Dark Torment

by Karen Robards

  “Will you marry me, Sarah?” The words, spoken in the tenderest of voices, were a formal proposal.

  Sarah smiled radiantly, unaware of how that smile transformed her, making her golden eyes shine with happiness, parting her soft pink lips so that her teeth showed white between them, lending rosy color to her cheeks. Her hair, which he had loosened, framed her face like a tumbling golden mane. She was, in that moment, gloriously beautiful as she smiled up at the man she loved.

  “Yes, Dominic,” she whispered, and caught her breath as he lowered his head.

  His lips were soft as they caught hers, infinitely gentle, loving, caring. . . . Sarah responded to them like flowers to the sun, opening up, stretching, reaching. Her arms went around his shoulders to clasp him to her. He winced, cursing, and immediately released her to probe his shoulder gingerly with his hand.

  “Oh, Dominic, I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?” She was immediately concerned. Impossible to believe that she had so completely forgotten about his wound.

  “Just a passing twinge. Nothing to concern yourself about.” He moved his shoulder once, experimentally. Then he was leaning over her again, clearly intending to take up where he had left off.

  Sarah pushed him away with a hand on his chest, sitting up. The gaze she turned on him was determined. “I came in here meaning to check on your wound, and with one thing and another I forgot. But I’ve remembered now.”

  Dominic abandoned his attempt to kiss her for the moment, and leaned back against the mound of pillows, surveying her with a look of possession that nearly made her forget what she was about.

  “Sarah, my own, the only way you’re going to be able to see my wound is if I get out of this very peculiar garment. It—uh, has no top, you see. It is entirely in one piece.”

  Sarah lifted her eyebrows at him. “So, get out of it.”

  His eyes widened in mock horror. “But I have absolutely nothing on underneath.”

  “It’s a little late for modesty now, isn’t it?” she said to him as he had to her once before.

  He grinned, showing her that he remembered, too. “You’re right about that. Well, if I must I must. But, Sarah—close the door first, will you, please? I don’t fancy having the entire household gaping at me in the altogether.”

  Sarah glanced over her shoulder, startled to find that the door to the hallway stood wide. Anyone could have seen her rolling on Dominic’s bed. . . . She blushed. And got up to close the door.

  When she came back, he was clad only in a neat white bandage wound crisscross fashion around his left shoulder. The contrast between his bronzed, hair-roughened masculinity and the soft white bed was riveting. It certainly riveted Sarah. It was all she could do to stop herself from staring at him.

  “There’s no need to worry yourself about it, my own. It was naught but a flesh wound.” He was sounding very Irish, which Sarah had noticed he did in moments of tenderness.

  She smiled at him. “For a flesh wound, it left you awfully weak. Yesterday you could hardly walk.”

  “That was yesterday. Today, after a good meal and a night in a fine bed, I feel a new man.”

  “What a shame! Just as I was growing rather fond of the old one.”

  “Rather fond? Rather fond!” It was a fearsome growl. He caught her by the arms, pulling her down and turning until she was lying on her back on the bed while he, with the bedspread still covering him to the waist, leaned over her. “Admit it, woman. You love me madly.”

  “I love you madly,” she said with an air of humoring a lunatic.

  He grinned, the twist of his lips wolfish, and bent down to find and ravish her mouth with his. When he lifted his head at last, her blood was drumming in her ears.

  “Now say it again,” he ordered.

  “I love you madly,” she repeated obediently, but this time the words were breathless.

  “Much better,” he said with satisfaction, and bent to kiss her again.

  Sarah’s arms went around his neck, mindful of his shoulder this time as her eyes closed. She would allow him to kiss her for a few minutes only, then would see to his wound. . . . But her fingers found the silken hairs that curled at his nape and lingered, fascinated by the contrast between warm, hard skin and cool, soft hair. Her mouth was preoccupied, too, with the feel of his firm lips and searching tongue. She met that tongue with hers, stroked it, explored the inside of his mouth while he held back, letting her learn new ways to please him. Her hands began to move, stroking his hair, his neck, his back—she ran her fingers along the faint trails left by the beatings he had suffered. She could barely feel the scars. In time, she thought, they would heal completely, and she was glad. Dominic should not have to bear all his life the signs of his enslavement. . . .

