The Bridemaker

by Rexanne Becnel

  Hester closed her eyes against the intimacy of his declaration. How could he have known when she herself had never suspected?

  Then he kissed her again, only it was not her knee or her thigh, or any place a reasonable person would kiss a person—nor a place a reasonable person would want to be kissed. For he kissed her there, right on that volcano spot that he’d found before with his thumb and palm.

  She jerked, but his hands soothed her, holding her open to the leisurely inquiry of his lips and tongue. Too fast she felt it begin again. Too fast. Too powerful. And when he sucked hard and made her erupt, as if at his command, she bucked again, sobbing insensibly— words, promises, pleas.

  The tremors reverberated a long time inside her as Hester lay there, drowning in the aftermath. She had no strength remaining, not in any muscle of her entire body. Even her wits abandoned her, for though she was aware that Adrian still knelt between her legs, she couldn’t muster the strength for embarrassment. Even when he stood over her, a man at his most powerful and virile, with every muscle straining, she could only lie there and let Adrian look at her with those burning blue eyes of his.

  This was what her mother had felt and become a slave to, this terrible, delicious submission. Hester closed her eyes on that thought. She was not like her mother. She never would be. Instead she concentrated on Adrian and why, of all men, she’d finally submitted to him.

  Yet even in submitting she had claimed a strange sort of power over him, for he wanted to possess her. She could see it in his eyes. She could sense it in the way he held himself so stiffly. After all he’d done to her, he still wanted more.

  She blinked, slowly becoming aware of her parlor, her settee beneath her, her foot draped still over the settee back. She pushed up on her elbows, trying to rise, trying to hide her bare legs and everything else from his devouring gaze.

  He watched without stopping her. But she grew more and more conscious of his eyes on her, on how she must look, a disheveled woman who’d offered not one word of resistance to him. How was she to react to him now?

  Unfortunately her legs were too shaky for her to stand, so she was forced to sit there, trying vainly to recover some modicum of decency. When she pulled up her chemise and went to close her bodice, however, a panicky cry slipped out. Her chemise was wet, two damning spots where his mouth had pressed and kissed and sucked. Where he’d known her and pleasured her.

  As if he heard her thoughts, he reached one finger to stroke across her left breast. She fell back against the settee and stared wide-eyed at him.

  Heavens, but he made her hot all over again with just one finger upon her breast.

  “Does your lover do that for you?” he asked, his words a hungry growl.

  “My… my lover?”

  “Does he bring you to your peak before taking his own pleasure? Does he make you tremble and scream and turn to honey inside?”

  Her lover. He still believed she had a lover in Cheapside. And of course he thought her more experienced in the art of lovemaking than she was.

  She bent back to her bodice, trying with shaking fingers to button it up. But he stopped her. “Let me.”

  “No—”

  “Yes.”

  He knelt on one knee before the settee and tugged the bottom edges of her bodice together. Their heads were on the same level, their faces only inches apart as he concentrated on the buttons. It was strange, even stranger in some ways than what had proceeded before.

  “Were it not that my horse is tied out front, and that your servants might return at any time, I would not be buttoning your bodice, Hester.” He looked up from his work, searing her with the intensity of his eyes. “I want you naked beneath me, every pearly pink part of you open to me, to be tasted and marked. I want to eat every bit of you as I just did, your delicious mouth and your lovely, sweet-tasting bottom.”

  She gulped in embarrassment but could not move. He buttoned another button. “I want to bury myself inside you, Hester. In the succulent center of you. But you know that. I want to make love to you, slow and sweet. Then I want to take you again, hard and fierce. I want to exhaust myself in you. I want to possess your body in every way a man can possess a woman.”

  He paused and she heard the harsh rasping of his breathing. Or was it hers?

  He went on. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Yes. Yes! Do it now!

  But Hester couldn’t say a word. She only licked her dry, overly sensitive lips.

  At the sight he smiled, a grim, pained sort of smile. “And maybe you’ll do the same for me.” He shuddered then frowned and concentrated on the next button, the one just beneath her breasts.

