by Jo Goodman
She nodded.
“Then I would have your answer.”
“No, Brandon.”
“Are you saying, ‘No, Brandon, you may not have my answer’ or ‘No, Brandon, I will not marry you’?”
“No, Brandon, I will not marry you.”
Brandon flinched as if she had struck him. “Shannon, do you love me?” he asked, carefully keeping his tone even.
“Yes!”
Clearly she was telling the truth, he thought bewilderedly. “Then what is it? I don’t understand.”
Shannon slid out of bed and knelt in front of Brandon, placing her hands over his white-knuckled ones. “I love you too much to marry you.”
“I think you really mean that.”
“I do!” she said passionately. “Brandon, I want to be your wife. God help me, I want it as I have never wanted anything! I have had the temerity to dream of it, to weave fantasies of what it would be like. But I know what I am, dearest, even if you choose to ignore it. You have never once asked me about the crime I committed, but that does not make it any less real.”
“I never asked because I have Eric Redmond’s own statement of what happened.”
“He wrote that my stepfather’s death was an accident, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
She shook her head violently. “It was what he wanted to believe, Brandon, but it is not the truth. His lordship would not listen to me, but you must. I killed my stepfather. If I had not disobeyed him, if I had not pushed him away, he would be alive.”
“Your intent was to protect yourself,” Brandon said.
“What do you know of my intent? I had wished him dead for so long, who is to say what my intent was? He was murdered by my hand, Brandon!” She held them up in front of her. “These hands!”
“Don’t do this to yourself, Shannon.”
She ignored him. “I was sentenced to die for what I had done. A judge understood clearly what you will not. When the earl offered me an escape, I begged him, I begged him not to arrange for my transport! I reasoned there could never be anything for me here, that death was kinder than living my life under the onus of my crime. But I was wrong, Brandon; there is something for me here. You are here. Clara, whom I love as dearly as I would my own child, is here. I have long since stopped regretting his lordship’s interference. Do you believe me, Brandon? Do you believe that I am happy here?”
Brandon took Shannon by the wrists and pulled her onto his lap. “I believe you,” he said gently. “I know you’re happy at the folly.”
She laid her head against his shoulder. “Then don’t ask me to give it up.”
“I didn’t realize that’s what I was asking. I thought I was asking you to be my wife.”
“I cannot be your wife and remain anonymous, and anonymity is at the crux of my happiness. The folly has become a refuge for me. As long as I am merely Clara’s governess, there is no reason for me to be introduced to your friends and neighbors. I do not have to go to town with you, I do not have to attend riverside picnics, or host your parties. My past can remain my secret—our secret. That is the way I want it. I will not allow you to damage your reputation by marrying a murderess. The scandal would touch you; it would touch Clara and Cody. You would not be happy, Brandon, and then I would not be happy.”
So that is where it had all been leading. Shannon had appointed herself guardian of his reputation. He could not help himself. Realizing the problem he thought stood as an obstacle to his happiness never really existed, he began to laugh.
Shannon leaned away from him, not believing the rumbling she felt rising in his chest could be laughter. “Damn you, Brandon Fleming!” She tried to twist away from him, but his arms were like steel bands. “Let me go!”
Brandon sucked in his breath as Shannon’s struggle caused her hip to press sharply against his groin. “Oh, no,” he said, lifting her. In two steps he was at the bed. Brandon dropped her to the mattress and quickly followed with his own body before she could roll away. It took both his hands to secure her wrists above her head, but he managed to quiet her flailing legs by clamping one of his thighs over them. He gave her a little shake, which had the desired effect of making her cease her battle altogether.
A lock of Brandon’s corn silk hair had fallen over his forehead. Shannon stared at it in fascination. His mouth twitched at the corners as he tried to tamp down his smile.
“What a complicated piece of work you are,” he said wonderingly. “It will take me all of this life to know even the half of it. I want you to listen to me, Shannon. Will you do that?”
“I seem to have no choice.”
