Temptation (Avon Red)

by Leda Swann

  “Why should I mind? I have been dreaming of you making love to me for months.”

  How could he ever have believed that well-brought-up young women did not feel sexual desire? That it was wrong for them to do so? “I am glad of it, because I intend to repeat the experience with you as often as you will allow me to.”

  He had felt uncomfortable at the mere thought Beatrice might desire him, but he wanted Lenora to find him irresistible. Even though he had just taken her, already he was starting to harden at the thought that she might want him to fuck her again. Knowing that she loved the feeling of his cock inside her, the touch of his hands on her breasts, made him feel like a king.

  She traced the contours of his bottom lip with the tip of her finger. “You know I could not refuse you anything.”

  He could not let this woman get away. “Then you will agree to be my wife? If I were to ask you with all my heart?”

  “Your wife?” She gave a squeal of joy as she leaped into his arms. “Of course I will.”

  He enfolded her in his embrace. Nothing had ever felt as right as this did. In Lenora’s arms, he had found where he belonged.

  Thirteen

  Captain Carterton sat in the kitchen of the deserted cottage nursing a snifter of the best French brandy. He had poured it out several hours ago and had still to finish drinking. It was a measure of how distraught he was over Beatrice that he couldn’t summon up any interest in his favorite vice.

  He shook his head as he forced another swallow. It burned all the way down his throat, numbing his stomach, but unfortunately leaving his brain intact. His mind was in turmoil, as it had been ever since he and Beatrice had been discovered together.

  How could he have misread the situation so badly from the beginning? He’d thought her letters had come from the heart, but they had been nothing but an idle amusement. He’d thought he could win her heart, but it had been protected with walls of stone. He’d thought he could seduce her into his arms, and in that he had been right. But his success had only served in alienating her from him.

  The worst of it was that he couldn’t stop loving her. The thought that she had gone back to Dr. Hyde and begged him to overlook her folly in succumbing to another man had him feeling homicidal with rage. And with despair.

  His fingers closed on the glass in his hand so hard that the snifter cracked, showering him with fragments of glass. He merely continued to sit there as the brandy soaked its way through his clothes.

  Losing Beatrice was his own fault. He had pushed her too hard, and she had not been ready to accept all that he had to offer her. She was young, inexperienced. Until recently she had been a virgin. Was it any wonder she balked at being swept off her feet by a man she barely knew?

  Beatrice was right to be cautious about him. Why would any girl, let alone a girl as beautiful as Beatrice, marry an officer who had only just escaped one war with his life intact, and who might be posted off to any other battleground in the Empire at any moment? He had an uncertain profession, and they lived in uncertain times. That was his only excuse for being so hasty in his courtship, and pushing his haste on her until she could not bear it.

  He had promised Beatrice that he would not come running after her, but would leave her to make her own decision. It was the least he could do, after shamelessly pressuring her into falling in with his wishes, his plans. Whatever happened now would be up to fate, not to him.

  But it never hurt to give fate a helping hand. Beatrice needed to know that he still loved her, that he was sorry for his actions.

  And what better way to explain himself than in one last letter.

  Beatrice sat in her room, silently brooding. She hated being unemployed. This morning she had gathered her courage in both hands and applied for a position at another hospital, a lesser one than St. Thomas’s. She’d given the matron her name, and a frosty look had come into the woman’s eyes. The interview had been cut short soon afterward.

  She would not be given a post there—she knew it. Matron Baddeley must have seen to it that her fall from grace was known throughout all the hospitals in London out of sheer spite.

  She hated being unemployed. She hated Matron Baddeley who had dismissed her. She hated Dr. Hyde who had refused to reemploy her and who was now, to everyone’s surprise, engaged to Lenora Coppins and looking quite ecstatic about it. Most of all she hated Captain Carterton who had brought all this misery on her.

  No, she didn’t hate Captain Carterton. That was part of the problem. She was horribly afraid that she was in love with him.

  She could tell herself over and over again that it was her position as a nurse she missed most in her current situation, but she would be lying. What she wanted most of all was to feel the captain’s hands on her, and the sounds of his voice telling her that he loved her.

  How could she have been so blind to his small kindnesses, to the little generosities that marked him out as a kind, good-hearted man? She had been afraid of him, of what he could do to her, of the mess he was making in her orderly world. And her fear had caused her to break the heart of a man who truly cared for her.

  His last words to her had not been a dismissal, but a goodbye. He was sick of feeling unloved, of being rejected. Didn’t that mean he still loved her? That he would welcome her back?

  Quickly, before she lost her courage, she picked up a sheet of paper.

  Back at the barracks, Captain Carterton sat moodily over his breakfast eggs and kippers. He had to be prepared for the worst, for Beatrice to soundly reject him. Or worse, to leave him with no answer at all, with the agony of hope but no resolution.

  He would give her a week, maybe two. If he had not heard by then, he would squelch his hope into the furthermost corner of his soul and forget about it there.

