Night Storm

by Catherine Coulter

  “Much better,” Gracie said. “Your company is nice, Miss Genny. That Mrs. Swindel knows what she’s about and will take care of things.” She drew a deep breath and blurted out, “I told your pa I was leaving tomorrow.”

  Genny stared at her, hugged her, and finally wished her well. It wasn’t really a shock. She’d been nothing more than a cypher for the past several months. It was time for change. And change was certainly on their doorstep.

  “Well done, my lord,” Genny heard Mrs. Swindel say later to a non-present Alec as she walked down the front stairs. She grinned. The eccentric Mrs. Swindel would doubtless prove amusing. And contrary to Genny’s experience, this lady seemed to approve of her male-aping hostess.

  Genny was smiling when she entered her bedchamber. So I’m not in the common way, am I, Alec? What did that mean?

  She disliked herself every minute she was doing it, but by the time Genny emerged from her bedchamber, she was beautifully gowned in a new creation selected by Alec, an evening dress of cream-and-pale-yellow silk with a low rounded neckline and a thin band of pale yellow satin beneath her breasts. She’d brushed her hair and braided it loosely in a coronet atop her head; myriad loose tendrils framed her face and curled down her neck. She was even wearing her mother’s amethyst necklace, the stones nearly an opaque purple that for some unknown reason made her eyes a very deep green.

  The parlor door was open. She paused, seeing Alec. It wasn’t fair, she thought, not wanting to enter the room. He was so beautiful, so absolutely breathtaking, she felt like a ragpicker in comparison. He was wearing evening clothes, all stark black and white, and with his tanned face and golden hair, he looked beyond any man she could even have imagined in a fairy tale. It was many minutes before Genny forced her eyes away from him to his daughter. Hallie, wearing another one of her sprigged muslin gowns, was seated next to James Paxton, chatting about everything she’d seen. Like her father’s, Hallie’s golden hair had been brushed until it shone, and her eyes glittered that same amazing blue. The child was not only a pleasure to look at, she was also amazingly precocious. Genny supposed it was because she’d been surrounded only by adults for all her five years.

  That, or she had her mama’s brains.

  And her papa’s beauty.

  Genny forced herself to say brightly as she walked into the parlor, “Good evening. Welcome to our home, Hallie, Baron.”

  Alec whistled softly. “Good heavens, Mr. Eugene,” he said as he took her hand in his, “I believe you’re nearly as lovely in clothes as out of them.”

  “Hush.”

  “What, Papa?”

  “Genny is just welcoming me, pumpkin. I know how to dress you, Genny, no doubt about that. And undress you,” he added, pitching his voice very low. Without pause, Alec said to James, “What do you think, sir? Is she not a newly hatched Venus, a veritable goddess of Baltimore?”

  James was markedly silent, just looking at his daughter. He said in an almost stunned voice, “I hadn’t realized how very much you looked like your dear mama. Beautiful, Genny, just beautiful.”

  “Well, Papa, I have it on the best authority that I’m not in the common way.”

  “What does that mean?” Hallie asked.

  “It means,” Alec said, not taking his eyes off Genny, “that Miss Eugenia Paxton isn’t a copy of all the other young ladies of this city. She is an original.”

  Why did he have to sound so admiring? Well, it was a lie, that was it. He just wanted her in his bed so he could rid her of her virginity.

  Unfortunately, she also wanted him to rid her of her virginity. Genny blanched at her own undeniable wish. She’d never even thought all that much about sexual things until Alec had arrived. He made her aware, just looking at him, aware of every inch of her body, of her breasts, of that secret place between her thighs. Alec was looking at her now, and there was no serious expression in his beautiful eyes; there was only amusement and devilry and a big dollop of wickedness. He knew what she was thinking.

  She jutted up her chin and tried for a smile that a very polite hostess would offer when faced with awful guests. “I believe dinner is ready.”

  “Mr. Moses,” Hallie said, running up to the butler and holding out her arms.

  Moses picked her up and said, “What a purty little ’un you are, Miss Hallie. That’s a nice dress, yep, it sure is. Yore pa picked it out for you?”

