Courting Susannah

by Linda Lael Miller

  “For all I know, you could be any or all of those things. Hollister resigned from the investigation right away, because he wanted to court you. As for me—well, I found myself trusting you, for good or ill.”

  She took a step toward him, paused, her hands clasping each other. “You were going to allow me to take Victoria away?”

  He nodded. “A child needs a mother,” he said. “A father, too, of course, when possible. But a mother’s love is vital.”

  He saw tears spring to her eyes and wondered what he’d said to cause her pain. Then she hurried over and put her arms around him, gently, so as not to do him hurt. Maybe it was that that caused him to place his trust in her, her gentle ways. Then there was her courage, her honesty, her humor …

  “You are a good man,” she said with a sniffle, “for all that you try to pretend otherwise.”

  He caught her chin in his fingers and bent his head, at great cost, to kiss her lightly on that delectable mouth. “Oh, Susannah,” he breathed. “How I need you.” He thought he saw a flicker of sorrow in her eyes before she smiled, and, once again, he was puzzled.

  “Do you, now?” she asked.

  When he made no reply, she slipped beneath his shoulder, supporting him as she had done while they descended the stairs. “Come along,” she said. “It’s time you got back into bed.”

  Aubrey groaned aloud at the suggestion. And this time, it wasn’t just because of the pain.

  When Susannah finally got Aubrey up the stairs and into his room, she was breathless from the effort. He was a big man, and he seemed to let himself lean on her more than usual.

  “Sit down,” she said. “I’ll help you off with your boots.”

  Aubrey sank to the edge of the mattress, and Susannah picked up one of his feet. He drew in a sharp, hissing breath and murmured what she thought must be a curse by its tone. “Stand between my legs,” he said, “with your back to me. Otherwise, you’re going to kill me.”

  She did as he told her, though she was mildly suspicious of his motives. When she bent over and he pinched her bottom, she knew she’d been right. She turned to glare at him, her face hot with embarrassment and another sensation she wasn’t about to admit to.

  He laughed. “Just pull my boots off. I promise to behave myself.”

  She bent, and he pinched her again. She jerked off the second boot and flung it aside, whirling to look down into his face. The boyish twinkle in his eyes softened her immediately, and when he laid his hands on her waist and drew her close, she couldn’t resist him.

  He buried his face in her stomach and nuzzled her, and something grabbed inside Susannah, clenching tighter and tighter. She had a very unseemly desire to lean back in his grasp and surrender herself to all the nuzzling he wanted to do.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Dreaming,” Aubrey answered, his voice muffled by her uncorseted midsection and the heavy fabric of her dress. She was wearing a gown of dark green woolen, not taken from Julia’s wardrobe and altered, like most of her other clothes, but bought with her own money, earned by giving piano lessons.

  She supposed she should retreat—in fact, she was certain of it—but she couldn’t seem to move away, even though she knew he would never hold her against her will. “Aubrey,” she protested, but she sounded weak, even to herself.

  Slowly, he slid his hands up her rib cage to cup her breasts. Susannah gasped and let her head fall back, though she knew she would have crowned any other man with the nearest blunt object for doing the same thing. With his thumbs, he chafed her nipples to attention, then pinched them ever so lightly through her dress and the camisole beneath.

  “Close the door, Susannah,” he said, dropping his hands.

  She swayed for a moment, half dazed. He steadied her by grasping her hips. Kissed her woman place through the weight of her skirts and instantly set her afire, inside and out. Nerves screaming, flesh ablaze, she stood stupidly in his hold, not trusting her knees to carry her as far as the doorway.

  “Throw the bolt, too,” he added.

  She moved then, like a sleepwalker, to do his bidding. The room seemed to pulse and waver around her, as though it were an illusion, the landscape of some erotic dream. She leaned back against the heavy panel, her hands behind her, gauging the distance between herself and Aubrey Fairgrieve. Between herself and destruction.

  “We aren’t married yet,” she reminded him. Her voice sounded somewhat fitful, it seemed to her.

