“Yeah, I couldn’t help but notice that he likes to surround himself with dead animals,” Mick sniggered. “The stuffed rhino head mounted on the wall behind his desk is a real show-stopper. Looks a lot like its owner, if you want my opinion.”
One side of her mouth curved upward. She, too, had often thought that there was a marked resemblance between the two beasts.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt your story,” Mick said. “You were saying something about practicing your marksmanship for a quail shoot.”
“I was a very young girl at the time, and I was overcome with excitement, certain I would at last win my father’s approval,” she recounted in a flat, emotionless voice. “But when the time came to pull the trigger, I… I couldn’t do it. I simply could not bring myself to kill a bird for no reason other than for sport.” As she recalled the humiliating debacle, her eyes watered with tears. “My father, irate over my lack of nerve, began to yell at me. He then forced me to pull the trigger, over and over, until a bird finally fell from the sky.”
“Sadistic bastard,” Mick growled, and his eyes narrowed with anger.
“This coming from the mighty deer hunter?”
“You want the truth? I’ve never been deer hunting. I just said that to buddy up to your father.”
Ah, yes. The good cop/bad cop routine.
Still leaning against the wooden post, Mick crossed his feet at the ankles “I don’t mean to change the subject, but I, um, I couldn’t help but notice that you became, well, kinda agitated when Alfred mentioned the name William Hardwicke. I gather that this William fellow is an old flame of yours.”
“My first love, if you must know. He was the village parson.” Unnerved by the recollection, Lettitia shifted her gaze to the open window. For several moments she stood silent, her attention focused on a slow-moving dog cart in the far distance. “We met when I was nineteen years old,” she continued a few moments later, her gaze still set on the horizon. “William, fresh out of Oxford, had just taken over the local parish. I was quite… smitten.”
“I can’t imagine that he didn’t feel the same way about you,” Mick said quietly.
Culling William’s image from the deepest recesses of her mind, where she’d tucked it away long years ago, Lettitia envisioned his tall, impressive physique and dark-haired good looks.
“Three months after we first met, William asked for my hand. As you can imagine, my father was none too pleased. He and William had had many a heated argument over the living conditions of the hops pickers.” Lettitia shuddered at the memory. While the pain had dulled with the years, it was still emotionally difficult to bear. “Whether that was the reason why my father refused to sanction our engagement, I know not. In the end, I suspect it was a simple matter of economics: my father was incensed that my dowry would fund the local curate’s reform projects.”
“If you and this William guy loved each other, why didn’t you just run off and elope?”
Why not, indeed? Leave it to Mick to ask such a probing question. Little, if anything, escaped his notice.
Turning away from the window, Lettitia said, “We briefly considered the idea. But in the end.…” She hesitated. Over the last ten years, she’d often wondered how her life would have been different if she’d had the strength of her convictions. “In the end, I decided against it. I knew that a scandal would ensue. William, disheartened, went to India to bring God’s word to the native masses. Three years after he left, I received word that he was killed in an Indian uprising.”
“Jeez, Tisha… I’m sorry.”
She shrugged off his sympathy, unwilling to admit how deeply affected she’d been by William’s death.
“You know, I ought to be jealous as hell hearing you talk about your first love. But it’s weird. Instead of being jealous, I feel bad for you and William. I mean, it’s a damned shame that the two of you couldn’t make a go of it.”
Mick’s remarks touched her deeply. His unsolicited sympathy proved that he hid a generous and kind heart beneath his tough façade.
“You do realize that if William and I had married, more than likely you and I would not be standing here,” she pointed out to him, curious to see how her kindhearted knight would react to that bald statement of fact.
He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Okay, maybe I’m a little jealous.” Reaching for her hand, Mick pulled her into his arms. “Because to tell you truth, Tisha, I can’t think of anyplace I’d rather be standing right now than right here with you.”
Lettitia tilted her head and peered into his umber brown eyes. “Truly?”
“You tell me,” he whispered before capturing her lips in a sweetly tender kiss.
