by Karen Ranney
Why had he imagined a virgin? A question lasting until she rose up over him. His hands on her waist urged her down again.
He opened his eyes to see her back arched, her head back. Her breasts, proud and large, were almost begging for his hands. He cupped each, gently pinching the nipples.
She moaned again and this time the sound was too real, almost piercing the fog surrounding him.
His hands left her breasts only for a moment to stroke from her waist, down her thighs, and back up to her breasts. He wanted to embed the touch of her on his skin for those nights when he couldn’t summon her, when distorted images and frightening sounds took her place.
She rose and fell, rose and fell again, the rhythm one she began. She was making little sounds that accompanied her movements, soft breathy gasps telling him she no longer felt discomfort.
His vision grayed. The moment extended. Was this what dying was like, when you were conscious of every pore, every inch of skin, every beat of your heart even as you became separated from yourself? He felt, in that instant, as if he was being thrown out into the cosmos, only one more flickering star, and then gradually returned to his body, to his bed, and to the consciousness that his waking dream was weeping.
Surely he wouldn’t have imagined such a thing? Was it the elixir? Or Providence, punishing him for having such an erotic dream?
She was vanishing, sliding from the bed, departing as he’d half expected from the beginning. The fog was returning, falling over him.
He was alone, the stark silence in the room expected yet troubling. The opiates had created a lover for him, one who’d given him immense pleasure, but she wasn’t destined for permanence. She was only a temporary respite from his loneliness, a ghost created in his mind.
He heard the door close, as he allowed himself to fall, to spin downward into a drugged sleep.
“I’ll walk you back to your room,” Reese said.
Josephine glanced back at the bed where he lounged. “You haven’t played the gentleman all night, why bother now?”
“A reward, perhaps?” he said, his voice amused. “A token of my appreciation for hours well spent? I trust you felt the same.”
“You’re a skilled lover, Reese, is that what you want to hear? That I nearly screamed?”
“As I recall, you did,” he said, chuckling. “A good thing Sedgebrook’s walls are thick, else you would have terrified the staff. Everyone would have run for the exits, thinking some type of banshee creature was loose.”
She bent, retrieved a pillow from the floor, and tossed it at him.
“You are truly a despicable creature,” she said, wishing she didn’t feel so wonderful.
She was finding it difficult to dislike the man when her body was still thrumming with satisfaction.
“Am I?”
He propped himself up on one elbow and watched her as she looked for her clothing. He’d insisted on leaving the light on and she found it a heady experience being so openly admired.
Dawn would come shortly and the industrious Sedgebrook servants would be up and about. She grabbed her nightgown and wrapper and put them on, intent on returning to her room before encountering anyone. She’d come dressed for seduction, hadn’t she? Just not in Reese’s bed.
There was still time for her original plan. Gran didn’t look as if she was ready to leave for home. There was always tonight.
“You’re plotting something,” he said. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, standing.
“I’d put some cream on that spot on your chin.”
One hand flew up, her fingers smoothing over her face.
“You marked me?” she asked, horrified.
“There and in a few other places,” he said, grinning at her. “Your left breast, for example, bears the marks of my night beard.”
She frowned at him, annoyed when he began to laugh.
Turning, she went to the door and listened for a moment. From the mantel clock, it was only a little after one, too early for the servants to be up and about.
She slowly pulled the door open, looked both ways, then slipped out into the corridor, closing the door behind her. Halfway back to her room, she realized she wasn’t alone after all.
Martha was ahead of her, fully dressed, and hurrying to her room. Evidently, everyone was roaming Sedgebrook tonight.
What was proper, staid, and plain Martha doing out of her bed?
Martha escaped from Jordan’s suite feeling like God Himself was chasing her. What had she done? Why had she remained? It was clear he hadn’t been himself. He’d thought she was a sylph, a spirit, someone he’d imagined.
He’d been real to her.
What could she say if anyone discovered what had happened?
He seduced me. Not entirely correct, was it? She’d had plenty of time to leave. She could have slipped from the room at any time, but she hadn’t.
I was confused. She hadn’t been. Instead, she’d been certain of what she wanted and it had been him.
I was innocent. True enough, but she wasn’t now.
Her grandmother would say she’d lowered her bridal chances. No man wants a well-used woman, child. Gran had originally made the comment during her season, warning her about not being alone with one of her suitors. What would Gran say if she knew she’d not only been alone with the Duke of Roth but that she’d wholeheartedly participated in her own downfall?
He’d taken her virginity. She’d found discomfort and delight in his arms. An apt reason for wanting to burst into tears.
She didn’t get the chance.
She’d just closed the door to her room when it suddenly opened again.
“Where have you been?” Josephine demanded. “What have you been doing, Martha?”
She didn’t want to have this conversation now. Nor was she in the mood to take on Josephine. She wanted to think about the past few hours, about Jordan, and how she would act when she saw him in the morning.
Her sister, however, entered the bedroom, shutting the door behind her. Josephine advanced on her, stopping a few feet away.