  His fingers were searching behind her for the fastenings of her dress. His fingers fumbled, tugged, and he cursed under his breath. She reached behind her to still his hands. His wrists under her fingers were hard and strong, and roughened by hair.

  “Let me,” she whispered. He looked down at her for a moment before releasing her to roll onto his back.

  Sarah stood up, her eyes never leaving his as she reached behind her back to feel, through the thick curtain of her hair, for the tiny hooks. She found one, then another, and loosened them while he watched her with eyes so blue that they would have put sapphires to shame. When the last was freed, she hesitated, then slowly slid the dress down her arms and over her hips. When she straightened, she was clad only in her plain white linen chemise and unadorned petticoat. He looked at her as if she were dressed in the filmiest of silken underthings. She met his eyes, and felt love and desire join forces within her to make her as clay before this man, willing to do anything and be anything to please him. And she knew that her boldness pleased him. . . . Slipping out of her shoes, she placed one foot deliberately on the edge of the bed. She slid first the plain blue ribbon garter and then the sturdy white cotton stocking down her leg with seductive slowness. His eyes followed her every movement as she repeated the deliberate provocation with the other leg, then he gazed with open heat at the slender curves of her bare leg as it poised for an instant before vanishing again beneath her petticoat.

  Sarah smiled to herself at the dark color that mounted to his forehead as he stared. He wanted her—she had seen the signs often enough now to recognize them. But she meant to make him want her more. . . . Her hands moved to the tapes of her petticoat. She untied them one at a time, carefully smoothing each crumpled ribbon, watching him all the while. Tiny beads of sweat appeared one by one to adorn his upper lip.

  “Sweet Jesus, Sarah, hurry,” he whispered hoarsely.

  She smiled and let the petticoat flutter to the ground. Standing there clad only in her chemise, with her long, curving legs bare beneath and her breasts pushing against the thin white linen so that the tiny hard buds of her nipples were clearly discernible, she no longer felt she bore any relationship to plain spinster Sarah. She was beautiful Sarah, beloved Sarah, Sarah who would soon be Dominic’s bride. . . .

  “Sarah, if you don’t get that damned flimsy thing off and get into bed with me, you’re liable to cripple me for life,” Dominic warned in a thick voice.

  “Am I now?” she whispered, smiling a little.

  Then her hands were beneath the sensible shoulder straps, sliding the garment down. When she stepped out of it, she looked up to find his eyes as hot as the fiercest flame as he looked at her bare skin. Sarah trembled beneath that searing regard. Suddenly she was no longer in the mood to tease him, to play. . . . She joined him on the bed, melting into his arms, her own locking around his neck as she returned his kiss with the same ferocious abandon as he offered it. She was as quicksilver in his arms.

  “Oh, Sarah, my Sarah, I ache with wanting you,” he whispered into her ear as his hand found her swelling breast. She closed her eyes as tremors of passion curled her toes, and reached beneath the coverings to find and claim that most tangible evidence of his ardent desire. . . .

&nbs
p; He groaned as her fingers closed around him; his eyes closed as she caressed him in the way he had taught her, her fingers tantalizingly cool and sweet against the swollen shaft that pulsed and burned in her hand. He tried to roll with her, so that he could cover her with his body, but Sarah was having none of that. Being the aggressor, she found, was a heady experience. She was suddenly consumed with the need to bring him to the same pitch of feverish delight he always evoked in her. Wriggling free of his possessing arms, she pushed him back against the mattress with one hand against his chest.

  “Sarah?” Her name was a hoarse question. He was lying obediently back against the mattress, his skin very dark against the white sheets. She was kneeling over him, naked, her breasts pink and swollen with need, her unbound hair falling down over her shoulders to mix with the black curling wedge of hair on his chest.