“You always have a choice. And right now your choice is to listen or not. What will it be?”
“I’ll listen.”
“Good.” He quickly kissed the deliciously sulky pout of her lips. “I want you to know that rarely have I heard so much nonsense spoken with more conviction. And no, I am not trying to make light of your feelings or wound your sensibilities. I am very well aware that you are telling me what you believe. But it is not what I believe. You cannot speak of reputation to a man whose great-grandfather won this land by cheating at cards, whose grandfather and father were skirt-chasers, and who himself is intending to divorce his runaway wife. The folly has always had scandal, and the Flemings have always survived it. Don’t use damaging my reputation as an excuse not to marry me.”
Brandon’s smile had faded and his voice dropped, becoming insistent and earnest. “I know that if you become my wife, many of the things you fear will come to pass. Too many people who knew Aurora saw you leave the Century in chains. In my uncharitable moments I consider it the best trick she was ever played. I have no idea how the Tidewater gossips have explained it, but you know for yourself that no one has come here seeking the truth. Even though people believed you were my wife, it provided the locals with a nine days’ wonder, nothing more.”
Sensing Shannon’s calm, Brandon released her wrists and began to massage away the imprint of his fingers. “Shannon, do you realize that even if you don’t become my wife, there is always the chance your past will be discovered?”
“You mean Aurora, don’t you? She will eventually learn what happened at the Century.”
“Yes. I think it’s inevitable. I don’t believe she’s heard of it yet or she would have come here herself to root out the truth. No matter what damage she has done to her own name, she would not let this rest.” Brandon released Shannon’s legs and sat up. “It may be the divorce that brings it to her attention, Shannon. I would never do anything to intentionally hurt you, yet I may have already started something that will reveal the secret you wish to keep.”
“Don’t, Brandon,” she said wearily. “Don’t blame yourself. I have always known that my security was a fragile thing at best. I am prepared to face discovery and the consequences—alone.”
“No. That is precisely what I want to prevent. There is no need for you to bear it alone. Shannon, you already have my heart. Take the protection of my name. I want you to have it.”
“Don’t press me now,” she pleaded, turning her head away. “I never wanted any of this to touch you. I don’t know what to do anymore.”
Brandon cupped her chin and forced her to face him. “Even if you do not marry me, I will do everything in my power to keep your past your own. The Century has long since sailed for England, and the record of your crime went with it. If the exact nature of your crime were somehow discovered, no one can know what provoked it. That will always remain between us, Shannon.” He felt a shudder ripple through her and his eyes bore into hers. “I will never believe that your stepfather’s death was anything but an accident, but even if it weren’t, even if you had held a pistol to his head and fired it, I could not find you guilty. Thomas Stewart was the vilest sort of thief. He tried to rob you of your dignity, your spirit, and your humanity. What he did to you was the heinous crime. He made you a slave to his whims. You were the victim, Shannon, naught else but his vict
im.”
“I want to believe that,” she said, searching his face. “Sometimes I feel so…so dirty. And then you’re here and I don’t think of it when you hold me. And when you love me…you make me feel beautiful.”
“You are beautiful.” He bent his head and brushed her trembling lips with his mouth.
Shannon’s hands rested lightly, tentatively on his shoulders, then she slid them around his back, holding her to him. “Love me now, Brandon.”
He unfolded his body beside her and returned his mouth to hers. Shannon’s response was sweet and giving, an echo of his own. His hands stole into her hair, fanning it across the lace pillow sham. Like ink, he thought, spilling on paper.
Brandon kissed her cheeks, her closed eyes, until she blindly sought his mouth again. Her tongue teased the soft underside of his lip. “Yes,” he said, against her mouth, then his lips parted to deepen the kiss.
Shannon’s hands tugged at his shirt, pulling it free of his breeches. They slipped beneath the soft linen to explore the breadth of his taut muscles. “Finger-whispering,” she told him as she traced the length of his spine and felt him shiver in reaction. She was helping him out of his shirt a moment later. When her hands returned to his flesh, there was more pressure than promise.