  “No,” Aubrey agreed. “That’s why I’m not going to take you, Susannah. I’m only going to make you wish to God I would. Come here.”

  She went to him. Like a fool.

  “Help me out of my clothes.” He stood, and she obediently pushed his coat back over his shoulders and slid it down his arms. She lowered his suspenders, pulled his shirt tail from inside his trousers, unbuttoned and removed both those garments.

  She had never seen Aubrey naked before, or any other man, for that matter, and she would have expected such an intimate look at the masculine anatomy to shock her. Instead, she felt compelled to touch him and closed one hand around the magnificent erection he presented.

  “Great Scot,” she muttered.

  He laughed, but there was a low moan stitched through the sound. His ribs were still bound, but above and below the wrappings curled a glorious mat of maplecolored hair. His shoulders and thigh muscles would have done credit to a statue in some Grecian garden.

  “Now, your clothes, Susannah,” he prompted, grinning at her. He was all mischief and manhood, standing there, and she had never been more conscious of her own femininity. Nor had she ever been so vulnerable; the moment was terrifying, exhilarating, wildly daring, and she’d been born for it.

  Still some shyness remained. She swallowed and shook her head. “I—I can’t.”

  “Then let me.” His voice was low, and the sound of it reached inside her to caress her in private places.

  She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue in a quick, nervous gesture and then nodded. He let her hair down first, pin by pin, tress by lock, until it tumbled freely to her waist. She was already wishing he would make love to her, and even in her innocence she knew he hadn’t really begun to seduce her.

  Next, he unfastened the buttons at the front of her gown, teasing each bit of flesh with the light pass of a fingertip as he exposed it. Susannah was trembling by the time he reached her waist.

  He tugged the bodice off over her shoulders, took his time easing the long sleeves of the dress down and down her arms. He lifted each wrist, in its turn, to his mouth, and sampled it like some delicacy.

  Have me, she wanted to cry out. Have me now. But she knew he would refuse, and she still had enough pride left to restrain herself, though she was slipping fast.

  At last, the dress fell into a pool at her feet. He unlaced the camisole to free her breasts, and she looked past his shoulder at the snow gliding past the window, knowing that if she met his eyes she would be completely lost. She would beg.

  He held her breasts in his hands, caressing and fondling them until he wrung a low moan from her. Then he untied her petticoats and let them fall, to lie forgotten on the floor, along with the dress. He left her drawers till last, instructing her to take off her shoes, posing her in her stockings and pantaloons with one foot on the seat of a chair.

  Then he removed a garter from above her knee, rolled down the stocking. Her flesh sang where he bared it, quivering in the wake of his caress. Taking his time, he repeated the whole process with her other limb.

  At last, she stood naked before him, not ashamed but proud as a pagan goddess. For the very first time in her life, Susannah felt completely and utterly captivating. She knew she was subject to Aubrey’s powers then, but the reverse was equally true. Looking into his eyes, she saw a brazen sort of surrender that affirmed her importance to him in the deepest way.

  “Lie down beside me,” he said. It was a command, and also a plea.

  They lay upon the be
d together, side by side, face to face. Aubrey draped one arm loosely across Susannah’s waist and kissed her forehead.

  “You,” he said, “are beautiful.”

  “So are you,” she replied instantly, and blushed.

  He chuckled. “Bruises, bindings, and all?”

  She traced the outline of one powerful shoulder. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Why are we doing this?”

  “Because,” he answered, kissing her mouth this time, “I’m going to go crazy if we don’t do something. I’ve wanted you since I found you standing in that corridor out there, looking at me as though I were the intruder.”

  Wanting was very different from loving, though she supposed the two generally went together. If only, if only he would say he cared for her.

  He ran his fingers from the hollow at the base of her throat, past her collarbone, between her breasts, over her belly. She shuddered when he made a teasing pass over the V of hair between her legs, instinctively parted them a little. And still the wispy snow fell, silent and fragile, past the bay windows across the room from Aubrey’s bed.

