Was this how men enticed women into carnal love? She'd wondered, of course, about how it might feel, she who had never had so much as a beau. Though Sarah Jane would never think to discuss something so improper with the older sister that she very nearly regarded as a mother, Susannah had once overheard her hesitantly confiding in Mandy a fear of what might await her in her marital bed. If this was what carnal love was like, then there was nothing to fear at all but much to look forward to when it was done within the sacred bonds of matrimony.
But this was not her marital bed, and Connelly was not her husband. The pleasures that were snaking over her body were sinful, and she would not permit herself to feel them. She would not!
His mouth freed hers and slid along the side of her cheek to her neck. Her hands were suddenly free too, as he shifted again, lifting his hips even as he moved his hands down her body, learning the shape of her. His fingers found and closed over her breasts, cupping the soft globes, teasing the nipples through her thin cotton nightdress. Susannah gritted her teeth against the sudden terrible urge just to surrender that weakened her. Ever since Sarah Jane's betrothal, she'd been coming to terms with the idea that she would likely go to her grave a maid. The knowledge should not have bothered her—but it did. The future that her sisters took for granted—marriage, children, a husband to teach them about carnal love—was not for her. Her duty was to her father and sisters. By the time they no longer needed her, she would be too old to make a full life of her own. Plain or not, practical or not, she wanted to learn the lessons of loving just as other women did. Here was her chance; she had only to lie very still and let him. . . .
Then his other knee wedged in beside the first. Before Susannah knew what was happening, her legs were spread wide.
"No!" Sheer, instinctive panic triumphed over every other consideration, and she lashed out, hitting him as hard as she could in the temple with her balled fist.
"What the hell!" To her combined surprise and relief, he fell back with a yelp. Susannah suddenly found herself free. She scrambled for the edge of the bed, only to be brought up just short of her goal by his hand catching and twisting the flying ends of her hair.
"Let me go! Let me go, do you hear?"
"Damn it, woman, what did you hit me for?" He actually sounded aggrieved. She glared at the dark shape of him, which was all she could see through the gloom, and was surprised to find that she was shaking. She, who never trembled at anything.
"What did I hit you for!"
Maybe he truly had no idea. If her theory was right, perhaps he was only now coming properly awake, with no notion of the shameful nature of what had transpired between them. She prayed God that it was so. How humiliating, if he should recall how he had mauled her. He had touched her in places she had never even touched herself and bared her to the waist and—and . . . If he remembered, she would never be able to look him in the face again. He was silent, giving her no clue as to his thoughts, but through the darkness she could feel his eyes on her. All at once his hold on her hair tightened. Susannah was suddenly, sickly afraid. Perhaps he meant to drag her beneath him again and finish what he had started. Perhaps he'd been awake the whole time and was bent on rape. Fear and fury combined to make her shake so much her teeth would have rattled had she not clamped them together.
She sensed as much as saw him sit up and felt a tug on her scalp as he leaned away from her. He tugged harder, and she was forced to lie on her side as he reached for something on the opposite side of the bed without releasing her. She heard the fumble of metal against metal, smelled the sudden acrid scent of a spark being struck, and then the bedside candle was lit. She realized he must earlier have seen the candle and where she kept the flint and steel. As the flame struggled into fitful life, his grip on her hair eased, and Susannah was able to sit up again. She scooted as far away from him as his grip on her hair would permit. Unable to get away or do anything else, she turned with an awful sense of fatalism to look at him.
Connelly's eyes were moving over her, taking in everything from the riotous tumble of tawny curls that spilled over his fist to pool on the mattress beside where she sat to the twisted-to-the-point-of-indecency nightdress. They rested momentarily on the swell of her breasts pressing against the thin cotton and widened even as her arms clamped over her chest to hide her bosom from his view. Undeterred, his gaze slid along the rest of her. Her legs were bare to the tops of her thighs, and he missed not an inch of their slender length all the way down to her small toes. Quickly Susannah pulled her legs beneath her and adjusted her nightdress to cover them. She was blushing so furiously that her skin felt as if it were on fire, and she knew he must see.
When she dared glance up, Connelly was scowling at her as fiercely as if she had somehow wronged him. There was a red mark on his temple where she had clouted him. Her father's nightshirt strained across the daunting width of his shoulders and was twisted over his broad chest, and Susannah dared not look lower for fear of what she might see. His black hair was wildly tousled. His lips were clamped together, and his expression, coupled with his barbaric beard, made him look like a savage,
Just thinking of how her body had responded to the brute's touch made her want to cringe. She had to glance away. Was she really so desperate that any man would do?
"What the devil are you doing in bed with me?" It was an accusation if she had ever heard one. Her eyes snapped back to his face.
"What am I doing . . . ?" Her voice failed her. How was she to answer that? If he truly did not recall what he had done, then she had no wish to remind him of the embarrassing particulars. The shameful memory would be hers alone and thus not nearly so degrading. Though even if he had been wide awake, which was still quite possible, he could have no way of knowing how her body had quickened to his touch—could he? Of course he could not! The man was not telepathic, after all! Only she could know how fiercely her body had responded, and she would take her guilty secret to her grave.