  The officers’ batman passed by him, a silver salver on his hand. “The morning post, sir.”

  Carterton laid down his fork and picked up the letter with a decided lack of interest.

  When he saw the handwriting, his heart stopped beating. With deliberate movements, he picked up the letter opener from the silver tray, slit the seal, and handed the letter opener to the batman. “Thank you, Willis.”

  With shaking hands, he began to read.

  Dear Percy,

  I find myself in the rather awkward position of admitting to myself that two courses of action I have recently taken have caused my life to start down a path that I do not wish to travel. I’m hoping you will be able to assist me in navigating back to a more favorable route.

  Love is a fickle thing, sometimes it pulls one in an unexpected direction. Perhaps it is like the blinkered view of the horse at the harness, myopic and sadly ignorant of things going on outside of the periphery. And then, like iron pyrites masquerading as gold, sometimes love can be fake, misleading. The golden glow, true or false, causes people to change, to do uncharacteristic things. I am guilty in this regard…

  Beatrice was in the kitchen with Mrs. Bettina making pastry for a peach pie when the doorbell rang. Since being dismissed from her post at St. Thomas’s Hospital, she had filled in her days helping out around the boardinghouse in return for cheaper rent. There was always so much to do, cooking, cleaning, laundry. Mrs. Bettina had gone up several notches in her estimation in the last weeks—she worked so hard every day looking after her houseful of lodgers.

  She dusted the flour off her hands, gave them a quick wipe on her apron, and went to answer the door.

  The post boy handed her a letter, tipped his cap to her, and was gone.

  She stood there in the door, motionless, staring at the letter in her hand.

  She had only sent her letter to him this morning. It was too early for him even to have received it, let alone have written her a reply. Had she been too late? Was this his final farewell?

  Her legs could not hold her for another moment. She sat down on the stoop and ripped the letter open with trembling fingers.

  Dear Beatrice,

  I’m writing in the hope that
you have not immediately thrown this letter’s unopened envelope into the privy, and that you have at least gotten this far by unfolding these pages and reading this paragraph. Dearest Beatrice, I implore you to read on to the end, at which point you have, of course, the choice to reply. Or not.

  I must start by telling you I must be the most foolish man on this earth. Truly, I do not know what possessed me to have treated you so. Jealousy, stupidity, desire, all of these things are reasons but not excuses. These emotions, these pains, they flow through me whenever I think of you. Is this love? I think it must be…

  Captain Carterton put on his smartest dress uniform, and pomaded his hair with care. He did not want to give Beatrice a single reason to look on him with disfavor. Out of the kindness of her heart she had given him another chance, and this time he would not squander it.

  Her letter was lying open on his dressing table. Though he knew every line of it by heart, his eyes were drawn to her precious words.

  …Have you ever watched waves crash onto a cliff face? The wave will hit the wall with a shower of spray, then reflect back out to sea where it encounters other incoming waves. Sometimes the waves will interact negatively, canceling each other out. But sometimes they intersect and become as one, only twice as powerful. I fear Dr. Hyde and myself were like the former, when we are together we become nothing. But I was afraid of what you and I, together, would be…

  Beatrice closed her eyes and leaned her head against the doorframe. Thank heavens it was not too late. She still had a chance with the captain. She clutched the letter tightly in her hand as she made her way up to her room to read it through again. The pastry crust would spoil, but no matter. She would turn it into a peach cobbler and no one would notice.

  Safely up in her room, she spread the pages over her bed.

  …I am sitting at my desk a penitent man. I made mistakes, I’m guilty of the sins of lust, envy, pride, anger. Like Dante I need a Beatrice to guide me to heaven. I am hoping, praying, that you will be my Beatrice, my savior.

  She sighed. How gladly she would take that role. If he gave her another chance, she would take him to heaven every day of his life.

  …I do not write this to pressure you, my love. I know that your love cannot be commanded, and I have already shamed myself far, far too much trying to command yours.

  I will wait for your forgiveness until I no longer have any hope at all.

  If ever you want me, I am yours.

  Percy

  She hugged the pages to her chest. She had forgiven him long ago. All he had done was done for love of her.

  The streets were so full of horse and foot traffic Captain Carterton decided walking would be quicker than hailing a hansom cab.

  He set out at a brisk pace, Beatrice’s letter tucked safely in his breast pocket and her last words running through his head.

  …In my treatment of you I have proven myself to be a coward, valuing security over affection. I am not proud of that. Even now, it is taking more courage than I possess to reach out to you. I am being brave for your sake, because I do not want to lose you.

  I am not brave enough to marry you until I know you better—I cannot take such a step yet. But I promise you I will let you into my heart. I promise you I will give our passion a chance to develop into a lasting love.

  If you still want me, I am yours.

  Beatrice

  If he still wanted her? He shook his head as he strode along. He would want her until the day he died. There was no woman on earth for him but Beatrice.

