The Clergyman's Daughter

by Jeffries, Julia

  Suddenly the groom’s overweening audacity failed him, as he realized that he had drastically underestimated Raeburn’s reaction to his taunts, that for all his fine clothes and fancy ways the earl was no soft, lily-cheeked aristocrat who would stand idly by and watch…. “Me lord!” he squawked, quailing at his hulking approach, O’Shea stumbled backward, but before he could retreat out of Raeburn’s range, a large hand crushed down over his shoulder, catching the neck of his shirt in a strangling grip, and the leather-covered shaft of the short whip flexed and whistled through the air. In the stall nearest them one of the horses danced and snorted nervously, disturbing the remainder of the already jittery animals, and in the charged atmosphere O’Shea’s squeals of pain were almost drowned out as the leather thong laid bloody welts across his back.

  “Graham, for the love of God!” Jessica cried in protest, gaping in wide-eyed revulsion as the crop slashed again and again. The groom was young and strong, with supple, well-trained muscles, but Raeburn was half again his size, and his every blow was fueled by a fury and frustration he had kept bottled up too long. Jessica looked on sickened as O’Shea groveled at Raeburn’s feet, whimpering, his tanned, brawny arms useless against the lash except as a feeble protection for his head. Fetid orders of blood and sweat rose up to choke her and further excite the horses, and as she watched helplessly she saw a dark, humiliating stain seep through the coarse fabric of O’Shea’s trousers.

  “Graham, stop it, you’re killing him!” she shrilled, and Raeburn hesitated for a fraction of a second, his arm upraised to strike yet again. “Please…stop…it,” she begged hoarsely, spacing the words between painful gulps of air. He stared at her with eyes opaque with rage, lusterless, obsidian. “Don’t…please don’t…” she said again, trying to gauge his uncertainty. As he stood frozen she took a deep breath and stretched on tiptoe to reach for the riding crop.

  At her movement Raeburn groaned, “You little slut!” and with all his great strength he brought the lash down across her arm.

  She could not breathe. As if choked by opium vapors, she blinked and watched with the distended time-sense of the drug as the curling thong of the whip coiled about her wrist, first constricting then cutting the white flesh; she saw the strip of leather unwrap and slide away, blazing a track of livid white that almost magically swelled and pinked under her gaze. When drops of blood beaded and burned like liquid flame along the center of the welt, she lifted her green eyes to meet Raeburn’s—but before she could look at him, from the shadows of the stable behind them they heard the sleep-thick voice of Tomkins, the head groom, demanding gruffly, “What in bloody ‘ell is the matter with these—Your Lordship!”

  * * * *

  In the shelter of her room Jessica bathed her wrist and bandaged it awkwardly with a strip of gauze torn from a diaper she had filched from Willa’s workbasket. She had to use her teeth to hold the clumsy knot as she tightened it, and by the time the dressing seemed reasonably secure, she was sweating with exertion and pain. Limply she sank into an armchair and waited for Raeburn to come to her.

  She knew he would come. She would have known it even had she not seen the promise in his eyes in that fraction of a heartbeat between Tomkins’ appalled gasp and her own wail of mortification, between the groom’s stunned intrusion on that scene in the stables and her own harried flight. As soon as Tomkins stumbled bewildered onto the shocking tableau formed in the circle of yellow lamplight by the earl, his sister-in-law, and the servant cringing on the ground at his feet, Raeburn had drawn himself up, very much the master, the man in control, peering down his long nose and daring his subordinate to question the tightness of his judgment; Jessica in her torn nightclothes had been the one who felt sullied and shamed by Tomkins’ curious scrutiny. When she flushed and moaned with dismay, turning to run, Raeburn had made no attempt to stop her, but she had known as plainly as if he had spoken the words aloud that there was unfinished business between them.

  Like an aristocrat awaiting the creak of tumbril wheels outside the Conciergerie, she waited for Raeburn’s knock, and when it came, muffled but insistent, she levered herself out of her chair and trod silently to the door, her eyes trained steadfastly on the Aubusson carpet. She turned the knob and stepped back, still not glancing up; when he closed the door behind her and leaned against it, she noticed that the white top of one of his boots was flecked with blood, and she stared at the reddish-brown stain until he said softly, “Look at me, Jessica.”

  Slowly her eyes traveled up the long, strong length of him, the powerful legs encased absurdly in tall boots and skintight court breeches, the broad chest bare under the flapping lapels of his ruffled shirt. With a longing that bordered on pain, her gaze moved over his wide shoulders and the muscular column of his neck, lingering on the hard line of his jaw and his thin yet sensual mouth; then she looked into his eyes.

  Even in the subdued light of her sitting room his fair hair gleamed coolly, but his gray eyes were dark and unfathomable as he regarded her in turn. She expected scorn, but his voice remained oddly neutral when he commented, “Thanks to Tomkins’ timely entrance, your lover will survive.”

  “Fred O’Shea is not my lover,” Jessica averred quietly. “I have no lover.”

