All Dressed in White EPB

by Michaels, Charis

  If she tipped her thoughts toward everyday life, she would acknowledge some pain, she would realize considerable awkwardness, and she would possibly feel some panic.

  However, if she tipped the other direction, she would ignore the pain, embrace the fullness and the weight and the union; and she would, possibly, maybe, perhaps, reach that very insistent . . . whatever-it-was that her body had been seeking so very hard. For days. But especially tonight. It was the urgency that kept her rising off the bed, an unattainable burn that needed just a bit more of . . . something.

  Tessa tipped toward that something, her brain dropped back into the numbing sort of want that produced moans and sighs instead of questions and answers. She allowed every other thought to be chased away.

  Above her, Joseph was very still and very breathless. He was so still and breathless, she thought he’d turned to stone.

  Tessa opened her eyes to smile at him, to tell him she knew what came next, that she wasn’t afraid, that he should move. But his eyes were closed. He wouldn’t even look at her. He held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut and endured.

  Tessa would have laughed except she’d made the conscious choice to not think too closely about it. Instead, she moved. Just a nudge. The movement felt fine . . . actually the movement felt rather promising and she moved again, more forcefully this time. More promise. She moved and she moved, and she watched Joseph’s eyes spring open and lock with hers. And she raised her eyebrows—this is a real thing that we are actually doing—and he let out a guttural growl that sounded like the eleven months of pent-up desire being set free.

  And then he took over. Tessa closed her eyes, lost to the rhythm and the sound of rushing blood and the burning rush coiling in her body.

  And then the great coiling burn detonated within her, a spiral of sensation, every note on the piano played wildly and perfectly at the same time, and she lost herself for a moment, she went limp, she floated, she sank, she bobbed to the surface. Her body sang.

  When she opened her eyes, Joseph had thrown his head back and cried out, another guttural release after months and months of separation and doubt and restraint. And then he called her name and collapsed on top of her, and she wasn’t certain, but she thought there was a chance that he wept.

  We’ve done it, she thought. She smiled at the ceiling of her new house. No other man entered her thoughts—no other time or place. Only her love for Joseph Chance and the strange journey that had brought them to this moment.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Joseph awakened with only one thought on his mind. Again.

  Again and again and again until I perish of making love to my wife.

  It was a selfish thought, because he had no notion of how Tessa would feel about her boldness or his aggressiveness or any other part of their lovemaking, and one successful night did not mean they had solved her anxiety forever. He thought of the thing he had told her many times before.

  We have a lifetime.

  He was on the edge of the bed, his back to her, but could feel her warm and snug behind him. He rolled over, careful not to crush her, and watched her breathe in and out. Her hair was a long net of blonde over the half-moon crescent of her naked body.

  “I can feel you watching me,” she whispered without opening her eyes. She slid her leg to entangle with his.

  “I will never grow tired of watching you,” he said.

  “What would you say if I said I want another go?” she said. She opened one eye.

  His body, already aroused, surged. “Yes,” he said, “I would say yes.” He waited.

  “With clothes.”

  “Alright,” he said. He reached out and grabbed her wrist.

  “And possibly . . . outside.”

  “You’re joking,” he said. He gave a tug, pulling her in for a kiss.

  She laughed and shook her head. “I want to vanquish every demon. I want to make love upright. Outside.”

  He paused in his kiss. “Now you are joking. Hardly my style, Tessa. Although I shall happily take you on a guided tour of my style. Er, styles.”

  “Oh, I’m well aware of your styles. ‘Pausing’—for one. Stationary hands on specific body parts . . .”

  Now he growled and rolled over once, pinning her beneath him, and then rolling again and taking her with him. She yelped and flopped on top of him. He grabbed her hips and squared her over his arousal.

  Her eyes went wide. He raised his knee and tipped her forward. Her hair rained down on him and her face hovered just above his.

  “What’ya say, love? On top? Can you manage?” He used the voice of the Old Joseph, who was really the Young Joseph, the much younger man he used to be, the boy with whom he thought he’d been finished—and good riddance. Now, he was so very glad to have him on hand.