  “When you get undressed tonight, remember whose hands dress you now. When you step naked into your bath, remember whose kisses have laved your bare flesh. Wherever the hot water caresses you, I have caressed you—and will do it again. And again.”

  Hester couldn’t breathe when he raised his face once more. He kept his eyes on her as he tugged the bodice closed across her breasts. He didn’t touch the aching, yearning nipples which strained toward him until they hurt. He only forced the round brass button into its slot, then drew his hands away and sat back on his heels.

  “Think of me, Hester, with every garment you shed or don. Imagine it’s my hands on you. And imagine what else my hands can do for you. You only have to ask.”

  She remained on the settee as he stood, then turned and left. He snatched up his coat and gloves and hat, then strode into the kitchen and out the back way. His footsteps faded away. The back door closed with its familiar thud. But nothing else was familiar, not her parlor, not this settee, not her riding habit. Most especially not herself.

  How was she ever to be herself again? How was she ever to regain her old life, her old routine? Even the simple act of dressing herself or bathing—

  “Oh!” She broke off that thought with a cry of anguish. At that moment she hated him even more than she desired him. For in a few brief moments Adrian Hawke had changed everything. And now she must go after him, or else find a way to pretend none of this had ever happened.

  Through the years she’d become so good at pretending, at disguising her true self behind the facade she’d created. She knew, however, that she would never be good enough to pretend that this afternoon hadn’t changed her forever.

  CHAPTER 13

  Adrian could barely walk. Donning his coat on Hester’s kitchen stoop became an exercise in self-discipline. Left arm. Right arm. Pulling on his gloves was a near impossibility when his hands shook this badly. At least his hat went on easily, jammed onto his head with one frustrated motion. But he’d never be able to mount his horse.

  So he stood beneath a newly budded cherry tree at the back corner of her cottage, hidden from the street and sheltered from the neighbors’ view. He couldn’t hide from himself, though, not from the fierce, physical pain that gripped him, nor from the madness.

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, seeking relief but not finding it. Good God, was he insane? He should have stayed in her parlor and finished what they’d begun. Hester wouldn’t have objected, and certainly he’d be feeling a damn sight better than he did right now.

  What idiotic impulse had made him stop when he most needed not to stop? He’d done right by her—more than right, for he’d felt every tremor she’d experienced.

  But then, he’d had a point to prove: her secret lover had nothing on him, and now she knew it.

  So why stop when she was primed, when she was melting hot for him, sweet as honey and fragrant with the intoxicating scent of aroused woman?

  From another yard a woman’s shout was answered by a child’s call. In the street the metal-clad wheels of a cart rumbled across the cobblestones. A dog yipped, and from inside Hester’s cottage her two pets answered, one a shrill excited bark, the other lower and lazier.

  Life teemed around them, inside her house and out. That’s why he’d stopped. He didn’t want to ruin her repu
tation, not when she went to such extreme pains to preserve it.

  So he’d stopped, when it was the last thing he’d wanted to do. But it was not over between them. She was too passionate, too perfectly responsive to his every caress not to want more, not to want to finish what they’d started.

  The prudish society snob was turning out to be not so prudish and, even more surprising, not so snobbish either.

  He gritted his teeth at the insistent throbbing in his breeches. In time she would come to him; he was certain of that. She would seek him out and he would be ready. More than ready.

  So he willed himself to breathe and relax. He straightened his clothes and, when he felt presentable, made his way down the side alley to his waiting mount. But he didn’t ride. Instead he walked the spirited gelding, taking a route that he hoped would not bring him into contact with anyone he knew.

  There was no use for it. Hester had to talk to someone and Mrs. DeLisle was the only person she could trust with a subject like this. Even then it would be difficult, she knew as she perched on the edge of the ratty hack she’d hired for her hasty trip to Milton Street. But she had nowhere else to turn.