  “Sarah!” This time it was an urgent demand, punctuated by his hands as he reached for her.

  Again she eluded him, trailing provocative fingers down over his hard abdomen to slide beneath the blankets and just brush the hardness of him before dancing away. He clenched his teeth, his eyes open again as he watched her. Watching dark color suffuse his face, nearly giddy with the knowledge that she could excite him as he always so effortlessly excited her, Sarah’s eyes widened as a sudden inspiration occurred to her. She loved the feel of him under her hands, the way he pulsed and hardened. She wanted to know him better, to know him every way there was to know him, as intimately as he knew her. . . .

  The blankets were tangled around his hips. Dominic drew in his breath as she pulled them away. He was completely naked now, his long length sprawled darkly across the bed, his eyes a smoky sapphire as they stared at her.

  “Sarah, what the hell . . . ?” His voice was hoarse, and he made no further effort to reach for her.

  Sarah looked at him for a long moment, her eyes as hot as his, then turned her attention from his face to other, more immediately interesting parts of him. Her hand came out to rub over his belly. The muscles tightened under her soft caress; then she bent her head and replaced her hands with her lips, nibbling and licking and biting. The thick, soft mat of hair on his belly tickled her nose; beneath her lips she felt his stomach tighten. With the corners of her eyes she saw his hands clench into fists on either side of his hips as she followed the beckoning arrow of hair downward.

  When the moment came, she hesitated fractionally. Could she really go through with this? He did not move, seemed not even to be breathing. His hands were clenched so tightly at his sides that his knuckles were white. A fleeting glance upward showed her that his face was hard, intent, his lips slightly parted, his eyes aflame.

  When she kissed him, he groaned as if in mortal agony. Encouraged, she ran her lips over the length of him, her tongue coming out to savor and taste. He was salty, and faintly musky, and scalding hot. . . .

  “Jesus, Sarah!” The thick mutter came as he jack-knifed upright, his hands catching her waist and dragging her up with him. He was breathing hard, his face a dark red, his hands trembling where they held her.

  “Didn’t you—like it?” she whispered, staring at him, thinking that, in her inexperience, she had done something wrong. Or, was it something that men did only to ladies?

  “Like it?” He groaned the question, twisting with her so that she was flat on her back on the bed and he was looming over her. He seemed to be having trouble speaking.

  “You do it to me,” she pointed out in a barely audible whisper.

  “Christ!” The word was explosive. His legs slid between hers, his long thighs trembling, and then he came into her so fast that she cried out. He bent his head, drowning her cry with his mouth, taking her with hard, urgent strokes as his broken mutters gave her to understand that he liked her innovation very much indeed.

  XXVI

  Sarah spent the next few days trying to work up the nerve to break the news to her father. He would not be pleased—to put it mildly—that his daughter was planning to wed a convict. She hoped that she could persuade him to accept the situation with a modicum of grace, but she feared he would not. Her father’s prejudice against convicts was deeply ingrained. His staunchly exclusionist beliefs would, she knew, be outraged. And Lydia wouldn’t help matters any. Her stepmother’s attitude had been positively malevolent every time Sarah had crossed her path. Lydia would never forgive her for having forced her to back down, or, Sarah thought, for the improvement in her appearance. At Dominic’s request, Sarah had taken to wearing her hair in a loose roll, which was vastly becoming. In addition, also at Dominic’s request, she had taken a few of her mother’s old gowns from the attic. With only minor alterations, they fit Sarah as if they had been made for her. Although they were out of fashion, the high-waisted empire styles, with their fitted bodices tied beneath the breasts to fall into a long, slim skirt, somehow managed to transform her boyish figure into a graceful elegance that was very feminine indeed. Every time Sarah caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror, she marveled at how much difference these dresses made in her appearance. She was having less and less trouble believing Dominic when he insisted that she was beautiful.