Contentedly sighing into his mouth, Lettitia took comfort in Mick’s strength, his warmth and his gentleness a healing restorative. When the kiss ended, she leaned her head against his chest. She’d give anything if she could somehow magically turn back the hands of time so that they had seven days ahead of them instead of only the one. In the brief time allotted them, she did not want to dwell on the fact that, as with William, fate would soon take from her the man she loved.
“I see that you’re wearing Emmaline’s locket,” Mick remarked as he fingered the ornately incised piece of jewelry. To her utter astonishment, he’d returned to the pawnbroker’s shop several days ago and retrieved her sister’s locket. “You’re not hiding a picture of William Hardwicke in there, are you?”
“Really, sir!”
Taking the locket between his fingers, Mick pried it open. An instant later, as he examined the two side-by-side images, he uttered a surprised exclamation. On the left side, there was a recent photograph of her, and on the right side was the photograph of Mick that she’d cut out from Madame Mazursky’s newspaper clipping.
“Tisha, I don’t know what—”
Lettitia lightly kissed him on the lips. “It’s a keepsake. So that I will never forget your handsome face.”
Having thought that the memento would please him, she was surprised when Mick’s face suddenly tightened. The muscles in his jaw visibly twitched.
“I couldn’t help but notice last night at dinner that you wore his engagement ring.”
The harsh accusation took Lettitia by surprise, and the vehemence in Mick’s voice rendered her dumbstruck.
Several seconds passed in tense silence. Then, just as quickly as Mick’s anger had arisen, it dissipated.
“God, I sound pathetic,” he said with a self-deprecating laugh. “Like some lovesick swain in a Victorian melodrama.” Still laughing, he slapped the palm of his hand against his forehead. “Hey, what am I saying? I am a lovesick swain in a Victorian melodrama.”
“Are you?” Lettitia timidly inquired.
“What? In love with you?” Mick smiled tenderly as he smoothed a hand over her flushed cheek. “Oh, yeah. I am most definitely head-over-bootheels in love.”
Hearing that, Lettitia’s heart began to beat far too rapidly. Fearful that her courage might desert her, she whispered, “And I with you.”
“So what are we gonna do about that?” Mick’s smile widened, a devilish glimmer in his eyes. “I mean, we ought to do something to celebrate, don’t you think?”
“Silly me. I left the house in such a hurry, I forgot to bring the champagne,” she said lightheartedly.
He tapped his index finger against the tip of her nose. “Luckily, I came prepared. Reach into the breast pocket of my frock coat.” As he waited for her to comply, Mick pressed both of his palms over her breasts, plumping the curves in his hands.
Lettitia did as requested, slipping her hand inside his unbuttoned coat. When, a few seconds later, she removed an all-too-familiar package, her mouth fell open in astonishment.
“You, sir, are incorrigible!”
Mick glanced at the packet of Lambert’s Paragon Sheaths that she held in her hands. “Just optimistically hopeful. I was unsure when, or even if, we’d get to make love again. So I thought I should be prepared
in case the opportunity presented itself.”
Not once during his explanation did his hands leave her breasts, and the sensual massage caused Lettitia’s toes to curl in her shoes.
“As I said, incorrigible. Is it any wonder that I am so hopelessly enamored with you?”
Mick gently pinched a hardened nipple between his thumb and forefinger, eliciting an unabashed whimper from her. “How about I unbutton your bodice and you unbutton my trousers. Deal?”
Lettitia smiled impishly as she set the package of sheaths on the window sill. “You strike a hard bargain,” she retorted, just before she enthusiastically plied her fingers to the closure on his trousers.
Displaying an equal amount of ardor, Mick began to unbutton the bodice of her dark gray cashmere gown, a gown that was plainly fashioned in deference to Stag House’s rural surroundings.
When, a few seconds into her task, Lettitia’s knuckles brushed against the wiry thatch of Mick’s pubic hair, she stopped in mid-motion. “Sir, do you ever wear underclothes?”