She felt Brandon’s breath against her throat before he placed his mouth on the curve of her neck. His hand dipped beneath the neckline of her chemise and fondled her breasts until they hardened and swelled, the tips sensitive to the lightest touch of his fingers.
Clothing became a barrier that frustrated them both, yet breaking away seemed equally unsatisfactory. In the end they disrobed one another, taunting each other with lips and hands and tongues, neither of them willing to surrender completely to the other’s seduction. The battle was simply too satisfying to have done quickly.
They wrestled playfully in a tangle of arms and legs, laughing until desire brought them up short with its breathless expectancy.
“Now, Brandon,” she said, trailing her fingers along his thigh. “I want you now.”
“Then take me,” he said. He rolled on his back and brought her on top of him. He smiled with wicked intent. “I’ll teach you to ride yet, sweet lady.”
Shannon blinked owlishly as his purpose registered, but she never considered resisting. She allowed Brandon to guide her until she had taken him fully. Her hair spilled forward, drawing a curtain about her face as she leaned over him and brought his hands to her breasts. Sensing the rhythm from the tracings of his thumbs across her swollen nipples, she began to move with it.
She felt her body contracting all around him, pressing him to her intimately. Her eyes closed as she concentrated on the source of her pleasure, feeling heat radiate from the center of her. Brandon’s hands fell away from her breasts and caressed her buttocks and thighs.
Shannon listened to the change in his breathing, the catch in her own. She knew he was watching her, that part of his pleasure was in seeing hers, and she felt a measure of pride that she hid nothing from him. Delicious strings of tension tugged at her limbs and arched her spine. She leaned back, her throat stretching tautly, as delicate threads of pleasure snapped one after the other.
Her climax shuddered into Brandon and he felt the last restraint on his own pleasure being severed. His fingers tightened on her hips as he gave her his seed. Shannon fell against his chest, resting her face in the curve of his shoulder and placing the heel of her hand against his thudding heart. Her breath caressed his flesh warmly.
“I may never move,” she murmured. He had made her feel beautiful indeed.
“I may never let you.” He thought he could feel the outline of her smile against his skin.
Of course they did move, although exceedingly reluctantly and not until their discomfort became a point of humor. Naked, Shannon slipped out of bed and disappeared behind her dressing screen, surprised when Brandon followed and asked her to wash him as well. Shyly she complied, finding this little intimacy a pleasure in its own right. She wondered at the urge she felt to touch him with her mouth and quickly tamped it down, certain she was wanton to even think it. Brandon, his eyes dark and searching, led her back to bed.
Much later, after he had shown her that wanton thoughts could be gloried in, Shannon asked him to tell her about the folly. “Did your great-grandfather really win it in a card game?”
Brandon was lying on his side, his eyes closed. “One of us did not sleep away the better part of this day,” he said significantly.
“That was perfectly clear,” she said. “There is no need to exert yourself by raising an eyebrow.”
He smiled sleepily. “Yes, he won it in a card game at some club or other in London. The story goes that he cheated shamelessly, but skillfully, to get it. He was deeply in debt, creditors demanding payment, threatening him with Newgate and whatnot….” Brandon stifled a yawn. “America was still very much unsettled in those days, and his friends thought it was…”
“Folly,” Shannon supplied encouragingly.
“What? Oh, yes, folly to leave civilized England rather than sell the land and settle his accounts.”
“Brandon.” Shannon said his name suspiciously. “Are you telling me the truth?”
“Swear it. Friends made a wager that he would return in two years. Proposed a toast to Fleming’s folly. Great-grandfather won the wager…never went back.”
“That’s a perfectly dreadful story,” she announced as she curled into him, settling her bottom against his thighs.
“Usually tell it better,” he defended sleepily.
She patted the hand that had slipped around her waist. “Of course you do.”