"If you bought me thinking to use me as a stud, lady, you miscalculated. I bed whom I please, when I please. I don't perform on command."
"What?" Susannah's jaw dropped. As the shocking nature of the insult sank in, her fists clenched. The jumble of emotions that moments earlier had set her atremble now coalesced into one blinding burst of heat, and her temper soared to flashpoint so quickly that she felt as if the top of her head might explode.
"Why, you ungrateful, ignorant savage!" she hissed. "To think that I saved you from Hiram Greer! To think that I saved you from Georges Renard! To think that I was actually kind to you! You deserve to be whipped! You deserve to be hanged! You deserve to be cut up for hog slop with a dull knife! How dare you say such things to me! You—you churlish lout!"
As she paused for breath, his eyes ran over her again, and this time there was a flicker she could not quite decipher in the gray depths.
"I don't bed women out of gratitude."
Susannah's eyes flashed, and words so bad that she couldn't believe she knew them bubbled to her tongue. She bit them back, grabbing at the section of hair he held and yanking at it to free herself. Her efforts were futile. She only succeeded in hurting her scalp.
"Let me go! At once, do you hear?"
"Or . . . ?" He mocked her, his fingers twisting deeper into her hair.
"Or I'll sell you to Hiram Greer before sunset tomorrow! When I tell him what you—how you insulted me, he'll have you whipped to within an inch of your life!"
"And when I tell him—and everyone else who'll listen —just how you climbed into bed with me, and how hot you were to be ridden, you won't have a shred of reputation left. And don't think I won't shout the details to the world, because I will." His lips twisted into an evil smile as Susannah stared at him, aghast.
She had not climbed into his bed, of course. That was patently false, whether he believed it or not. But there was just enough truth in the rest of his accusation to make her quake inwardly. He could not know the longings his hands on her body had awa
kened—could he?
"I don't respond well to threats," he added as if by way of an explanation.
"Neither do I," she said through her teeth, and yanked at her hair again. This time, whether because his grip had loosened or because of the savageness of her jerk, she managed to tear her hair from his grasp. She leapt from the bed, putting several paces between it and her person for safety's sake. Her quilt was on the floor near the bed. She snatched it up, wrapped it around her shoulders, and felt marginally safer as she turned to face him.
Several long strands of her hair still clung to his hand, and as she watched he wrapped them around his fingers.
"A keepsake," he said, as if she had asked for an explanation, and leered at her.
Susannah's head threatened to explode again, but this time she managed to keep the lid on her temper.
"Just in case you seriously don't know how this—farce —began, let me set you straight. I was roused from my bed by a noise, and I came in here to check on you. When I touched you to ascertain whether or not you had a fever, you grabbed me and pulled me into bed with you. Then you—you . . . I had to fight to get free and finally had to resort to striking you to bring you to your senses."
There was the briefest of pauses. His eyes narrowed, as if he were mulling over her words.
"That's not how I remember it, sweetheart," he said softly, and smiled the wickedest smile Susannah had ever seen.
"You are a spawn of the Devil!" She was so furious that she could barely get the words out. "And I am not your sweetheart. For as long as I manage to restrain myself from selling you, you will address me as Miss Susannah."
Without waiting for what he might reply, she turned on her heel, clutched the remnants of her dignity around her like her quilt, and walked with head held high from the room.
10
Susannah felt as if she'd spent the best years of her life doing little but making bread. She mixed, kneaded, and baked twice a day, and never a night passed that dough was not rising in her kitchen. The rooster had crowed his good morning not a quarter of an hour before, and here she stood in the kitchen, making bread for supper. The morning's loaves were already in the small baking oven set into the side of the huge fireplace that took up most of one wall of the kitchen. Soon they would be done. The wonderful warm scent of them wafted through the kitchen.
The rest of the family would be up within the hour, expecting to eat. That was the way their day always began, and that was the way it always would begin, world without end, as long as Susannah was there to take care of them. Except that Susannah, for some reason she couldn't quite fathom, was suddenly dissatisfied with the routine. Her life was busy, and she knew it was good, but—but— but what? She should be thankful, not repining. She was blessed. What was the matter with her, that she should secretly long for something other than the plenty she had?
Gruel bubbled over the fire. With molasses dribbled
over it, and plenty of fresh bread and butter, it would make a hearty morning repast. With the girls to help, it would not take long to clean the kitchen, and then perhaps she could get out to work in the garden for a little while. Weeding was something she truly enjoyed.
"Is there anything else you need me to do, Miss Susannah?" Ben came in through the back door, his arms full of sticks so that she could feed the fire. He'd not forgotten, and she had already praised him lavishly.
"You can feed the chickens."
"Yes'm."
He dropped the sticks into the basket by the hearth and went out. Craddock should be up, too, milking the cow, but Susannah had no expectation of seeing him until she sent Ben to rouse him. He liked his sleep almost as much as he liked strong drink, which was another reason he had never been able to keep a job before.