“Tell me. Where were you?”
“It’s none of your concern.”
At that, Josephine narrowed her eyes.
“You’ve been with someone, haven’t you? You’ve had relations.”
The accusation left Martha staring at her sister.
“What are you talking about? Of course I haven’t.”
“Who was it? Did one of the footmen strike your fancy?”
“Will you leave?”
“No. Who were you with? Tell me.”
When she didn’t answer, her sister turned toward the door.
“Maybe I’ll go tell Gran you’ve been wandering around Sedgebrook before dawn. She’ll get it out of you.”
Her stomach lurched at the thought of Josephine waking their grandmother with that kind of news.
“Leave Gran alone, Josephine,” she said, biting back her fear.
Josephine glanced over her shoulder and smiled, the expression one she wouldn’t have shared with the men who admired her. This smile had an edge to it.
“Tell me or I’ll go right now,” she said, turning. “You know I will.”
Josephine was certainly capable of doing exactly that.
For a moment she balanced the thought of revealing where she’d been against Josephine’s threat. Would the truth silence her sister?
She didn’t have a choice, did she?
“The duke, all right? I was with Jordan.”
The attractive pink of Josephine’s cheeks deepened to become a splotchy flush spreading down to her neck. For a moment she didn’t say anything, just stared at Martha.
“You couldn’t have,” Josephine finally said. “He wouldn’t have looked at you.”
Hurt crowded out any fear she felt. Martha took a deep breath and somehow managed a smile.
“If it makes any difference, he didn’t. He was
besotted.”
“Was he?” Josephine asked.
She nodded. “I don’t think he even knew it was me.” She sat on the end of the bed, wishing it wasn’t the truth.
“How interesting. Did you seduce him? Did you go to him in hopes he’d make your maidenly dreams come true? How was he? Did that leg of his interfere with his manly charms?”
“I’m not talking about this,” she said, standing and moving past Josephine to the screen in the corner. She wanted to bathe.
“You’re right to want to wash the scent of him off you, Martha.”
She loved Josephine, but there were times—like now—when she didn’t like her much.
After she washed, Martha peered out from behind the screen to find Josephine had left the room. Staring at the closed door, she wondered if her sister had gone to see Gran. Would she tell their grandmother anything? Or would Josephine simply go back to her room and forget everything she’d learned?
That was a foolish wish, wasn’t it? As long as she was wishing, then perhaps Gran would feel well enough to travel a day early and they could leave Sedgebrook.
Please, God, let her go home to Griffin House. Now before anything else happened.
Chapter 19
At dawn, Susan York was abruptly awakened from a perfectly beautiful dream. Her youthful self had been holding hands with the young man she’d loved all her life and the two of them were strolling through a lush and overgrown garden.
The bees were buzzing and she heard the sound of singing, making her wonder who was serenading them. She was turning to say something to the man she loved when her youngest granddaughter grabbed her hand and anointed it with tears.
She blinked up at the ceiling, trying to make sense of what was happening.
Josephine was sobbing, her face buried in the mattress at her side.
“Oh, Gran, I’m so sorry. I made such a mistake.”
What had Josephine done now?
What a pity Josephine couldn’t join her mother in France. Unfortunately, she didn’t hold out much hope for that happening. Her granddaughter was a beautiful girl. Marie was an aging woman who was as vain as Josephine. She suspected the last thing Marie would want around her was youthful competition, even if it was her daughter.
“I was a fool, Gran, but he was so persuasive. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
There was nothing else to do but to wake up and face this newest catastrophe, whatever it was.
Slowly, Susan sat up, rearranging her pillow behind her.
Josephine was seated at the side of her bed, weeping.
“I didn’t mean to, Gran. It was a terrible mistake. A terrible mistake. Now I don’t know what to do. What will happen if I’m with child?”
Now she was definitely wide-awake.
“What are you talking about, child?”
“The duke. He seduced me.”
Hopefully, Amy would be bringing her strong black tea shortly, the better to cope with this situation.
“You had better begin at the beginning, Josephine,” she said, feeling a sense of dread probably not out of proportion to the circumstances.
Josephine’s eyes were red, her hair askew. Her cheeks were flushed and there was a mark on her face Susan remembered from her days of being kissed senseless by her night-bearded husband.
In short, her granddaughter looked as if she’d been engaged in pursuits designed to better occur after marriage than before it.
She wasn’t a fool. She knew quite well that couples occasionally made it to the bridal bed before the minister said the vows. On a few shocking occasions, the bride was even pregnant before the ceremony.
She had her suspicions about Josephine. The girl seemed a little more knowledgeable than she should have been. Plus, she didn’t hesitate in trying to charm every man she saw, from the stablemaster to any number of shopkeepers who visited Griffin House.
At the moment, however, it didn’t matter how much she’d flirted. If the story she was telling was true, they had an enormous problem on their hands.
Had the duke truly seduced her?
“Go to your room,” she said now.
