Courting Susannah

by Linda Lael Miller

  Besides the bride, the nervous groom, and the minister, Ethan, Maisie, and Ellie were present, along with Mr. Zacharias, Mr. Hawkins, and several of Aubrey’s other associates. Mr. Hollister and his lovely sister Ruby were also among the guests. One or two wives had joined the party as well, prominent members of the Benevolence Society, and they were watchful, as though they expected either Susannah or Aubrey to bolt before the Lord’s will could be done and a sinful situation made right.

  Susannah bent her head, lest they see her smile.

  “If you’ll both take your places here, in front of me,” the Reverend Johnstone said, standing with his back to the large fireplace.

  Susannah and Aubrey looked at each other, and Aubrey hooked a finger under the front of his collar before stepping forward. Susannah stood next to him, her heart pounding with exhilaration and fear.

  “Dearly beloved,” the minister began in his rolling voice.

  Susannah felt the floor buckle beneath her and stood a little straighter. Catching the motion out of the side of his eye, Aubrey took her elbow in a strong grasp, as if worried that she would faint dead away. She wasn’t sure she wouldn’t, until the vows had been exchanged and Reverend Johnstone pronounced them man and wife.

  Man and wife.

  Susannah felt giddy and so was caught by surprise when Aubrey pulled her close for the marriage kiss. Cheers were raised, it went on so long, and when he finally released her, Susannah was pink to the hairline and more than a little disoriented.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey Fairgrieve,” the minister said in proud introduction, indicating the newlyweds with a rather grand gesture of one hand.

  There followed more hurrahs, a few whistles, and some foot stomping, all of a celebratory nature. The ladies of the Benevolence Society looked at once appalled and morally vindicated. Doubtless, they would report to their cohorts the fact that Aubrey Fairgrieve had taken the unattached female living under his roof to wife, as was only decent and proper.

  Maisie had made a white cake with coconut frosting, and she sniffled happily as she served slices of the confection to the wedding guests. Ellie, red-nosed and teary-eyed, poured tea and coffee. Outside, snow fell like a benediction from heaven, turning a gray November vista into a magical place mantled in pristine white and littered with diamonds.

  Ethan was the first to offer congratulations, shaking Aubrey’s hand and kissing Susannah soundly on the forehead. She watched with interest as he introduced Ruby Hollister, the young woman who had come to the ceremony as his guest. Unless she was sorely mistaken, Susannah thought, there would be another wedding before very long.

  After the cake, Mr. Zacharias insisted on taking the place of the church organist at the piano and demonstrating what he’d learned since beginning his lessons. He labored through “Clementine” and was rewarded with a round of exuberant applause, though Susannah wasn’t sure whether the audience was genuinely impressed or simply glad that he’d finished.

  The wedding supper was served in the dining room. This was a grand meal of baked ham as well as roast turkey, with all the accompanying side dishes. Maisie and Ellie had labored the whole of the day preparing it all, and, as Aubrey stood handsome and tall at the head of the table to raise his champagne glass in a toast to his bride, it seemed to Susannah that she would surely awaken at any moment and find that it was all a mere dream.

  It wasn’t, though. After they’d eaten and had still more cake, the guests began departing, two and three at a time. Soon there was only Susannah, seated at one end of the long table, and Aubrey, at the other.

  He smiled through the candlelight—by then, darkness pressed against the windows—and raised another glass to her.

  “To the loveliest bride in the world,” he said. He took a sip from the crystal flute and then set it aside.

  Susannah felt like dancing around the room, such was her joy, but she was nervous, too. They were alone now, and there were no more barriers between them, honorable or otherwise. She inclined her head, suddenly shy. “Remember your promise,” she said, and surprised herself, for the words had not been in her mind a moment before. Her body was still thrumming from his thorough attentions the day before, and she’d lain awake half the night, yearning for him, and here she was trying to put some sort of distance between them.

  His eyes burned in the flickering candlelight, but not with anger. “I promised to persuade you,” he said. “And I will. Do you remember how you begged me yesterday, Susannah? Shall I repeat what you said?”