  “No?” She watched his brows slowly come together in a skeptical scowl as he looked down at her. “I find you in the stable, in your nightclothes, rolling about in the hay with a groom, and you expect me to believe that you are innocent?’

  Jessica said tiredly, “I never expect you to believe anything except what you want to believe, Graham.”

  “Even when the evidence against you seems over whelming?”

  She shrugged lightly. “Especially then.”

  For a long moment silence stretched between them, as taut as her nerves. She wondered why Raeburn didn’t do what he came for, order her to leave his home and never darken his threshold again. As she waited for him to speak she noticed strands of her long black hair dangling over her eyes, and with an unconscious dipping twist of her head, she flicked them back over her shoulder. The movement uncovered the dark braise on her cheek, and Raeburn observed it with a frown, With a delicacy surprising in one so large, he reached up to stroke the tender contusion. “You never explained how you came by this, Jess,” he said. His steely eyes narrowed, and something threatening flared deep inside them. “Did O’Shea hit you?”

  The warmth of his palm cupping the sensitized skin of her cheek unnerved her, making speech difficult. “No, Graham,” she said huskily, looking away. “The man had…nothing to…to do with it.”

  “Are you sure? Don’t defend him if he hurt you.” Lightly his fingers played across her face, ruffling her inky lashes, and the pad of his broad thumb caressed her lower lip. The small, seductive movement made Jessica flush with strange heat, and to still his hand she captured it with her own, the one that was bandaged.

  When Raeburn saw the gauze dressing around her wrist, he stiffened. “Oh, God,” he groaned, “who am I to accuse anyone else of harming you? A whip….” He winced as he inspected the wound, the droplets of blood that had seeped through the crude wrapping. “Are you all right, Jess?” he asked jerkily. “I’ll help you redo this if you like. I know it must hurt like hell.”

  Not as much as my heart, Jessica thought miserably, shaking her head, and something of her agony showed in her expressive features.

  Raeburn gritted his teeth and said remorsefully, “Forgive me, Jess, I beg you. I did not mean…you know I would never….” His voice died away as he bent his fair head to kiss the bandage.

  At the touch of his lips against her arm, she trembled violently. “Yes, Graham, I know,” she reassured; “it was an accident. You were…incensed.”

  He thought she shivered from pain, and he recoiled, almost colliding with the door. He relaxed his considerable weight back against it and stared down at her, regarding her inscrutably. “What an enigma you are, Jess,” he noted, his bass voice heavy with wistful irony; “often I think how
much you seem to have changed in the past two years, how different from the girl in the shabby dress whom I met by the roadside—and then, sometimes, I wonder if you’ve altered at all. You were beautiful, naive, gauche, incredibly defensive. Now….” His gray eyes surveyed her comprehensively, pausing at the swell of her breasts beneath the loose covering of her torn night robe, and he drawled, “You’re still beautiful, of course, more so than ever—although you do seem to retain a penchant for shabby garments—and you appear remarkably self-assured for someone of your age. Unfortunately, that polish of sophistication looks to have been acquired at the cost of your very appealing naïveté, your…innocence.”

  Jessica refused to be drawn in by the unmistakable query in Raeburn’s words. She parried, “That’s funny, Graham. I always thought my…innocence…was the virtue that appealed least to you.”

  Wryly he acknowledged the adroitness of her response, peering absently at the shadowed ceiling and sighing. “Did I call you ‘defensive,’ my dear? Now you defend everyone but yourself. Why, Jess?”

  She gazed at him hungrily and remembered all the times she had wronged him, her love, her greatest ally. “You told me yourself that “I had changed,” she answered quietly. “Perhaps I no longer consider myself worthy of defense.”

  Raeburn jerked his head around to look at her once more. His eyes flashed as he grated, “What are you saying, Jess? Are you telling me that my suspicions are correct, after all, that the tender and virtuous dedication you have shown to your daughter, to everyone in the household is a sham? That since Andrew’s death you have become some kind of—of whore?”

  Jessica stared, her heart in her throat. His gentleness since coming to her room had disarmed her, and now she, was dazed by the force of his attack. Whore, she echoed despairingly; one word that spelled out the utter hopelessness of her love, Jessica had managed to save Claire from the consequences of her naive folly, but in doing so she had convinced Raeburn that she herself was a slut, guilty of all the vile crimes he had ever charged her with—and she could not defend herself without condemning the girl, sacrificing the one person at Renard Chase who had shown her friendship and affection…. Do they know you are my brother’s whore? What a fool she was! She could not blame this predicament on Claire. From the first day he came galloping into her life, that blunt, pithy monosyllable had capsulized Raeburn’s opinion of her, and there was nothing she could do to change it, ever. It was, as she had told him, what he in fact wanted to believe. To a man of his upbringing there were only two kinds of women: ladies, like Daphne Templeton, and whores. And since Jessica could never fit the accepted mold of a lady….

  Oh, what was the use? Hadn’t she learned that lesson long ago from Andrew? Why did she worry about O’Shea or Mason or the cartoons; why was she fearful of losing Raeburn’s favorable regard, when the truth was that she had never had it in the first place? She wanted Graham Foxe desperately, so what purpose could be served by denying herself his passion, the false and seductive simulation of his love, when there was no chance this side of the grave that she would ever earn love itself?