  “Oh, yes, and Genny’s, too.”

  Alec supposed he should tell his daughter that one didn’t jump into a butler’s arms, but he saw the pleasure in the old man’s eyes and the open delight on Hallie’s face. He heard her tell Moses about her day. “Oh, yes, Moses, Mrs. Swindel did say dead turnips. And Genny said she’d serve us live spinach. What did Lannie say about that?”

  Moses, bless his heart, laughed with Hallie. Alec turned to James, ignoring Genny. “Sir?” He offered his arm, which James thankfully took. Genny quickly moved to take his other arm.

  “So bloody tired,” James said, then quickly added to his daughter, “A long, very busy day, Genny, that’s all.”

  James shouldn’t have come down to dinner, Alec thought, but kept his mouth shut.

  It was midnight. The house was quiet and Alec was sitting up in his bed reading a boring treatise by Edmund Burke. It was a chilly evening, and a sluggish fire still burned in the grate.

  He put the book down, sighed, and leaned back against the pillowed headboard. Life had become complicated. Very suddenly and, he knew, irrevocably complicated by a single female who wasn’t even English.

  He never should have come to Baltimore in answer to Mr. Eugene Paxton’s letter. He’d been a fool, and now he was caught up in their lives and they in his and he could see no way out of it. Nor did he think he wanted out.

  What he wanted was Genny. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted a woman in his adult life. He’d hoped it was just a case of lust. He could have dealt with that quite easily. But it wasn’t. He accepted it. It didn’t make any sense to him, but nonetheless, it was true. He kept seeing her belly swelled with his child. Damn, he hadn’t wanted that, not after Nesta had died; he hadn’t wanted hearth and home and being domesticated and sitting in his parlor at night, being tied down and deadened with time.

  He shook his head against the pillows. He hadn’t wanted it but now he did, curse her green eyes. And now, of all the crazy things, it was Genny—the perverse female—who loathed the notion of home and hearth, of a husband who would dominate her and tell her what to do. No, she wanted to remain free—but the silly little twit wasn’t free; any man with a brain could see that. She wanted to create, to build, to accomplish, to travel and see things that most folk could only dream about.

  That just wasn’t right. It wasn’t the natural order of things. It was the woman’s place to domesticate the man, not vice versa. At the same time, he could, most unfortunately, see himself in the same parlor with Genny, see them talking, arguing, oh, yes, lots of arguing and then making love. He could see their children, and a life that was built around one place, and that place would hold meaning and friends and ties that would be too dear to ever break.

  He didn’t turn his head when he heard his bedchamber door quietly open. He simply stared straight ahead and waited, his heart pounding, his body taut with anticipation.

  “Alec.”

  “Hello, Genny. You came. I hoped you would.”

  “Yes. I saw—can’t you face me?”

  He turned his head on the pillows and smiled at her. She was in her nightgown, a tentlike white cotton affair that covered her toes and came to her chin.

  “You look like a vestal virgin. A rather long-in-the-tooth vestal virgin, but who am I to quibble?”

  Genny heard his jest, but she was too nervous to even acknowledge it. She’d convinced herself that Bedlam was the place for her. But she was also determined. Very set in her path. Alec wouldn’t remain in Baltimore, not a man like the baron. Soon he would be gone, and she would have lost her chance to learn about ph
ysical things between a man and a woman. She couldn’t imagine wanting any other man to even look at her after Alec.

  “You escaped this evening without telling me your decision. I’m glad you are delivering it in person.”

  “I want you to make love to me.”

  “Ah. I thought perhaps you wanted me to give you a cup of tea.” He saw her wildly dilated eyes and quickly retrenched. He lifted the covers, just a bit. “Come here, Genny.”

  He was nude and his sex was harder than the bedpost.

  Genny walked slowly to the bed and stopped. She ran her tongue over her very dry lower lip. “Alec, can I see you?”

  “You mean my body?”

  “Yes. I’ve never seen a man before.”

  “Do you want me to get up and parade about in front of you, or can we simply do things naturally?”

  “What do you mean by naturally?”

  “Come here and let’s talk about it.”