  Heat surged into her face. “Don’t you dare!” she cried in an anguished whisper.

  He laughed, though not unkindly, and stood.

  Susannah remained in her seat. “You have been injured,” she pointed out. “You are certainly not capable—”

  He was beside her chair in a matter of moments, holding out one hand, palm up, for hers. “That, my darling wife, is your misapprehension.”

  She looked up into his face. “I’m afraid,” she confessed.

  He brought her gently to her feet. “Don’t be,” he said.

  Susannah trembled; as Aubrey held her hand, so he held her heart, too, and all her hopes for the future. He led her out of the dining room, through the entryway, and up the main staircase, and it seemed to her that he moved with his old confidence and strength.

  Outside the door of his bedroom, now hers as well, he paused to bend his head and kiss her. “I can’t carry you across the threshold, Susannah,” he said on a harsh breath when he drew back, “but I think you’ll find me more than fit for the duties of a husband.”

  Chapter 16

  Aubrey bolted the door and took Susannah into his arms without bothering to turn up the gaslights. When he lowered his head to kiss her, tentatively at first and then with a demanding thoroughness, all her nervousness slipped away, was replaced by something new, something conjured from fire and fury. For all Aubrey had taught Susannah to feel, during their earlier, unfinished encounters, she had never known needs and sensations like the ones he ignited within her then.

  She could not have guessed how long he held and kissed and caressed her, there in their bedchamber, would not have cared in any case. She was transported, utterly naked, and could not remember shedding her clothes; his bare flesh was hard and warm beneath her exploring palms and fingertips, her mouth—when had he undressed? It didn’t matter.

  He found his way to a chair near the bed and sat in it; her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, but still he was little more than a moving shadow, sitting down, grasping her lightly by the waist, lowering her to straddle his lap. She groaned in exultation, while a niggling voice in the back of her mind pointed out that she had needed no seducing. Where this man was concerned, she was a shameless wanton, and, worse, she had no aspirations to be otherwise.

  He cupped her face in his hands. “Susannah,” he said gruffly, “listen to me.”

  She whimpered; his erection was pressed between them, branding her middle with promises. He had loosed her hair, and it fell down her back, heavy against her skin, like a cloak. She raised her arms to lift its weight off her neck with both arms

  “Listen,” Aubrey pleaded, a man in agony She felt his breath against one of her nipples, squirmed when he circled it with the tip of his tongue. “Damn it, Susannah.”

  “What?” she asked, without any real interest in the reply. Her hands were still clasped at the back of her head, beneath her hair.

  “This is important, Susannah. What we are about to do is irreversible. Once it’s done, the marriage will be binding, legally and morally, forever and ever. There’ll be no room for second thoughts.”

  “No—second—thoughts-” Susannah confirmed, already lost.

  “It will hurt,” he pressed.

  She knew that, expected it, but her needs were greater by far than the prospect of pain. And she trusted Aubrey to handle her gently. “Only this once?”

  He kissed each of her breasts in turn. “Only this once,” he agreed.

  �
��Please,” she whispered. “Now.”

  Aubrey positioned himself at the entrance to her body and waited there; she felt herself expand to receive him, and yet it seemed impossible that she could take something so large as his member inside her. “Dear God,” he breathed, and she had the briefest inkling of what a price he was paying for his restraint.

  “Now, Aubrey,” she pleaded, and arched her back, presenting her breasts to him in all their fullness, a gift of utter vulnerability, of trust and abandon.

  With a rasped oath, he took a nipple hard into his mouth and, at one and the same moment, with a single hard thrust of his hips, sheathed himself in Susannah to the depths.

  In the first instant, the pain and pleasure were interwoven, one inseparable from the other. She opened her eyes wide and cried out, partly in joy, partly because her maidenhead had been breached. Aubrey continued to take suckle at the breast he’d claimed, and slowly, slowly, he began to guide Susannah up and down along the length of his erection. Gradually, the stinging sensation gave way to a sort of sweet friction, a fullness that was pleasing, while creating a sense of rising tension and a state of the most delicious suspense.

