Tempting Torment

by Jo Goodman

  "That's not fair. I've trusted you with everything. Gideon's life. My own."

  Noah said nothing. He merely continued to stare at her, pinning her with his green-gold eyes.

  "It did happen before," she said finally, resigned to the fact that she could only tell him half-truths at best.

  "How long ago?"

  "After Robert died."

  Noah nearly shook her then. She never had any damn husband! At least not one who took her to bed and gave her a son. And that was too much for Noah to swallow without choking. He couldn't begin to imagine the man who could be married to Jessa and not want her intimately. After all, he had his own experience to draw on. The question of Gideon's identity, and perhaps Jessa's own, remained to be answered.

  "What's wrong?" Jessa asked. Noah had been quiet for so long that she believed he didn't want to know anymore. The longer he thought, the deeper he scowled. Jessa could not help but worry.

  Her voice broke Noah's reverie and he picked up the threads of their conversation. "Who was it?"

  "Lord Penberthy," she answered truthfully. "The man in the carriage that hit us. Remember?"

  "Very well," he said succinctly, recalling Jessa's panic. He never doubted her fear had been real. If the Granthams were no real threat to her then somehow the Penberthys were. He had not imagined that incident on the London streets. He tried to remember what Jessa had told him about Lord Penberthy. Sifting through truth and falsehood was going to be a Herculean task. "You said he was married."

  "He is. I don't think he was concerned with his vows when he cornered me."

  "Where did it happen?"

  "At Grant Hall, in Gideon's nursery. Lord Penberthy came to pay his respects."

  "He was offering condolences to the grieving widow, I take it," he said, trying to keep the cynicism out of his voice. Her explanations remained consistent if nothing else.

  Jessa shivered. "Yes, something like that. Noah, I didn't encourage him. I swear it!"

  He wondered. "I know you didn't," he said, wanting her to think he believed her. He hesitated, and then his hand strayed to the ribbon in her hair. He undid it, letting it fall to the floor, and wound his fingers in the silky beauty of her hair. "Were you hurt?" he asked.

  "No, not the way you mean. He didn't... you know, he didn't..."

  "Rape you," Noah said. He knew better than anyone that Penberthy hadn't used her that way, but he had wondered if she would tell the truth. "How did you stop him?"

  "Gideon helped me." She sensed his disbelief rather than saw it. "No, it's true. There was some noise and he woke and began to cry. His lordship reacted to it and lifted his head."

  "He was kissing you." Noah's fingers tightened in her hair.

  "Yes, I suppose that's what he was doing." Jessa's hand slipped forward and curved around Noah's neck. She could feel the quickening pulse in his throat. "But it wasn't a kiss... not like yours."

  Noah's breath caught. She was a temptress, a witch. As long as he knew her for what she was how could it be wrong to turn the tables on her? Why shouldn't he thoroughly enjoy what she was clearly offering? She may not have encouraged Penberthy—and Noah had his doubts—but she was showing no such reticence with him.

  Jessa went on hurriedly, realizing what she had said. "When he broke away, I clawed his face. I don't think he believed I wasn't interested in him until then. Nothing I said before seemed to make an impression. My nails did though. From the corner of his eye to his jaw."

  Noah's fingers dropped away from her hair. He reached for her wrists, held them, and examined her small hands, turning them over in his. Her nails were not buffed. Neither were they long. Months of hard work at Mary's cottage had left an indelible mark. Washing Gideon's diapers in salt water almost daily made her skin dry. Still, Noah thought somewhat reluctantly that they were beautifully sculpted hands, slender, delicate, and capable of giving him great pleasure. Because it amused him to do so, he raised her hands to his lips, kissing the back of each one in turn.

  Jessa's heart thumped madly. When Noah released her hands it seemed natural to curl her fingers around his neck and raise her head until her mouth met his. She initiated the kiss but she reveled in Noah's response. She felt a curling of desire deep within her as her lips parted and gave him the entry he sought. His hands were at her back again, pressing her close. His fingers tripped along her spine then threaded in her hair. The delicious ache she felt in her middle became a shiver that made her clutch his shoulders for support.