“Yes and no,” he answered as he slid a hand inside her now-open dress bodice. Plucking the satin bow at the top of her combination, he began to unfasten her undergarment. “Yes, I wear underwear. FYI, I’m a boxer man. But no way am I wearing those wool long johns that your uncle’s valet packed. Bad enough I have to dress like an undertaker.”
“But you make such a very handsome one,” she teased. Finished unbuttoning his trousers, she watched in wanton fascination as his liberated member bobbed a decidedly bawdy greeting.
“How about putting one of those condoms on me?” Mick asked, jutting his chin at the package on the windowsill. “I’ve kinda got my hands full at the moment.” Having undone the top three buttons on her combination, he cupped a hand around the underside of each breast, lifting them up and out of her undergarment.
While Lettitia knew that she should be embarrassed at the sight of her bare bosom so flagrantly displayed—and in the full light of day, no less—she found the sight of Mick’s bronzed hands fondling her breasts highly erotic. When, in the next instant, he bent his head and cinched his lips around a turgid nipple, she felt a gush of moisture between her legs.
Anxious to feel him inside of her, she removed a sheath from the package. Having observed Mick don the tubular length of vulcanized rubber no less than three times when they’d last shared her bed, she knew how to cover him.
“Goodness,” she exclaimed when he jabbed his tongue at her swollen nipple. “I do believe that I am being thoroughly ravished!”
Mick gently bit down on the hard little knot, causing Lettitia to cry out softly, the pleasure nearly unbearable.
A few moments later, raising his head, Mick slowly backed her against a nearby wall.
“I want you to hike your skirts to your waist and hold ’em there. Okay?”
Eagerly Lettitia did as he asked, flummoxed as to why they were still standing. While the wood-planked floor would make for an uncomfortable bed, unless she was mistaken, it would have to suffice.
As it turned out, she was greatly mistaken. Mick bodily lifted her off the ground.
“Wrap your legs around my waist,” he instructed as he pressed her spine against the wall for added support. “Thatta girl. Now, just let me get situated.” He moved a hand between their two pressed bodies, guiding his member to the slit seam on her combination garment.
“Yes!”
“Oh, God!”
Their simultaneous moans filled the air as Mick slid his organ into her woman’s place. For several seconds, neither moved, each savoring the sensation of being intimately joined. For Lettitia, it was a feeling of overwhelming fullness as her body slowly accommodated to his length and width. As she tightened her muscles around him, she experienced a pleasurable pulse.
Evidently, Mick felt it too, for he groaned in manly appreciation.
“Too good,” he murmured against her neck. Placing his hands under her arms, he began to move her up and down, sliding her along the wall. “On the upbeat, I want you to tighten your muscles like you just did.”
Lettitia nodded her head.
And so it began.
Each time Mick thrust, she clamped her muscles around him as he withdrew. The pleasure wrought by that small contraction was so intensely stimulating that she didn’t know how much she could withstand before she came completely undone.
“You feel so damn good,” Mick muttered, his lips nuzzling against her neck.
Digging her fingers into his hair, Lettitia jerked his head upward so that their eyes were on a level, suddenly needing the connection of their shared gaze. As she stared into Mick’s brown eyes, she could feel the bond between them deepening with each stroke, going beyond the mere physical into the unexplored realm of the spiritual.
All too quickly, she reached her peak, and the successive waves of pulsating pleasure caused her to thrash her head from side to side.
“I love you,” Mick uttered hoarsely, caught in the throes of his own climax.
Those three words, and the passion with which they were spoken, brought tears to Lettitia’s eyes.
“That wasn’t supposed to make you cry,” Mick whispered in between labored breaths.
Lettitia smoothed a hand over his damp brow. “Women always cry when they’re happy.”
And also when they are deeply, inexorably, saddened.
* * *
Having cleaned himself as best he could with Lettitia’s lace hanky, Mick buttoned his trousers. Finished with that, he glanced at his wristwatch. It’d become something of an obsessive habit these last two days, each hour that passed bringing him one hour closer to when he had to return to the future.