  Besides, nothing shocked Verna DeLisle. Though she presented a perfect picture of propriety, she’d seen quite a bit in her long life. Certainly she could not be easily shocked if she’d been a friend to Hester’s perennially shocking mother.

  Hester pressed a trembling hand over her eyes. Just thinking of her mother after her own wanton behavior gave her a throbbing headache. Was this how it began? One man introduced you to the carnal pleasures of the flesh and you became a hopeless slave to them? Was she now cursed to seek out more and more of what Adrian Hawke had showed her today?

  For there was no denying the awful truth: she did want more.

  She’d spent the first five minutes after he left telling herself how glad she was that he was gone. How she’d never let him near her again. Not him, nor any other man.

  Then she’d staggered up the stairs on legs of rubber to frantically begin shedding her riding habit. With every button released, however, she’d been forced to face the truth. She wanted him again. She wanted the final act, the one he had inexplicably denied her.

  A cry of dismay slipped from her lips, and she trembled with need and fear. What was to become of her? How could she have allowed him to take such liberties with her and not have considered the disastrous consequences?

  She leaped from the hack almost before it stopped, thrust the fare at the driver, and though her legs threatened with every step to collapse, she hurried up the path and into Mrs. DeLisle’s house, not even waiting for her knock to be answered.

  “Mrs. DeLisle? Where are you? Verna?”

  Then Hester found her, just finishing her tea in the kitchen, and with a cry of relief and utter misery, she flung herself into her friend’s arms and burst into tears.

  Verna heard her out, every wet, hiccupping word. Her tea turned tepid as Hester wept into her lap. But in her sweet, calming manner, she only smoothed her gentle hand along Hester’s hair while the sordid tale revealed itself.

  “And then he left?”

  Hester nodded, still huddled on the floor beside Verna’s chair, her arms circling her friend’s waist.

  “Without even seeking his own release? Had the Dobbses returned?”

  “No.” Hester raised her head, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “Use my handkerchief, dear. Very curious,” she added in a thoughtful voice. “Very curious indeed.”

  “The worst part—” Hester sniffled then blew her nose. “The worst part is, should he return, I’m afraid I will let him in. I know I will.”

  “As well you should.”

  Hester straightened further and stared at Verna aghast. “How can you say that?”

  Mrs. DeLisle gave her a stern look. “Hester, you are well past the age when most women have lost their innocence—whether within a marriage or without. In my opinion, virginity is highly overrated.”

  Hester’s eyes grew round with shock at such an outrageous statement, and from such a proper person.

  Mrs. DeLisle went on. “Don’t misunderstand. Virginity is important enough when a girl is young and seeking to wed. But if she’s older with no real prospect of marriage or no particular inclination for it—or if like me she is widowed, well.” She gave an elegant shrug. “Then preserving the virgin state serves no purpose save to torment a person for experiencing the most natural of feelings. You are still a young healthy woman, Hester. You ought to feel good when a man makes love to you.”

  “But… But he’s not my husband.”

  “Perhaps he wishes to be.”

  “No.” Hester sat back on her heels. “No. He definitely does not want that. He is simply… well, smitten.”

  “I thought you said the word he used was ”besotted.“ ”

  Hester nodded. Besotted. Him besotted with her. The very idea had thrilled her. “But he only acted that way because he assumes a widow will be amenable to his… you know, his attentions.”

  “Well, it appears he’s right.”

  “But I’m not a widow.” Hester pushed to her feet and began to pace.

  “Perhaps you should tell him that.”

  “Oh, yes, that would be smart. Don’t you see? There’s just too much to explain and he’s the sort that would have questions for everything. How can I be certain he’s trustworthy?”

  “Don’t give him any answers, simply take him for your lover. From what you say, he’s most attentive and considerate of your enjoyment. My dear, you cannot possibly know how rare that is.” She smiled when Hester blushed. “Chances are, in the midst of passion he may not even notice your virginity.” Her smile turned wry. “And if he does, you can always say that it’s been a very long time for you. Six years since your so-called husband died, right?”