  Genny looked at that lifted cover. She knew if she climbed into bed with him, it would be all over. “Do you want me to take off my nightgown?”

  She sounded scared to death. “Not yet. I want to do it, in the natural course of things. Come here, Genny.”

  Twelve

  Her hands fluttered and she stalled, her eyes on that lifted sheet.

  “Would you like to sit here?” He lowered the sheet and patted the spot beside him. “We could talk, if you like, perhaps about the harems in Constantinople or the way Muslim women cover their bodies and their faces when they’re out in public.”

  He sounded amused, bloody well amused and patronizing, and she wished she had the aplomb to blight him with a word or a snort or something.

  Instead, she sat beside him, her hands folded primly in her lap, her bare feet not quite reaching the floor. She felt like a child, and worse, a fool. She shouldn’t have come. She’d lost her mind, her perspective, and all in the hope of losing her virginity.

  “I don’t want to talk about those things.”

  “What would you suggest?”

  She raised her eyes and looked at him. “Would you really cancel the wager if I don’t let you make love to me?”

  “Naturally. I said I would, didn’t I?”

  She swallowed.

  “It’s always much easier to plan to do things than to carry through with them, isn’t it, Mr. Eugene?”

  “I was really quite convinced when I came in here,” Genny said, her eyes now trained on the white pillow just above his right shoulder, which was quite bare, as was his chest. She wanted to look at him, look her fill—a good fifty years would probably do it—and touch him and kiss him. She drew in her breath.

  “All right. I’m ready now.”

  He grinned at her, but it hurt to grin, his sex hurt, and something deep inside him pinched and prodded and ached and yet, at the same time, something very sweet and infinitely satisfying filled him.

  “You don’t have to, Genny.”

  She stared at him, full face. “What? You don’t want me now? You think I’m not alluring? I know you think my nightgown is stuffy and dowdy, but I don’t have another, one like I’m certain Laura Salmon would have.”

  “Yes, you’re alluring—where did you dredge up that word? And no, your nightgown suits you.” He chuckled, but she was too nervous to quibble. She pleated the cotton.

  “No, my dear, it’s just that I have belatedly realized that I am a gentleman, and a gentleman does not bed the daughter of a man he esteems and in whose house he is a guest.”

  “That makes you sound very noble, Alec, but it’s not true. You’re not the one doing the seducing. I am.” And she flung herself across his chest, grabbed his shoulders, and kissed him, missing the first time, but landing close to his mouth the second time.

  Alec was laughing, catching her arms in his hands, trying to keep her off him, but the instant her mouth touched his, he knew he wasn’t long to remain a logical adult male. She was soft and sweet. “Genny,” he said into her mouth, and felt her at once tense with excitement against him.

  He filled his hands with her soft hair, stroked her back, never releasing her mouth. Her lips were pursed like those of a virgin schoolgirl, which in a sense she was, but he didn’t mind. He envisioned the next fifty years with that soft mouth of hers against his and he deepened the pressure. Slowly, very slowly, he pulled the hair back from her face and gently pushed her away. She was above him, looking down into his face, her eyes wide and filled with surprise and delight, and now disappointment.

  “Please, Alec.”

  “No, love. I’m sorry. I really meant what I said. I can’t do that to your father. He trusts me. And I, I hope, am not yet lost of all honor. Shall I give you pleasure? Yes, that’s what we’ll do. Come here.”

  Genny knew what that pleasure would be, but at the same time, it meant her being naked and him looking at her and making her wild, all the while he was watching and detached, and she didn’t want that, not this time.

  She felt his fingers unfastening the buttons on her nightgown. She wanted to tell him to stop, but all she could manage was to place her hand over his. He smiled at her. “Easy, Genny.”

  Her gown gaped open and he parted it, baring her breasts. “Lovely.” Alec sat up in bed and drew her over his lap. She lay against the crook of his right arm, naked to the waist, and he couldn’t seem to get enough of her and that was just looking. Slowly, very slowly, he let his forefinger touch her nipple. He closed his eyes at the feel of her, only to open them as she gasped.

  “Oh, dear.”

  “That’s wonderful, isn’t it? Give me your hand. I want you to feel yourself.”