  Aubrey made no effort to catch Susannah’s cries; soft at first, they grew more lusty as he accelerated their pace, as he strained deeper and deeper within, pushed her further and further toward the outermost regions of her soul. She knew only that she was about to lose herself completely, to transcend physical and spiritual boundaries she had never imagined before.

  “Oh,” she sobbed, galloping upon him now, shameless and wild. “Oh—Aubrey—please—please—”

  He tasted her mouth, feverishly, as hungry and breathless as she was, and, gently rolling a well-taught nipple between his thumb and forefinger, sent her shouting and clawing over the brink. She was still flexing upon him, in quick, spasmodic jerks, when he gave a low exclamation, stiffened, and spilled his seed into her. The primitive intimacy of that wrought a final, sharp release in Susannah; she rode it beyond the brink of sensibility itself and then collapsed, gasping, against Aubrey’s shoulder. Had he not been holding her, she probably would have slipped to the floor, for her muscles had turned to sun-warmed honey, and she was wet with perspiration from head to foot.

  For a long time, neither of them spoke, though their breaths and heartbeats had at some point aligned themselves, one to the other. To Susannah, the joining had been a profound experience, just as holy, just as sacred, as the marriage ceremony itself, and she did not yet trust herself to assemble thoughts into words.

  Aubrey found his voice first; after pushing aside her hair, he leaned a little to kiss the side of her neck, then said, “I knew it would be like that between us. The first time I saw you, I knew it.”

  Spent though she was, Susannah felt something awaken within her as he tilted her head back and slid his mouth lightly, lightly over the flesh of her throat, finding the pulse. He was still inside her, stirring there, and there was power in him. “I can’t—not again—”

  “But you will,” he said. He was rising, swelling, filling her again. Having her again.

  She moaned, pressing her knees into his thighs. “I’ve nothing left,” she said. She’d given it all, taken it all. Hadn’t she?

  He chuckled against her mouth. “You’ll be surprised at yourself,” he promised. And he grasped her hips in his strong hands and began to move her smoothly, slowly up and down, reaching deep.

  “I’ll die,” she whimpered, though it felt impossibly good, having him inside her, part of her, hard and hungry and insistent.

  He nibbled his way down her jawline, along her neck, over the plump roundness of a breast to the nipple he sought. “Ummm,” he said.

  It took much longer to complete their journey that second time. Aubrey showed Susannah the far side of the stars, again and again, and brought her back only when he knew he’d wrung the last quivering climax from her straining, exhausted body. Somehow, they got to the bed, collapsed together onto the sheets, and slept.

  When Susannah awakened, with the earliest light of dawn, they were entwined in each other’s arms, and Aubrey was still breathing deeply, his eyes closed. She admired him for a while, in tender amusement; he was big, strong as the oxen that dragged great trees down out of the hills for planing in Seattle’s busy mills, and probably one of the wealthiest, most powerful men that side of Chicago. The injuries he’d sustained at the hands of his enemies probably would have killed almost anyone else, including herself, but he was already moving beyond the experience, looking to the future. For all those things, there was something endearingly boyish in the way he slept, his lashes longer than she had imagined, his mouth softer in repose than she had ever seen it in wakefulness.

  She was still reflecting upon those thoughts and others like them when he opened one eye, then the other. His grin was guileless and would be her ruin, she knew, if she didn’t establish some defenses against it.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Fairgrieve,” he said.

  Susannah had not tried out her new name, perhaps because that would have meant thinking about Julia. Acknowledging her friend’s prior claim on this man, on his home, his heart, and his child. The other woman actually might have been in the room, standing at the foot of the bed, so keenly did Susannah feel her presence just then. She tried to move away from Aubrey, but he was stronger and drew her close again.

  “What is it?” he asked. His voice was low and gentle, and yet it left no room for hedging.

