by Karen Ranney
She’d claim the loss of her memory. She’d claim she could remember nothing but her life in Scotland.
Baumann? Who was he? Just a man she might have known once.
Just this night, that’s all. She wanted one night.
Suddenly there were at Hillshead, lights illuminating the drive and every window in the house, making it appear like a beehive. But the earnest bees were all standing outside in a long line.
“They’re waiting to greet you,” he said. “As my wife.”
He opened the door, the lantern light falling on his face. His eyes were watchful, his lips pressed together as if to hold back his words.
She wished Baumann to perdition for spoiling this night, for hauling the past into her life and for tainting what should have been a glorious celebration filled with love and laughter.
Extending her hand, she stepped out of the carriage, wondering how she could possibly salvage her wedding night.
The truth wouldn’t do it.
Chapter 28
Her belongings had been delivered to a guest suite prepared for her at Hillshead. Would she and Lennox share a bed? Would she move into his room?
Questions for which she didn’t have answers at the moment.
The suite was lovely, the mahogany furniture upholstered in a pale yellow reminding her of bright summer days. Blue tassels hung on the curtains, and pillows in the same blue color were in the corners of the settee.
She bathed and dressed in a pale pink peignoir set, a gift from her mother.
She’d dreamed of coming to Lennox as a maiden bride, knowing his initiation would be gentle and tender. She was no longer a maiden but a woman with memories. Still, she wouldn’t be afraid with Lennox.
Lennox wouldn’t tell her she must remain motionless—or would he? Was she wrong in wanting him to touch her?
She stared at herself in the mirror. Why was she pale? She wasn’t afraid, or was she? They’d already shared kisses and she loved kissing him.
Would he want the light on? Would he want to see any part of her? Richard never had.
One of her mother’s favorite expressions was: comparisons are odious. Nor was it quite fair to compare Richard to Lennox in any degree. Richard was short, with reddish brown hair, a pale complexion, and features as fine as any woman.
Lennox was handsome and charming. His looks were only a part of who he was, and not the most important part. He was generous and kind, intelligent and thoughtful, one of the best people she’d ever known.
To compare Lennox to Richard was like comparing the sun to one single candle. And maybe that was the problem.
She knew she was Richard’s equal or better. She knew she surpassed him in intellect, resolve, poise, and even morality. With Lennox, she felt pushed and prodded to be more than herself, better than she was.
He was going to come to her soon and she would welcome him. Not as she dreaded Richard’s visits but as she might have if there’d never been a Richard Smythe in her life.
She wished she could have come to Lennox without a memory of dread.
She didn’t know enough despite having been a wife for five years. She wanted to know what would give Lennox delight. What would make his eyes darken with desire? Should she be naked beneath the sheets? Should she be standing in her peignoir and nightgown in front of a lamp, the better to be seen?
Proper wives didn’t do such things, did they?
How foolish she’d been in telling herself she felt nothing for Lennox. Something in her nature was inextricably tied to him. Maybe it was memory. Maybe it was because he was the repository of so many of her secrets, how she loved the croaking sound frogs made and the summer rain in her face. He was the only one who knew she’d taken his boat out and sailed on the Clyde in the moonlight. She’d been Glynis to him. Not Mrs. Richard Smythe or the British Legation’s senior attaché’s wife or a Scot whose accent was being overwritten every day.
With him, she wasn’t who she’d become but who she was deep inside. A girl who’d been raised in love, nurtured with laughter, given much, and unwisely expected the same treatment from the world.
What had she thought? That all she had to do was snap her fingers and everything she desired would drop, like an overripe plum, in her lap? Perhaps that’s why she wasn’t critical of the women others called “overindulged” in the diplomatic service. She had been exactly the same. After her marriage to Richard, she’d learned only too quickly that the world had no intention of bowing to her demands.
It was as if God, having realized how immature and selfish she’d been, said to her, “Glynis, you must learn to give up all you hold as dear, all you cherish, and all you love. In return, I shall grant you some measure of wisdom.”
A double-edged sword, wisdom, since it could be so easily used to see her own flaws.
From the day of her marriage, she and God had an uneasy truce. She didn’t ask Him for anything and He didn’t take anything else away from her.
But tonight, this night, this wondrous night she’d never thought would pass, was an answer to a hundred unvoiced prayers.
She strolled through the room, her fingers trailing over the silky wood of the bureau, the writing desk, and the armoire until she halted in front of the vanity and stared at herself in the mirror. Her cheeks were flushed now, her lips pink.
Her feelings hadn’t changed. Lennox still made her heart stutter. She wanted his arms around her. She wanted to confide in him, to be herself with him in a way she hadn’t been for years.
She didn’t want to measure every single word before it came out of her mouth. She wanted to laugh with abandon and love without restraint. She wanted Lennox to know her in a way he had when she was a girl, to reacquaint him with who she truly was, not the woman she’d become. She wanted to return to innocence even though that was an impossible wish.
She wanted to be improvident and reckless, the girl who’d run headlong into disaster and only later realized what she’d done.