  Hester considered. Though every logic said for her to avoid the man, something illogical, something deep and primal, urged her to do just what Verna said. “He’s not going to be in London much longer.”

  “Well then, that’s even better for you, isn’t it? You may have what you want of the man and then be done with him.” She laughed. “Besides, you used to say you didn’t have any use for men. But you have a use for this man, don’t you? So why not enjoy yourself for once and take advantage of it?”

  Hester could hardly believe the conversation she was having. This was a side of Verna DeLisle she had never seen. Isabelle was the one who took lovers, something Hester had always hated. Even though she’d been far too young to understand what that meant, she’d still not liked the parade of men who’d kept her mother housed and clothed and draped with jewels.

  All the years that Verna had given Hester the solid maternal comfort Isabelle couldn’t offer, Hester had assumed Verna disapproved of Isabelle’s men as much as Hester did. Now she was not so sure.

  “You think it’s all right for women to take lovers?”

  Verna’s face grew serious. “Some women. Not all women. Certainly not married women, or young girls who have not yet experienced life, or women who ought to set a better example to their children. Those women should not take lovers. But for widows, women whose husbands have mistresses, and those women who have no other obligations—” She gave a shrug. “I see no harm in it.”

  Hester took a moment to digest that. Then she sat down across from Verna and leaned forward, her elbows braced on the table, her hands knotted before her. “Are you saying you have had a lover?”

  Verna straightened on her chair but her gaze did not flinch from Hester’s. “Yes. More than one, actually. But then, I’ve been widowed twenty years.”

  “Oh.” More for Hester to consider. “I see. But… Why?”

  “Why?” Verna laughed and for that brief moment Hester saw her as she must have been when she was young. Pretty and feminine, charming and free. “Everyone needs to be loved, Hester. Even you, though you deny it. I have no children, no husband. No family at all. It�
��s a terrible thing to be alone. Don’t you agree?”

  Hester looked away. It was terrible to be alone. “But a lover is so… so temporary.”

  “Perhaps. But it doesn’t have to be temporary.”

  “But if you don’t want it to be temporary, why not marry the man?”

  “Oh, Hester. All these questions only convince me that this man is someone you need to—”

  “No.” Hester frowned down at her hands. “I am not interested in having a string of lovers. You forget that you and Mother were each married, at least for a while.”

  “But you’ve shown no interest in marriage. Certainly I would recommend marriage to the right man over simply sharing his bed. Does this mean you’re reconsidering your attitude toward marriage?”

  Was she? “I… I don’t know.”

  “I see. Very well then.” Verna sat silent a moment. “Was there anything else you wished to tell me? Or perhaps any questions about, well, about anything?”

  Feeling her cheeks grow warm, Hester ducked her head. “No. But thank you. Actually. I ought to return home.”

  Verna chuckled. “I’ll have my girl summon a hack.”

  When they stood Hester felt awkward in a way she’d never felt with Mrs. DeLisle before. When her dear friend enveloped her in a tight embrace, however, that awkwardness vanished. “Follow your instincts, Hester, and don’t be so hard on yourself should you occasionally make a misstep. It takes experience to keep your feet on the right path in life. Of course, the best experience comes from having wandered off the path a time or two.”

  Hester nodded. She’d certainly gotten quite a bit of experience today.

  As they walked arm in arm to the door Hester debated asking the question that burned inside her. “Do you have… I mean, right now are you…”

  “Do I have a lover?” Verna smiled, but this time it was sad. “No. Dear Benjamin fell ill two years ago and his sister took him to live with her in York. I heard from mutual friends that he passed on last fall.”

  The hack came; Hester hugged Verna, climbed in, and gave directions to the driver. But she thought about her friend’s melancholy expression as the vehicle made its way to Mayfair. Verna was lonely. She needed someone to love, to sit with during the day, to share supper with and gossip and pleasant strolls and card games. Someone to ask her how she was feeling, and to squeeze her hand in his.