  She pulled away, breathless. Even through the material of her gown she could feel Noah's arousal against her hip. It wasn't fair to continue. She knew that now. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. We can't..." Her voice drifted into nothingness.

  "I hadn't forgotten," Noah said. He had been prepared for her to use her monthly flow as an excuse not to finish what she had started. How clever she must be feeling to be able to keep him at a distance. He decided to give her something to think about. Slipping one hand behind her neck, Noah pulled her toward him. Her startled gasp gave him the opening he sought. He kissed her deeply on the mouth. Once. Twice. When he felt her response and knew that she wanted to linger, renew the sweet kiss, deepen it again, he gave her a nudge and released her. She stood on her feet and now it was Noah who smiled. Jessa was nearly as wobbly as Gideon.

  "I think I'll ready Gideon for bed," she said, a husky tremor in her voice. Jessa reached hastily for Gideon, who seemed to have understood her intent and was now crawling full speed for the relative safety of the dining table. She gave him a little squeeze as she lifted him. Hiding her warm face against the boy, Jessa whisked him away to his room.

  When she returned nearly an hour later, Noah was already in bed. The lamps had been turned back save for one near the basin. Thinking him asleep, Jessa crossed the room to wash her face and brush out her hair. If only Gideon had gone to sleep so easily, she thought wistfully. She had wanted to be with Noah. In her most vulnerable moments she wove fantasies about living a lifetime with him. Jessa brushed her hair with long hard strokes, punishing herself for her dangerous dreams. She set the brush down, and as was her custom when she was having her monthly courses, she readied for bed in the privacy of the washroom.

  She was glad she had taken the precaution because when she slid into bed Noah turned on his side and cuddled against her. He immediately would have been aware if she had not worn anything beneath her nightshift and he must never guess at her subterfuge. Jessa felt as inviolable as a medieval maiden wearing a chastity belt. Noah must have thought so, too. He made a soft grunt that sounded like dissatisfaction as he touched her hip.

  "Do you always pretend to be sleeping when you're not?" she asked looking up at him.

  "I like watching you when you don't think I am," he told her.

  Jessa wasn't certain she liked the sound of that. "Why?" she asked baldly.

  "Because you're so lovely to watch." There was more truth to his answer than he cared to admit, but it was better than telling her that he suspected everything she did. He saw Jessa's frown. "Hasn't anyone told you that before?"

  Without thinking, she shook her head.

  "Not Robert?"

  Jessa wished she wouldn't keep forgetting that she was supposed to have been married. Now she searched for something to say. "Robert wasn't very, um, expressive. If he thought those things, then he kept them to himself."

  He marveled at her ability to prevaricate so quickly. "How long were you married, Jessa?"

  "Almost two years."

  "Were you happy?"

  "Y-yes."

  "Did you love him?"

  "Why must we speak of Robert? Can't you see that it distresses me? It was a lifetime ago. I wish to put it behind me. Can't you do the same?"

  "I find it odd that you rarely speak of your husband," he said casually, intent on provoking her further.

  Jessa realized she could not remain defensive. She had to attack. "Why should you? What are we to one another after all? I'm the woman
you want in your bed because Hilary isn't here. You may dress it up and say I'm your wife—"

  "You are my wife," he said coldly. How dare she bring Hilary into this! She wasn't fit to speak Hilary's name! The tiny voice of conscience that had not been entirely suppressed berated Noah for anger that was out of proportion to Jessa's words. In truth, his anger was born of guilt. He hadn't thought of Hilary in more than a casual way for weeks. For whatever reason, Jessa occupied more and more of his thoughts.

  "We both know it's a temporary arrangement," she said. "Frankly, I wouldn't want it any other way." She was so furious with Noah that when she spoke the words she believed them. It was as if her dreams had never existed.

  Noah was convinced she spoke the truth as well. It gave him a perverse sort of pleasure to tell her he had decided otherwise. "That's too bad," he said tightly. "I've changed my mind."

  "What?" She couldn't have heard him correctly.