  The door to the boardinghouse was slightly ajar. He rapped on it with the head of his cane. If she was not at home, he would sit and wait for her, all day if necessary. They had already wasted too much time apart.

  There was a sound of feet positively running down the stairs and the door flew open. Beatrice, her hair loose around her shoulders and her dress covered in a floury apron, stood there in front of him, a smile of hope and fear on her face.

  He held out his arms to her just as he had on the first night. “Beatrice, my love.”

  She ran into them, wrapping her own arms around him as if she would never let him go. “Thank heavens we are together at last.”

  Epilogue

  Sergeant-Major Bartholomew Tofts, V.C. (Ret’d) stood on the front steps, awaiting the arrival of the carriage for the Carter-tons. The lucky young captain—he still couldn’t think of him as Percy—had been married to the delightful Beatrice Clemens for nigh on a year now. And over that year he’d watched the couple grow together day by day.

  He waited patiently, ramrod straight despite his years and injury, gripping his cane that was now his constant companion a little more tightly as a spasm of pain shot up his leg. He cursed under his breath, reminding himself for the hundredth time not to put so much weight on that leg. It had never quite recovered after the stint in South Africa that had invalided him out of the army. Not that he ever regretted his injury, for if his leg had not been shot to pieces, he would never have met his wife. His Nancy would be worth the loss of both his legs.

  Behind, the door opened and the Captain and Mrs. Carterton joined him on the steps. He turned to greet the couple’s arrival with a slight feeling of sadness. This was to be their last goodbye, and he’d grown to think of the captain quite as a son, the son he’d never had. “You look after the captain, now, Mrs. Carterton.” He had to stop to clear his throat. “You know he’s dear to me after all we’ve been through together.”

  Mrs. Carterton gave him a beatific smile. “I’ll look after him, sir. And you must promise to be good to Mrs. Tofts for me. I want to return to these steps in a year or two and have her greet me, hale and hearty as ever.”

  “Aye, me and Mrs. Tofts, we’re closer than two peas in a pod. I’ll look after her all right. She’s one in a million, and I’m lucky to have her. And are you excited to be going at last?”

  Mrs. Carterton blinked. “I’m a mite nervous,” she confessed in a whisper. “I’ve never been any further than Bristol, and now here I am leaving lovely green England for dusty, sandy Egypt to be a nurse in a makeshift hospital dealing with patients who suffer from all sorts of strange tropical illnesses. Nothing will be familiar.”

  “I’ll be familiar,” the captain offered with his ever-ready grin. “I promise you I’ll be as familiar as I can be.”

  “Oh, Percy! You are incorrigible. Just you wait until it’s time for your next vaccination. Then you’ll see how familiar I can be.”

  Bartholomew looked on, both embarrassed and a little proud to see the youngsters tease each other with such fondness.

  “I know we’re leaving our little estate in good hands,” the captain said. “Do whatever you think best to keep things running smoothly.”

  He gave a smart salute to acknowledge the order. “Not to worry, captain, the animals will be bigger and fatter when you return, the grounds well looked after. And you ride those lads hard over in the Suez—don’t let them get slack. The new company sergeant-major is just a whipper-snapper—he’ll be needing a firm hand to keep things in line.”

  Their small talk faded to an awkward silence as the carriage, laden with their effects, rattled up to the door.

  Sergeant-Major Tofts, recipient of his country’s highest medal for valor, cleared his throat of a lump that had mysteriously appeared. “Well, this is it, then. Off you go. Travel safe.”

  He was surprised when Beatrice gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, sergeant-major. Keep well.”

  He had to blink furiously to clear his vision as he offered her a steady hand to climb into the carriage.

  Turning to face Captain Carterton, he shook the young man’s hand but could say no more. Unexpectedly Percy gave him a hug, as a son would a father.

  Though he cleared his throat several more times, a hoarse “farewell” was all he could muster.

  Percy clambered into the carriage to sit beside his wife, and barely had the door closed when the carriage jerked into motion, the ho
rses clearly eager to get going. The carriage clattered down the drive and the sergeant-major waved goodbye. Neither of the couple saw him, but he didn’t mind.

  Silhouetted in the back window he could see Beatrice’s head resting on Percy’s shoulder. Just before the carriage turned the corner out of sight, Percy turned to his wife and kissed her with all the ardor of a man in love.

  A smile on his face, he turned to go back into the house, back to where his Nancy was waiting for him.

  Those two would deal together well enough. They loved each other, and that was what mattered the most.

  About the Author

  LEDA SWANN lives happily on the beach in a small New Zealand community and spends free time boating, swimming, scuba diving, snorkeling, and anything else that involves getting unpleasantly cold and wet on a regular basis. www.LedaSwann.com

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  By Leda Swann

  TEMPTATION

  CAPTIVE

  MISTRESS

  PRICE OF DESIRE

  SUGAR AND SPICE

  Credits

  Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

  Cover photograph © Allan Jenkins/Trevillion Images

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.