment with you.”
She withdrew her hand. “Goodbye, Tom.”
He waited on the sidewalk until she’d entered through the wide double doors.
Frustration engulfed him in a wave fiercer even than the day Bee had told him she preferred the company of women to men. Her rejection had wounded his pride. Jenny’s rejection wounded his heart.
Only when she was gone from his sight, taking a piece of his heart with him, did he climb back into the automobile and head back to his side of town.
#
Jenny nodded to the butler as he shut the door behind her.
“Good day, Miss Jennifer. You are looking much better for your walk, if I may say so.”
“Thank you, Thomas. I feel better.” And she did. Somewhere between Coney Island and the Upper East Side, something had changed inside her. As though a shard of ice lodged inside her heart had begun to melt.
“Are Mrs. March and Lucy back from their luncheon yet?”
Her heart stuck in her throat until he shook his head. “Not yet, ma’am.”
She headed up the stairs to her room, desperate for the solitude to think, but by the time her mother-in-law and Lucy returned half an hour later she was no closer to a resolution to her turbulent thoughts. So she did what she’d done after Robert’s death. She retreated. She dressed for dinner, she made small talk, she gave every appearance of normality, and she refused to acknowledge the pain in her heart. Or the steady trickle of ice melting.
Chapter Seven
“You have a guest, Miss Jennifer.”
Jenny looked up at Thomas where he stood in the door to the morning room, his face impassive. Her brow furrowed. The endless parade of suitors amused Lucy no end, but she was tired to death of the eligible young men who visited in the hopes of engaging the heart of the young widow.
Flirting was fun, but if only they’d leave it at that. Instead, they all seemed to think she presented a challenge, as if they sensed there was not one among them who made her heart beat faster, and each wanted to be the first.
And the only one who did make her heart beat faster had not been seen or heard of in the two months since their jaunt to Coney Island.
Two months. Eight weeks and two days. Fifty-eight days, give or take a few hours.
She was glad he’d taken her advice and forgotten her. Really, she was. It was better this way.
To drown out all thought of him, she had thrown herself into her new life, a social whirl of parties and theater trips, jazz music and cocktails. And nightclubs, though there was one she strictly avoided. All the best things of her life in London, all the things she and Robert had enjoyed together and the life she’d been so reluctant to lose, amplified tenfold.
With each day that passed she felt that slow drip-drip inside her as her old fears melted away and she reclaimed the person she’d believed lost, the person she’d been before Robert died.
Of course, none of the distraction worked. She still thought of him, every day. She owed this new life and this new freedom to him.
Love is not a sin. Nor was being alive a sin, and she would not settle for a life half lived. She deserved to be happy again, and so did Tom. Wherever he was right now, she prayed for him to find happiness too.
Now all she needed was to find a man who made her heart beat faster. Preferably one who was not already someone else’s husband.
She straightened in her chair and forced aside the weariness. “Who is it this time, Thomas?” Who knew, maybe this would be the one.
Thomas’ lips curved upward, unable to suppress a grin. “It’s fresh blood today, ma’am.”
“Oh, well, show him in, then.”
She set down her book and turned to face the door just as it swung open. Lucy bounced into the room. “Look who I found in the hall!”
Jenny’s heart fluttered as blood rushed to her face. “Mr. Gallagher, what a surprise. I’d not expected to see you again.”
She managed to stand and offer him a polite handshake. She should have remembered there was nothing polite about Tom Gallagher. After the usual perfunctory shake, which sent a thrilled rush rocketing through her, he did not release her hand.
“Are you well?” she managed.
“Very well.” His laughter-filled eyes flitted to Lucy who watched them both avidly.
“I petitioned the bishop for an annulment. It was granted this morning.”
Jenny’s whole body stilled.
“I am so sorry to hear that,” Lucy said, her wide eyes still on their clasped hands.
In Tom’s presence, Jenny couldn’t bring herself to utter the usual polite platitudes. “I’m not,” she said.
Lucy’s mouth dropped open as she looked at her sister-in-law. Tom laughed. “I’ve always loved the way you speak your mind.”
“Should I leave?” Lucy looked pointedly between them, her gaze finally settling back on their hands. Tom clearly had no intention of letting Jenny’s go, and she had no intention of pulling away. After two months without his touch, it felt too damned nice.
Tom laughed again, not taking his eyes off Jenny. “I think that might be a very good idea.”
Lucy backed out of the room, her eyes flashing a message Jenny couldn’t fail to understand. There’d be a reckoning as soon as they were alone.
There was a long moment of silence as Jenny drank him in. He wore his hat at a jaunty angle again, and the handkerchief in his breast pocket was cornflower blue today, to match his tie. He looked no different from the last time she’d seen him. She wasn’t sure why she’d expected him to be changed. Perhaps because she had.
She cleared her throat. “So what made you change your mind?”
“You did.” He grinned. “That kiss...Your kiss changed something for me. Since you are not the type of woman to indulge your passions with a man who is not your husband, there was only one thing I could do. Free myself.”
Her lips parted. Breathing suddenly seemed very difficult.
“Then seeing you in my club, laughing with another man, dancing with him. I wanted that for myself, and I realized there wasn’t any sacrifice I wouldn’t make, any humiliation I wouldn’t suffer, to have that.”
“I bet your wife isn’t very happy.”
He shrugged. “Bee has an apartment and enough money now for a fresh start. She’ll thank me some day.”
Still holding her hand, Tom knelt befor
e her. “Now that I am free, will you take a chance on me? We can date, and get to know one another properly.”
She turned her face away, fighting to conceal a smile. “I don’t think that will work, Tom.”
“What is it now? Haven’t we covered all your excuses? What must I do to make you want me?”
“I want you, Tom.” She let go the smile, her first genuine smile in fifty-eight days. “But you already know so much about me. I think we can skip the courting and head straight to seduction.”
It was nice to know she had the power to leave him speechless. He cleared his throat. “And what made you change your mind?”
“You did. Your kiss changed something for me, too.” Her smile widened. “I can’t sleep without thinking of you. Every moment, I wonder where you are and what you’re doing.”
He rose and drew her hand to his mouth, to plant a soft kiss on her palm. She shivered, and the last of the frost in her heart melted at his touch, leaving blazing fire in its wake.
“Then let the seduction begin. How about we start with dinner and dancing tonight? And this time I promise no police raids. I plan to hold you in my arms all night.”
“Is that a promise?”
He pulled her close, into his arms. “It is. Who would have thought I’d ever be so glad to get stuck in an elevator?”
Thank you for reading Prohibited Passion. If you enjoyed this novella, read on for the opening chapter of An Innocent Abroad, in which Tom Gallagher makes a cameo appearance.
Chapter One of An Innocent Abroad
Isobel lifted her face to the glorious warmth of the sun. Impossibly bright after the damp chill of England, it pricked at her closed eyelids. She opened her eyes to colours brighter and more exotic than any she’d ever seen. Pastel-washed houses clung to precipitous mountain slopes, green as emeralds, that dropped into the azure Tyrrhenian Sea. A world away from the grey, sullen seas of her childhood holidays, this sleepy fishing village seemed as unreal as an Impressionist painting, a landscape of emotion rather than form.