  "You heard me. I've changed my mind. The events of last evening convinced me that our peculiar marriage has something to recommend it after all." Noah knew how she would construe his words and he wasn't disappointed. Beside him, he felt her stiffen and try to move away. He held her fast. She didn't have to know that the marriage would continue because he needed to protect his back. What was it he had said to Drew ages ago? She'd stab me as soon as look at me. How prescient he had been. He couldn't dismiss her until he knew what she was involved in. But she was welcome to believe his interest in her was physical. In some ways she was not so far off the mark.

  "You're disgusting." She wiggled again, trying to get away. At her back she felt the heat and hardness of him. "Let me go."

  "When I'm ready." He paused. "And, Jessa, I mean that now and in the future."

  She gritted her teeth. "I want an annulment."

  "No."

  "A divorce, then."

  "When I decide."

  "What about your family? What will they think?"

  "It's unfortunate that I'm committed to go to the landing, but there's no reason they shouldn't know the truth, or at least some part of it."

  "What about Hilary?" she demanded with a hint of desperation. "How can you do this to her? What will you say?"

  "What I choose to tell Hilary is my concern, not yours. She has nothing to do with you." Hilary was less of a problem than Jessa thought. His fiancée would support him because she cared about his political career. She had a vested interest in his future, and she wouldn't let Jessa stand in her way any more than he would. As long as Hilary knew he was going to marry her after he eliminated Jessa as a threat, she would stand by him. "Hilary will wait for me," he said with a trace of cockiness.

  "You arrogant swine! I feel sorry for her. Maybe she should know how you take her for granted. I wonder what she would think if she knew how you've sniffed after my skirts." Jessa didn't begin to understand how near to his thoughts she was. Noah's anger was volcanic.

  "You bitch!" He pushed her on her back and pinned her wrists. She was every bit as vindictive as he thought. "By your own admission I didn't force you last night! You threw up your skirts as willingly as any London doxy."

  Jessa felt his verbal thrust as a physical blow to her middle. "That's not the way I remember it, but you can be certain it won't happen again!" She had to bite her lip to keep from blurting out the truth—all of the truth. Oh, God, she thought despairingly. What would Noah do if she told him everything about herself and Gideon? The answer was swift in coming and it effectively sealed Jessa's lips. He'd set her adrift in the Atlantic for making him an unwitting accomplice to Gideon's abduction.

  Noah released her. He forgot all about playing the gallant to gain her trust and learn her secrets. Cursing her, cursing himself, he thumped his pillow. At the moment he only cared about showing her that whatever he wanted to happen would happen. "How long will your flow last?" he demanded roughly, using her own lies against her. The waiting, the anticipation would be an agony for her. That he would have his way was a foregone conclusion for Noah.

  A lifetime, she wanted to say. "Four days," she bit out.

  "Then you have four days to accustom yourself to the idea that on the fifth I will have you again."

  "I'll scratch out your eyes!"

  "Don't mistake me for Penberthy," he growled softly.

  Jessa shook with anger. "I despise you!" she whispered heatedly.

  Noah's short laugh was humorless. "You should have considered it might come to that when you married me."

  "I told you—I married you because I thought you were going to die!"

  "I regret I was not more accommodating," he practically snarled.

  "Bastard!"

  Realizing that they had finally come to the point of childish name calling, Noah reined in his anger. He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly. "Go to sleep, Jessa," he said tiredly, turning on his side away from her. But Noah had difficulty following his own advice. He was awake long past the moment when Jessa had finally cried herself to sleep. He had begun to suspect that revenge was indeed a double-edged sword.

  * * *

  Ross Booker's views on revenge were decidedly different. In the dark and airless brig on board the Sargus he had had time to give the matter considerable thought. He would savor revenge; Jessa McClellan would feel its sting. He could not conceive of a different outcome.

  His plans were made and revised and revised again. There was a great deal of satisfaction in creating new scenarios in which he invariably had the upper hand. He liked to imagine her reduced to begging him. Sometimes he thought of making love to her, teasing her, touching her, grinding his hips against her until she pleaded with him to take her. Other times he considered having her beg for her own life or the life of her child. He wanted humiliation to score her soul the way the whip had scored his flesh. Nothing he decided to do to her would be done quickly. He wanted her to feel the effects of his revenge for a lifetime. He wanted to make her very life a hell.