  “Julia,” Susannah told him miserably.

  “What about her?” The question was an impatient one, crisp and a little sharp at the edge. He did not relax his hold on her.

  “She was the closest thing I had to family. You were her husband—”

  “I was her fool,” Aubrey said, matter-of-factly and with resignation rather than bitterness. He leaned over, with an effort that showed in his face, and kissed her temple. “There is nothing wrong in our being together, Susannah. For all her—shortcomings, Julia loved the child. In her own way, at least. Don’t you think she’d be glad to know you were here, looking after Victoria?”

  Susannah blinked back tears. Aubrey was right, she reasoned. Victoria needed her; even Julia would have had to acknowledge that. She must allow herself this happiness, this gift, she decided, however fleeting, for it was something rare and precious. True, in time her husband might well tire of her—men of his sort and station seemed to keep mistresses almost as a matter of course—but in the meanwhile, she meant to know joy, even ecstasy. God willing, she might even have a child or two, to grow up with Victoria and fill that vast house with mischief and laughter, and there was always her music.

  “Susannah?” Aubrey prompted.

  “Yes,” she answered belatedly. “Yes, I’m sure Julia would want me to look after Victoria.”

  He lay on his side, facing her, propped up on one elbow. Except for the tight bindings that held his ribs in place, he was completely, gloriously naked. “In the spring, we’ll go to Europe. Would you like that?”

  She stared at him, stunned. All her life she’d dreamed of crossing the sea, and she’d read about places like Venice and Madrid, Paris and London, but she’d never dared hope actually to visit them. “You don’t mean it,” she said.

  He laughed and touched the tip of her nose with one finger. “Oh, I mean it, all right. You’ll enjoy seeing the sights, and I’ll enjoy watching you see them.”

  Susannah had been on the verge of sitting up; after all, the day was well under way, and it wasn’t right to lie abed wasting light, but the prospect of such a journey drove all her tasks and plans for the morning right out of her head. “What about Victoria?” she asked. She held her breath for his answer, because if he wanted to leave the baby behind, she would stay in Seattle also. Although a great many people traveled without their children, Susannah had no intention of joining their ranks.

  “We’ll take her along,” Aubrey said easily. “With a nurse, of course.”

  Susannah knew h
er eyes must be taking up most of her face. Why, just to imagine it—Europe. “How long would we be away?”

  “Five or six months, I suppose,” Aubrey answered. “No sense going so far if you’re not going to take the time to look at every significant fountain, painting, piazza, and castle.”

  Rome, Susannah thought. Vienna and Austria, perhaps Florence as well, and Provence. “But the store—?”

  “Hawkins can run it fine without me. Better, maybe.”

  Although she had made up her mind not to think about Julia, at least not while she and her husband were lying naked together in their nuptial bed, Susannah could not help recalling letters her friend had written when her marriage to Aubrey had first begun to go sour. He thinks of nothing but that dreadful shop of his…. He has all the money he could ever want or need…. He’s taken a mistress, Susannah. Why does he want to be with her and not me?

  “Susannah.” He arched an eyebrow in challenge. Were her thoughts so plain as that?

  “You’re different,” she said.

  His expression was solemn. “In what way?” She tried to avert her gaze, but he took her face in his hand and made her look at him. “Tell me,” he said.

  She swallowed. “The store meant everything to you once. More even than Julia.”

  He thrust out a sigh. There was acceptance in the sound and, at the same time, regret. “Things change, Susannah. People change.”

  “Situations do. But people? Not overmuch, in my experience.”

  He smiled and kissed her forehead. “And it’s vast, your experience?” he teased.

  She remained serious. “Human beings grow into their identities very early in life, it seems to me—their talents and tendencies, foibles and finer attributes are pretty well set before they learn to read and cipher. Take Victoria, for example. As young as she is, she already shows an independent spirit, and she’s stubborn, too. She’s smart, and she’ll be beautiful when she grows up but perhaps a bit too aware of the fact. Humility will not be her strong point.”