  Genny felt him raise her hand, felt him gently lower her hand to her breast. She felt her nipple. “I just feel like me.”

  He chuckled, and caressed her again. To his delight and her near undoing, she moaned.

  “It’s all right, Genny. You’re supposed to enjoy what I do to you. Your responsibility is always to tell me what pleases you.”

  “I want to touch you.”

  That elusive satisfying ache came through him again at her unexpected words. “All right.”

  Genny splayed her fingers and let her hand glide over his chest and shoulders. His chest was covered with golden hair and his flesh was firm, the deep muscles rippling beneath her fingers. “No man could be like you,” she said, and he believed her and reveled in the honest wonder in her voice, the erotic sweetness of her touch.

  He leaned down and kissed her again. His hand cupped her breast, lifting it, pressing inward to feel her heartbeat. He pushed her back again against his arm, then moved his hand downward, coming to rest just below her waist, on her white belly.

  She was shuddering and her kiss was suspended, all feeling focused below her waist, just below where his fingertips were. “Alec,” she said, and he knew that she wanted, that she hurt, not as much as he did, but enough, quite enough.

  “All right,” he said, and his fingers tangled in her hair and he watched her face as he found her. “Soft, Genny, you’re so very soft.” Her eyes widened on his face as his fingers began a gentle rhythm.

  “That feels wonderful, doesn’t it? As much as a man loves to come inside a woman—for that’s where he can find more pleasure than he deserves—you hide your feelings here, Genny. A small, quite hidden little treasure that can make you beautifully wild. Remember the other night, Genny? Remember how you cried out and moved against me and then everything shattered and you lost yourself and your body took over?”

  “I remember,” she said, astounded that words still existed in her mind.

  “Now, I want to caress you with my mouth. You want that, don’t you?”

  “No, Alec, you can’t—oh, please, please…”

  She was trembling, her hips bucking slightly against his caressing fingers.

  “It’s not that I—” Alec would never remember what it was he’d wanted to say to her, for at that moment, he heard Moses yelling, “Oh, God! Miss Genny! Baron! Oh, God, c
ome quick!”

  Alec lifted Genny off his lap. “Quickly, Genny.” He was out of bed, shrugging into his dressing gown. He heard Genny behind him, pulling down her gown, fastening the buttons.

  A loud pounding came on the bedchamber door; then Moses threw it open, stumbling in. “Hurry, suh! It’s the master! Oh, God, Miss Genny—”

  Alec pushed past him and down the corridor to the master suite, Genny at his heels. He paused for an instant, then went into the bedchamber. There was one candle lit by the bed. Alec saw immediately that James Paxton was dead.

  He stood beside him, feeling the pain of surprise, the pain of James’s passing. His eyes were closed, the expression on his face peaceful. He’d died in his sleep, an easy death. Alec leaned down and gently laid his fingertips against his throat. There was nothing, of course.

  “Papa?”

  “He’s gone, Genny. I’m sorry.” Alec turned to see Moses standing at the foot of the bed, staring at his dead master.

  “I come to see him, suh. I don’t usually do that, but something just kept naggin’ at me and I came. He was so tired tonight and it worried me. I came. He was dead.”

  Genny moved around Alec and sat beside her father. She took his hand and brought it to her lips.

  “His heart, Genny. Doubtless it was his heart. He died in his sleep, an easy death.”

  “Yes,” she said, still looking down at her father’s face.

  “Papa?”

  Alec whirled about to see Hallie standing in the doorway, dressed only in her nightgown, her feet bare, her model barkentine under her left arm.

  “Just a moment, Hallie. Moses, have his doctor fetched. He’ll know what’s to be done.”

  “Yes, suh.”

  “I’ll be right back, Genny. Let me see to Hallie.” Alec picked his daughter up in his arms and carried her out of the bedchamber.

  Genny said very softly, “I’m sorry, Papa, truly sorry. Alec said it was easy for you. I hope it was. I love you so much. There’s no one for me now. I wasn’t even here when you died. I was sprawled on a man’s lap, his fingers on my body, and you were dying, alone.”