  “Make me want you,” she whispered.

  And he did as she asked.

  “You takin’ a fever?” Maisie asked two hours later, when Susannah was bold enough to set foot inside the kitchen. The older woman’s tone was serious, but her eyes were smiling.

  Susannah poured tea and helped herself to a cookie from the platter on the work table next to the cookstove. Her knees were still wobbly, and her voice was hoarse, even though Aubrey had swallowed all her cries. She had strained and writhed beside him, and she had indeed pleaded with him, but he had kept his word. She was exhausted, she was flushed, and there was a grinding need lodged low in her belly, but she was still a virgin.

  “I feel perfectly fine,” she croaked in belated answer to Maisie’s question, and went red all over again.

  “I don’t doubt that,” Maisie said, and chortled.

  “Where are Jasper and Victoria?” Susannah asked, mostly to change the subject. With Maisie in charge, she had no doubt that both children were safe and comfortable.

  “Ellie’s putting them to bed right about now,” she said.

  Startled, Susannah glanced at the window. Twilight was gathering beyond the glass, and the snow was still coming down. Where had the time gone?

  But of course she knew. She’d spent much of the afternoon learning pleasure, and it was a subject she yearned to explore further.

  “Do you suppose the Reverend Johnstone is at home tonight?” she asked.

  Maisie shrugged. “I reckon so. Why?”

  Susannah drew a deep breath and let it out. “Aubrey and I have decided that it would be—well—prudent to get married.”

  Maisie chuckled again. “Prudent, is it? Well, that’s good news, it surely is.”

  “Tomorrow,” Susannah clarified.

  “So that’s the way of it.”

  Susannah lifted her eyes to heaven for a moment. Were there no secrets in this house? “That’s the way of it,” she said. Maisie had made a hearty beef stew for supper, and she busied herself preparing a tray for Aubrey.

  He ate with good appetite.

  Summoned by one of the stable hands, Reverend Johnstone came calling in the late evening. Aubrey had already gone to sleep, and both Maisie and Ellie had retired as well. Susannah served her guest fresh coffee, hot stew, and buttered bread at the kitchen table and explained that she and Aubrey wished to be wed the next day, if possible.

  “This seems like something of a hasty decision,” the minister commented, dabbing at his mouth with one of Maisie’s crisply starched table napkins. “Your feelings toward Aubrey have seemed quite—well—unmatrimonial at times, Susannah. If I may say so.”

  It seemed to Susannah that he had already said so, but she made no comment on that. “I am very much in love with him,” she admitted. She had not made that confession aloud until that moment.

  “And how does he feel about you?”

  Susannah felt her face heat up again and could not quite meet the pastor’s wise, gentle gaze. “He—likes me, I think.” Then, in a smaller voice, “And wants me.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m hoping that—in time—”

  Reverend Johnstone reached across the table to pat her hand. “There, now. Plenty of good marriages have started this way. Often, love grows out of companionship, shared objectives and struggles. I should tend to trust that sort far more than the kind that strikes between one moment and the next and leaves a person moonstruck, I think.”

  Susannah gave a tired sigh, cupping her chin in one hand. “Have you ever been in love, Reverend?” she asked.

  He smiled, and there were memories in his eyes. “Oh, yes. Long ago and far away, I had a wife. Her name was Laura. She died of a cancer.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He patted her hand again. “Don’t be. We had more happiness in our time together than many people enjoy in all their lives, and I know she’s waiting for me in heaven.”

  Susannah sighed. “Did you have children together, you and Laura?”

  “Four sturdy sons.”

  She braced herself, thinking the reverend would tell her of more tragedy, but he didn’t. “Matthew is an attorney in Boston. Mark is vice president of a shipping concern and lives in London. Luke preaches the gospel back in Kansas, and John is still at school, being the youngest. He plans to be a doctor.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Susannah said, imagining the minister’s sons, far away and busy with their constructive lives. “You must be very proud.”