Yet she was nervous. No, she wasn’t nervous. Perhaps anxious was the best word for what she felt. Or afraid?
No, she wasn’t afraid of Lennox, but she might be wary about the situation. Would he change with marriage? Would he want to quell the part of her she’d recently rediscovered? Banish the girl with the courage of the archangels and summon forth the woman with excellent manners and restrained bearing?
He didn’t knock on the door, but merely opened it, strolled in, and closed it in one movement.
They stared at each other.
Was there some magical word she was supposed to say? If so, she didn’t know the greeting. Instead, she took a step back, closer to the bed.
“You needn’t look like I’m about to ravish you, Glynis. I don’t have to be here at all if you’d prefer not.”
She smiled, pushed into amusement by his irritation. Or, she thought, studying his face, maybe it wasn’t irritation at all. Maybe Lennox was feeling a similar vulnerability.
She had fought her own emotions for so long it was a relief to admit them at last. This man held her heart in the palm of his hands and yet he didn’t know it.
Her feelings had only grown in the intervening years. They’d matured in absence and escalated with longing. Loneliness had made them sprout shoots until they wound through her heart, each tiny leaf bearing his name.
“We need to talk about Baumann,” he said.
She shook her head. “No. Not tonight. Not on our wedding night.”
He looked as if he wanted to say something but restrained himself.
“Please, Lennox. Don’t let him ruin our wedding night.”
She wanted to tell him about Washington. The words wouldn’t come. If she did tell him the truth, it wouldn’t be a bridge between them but create a wall.
Love me. There, could she say that? Could she demand such a thing of him?
What would he say if she asked, “Can we pretend for a while? You never asked another woman to be your wife and I wasn’t married to someo
ne else.”
Her imagination could easily create that world. They would be filled with joy, not suspicion. Laughter and kindness and love would fill the room.
Lennox was her husband. Did the past matter right at this moment? Did it matter if they were joined because of gossip or expediency or even pity?
“I’ve wanted to kiss you for a week,” she said. “Seven days have never seemed so long.”
One of Lennox’s eyebrows winged upward.
“Have you?”
She nodded. “When I was a girl, I envisioned you coming to me on our wedding night. I thought about how it would be.”
His eyes seemed to darken.
“And what did you imagine?”
She walked to him slowly, taking her time, watching his face as she did so. His cheeks were bronzed, his eyes holding the slightest edge of wariness.
When she reached him she placed her right hand on his shirted chest. He’d come fully dressed to her. Not in his robe or nightwear, but in a shirt and trousers. Had he expected her to banish him?
“I would be in bed, waiting for you,” she said. “My hair would be artfully draped on the pillow. The sheet would be turned down to reveal my white nightgown. Roses would be in vases throughout the room.”
“You’re wearing pink,” he said. “And we’ve neglected the roses.”
“I’ve decided the imagination of a child doesn’t matter. You are the only important part of my daydream.”
He bent his head, slowly enough to give her a chance to move away if she wished. Oh, but she didn’t wish. When his lips finally touched hers, she sighed in relief.
The kiss was an invitation.
She could barely breathe when he wrapped his arms around her and deepened the kiss.
In that instant she knew a greater truth than any she’d ever known before. Nothing mattered but him. He was her anchor, her lodestone, her faith.
What would she have done if something had happened to him? If he’d had the same kind of accident that had blinded his father? She knew, as he pulled her tighter until not even a breath could separate him, she would have come home to be with him. She would have braved censure and scandal and ruin.
What would she have done if fate had taken him from her? She would’ve heard the news very calmly, returned to her small house, closed the door of her bedroom and willed herself to die.
But now she wanted to live. She wanted to see the dance of lights behind her eyelids as he kissed her, their tongues dueling, their breaths merging.
His hands were on her bottom, lifting her closer and tighter to him.
She slapped her hands against his chest, pulling on the linen of his shirt, needing to touch him, to feel his skin. She wanted to touch him everywhere, memorize him with her fingers.
The strength of his arms, the firmness of his shoulders, attested to the physical work he did at the yard.
“Take your clothes off,” she said. “Now.”
His chuckle annoyed her because he wasn’t fast enough. She put both hands on either side of the placket of his shirt and pulled, feeling the buttons give. She scratched his skin, stretched her arms around until she felt his back, fingers splayed to feel all of him. It wasn’t enough.
Her breasts pressed against the hard planes of his chest as her hands wrapped around his neck.
She blinked open her eyes to find him smiling down at her, his gaze intent.
She only smiled back at him and rained kisses over his chest.
His indrawn breath made her want to laugh. Good, let him feel a fraction of the wildness racing through her.
She grabbed his head and held him still for her kiss, wishing he could erase all the loneliness of the past years. She wanted to pull off his clothes, tear them if she must, do something improper and wanton. She was not herself, but that was a lie, wasn’t it?
This was the woman who’d always been tamped down, pushed to the back and ignored. Richard had never seen this creature. The only person who ever really knew her was Lennox.