Craddock was next to useless, and Ben was a flighty boy. They added to, rather than alleviated, the burden that rested on her shoulders. That burden had grown increasingly heavy over the past few months, until she had feared she might crumple under its weight. So what had she done? She'd bought a bound man to make her life easier. That was selfishness, pure and simple, and, as her father had always said, selfishness carried a high price tag. Now she was having to pay that price.
Connelly. She could not think of him without wanting to cringe. It was almost impossible to believe that she, who had never so much as exchanged a flirtatious glance with a man in her life, had found herself half-naked in bed with her bound man just the night before. When she remembered his hands on her breasts and his knee between her legs—to say nothing of the rapacious way he had kissed her!—she felt physically ill.
When she remembered how her body had responded, she felt sick to her soul.
What had passed between her and Connelly made her feel so guilty, angry, and ashamed that she could scarcely face herself in the mirror. How could she, her father's daughter, supposed paragon of righteousness whose virtue was admired and praised by all, harbor such dark yearnings? Her father, did he know what she had done (please God that he never learned of it!), would blame the Devil for tempting her. Susannah knew better; she blamed herself.
Almost worse than the memory was the prospect of dealing with Connelly when he should awaken. Whenever she thought of facing him again, she wavered between blushing with shame and sizzling with fury.
One thing she couldn't do was sell him. At the thought of his blabbing his version of what had happened between them to so much as another living soul, her blood ran cold.
How had she gotten into such a fix? By being mule- obstinate, that's how. Everyone from Sarah Jane to Hiram Greer had tried to tell her that she was making a mistake in buying the man, but she had been too stubborn to listen.
Were it anyone save herself, Susannah would have said that such a comeuppance was richly deserved. As she made the admission, Susannah kneaded and slapped the pasty mass that had swelled almost to her elbows as if it were her new bound man's leering face.
A sound from the parlor stiffened her spine into ramrod erectness. Or, rather, not so much a sound as the cessation of sound. She had not realized how attuned she had been to the harsh rasp of Connelly's breathing. Was he awake so early? Her stomach tightened at the thought.
Folding the dough over one last time, Susannah covered it with a cloth and left it to rise. She walked with measured steps across the wide plank floor of the kitchen through the front hall. In the open doorway that led into the parlor she stopped, wiping her hands on her apron, and then, because there was no help for it, looked toward the bed.
Connelly was raised up on one elbow, looking right back at her. The one long window was situated to catch the morning sun. Bright rays illuminated every comer of the room. Caught in a wash of shimmering daylight, Connelly looked more brutish than ever. He would have been right at home on the deck of a pirate ship or bellowing over-warm ditties in a smoky taproom while deep in his cups.
Had she lost her mind, to quicken to the touch of a man like that?
"Water," he said, the word scarcely more than a croak.
With a curt nod, Susannah forced back the jumbled images of the night before that haunted her and retraced her steps to the kitchen to fetch water from the bucket by the back door. Carrying the dipper carefully, she returned to the parlor. For no more than the merest second she hesitated in the doorway, wary about approaching him. She squared her shoulders and forced herself onward.
If she were ever to put the previous night behind her, she would have to face him down. If her stomach clenched at the very idea of going near him, she must be the only one to know it.
In her experience, the only time a dog bit was when it sensed its victim was fraid of it. She would approach Connelly with the same cautious authority that she would show a vicious dog.
To get close enough so that she might hand him the dipper, she had to put herself within grabbing range. So be it, she thought, lifting her chin, and walked right up to the side of the bed. If he was to live in their household— and thanks to her own folly, he was—she
could not avoid him forever. Let him think that she was calm and in control.
"Thank you." He took the dipper from her, closing his eyes as he drank. Unable to help herself, she took a single step back away from the bed.
When he had finished, he opened his eyes to survey her from the top of her severely styled hair to as far down her apron-covered gown as he could see.
"You're prettier with your hair down," he said.
Susannah nearly choked. "My appearance is no concern of yours!"
"True." He held out the dipper. Susannah took it back, careful not to let her fingers brush his. His eyes met hers. She misliked the gleam in the gray depths. It was almost —avid. She braced herself for what he might do—or say.
"Is there anything to eat?"
It took a moment for that to sink in.
"You're a bold rogue, I'll say that for you," Susannah said through her teeth. "To behave as you have, and then calmly ask me for something to eat! What will you do should I choose not to feed you, pray?"
The shoulder that was uppermost shrugged. His eyes never left hers, though the gleam faded slightly. "I've starved before."
What could she say to that? It was not in her to let even so undeserving a creature as he was starve. Without another word she left the room. When she returned, she was carrying a tray that held a bowlful of steaming gruel sweetened with molasses, two large chunks of hot, buttered bread, and a mug of sweet tea.
"Here," she said ungraciously, plopping it down on the mattress beside him. Some of the tea sloshed out onto the tray.
"You wen t join me?" He looked up at her then, and for the first time she thought she saw a glint of genuine humor in his eyes. Was he teasing her? If so, then it was a mistake, because she didn't find even the smallest detail of what had passed between them the night before to be a matter for joking.
Nobody's Angel Page 8