For the past several years, ever since coming to live at Griffin House, she’d watched Josephine carefully. If she had a choice between a falsehood or the truth, all things being equal, her granddaughter sometimes chose to lie.
Had she lied about this?
“What are you going to do, Gran?” Josephine asked.
She didn’t know. Dear heavens, she didn’t know.
“Go to your room right now. I will think on it.”
“What if I’m with child?”
“Shouldn’t you have considered that earlier, Josephine?”
The girl smiled, an expression out of place for this moment and her earlier tears. She wasn’t entirely certain she believed her granddaughter, but she had to act on the information regardless.
She watched as Josephine left the room. When Amy arrived with her tray, Susan swung her feet over the side of the bed and addressed her maid.
“We have a problem, Amy. A problem I hadn’t anticipated, but I think it’s going to change everything.”
Jordan had a blinding headache on waking, but that was often the result of taking Dr. Reynolds’s elixir. The concoction might ease the pain in his leg, but it left him with wild dreams and a morning headache mimicking the worst hangover he’d ever had. He was also nauseated but that symptom eased once he had something to eat.
Something else was wrong. Not pain, exactly, because his leg always felt better after taking the elixir. This was a sensation almost like a mental itch, reminding him of something he needed to remember, a feeling that things weren’t right.
He’d never experienced it before, but then he’d never seen blood on his sheets, either. It corresponded to a memory cloaked in a grayish white shroud. His dream lover had been a virgin.
But she hadn’t been a dream.
He pulled the sheets from the bed and shoved them into the bottom of the armoire, then pulled them out and stared at the pile of linen. He’d never felt the burden of his dukedom as much as he did now, wishing to dispose of the evidence he’d deflowered a woman he couldn’t remember. His servants would find the sheets, talk among themselves. He might even be visited by Mrs. Browning who would want to know why he’d accosted one of the maids.
What the hell had he done last night?
What the hell was he going to do now?
He dropped the sheets back on the bed. If anyone asked—and they wouldn’t—he’d simply tell them he had a restless night. And the blood? The blood wasn’t necessarily a sign he’d bedded a virgin. He could have cut himself somehow when he was under the effects of the drug.
Good God, he was now lying to himself. Practice for lying to the world, no doubt.
What the hell had he done last night?
“It was bad, then?” Reese said when he joined him for breakfast.
Although he valued Reese’s friendship, he didn’t want to see the compassionate look in the other man’s eyes. He didn’t need anyone’s pity.
“Manageable,” he said, smiling lightly.
He had every intention of going to the boathouse, but the Yorks’ maid was suddenly standing in the doorway.
“Your Grace?”
“Yes? What is it?”
Had Mrs. York’s condition worsened? That’s all this ruination of a morning needed.
“Begging your pardon, Your Grace, but Mrs. York would like to meet with you on a matter of some urgency.”
His first thought was that she’d decided to leave. If so, she’d take Martha with him. Where had that sudden regret come from?
“Tell her I’ll call on her within the quarter hour.”
The maid nodded, performed a slight curtsy and disappeared, leaving him sitting there, his appetite suddenly gone.
Perhaps they would be leaving today. Or perhaps she simply wished to convey her thanks to the staff. Or request a certain meal to tempt her
appetite. Nothing about the request should have summoned a sour feeling in his stomach or a dread making his extremities feel suddenly cold.
Standing, he placed his napkin beside the plate, nodded to the maid who entered the room with a fresh teapot, and made his way up the stairs.
The journey was, as it had been for the past year, a slow one and more than a little awkward. Yet each week brought about progress. He was at least able to mount the steps without assistance. He no longer needed to be conveyed about on a stretcher.
At the top of the staircase he took a few minutes to steady himself, annoyed to discover his hands were trembling. An effect of the exertion, and one he hoped would ease in time. Or maybe it was just simply the anticipation of the meeting to come.
The dread was increasing, coupled as it was with the discovery he’d made this morning. Something had happened last night. Something that hadn’t been a dream, a hallucination, or an effect of the elixir. Something was terribly wrong and as he turned left, heading for Mrs. York’s room, he felt as if he was walking to the gallows.
She wanted to see him on a matter of some urgency.
He’d bedded a woman last night. A virgin.
His memory strained to recall how she’d spoken. Was she well educated? He couldn’t remember. Was she quick-witted? Had she amused him? He couldn’t recall. Had they spoken of anything other than their base needs, some conversation to give him a clue to her identity?
Who the hell had she been?
A woman had been in his room and he’d taken her to his bed. He hadn’t been capable of convincing her, so she would have come of her own accord. Why had she even been in his room?
Was it Martha?
His honor would demand that he do the right thing. Perhaps, at the base of it, that’s why he hadn’t sent her away. Maybe his drugged mind had realized what it meant to take her to his bed. She understood his work. She had a fascinating mind. There was something about her that was arresting, some ability she had to summon his gaze. It was the way she spoke. He liked watching her lips enunciate the words. Or perhaps her expressive eyes. He suspected that if Martha thought you were an idiot, she’d leave you with no doubt of it.