  “Love?” he repeated. “How’s about a kiss?”

  Tessa made a delighted noise, a delighted hungry noise, and Joseph captured her mouth with a kiss and held her against him and thought there was never a man more fortunate than he.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Four months later. . . .

  Tessa was alone on the day she reencountered Captain Neil Marking, except for Christian and his new nursemaid, Jeanie. They were in Hartlepool, walking from the dockyard to Church Street.

  If the weather was fair, Tessa had Jeanie bring the baby into town by carriage to meet her at the dock master’s office when her work was finished. The three of them would walk to a café and take tea and then travel home to Abbotsford Cottage before sunset.

  It was a stretch, perhaps, to say the weather was fair that day. The cold of winter had settled in along the villages of the North Sea held them tightly in her icy grip. December had given way to the sleet and snowfall of January. But there was neither rain nor sleet today, merely cold sunshine, and Tessa bade Jeanie bundle herself and the baby and make the trip. Joseph also had business in Church Street that afternoon, and his partner Stoker was in town—he would sail back to Barbadoes with a hold full of coal Tessa had arranged herself. The baby would be asleep by the time dinner was served at Abbotsford, and she wished to show him off, despite Jon Stoker’s alleged unease around babies.

  Tessa snuggled more deeply into her fur-lined overcoat, bouncing Christian on her hip as she walked along Hartlepool’s thick, barnacle-frothed seawall. Dollop remained a large baby, growing larger every day, but Tessa insisted on carrying him. They’d spent the day apart, after all, and Dollop thrilled to the sights and sounds of the ocean, which were much easier to see from his mother’s arms than the deep bowl of his pram. Behind them, Jeanie pushed the empty baby carriage and hummed.

  The red wool of an officer’s coat was the first thing to catch Tessa’s eye.

  She’d never quite gotten over her visceral reaction to the bloodred coat of any soldier in the Royal Army. Long after every other anxiety had begun to fade away, Tessa still startled when she encountered a red-coated soldier. Her insides turned to ice, and she had to remind herself to breathe, to look away, to walk on.

  But today, enjoying the rare full sun and the bracing sea wind, Tessa saw the crimson coat on a man in the distance and she did not look away.

  Today when she spotted the red and gold, the braids and buttons, she looked harder. She stared and took a few more steps and stared more.

  There was something about the line of his shoulders stretching the wool. Something more about the way the man in the jacket had propped his hand against the side of a distant building and loomed over someone, a girl—

  Tessa took two more steps closer and squinted. Was it a girl? Did the soldier with the broad shoulders and the propped arm lean over a young, pretty girl with her face turned up and a bright, hopeful smile?

  Fury and purpose spiked inside of Tessa like birds launching for the sky. She spun around and tucked Christian in the empty pram.

  “Jeanie, will you locate Mr. Chance at the Mallet and Mole in Church Street and tell him to come here, to me, at the seawall? Tell him its
urgent. And then please keep back. You and the baby remain far back. Do you understand?”

  Jeanie, who was biddable but also smart, nodded and wheeled the pram around, hurrying away.

  Tessa turned back and glared at the stain of the red coat against the grey bricks. She continued to walk. With every step, she thought about the months of shame she’d endured; about believing she’d invited the attack, that her own vanity had lured and teased and been impossible to resist.

  She thought of the white-knuckle fear she suffered when she discovered she was with child, the guilt, the certainty that her parents would not recover from the shame.

  And then she thought of Joseph, whom she’d almost lost because he’d believed she’d used him.

  Her life had been saved, saved by her own ingenuity and the will to discover some other life for herself and the baby. And saved by Joseph, who forgave her, who insisted that there was nothing to forgive, who loved Christian as if he was his own son.

  But this had all been chance and providence and the love of two people with so very much love to give. Easily, so easily, her life could have taken another route. How many young women, she wondered, had been attacked and abandoned?