  Dominic’s wound was much improved. He could walk without difficulty, and had very little trouble moving his arm. Although he was eager to move back into the bunkhouse—he did not feel comfortable in the big house, where he knew he was tolerated at best—Sarah so far had managed to talk him out of going. Her reasons were twofold: first, she usually managed to creep into Dominic’s bed sometime during the night when the rest of the family were sleeping. These sessions had of necessity to be very quiet, but what they might have lacked in sound they certainly made up for in fury. The wanton pleasures her body was capable of were as constant a source of amazement to Sarah as was her changed appearance. She had supposed that as she grew accustomed to Dominic’s love-making, the sharp, spiraling excitement would be progressively dulled. Instead, it increased.

  Her other reason for wanting Dominic to remain in the house was very much her secret. She hoped to get him accustomed to her family, and her family accustomed to him, so that when they married they might stay on Lowella. The thought of leaving—her father more than the land itself, probably never to return—brought an ache to her heart. But Dominic was determined to return to Ireland, which he loved more fiercely than she loved Lowella. And she was prepared to go with Dominic to the ends of the earth if necessary. She only wished it would not be necessary.

  About a week after Dominic had come to stay in the house, Sarah woke with a queasiness in her stomach that had been plaguing her for several days. She lay with her head resting back against the pillow, idly contemplating the scene outside her window, and wishing very much that she and Dominic were already married so that she could wake up in his arms. She hated leaving him every night, hated sneaking about the house like a thief. But it would not be for much longer. Sarah meant to find a way to break the news to her father before another day had passed. And if her stomach did another peculiar flip-flop at the mere idea, then that was just too bad. It had to be done; she had put it off long enough.

  Her stomach ailment had not caused her much concern at first. But this was the third morning in a row that she had lifted her head from the pillow only to be overwhelmed with nausea, and she was beginning to wonder if perhaps her head injury, which she had nearly forgotten, had been more serious than she had realized. She was rarely ill. Her constant, hearty good health was another of those unfeminine traits that Lydia was always making snide remarks about. But fortunately this ailment—whatever it was—did not seem particularly severe. If she stayed abed for an extra quarter-hour, it passed and she felt fine for the rest of the day.

  The more Sarah thought about that, the more peculiar it seemed. And the more alarming. She had heard of such symptoms from the women in their social circle. Whenever they got together, the talk was always of courtships, weddings, and babies. Lizzie Warren, who had been three months’ gone at the time of Liza’s birthday
ball, had gone into her various physical miseries in excrutiatingly boring detail. Sarah had barely listened. Now she regretted it—because a dreadful suspicion was beginning to take possession of her. She was not ignorant; she knew precisely how babies were made. One could not live on a sheep station, watching life and death and birth among the animal and human populations, without acquiring comprehensive knowledge on the subject. But somehow she had never thought to connect what she and Dominic did together with babies. . . . Sarah thought back to when she had last been visited by her monthly time. It had been months ago, shortly before Liza’s ball. . . . She shut her eyes in instinctive denial, then slowly opened them as she forced herself to face facts: she was with child.

  The knowledge was horrifying. If Dominic and she had already been wed, it would have made her feel better, but it would not have eliminated all the difficulties that she now confronted. As she had told herself once before, when she had instinctively turned down Dominic’s proposal, this child that was even now living in her womb would not be welcome among the friends and neighbors that she had known from childhood. Her own family—her father—might even disown it. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that he probably would. Because the child would also be the offspring of a convict. It would be a child of tainted blood. . . . The only worse stigma was to be oneself a convict. Her child would be scorned by everyone who was anyone. He would have to earn his living in some menial way; or, if it was a girl, she would be forced to marry either a convict or a man with the same tainted blood as herself. No boy from a decent family would have her.

  Sarah felt sick, and not just at her stomach. What had she done? It was one thing to choose, deliberately, to forsake the society, friends, and family that were her own birthright. It was another thing to bring into the world an innocent child who could never, no matter how he or she tried, be accepted. The thought made Sarah furious, and her anger made her feel better. She was surprised that she already felt so fiercely protective of this fruit of her womb. . . . Somehow, she would see to it that her child was not stigmatized. There had to be a solution, if only she could find it.