  “I am indeed. There were times when I thought they’d all wind up in prison.” The old man paused to laugh fondly. “They’re good boys, but they were full of the dickens when they were young. Preacher’s kids, you know. Always something to prove.”

  “Don’t you miss them?”

  “I suppose,” he replied gently. “But they are men now, busy with their own pursuits, and all of them have families, except for John, of course. That’s as it should be—we train our children not to need us, if we’re wise.”

  Susannah thought of Victoria, imagined her as a woman, and wanted to weep for the sorrow of losing the baby she was, the little girl she would become. Time passed too quickly; lives changed, children grew up, lovers got old, only to be parted by death. She sniffled.

  “Here, now,” the reverend said, offering a neatly pressed handkerchief. “What’s the matter?”

  Susannah blew her nose as delicately as she could, wadded the kerchief, and dabbed at her eyes. She’d been doing entirely too much crying lately, for someone who was basically happy. “Life is so precious,” she said, and sniffled again.

  The minister smiled, and after that they talked of the quiet wedding that was to take place the following afternoon in the main parlor. Although Susannah would have preferred to be married in the church, she knew Aubrey wasn’t up to traveling even that small distance.

  When Reverend Johnstone took his leave, Susannah made the rounds of the house, turning off gas lanterns, securing doors. At the windows of her own bedroom, where Victoria slept peacefully in the cradle, she stood watching snowflakes dance golden in the light of the street lamps.

  It seemed perfectly practical, just then, if not ideal, to marry a man who did not love her.

  Ethan adjusted his brother’s string tie. “Are you sure about this?” he asked, but he was grinning. “Marriage is a serious undertaking.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Aubrey said. He couldn’t help thinking of the day he married Julia; how stupidly happy he’d been, how he’d believed in love in much the same way a child might believe in fairies or leprechauns. Now, here he was, making the same leap all over again, except for a few minor changes.

  He’d learned the hard way that love was for dreamers and fools. He and Susannah would be partners, in and out of bed, and build a life together on a sound foundation of intelligence, good will, and common interests. All very well, but he was still stupidl
y happy.

  “What kind of honeymoon will you have?” Ethan fretted. “Here you are, with your ribs wrapped—”

  “I don’t expect to use my ribs,” Aubrey replied. Ethan was still fiddling with the tie, and he knocked his brother’s hands away, impatient. “As for the honeymoon—not that it’s any of your damn business—we’ll take a trip to Europe next spring.”

  Ethan whistled through his teeth, obviously impressed. “Does Susannah know about this?”

  “Not yet,” Aubrey answered, inspecting himself in the mirror over his bureau. He was stiff from the bindings, but most of the bruises were gone, and he looked decent in his best suit. With Ethan’s help, he’d shaved, and though he’d tried to slick his hair down with water, it was on the springy side. He frowned. “Have you got the ring?”

  “For the fifth time,” Ethan answered with a mirthful sigh, “yes.” He produced the wide gold band with its large, emerald-cut diamond, having plucked it from his vest pocket with a deft motion of two fingers. “See?”

  “Just don’t lose the damn thing,” Aubrey grumbled.

  Ethan laughed. “Listen,” he teased, “if you’re too fainthearted to go through with this wedding, I’ll be glad to step in and marry Susannah for you. She’s about as fine-looking a woman as I’ve ever seen, and smart, too.”

  “Too smart to hitch herself to the likes of you,” Aubrey retorted, but he couldn’t help smiling. Although his brother hadn’t confided in him yet, Hawkins had brought the excellent news that there was a romance brewing between Ethan and Ruby Hollister, the young sister of his lawyer.

  “You ready?” Ethan asked when several ominous chords thundered up from the piano belowstairs.

  Aubrey sighed. “I’m ready,” he said. He sure as hell hoped it was the truth.

  Susannah wore a dress she and Maisie had selected together at the general store just that morning. For all that it was hastily purchased and even more hastily altered, the gown was like something out of a maiden’s dream, with yards of ivory silk in the skirts, Irish lace on the bodice and the wide, puffy sleeves. The buttons resembled tiny pearls.