  When she stepped close enough to hear the sound of his voice, his laugh, his signature low whistle, she knew. She would never forget the sound of his voice—or voices. He’d used one voice when he’d called on her and danced with her and walked her home from the village, but another voice to say sickly sweet, nonsense words in her ear while he attacked her. A third voice had been used to tell her she was a Very Bad Girl and to turn her away with a slammed door. She knew them all. For months, these voices had been phantoms howling in her nightmares.

  Here today, Captain Neil Marking seemed to be employing his charming, conciliatory voice. His daytime voice. Tessa could just make out the young woman looking up, dazzled, of course, at his handsome face. Tessa continued to come.

  As she approached, she prepared herself to see Christian’s eyes, Christian’s chin, Christian’s smile. When she was close enough to make out the fine details of his face, he would be more than familiar, he would be features and mannerisms that made up her beloved son.

  By luck, his head was turned, and his profile betrayed nothing. Black hair was the only sign that this had been the man who had, in his only generosity, given her Christian.

  When she drew close, close enough to hear his ridiculous platitudes, to hear the reedy tenor of his voice, Tessa called out.

  “Neil?” she said.

  Had she ever referred to him as Neil when he had courted her? She’d employed the formal “Captain Marking” because it made her feel young and him feel important, and he’d never once offered for her to call him by his given name, even when he attacked her.

  “Neil?” she called again.

  He looked up. His first glance was general appreciation. A pretty blonde woman in a pretty blue coat had called his name. But then he realized that she didn’t smile and her voice was hard and bored. And then he looked at her, really looked at her, and recognition dawned.

  “Step away from that girl,” Tessa said.

  “I beg your pardon?” he laughed. He glanced down at the girl who leaned beneath him against the wall. He winked.

  “Miss?” said Tessa. “I would warn you of this man. He is not what he seems.”

  She took another step and another. She bore down on them, and she wasn’t even a little bit afraid.

  Marking shoved off the wall and straightened to his full height. Tessa raised her chin. The fire inside her roared, fueled by indignation and purpose.

  The girl was frowning at her and Tessa said, “Take heed. I know he is dashing and kitted out, but he is a liar and a betrayer, and he is very dangerous. Go home to your family.”

  “Dangerous?” said the girl. “But he is an officer in the Army. He is sworn to protect us.”

  “He is a predator,” Tessa said. “And he protects no one but himself. You look like a bright girl—pretty, curious, clever. Take my advice, run far away from this one, as fast as you can. And warn your friends. He should be in prison, not the Army. There are other boys in your future; honorable, decent boys. This man has no honor. He is indecent.”

  The girl looked at the captain. His creamy skin had gone red and he bit off his gloves with terse, angry jerks. She looked back at Tessa, who did not flinch.

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” the girl said, bobbing a curtsy. She curtsied to Tessa, too, and fled.

  “You are pathetic,” said Tessa. “That girl is fourteen if she is a day.”

  “Perhaps I’ve grown weary of old bags like you,” Marking said. He spat in the spot where the girl had been.

  Tessa snickered. “If only you’d grow weary of every girl, so womankind would be free of your abuse.”

  “Oh right, I remember why your tail is so bent in a twist,” Marking said, snapping his finger. “Tess. It’s Tess, isn’t it?”

  She did not answer.

  “You had a brat. The last time I saw you, you were crying on my doorstep, accusing me of getting you with a bastard. You, who’d been asking for it from the first moment I met you. You remember that, Tess? You remember the way you laughed at everything I said, the way you touched me just so when we danced? Do you remember asking for it?”

  “What I remember,” Tessa said, “is a man ten years my senior, who saw something pretty and happy and shiny and thought, ‘I’d like to have that beauty and shine for my own.’”

  “Stop,” he drawled. “I gave you the thrill of your life, I’ll wager. You don’t look worse for the wear. Expensive coat. Nice boots. Fur hat. Feast for the eyes, actually. Figure’s held up. I’d say whatever I gave you was good training. Not to mention, one of the best nights of your life.”