She wanted him in a way she’d never wanted any other man. He was hers and he had always been hers since she was a child and first saw him.
His clothes were too concealing for this summer night with its warm air and soft scented breeze.
A tide was rushing in to nearly drown her.
She needed her clothes off. She was too hot, too constrained.
If she’d felt any modesty before he arrived, it was gone now, buried beneath a need racing through her like lightning.
His lips on her throat accelerated her pulse even further. She shivered, gripping his shoulders as he unfastened the bow holding her nightgown closed.
Her knees weakened as he pushed the garment open. His fingers danced across her skin, hesitated at the top of her breasts.
“Yes,” she whispered. Yes, oh yes.
She felt as if she’d never been truly alive until his fingertips skimmed her skin. He thumbed a nipple, then tipped her chin up to place a kiss on her mouth.
Her heart was beating so quickly she felt breathless.
“Did you imagine this, too?” he asked, looking down at her.
Words were impossible.
How could she, when she’d never experienced anything like this passion before tonight?
She wrapped her hands around his neck, her eyes on his face.
Delight and tenderness warred for dominance, and shot through it all was wonder he could do this to her. With a kiss he’d changed her to a woman wild with desire.
He led her to the bed but she didn’t care where they were. He could have loved her on the soil of Scotland, the earth a pillow for her head. In a carriage, on one of his ships, in a balloon tethered high in the air: the location didn’t matter. Only he mattered. Only Lennox.
When he placed his lips on her breast, her heart stopped, then thudded to a start again. She heard her nightgown tear but she didn’t care. Tear every garment she had, it wasn’t important.
She stared up at him, grateful he’d left the lamp lit. A lock of hair fell and she brushed it back with tender fingers. His shirt hung open, and now his trousers were, too. She reached down and cupped him, amazed and thrilled.
“At least you’re not wearing a hoop, Glynis,” he said. His voice was breathless but held a note of humor.
“And you’re still wearing too many clothes, Lennox.”
His laughter summoned her own. She had the thought passion should involve all the senses: joy and wonder and perhaps a little trepidation.
His lips were on her breasts again, worshipping them. She lay exposed to him in the lamplight and didn’t care. He pulled on one nipple and she could feel the sensation in the core of her. Her hands tightened on his shoulders, her nails probably making a mark. Good, let her claim him as her own.
She wanted to touch him everywhere but she also wanted to be touched. There, where her waist flared to her hips. There, at the base of her neck, and then all the other spots craving his touch. Her breasts, between her thighs, her bottom, all seemed to be sentient parts of her, craving to be stroked and loved and praised.
His hands were suddenly between her thighs, stroking her, learning her intimately. She should’ve been flustered, nearly virginal. But she widened her legs and pulled on his arms, a wordless encouragement.
Delight shuddered through her.
Chapter 29
This wild woman in his arms was Glynis. The realization made him slow his movements, mark these moments as rare and special.
This was Glynis, and his fingers stroked across her skin, feeling her pebbled response. He cupped her breasts, his thumb smoothing an erect nipple. Hearing her gasp harnessed his own breath, stilled his heart and set it to racing again.
This was Glynis and he’d never forget this night.
Glynis. His wife, his love.
He pressed his lips to her throat, her pulse jumping at his touch. She placed her hands against his chest and he could feel her touch all the way to his heart.
God, the Kirk, and the whole of Scotland applauded this consummation.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, sighed his name against his throat, making him close his eyes in wonder and thanksgiving.
She was perfect. From her pointed chin to her beautiful collarbones to her shoulders to her full breasts with their large areolas and perky nipples to the long line of her legs, Glynis was a woman to fuel his dreams.
His fingers splayed across her concave belly.
She raised up a little at his touch. He smiled, pressed a kiss to her navel, inciting a shiver from her.
He kissed her again and his thoughts simply stopped, adrift in the sheer physical delight of kissing Glynis.
His right hand trailed from breast to navel, delved lower to play among the curls guarding her mound. She was wet for him, her body readying. Her legs opened as he gently stroked her.
“Lennox,” she said, her voice a gasp of sound. Her eyes fluttered open, her glazed look making his heart thud. “Please.”
You’re mine now, Glynis. Mine.
Words he kept to himself, but a sentiment he tried to express in the tenderness of his touch.
He entered her a second later, every sensation in his body attuned to that slow movement. This was Glynis and she was ensnaring him with her sighs, her gasps, the hitch in her breathing. This was Glynis. When she opened her arms, he lowered his forehead to the pillow, inhaling her scent. This was Glynis. When she shivered and sobbed in his arms, he held her, too, feeling like he’d achieved the greatest feat in the world to bring her satisfaction.
This was Glynis—a last thought before everything grayed and bliss stormed through him.
SHE COULD feel herself flush and knew he was looking at her. The lamp was still lit. Surely she should have demanded it be extinguished. She’d been so hungry for him it hadn’t mattered if every freckle, mole, or wrinkle showed.
Now, however, she really should pull up the sheet, shouldn’t she? Perhaps demand a bit of privacy, decorum—modesty, if nothing else.