* * *
Brandon had mentioned offhandedly at one time that before the Marchands left, he would take them sailing on the river after dark. The evening prior to their departure, Clara winsomely reminded her father of his promise. Paul and Michaeline protested that Brandon must not feel obligated, but he brushed aside their arguments.
Clara was sitting on Shannon’s lap, jabbing at a child’s sampler. Shannon’s fingers had already been much abused as she tried to steady Clara’s hand and show her the proper way to make a simple cross-stitch. She winced as Clara accidentally stabbed her with the needle again. She put the pad of her index finger against her lips and sucked on it, her violet eyes casting a very real appeal in Brandon’s direction.
In a few strides he crossed the drawing room and lifted Clara. “I think we should leave as soon as possible,” he said, giving Clara a little toss in his arms. “This poppet already thinks you’re a pincushion.”
“Pincushion! Pincushion!” Clara repeated gaily while Brandon directed everyone to go to the landing.
Cody prepared the skiff and held it steady while the others boarded. It was crowded once they were on, but they managed to accommodate elbows and legs and declare themselves comfortable in spite of the squeeze. Cody managed the sail. Shannon nudged Brandon once and lifted her chin in Cody’s direction.
Moonlight bathed Cody’s face, and there was a profound sense of peace in his features as he guided the skiff. His enjoyment of the task at hand was transparent, communicating itself to anyone who cared to see. Brandon did, and he squeezed Shannon’s hand, telling her that he understood.
Clara grew restless on her father’s lap. Brandon let her slide off his legs and sit to one side so she could slap at the waves.
“Don’t you dare fall in,” Shannon warned.
Clara giggled. “You can jump for me. Just like before. ’Member that time?”
“Mon Dieu!” One of Michaeline’s hands fluttered to her breast while the other pointed out Clara. “Pourquoi ne peut-elle pas nager?”
The question was clearly directed at Shannon, and she only felt her heart resume beating when Brandon answered in her place. “Clara cannot swim,” he explained, “because I haven’t taught her yet. She’s too young.”
“Nonsense,” Paul scoffed. “Aurora could keep her head afloat when she was younger than C
lara. It is good sense to teach the little one to swim when she lives so close to the water, n’est-ce pas?”
“Perhaps next year,” Brandon agreed.
“Want to swim,” Clara pouted, dipping her hand in the water.
Brandon ignored her and directed the conversation away from all mention of the water. Clara eventually tired of repeating herself and moved to the other side of the skiff, closer to Shannon, and finally crawled onto her lap. By the time Cody brought the skiff back to the launch, she was sound asleep.
“I’ll take her,” Brandon said as Cody helped Paul and Michaeline out of the boat.
Shannon shook her head. “No, I’ll hand her to you when you’re on the pier.”
Brandon stepped out and turned to take Clara. “Be careful. Cody doesn’t have the skiff secured.”
The boat rocked unsteadily when Shannon lifted Clara to Brandon’s outstretched arms, but Brandon caught his daughter easily. Paul and Michaeline were already strolling hand in hand toward the house. Cody was sitting on the pier, cursing a stubborn knot, and Brandon’s hands were otherwise occupied. Seeing that she would have to manage herself, she placed her foot exactly where she had seen Brandon place his and gave a little hop. She realized her mistake immediately. Without some weight to balance her own, the skiff rolled to one side. She felt her foot slip and tried to regain her balance and fall back into the boat. Instead she pushed the skiff away from her and plunged into the water. What air she had in her lungs was lost between her cry of alarm and the impact of the cold water.
Shannon was not afraid at first. She knew someone would pull her out. It was then she panicked, realizing that someone had to pull her out. She moved her arms and legs experimentally, wondering if she could learn to swim by sheer force of her will. Her sodden skirts merely tangled in her legs, dragging her deeper until she felt the suck of an undercurrent.
Michaeline and Paul had rushed back to the skiff when they heard Shannon’s cry, turning in time to see Cody jump in the water. Brandon did not look at them until Cody brought Shannon to the surface after his second dive. What he saw in their faces then told him the charade had come to an end.