  “No,” she said calmly, “you gave me fear, abandonment by my family, heartbreak, and an innocent soul for whom to provide. Would you like to know what I did with all of it?”

  “No,” he said, “but I’ve a suspicion you’re going to tell me.”

  In the distance, Tessa heard a shout. Someone called her name. “Tessa!”

  Joseph.

  Tessa did not look. She held out a hand. Not yet.

  She stepped closer to Marking. “What I did was, I released my family, I conquered my fear, I learned a trade that fulfills me, I found engaging employment in a new town that I adore, and I fell in love. I am happy. I am so deliriously happy. And I wanted you to know.”

  “Well,” he said, “you’re welcome. All because of me, is it?”

  “In spite of you, you worthless snake. Keep away from that little girl. Do women of the world a favor and stay away from us all. You’re small. You’re pathetic. And you have terrible breath.”

  She had the small satisfaction of seeing a look of horror pass across his face. Likely the only barb to hit its mark, but she’d not approached him to make him come around. She’d approached him to take back the final piece of herself that he’d stolen the night against the tree.

  She paused, staring into his pathetic face for a long moment, and then she turned and strode in the direction of Joseph’s voice. Her husband hovered, along with Jon Stoker, some ten yards away. There was a loaded, coiled bent to his posture, the stance of an animal waiting for the unlocking of his cage. There was a wildness in his eyes, a look she’d rarely seen but she knew. God help Neil Marking because of that look. Joseph did not reach for her when she approached him, but she had known he would not.

  She raised her eyes and gave one casual nod of the head.

  Yes. That is him.

  Without a word, Joseph began stalk across the road to the man in the red coat, Stoker jogging to keep up.

  Jeanie stood on the sidewalk where the men had waited. The nursemaid watched their progress with a gloved hand shading large, fascinated eyes.

  Tessa did not turn around. She looked at the young woman. “Don’t be alarmed, Jeanie. The red-coated man is a criminal with an outstanding debt to Mr. Chance. Ca
n you still see them?”

  The nursemaid’s face brightened with interest. “Oh yes, I can see them quite well.”

  Tessa leaned over the pram to fuss with the baby’s hat. “Can you tell me what they are doing?”

  “Oh yes,” began Jeanie dramatically, “Mr. Chance has taken the man by one arm, and Mr. Chance’s friend has taken him by the other, and they’ve dragged him around the wall, out of sight. And oh!” the nursemaid went on, titillated, “Mr. Chance has yanked off his cravat and tossed it in the sand.”

  Tessa nodded, taking up the handle of the pram and pushing toward Church Street. “Right,” she said. “Some days, he does not require a cravat.”

  Epilogue

  One year later. . . .

  Living so close to the ocean was nothing like living near the River Thames and even less like living in Surrey.

  The weather was unpredictable and dramatic, the smell of salt and brine was ever present, and there were boats—oh so very many boats. Brigs and schooners, steamboats and ferries.

  The fledgling dockyard that Tessa discovered in Hartlepool was on the cusp. It needed only the demand of Yorkshire coal—which the railroad voraciously provided—and a smart, efficient dock master, which Tessa soon embodied. Under her unlikely management, Hartlepool became one of the busiest and most prosperous ports on Britain’s east coast.

  While some boats left, heavy laden with coal, others arrived with old friends. After the row with Captain Marking, Stoker set out for Barbadoes; he returned again the next summer with a third shipment of highly sought-after guano. In November, he set out again.

  When Stoker had gone (and the dates of his departure triple-checked, as always), Sabine booked passage on a London steamship and visited Hartlepool. The Boyds had taken a holiday to Rome for the winter, and she planned to celebrate Christmas at Abbotsford Cottage with Tessa and her family.

  Cassin and Willow visited often, although not by boat; the new railway from Yorkshire meant a journey of three hours. Cassin and Willow typically stayed only a day or so, but when Sabine came for the month, the earl and countess made a rare extended escape from their castle hotel so the ladies could enjoy a reunion. Sabine, Willow, and Tessa, the three Brides of Belgravia, together again.