After all that had transpired these past six days, he found it hard to believe that he would soon be returning to his old life. His old habits. His old job.
Particularly when all he wanted to do was hold on to his new love.
His mind made up, Mick stepped over to where Lettitia stood at the open window.
“Let’s get hitched,” he blurted impulsively.
In the very next instant, catching sight of Lettitia’s horrified expression, Mick inwardly cringed.
Yeah, way to go, Mister Debonair. Just the kind of proposal that every woman wants to hear.
“That didn’t come out right,” he said with an apologetic smile as he took Lettitia’s right hand in his. “What I meant to say is: will you do me the great honor of returning to the future with me, as my wife? Believe me, Tisha, you’re gonna love the twenty-first century. I’m talking airplanes, automobiles, computers, cell phones, microwave popcorn. The list just goes on and on. You’ll think you’ve died and gone to heaven when you sink your teeth into a slice of Big Al Torelli’s pepperoni pizza. No, better yet, my mother’s cannoli,” he enthusiastically raved. Excited by the prospect of a future life together, it suddenly dawned on him that there was a whole world of sights, and sounds, and tastes that he could introduce Lettitia to. “I’ll take you to Coney Island. You’ll love it. Or not. It doesn’t really matter because—”
“I can’t accompany you to the future.”
“—we’ll be sharing it together.” At hearing Lettitia’s unexpected rejection, the rest of Mick’s sentence got trapped somewhere between his larynx and his tongue.
Stonewalled, he shook his head. No way in hell can she possibly mean what she just said.
Suspecting that Lettitia just needed a little bolstering, that she was skittish about traveling through the time portal again, Mick said, “Of course, you can accompany me. You came through the time portal to track me down in the twenty-first century. So all you have to do is make a return trip. Nothing could be simpler.”
“You misunderstand me, Mick. It’s not that I can’t travel through the time portal with you. It’s that I won’t travel through the time portal with you.” As she spoke, Lettitia disengaged her hand from his, causing Mick to go from a high to a low in record time.
“What the hell kind of game are you playin
g?” he growled. Emotionally sucker punched, he stared at her, disbelieving what he was hearing. “You told me that you loved me. Remember?”
As Lettitia wordlessly stared at him, her eyes turned into two huge, watery gray reservoirs. “And I do… with all my heart.”
“Well, then I don’t get it. I mean, I love you. You love me. Call me simpleminded, but it just makes sense that we’d want to be together.”
“And I want that as well!” Lettitia vehemently exclaimed. “But I cannot turn my back on my family obligations. This engagement between Wortham and me has been arranged to repair the damage done to my family’s good name by Emmaline’s scandalous behavior. It is my duty to go through with the marriage.”
“That’s a crock and you know it. Your father wants a seat in the Parliament, and Wortham wants your dowry. The only one who doesn’t get anything out of the deal is you.” Mick emphasized the point by poking an accusing finger at her breastbone. “Open your eyes and take a good gander. They’re using you, Tisha.”
In more ways than you could ever imagine, he ruminated angrily, unable to bring himself to tell Lettitia that Wortham was boinking her own brother. In fact, the earl’s list of sins was so long, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Hell, she had gone to The Golden Dragon. She’d seen with her own eyes that Wortham was an opium fiend. Even if Lord Worthless hadn’t killed Emmaline, he was still a slimeball of the first magnitude.
“I’m only gonna say this one time. You cannot marry Wortham. Trust me, he’s not the man that he appears to be. He will hurt you, Lettitia. Big time.”
“I have suspected that all along,” she intoned quietly, a martyred expression on her face.
Seeing that doe-eyed look of resignation, it took all of Mick’s self-restraint not to reach over and shake the shit out her.
“You know what I think? I think that your father has turned you into a well-trained object.”
“ ‘An object?’ ”
“Yeah, you know, like that big stuffed bird that he’s got sitting on his desk, the one under the glass dome.”
A Love For All Time Page 22