  Ross leaned against the wall of his cell and rubbed his aching shoulders and back on the roughhewn planks. His wounds were healing slowly and his skin felt too small for him. Pain was merely a minor annoyance now. It served to keep his mind focused on the woman who had brought him to this pass. In some ways he welcomed it.

  It occurred to Ross that neither Jessa nor her husband might have taken his threats seriously. He wasn't bothered by it. The element of surprise would be his, as would the last laugh. He knew how to find them. The crew talked freely about Noah McClellan's family, his practice in Richmond, and the work he would be doing in Philadelphia. It wouldn't be difficult to run them to ground.

  Returning to the United States was the largest obstacle Ross Booker faced. He could pay for his passage or sign with another ship—all under an assumed name. He did not relish the idea of being part of another crew. The thought of booking a cabin on a packet ship appealed to him. The fact that he had no money was simply a temporary deterrent. There were whores he could pimp, pockets he could pick, and taverns he could rob. He would not be so careless as to get caught this time. Even his present accommodations were preferable to Newgate.

  The rat scurrying across the floor did not make Booker revise his opinion. In Newgate he had shared a cell with companions far more dangerous than the poor creature sniffing at his toes now. Ross nudged the rat and sensed that it had become still and watchful. He waited. He wished Jessa McClellan could see how he exercised patience and planning. With the swiftness of a striking cobra Ross reached out in the darkness and caught the rat by the scruff of its neck. He held it up, trying to get a glimpse of its eyes, trying to sense its fear.

  When he imagined he had seen it, felt it, he let the squealing animal go. "I can kill ye any time I want," he whispered, his flat eyes cold. "Any time."

  In his mind's eye he was speaking to Jessa McClellan.

  * * *

  On board the Clarion there were no thoughts spared for Ross Booker. Whatever fragile promise existed in the relationship between Noah and Jessa
was being slowly and painfully destroyed. Noah was rarely in the cabin. He rose early and stayed away in the morning and afternoon. If he joined Jessa at dinner it was to snipe at her for playing with her food instead of eating it. In the evening he pretended to read while Jessa pretended to sew. He never read more than a few pages, and Jessa reworked the same stitches night after night, never satisfied with what she had done. The dark circles under Noah's eyes were proof of the succession of nights he spent tossing and turning. They had their counterpart in the faint violet smudges beneath Jessa's eyes, a testimony to the nights she laid awake staring out the cabin window while Noah moved restlessly beside her.

  They rarely argued; neither had the inclination nor interest. But the ugly, unsaid words and accusations were there, trapped in the pauses of their stilted and cautiously polite exchanges. Noah's features took on a gaunt, haunted look. There were hollows beneath his cheeks and an unmistakable pallor just below the surface of his skin. His mouth was permanently set in a single grim line. A muscle in his jaw worked almost constantly, the only visible sign of anger kept on a tight leash.

  In Noah's presence Jessa's face was devoid of emotion. She didn't smile. She didn't not smile. The placement of her lips was exact, a midpoint that expressed nothing so much as indifference. Her eyes were shuttered, vague, pale to the point of being mirrors, reflecting Noah's most penetrating glance and effectively shielding her soul. Though her mood was more suited to the dull mourning hues of her own wardrobe, she continued to wear the more vibrantly colored gowns Noah had selected for her. The ironic contrast between her temperament and the spring colors she wore amused her because it set Noah's teeth on edge in a way he was helpless to explain.

  For once, Gideon seemed oblivious to the tensions between Noah and Jessa. This was due in no small part to the undivided attention he received from each of them. Because they studiously avoided one another, Gideon was in a position to command their complete interest. By the evening of the fifth day he was pampered and coddled within an inch of his life.

  Her nerves frayed beyond bearing, Jessa returned to the main room after putting Gideon to sleep and began making a bed for herself on the window seat. She got as far as arranging the blankets before Noah found his voice.