  Thinking, Just this once I shall have what I want, she touched him.

  She slid her white hands across the broad expanse of his chest, slipping them under the dangling lapels of his shirt and twining her slender fingers into the mat of crisp dark blond curls that covered his skin. She could feel his heart pound under her fingertips. Standing on tiptoe she half closed her eyes and leaned closer, pressing his massive body back against the door with her own slight weight. She felt him shift his legs farther apart to balance himself. With her lips she began to explore the sensitive hollows at the base of his throat. The scent and taste of him drugged her, making her dizzy.

  “Jess,” he said hoarsely, grasping her shoulders in his hands and pushing her just far enough away so that he could see her face. Her lashes fluttered upward, allowing him a glimpse of emerald eyes that were already clouding with desire, and in her cheeks a rosy tint budded and blossomed. He repeated thickly, “Jess, what are you doing?”

  “Don’t talk,” she murmured, smiling whimsically as she broke free of his grip and nuzzled her face against his chest.

  Except for the tolerant and intuitive Paphian who had initiated him into the mysteries of manhood on his seventeenth birthday—an enthusiastically received gift from several of his fellow underclassmen at Oxford—Raeburn had never encountered a woman who assumed the dominant role in their love play, his character and physique so naturally making him the aggressor, and now as Jessica kissed and caressed him, he did not know how to react. He felt flattered, aroused…bewildered. Far more accurately than she could have known, Jessica had analyzed Raeburn’s feelings about women, and now he was baffled by one who seemed to fit into no known category; he was not sure that such passion was…suitable…but oh, God…. A wave of desire, almost shocking in its intensity, pulsed through him. He felt sweat break out on his brow; coherent thought was becoming increasingly difficult. From deep in his throat he groaned, “I don’t understand you, Jess. I don’t…understand….”

  Near faint with desire, she reluctantly raised her head. “I am yours, Graham,” she said breathlessly, knowing at last that it was true. No matter how she fought him, since that first day two years before, Raeburn had been the one influence, the one reality in her life; what she had experienced with Andrew had been but a pale presage of that which was to come…. She lay against him, sure her knees were about to buckle. Even through the layers of her robe and gown she was achingly aware of his insistent need. “From the beginning,” she murmured simply, as if explaining something to a child, “there has been only…you.”

  Gasping at the sensations aroused by her slim white hands, he stared down at her, the top of her head gleaming ruddily in the firelight. He was not sure what madness drove her, and he knew he had to give her one final opportunity to retreat. He touched her hair, and she craned her neck to look up at him. “Jess,” he asked deeply, “are you certain?” Her answering smile was subtle and full of her newfound knowledge. With a strangled sound, he scooped her up into his arms and strode across the sitting room to the inner chamber and the friendly darkness of her waiting bed.

  “Light the candle,” she whispered as he set her on her feet beside the bed, and when he looked surprised, she stretched on tiptoe and brushed her lips lightly across his. “Please, Graham,” she said; “I want to be able to see you.”

  Before he could put his arms around her to deepen the kiss, she stepped back and began to untie the sash of her robe. His fingers itched to perform that simple task for her, but she retreated farther. Puzzled by her mood, he nodded curtly and disappeared into the sitting room to fetch a spill of twisted paper from the basket beside the fireplace, and when he carried the light back into the bedroom, her robe and gown were piled in a heap on the rug, and Jessica lay naked between the creamy linen sheets, waiting for him.

  He shrugged out of his shirt and sat down on the edge of the bed beside her to pull off his boots. When they had joined the other clothes on the floor, he swiveled around so that he faced her, and she made no demur when he slowly drew the sheets away from the upper portion of her body. His eyes glowed with the radiance of heating steel as they skimmed over her. Even in the warm candlelight her skin was very white, little darker than the bandage on her wrist, and its pallor was emphasized by the blackness of the long, shining tress that lay over her shoulder and curled softly between her full breasts. He gazed cravingly at her, the rounded firmness that belied the extreme slenderness of her waist. She shivered slightly, and he saw that the rosy-brown nipples, larger than he had expected, were already hard and swollen, whether from the chilly air or her arousal, he could not tell. He lowered the sheets further, revealing the sleek but narrow curve of her hips and thighs. Her belly was flat, but around the navel he noticed faint silvery stretch marks that disappeared into the blue-black triangle of hair that covered the soft mound of her desire.

  Jessica, who had welcomed h
is inspection up till this point, suddenly felt self-conscious about those lingering reminders of her pregnancy, and instinctively she tried to shield them from his view with her hands. At that furtive and very feminine gesture, Raeburn smiled. Capturing her fingertips in his own, he pushed her hands gently aside and bent to trace the stretch marks with his lips.

  Jessica jerked convulsively. “Graham?” she murmured uncertainly, stretching out beseeching hands to him.

  “Christ, but you’re lovely,” he rasped when he raised his head. “More lovely than I could possibly have imagined….”

  Satisfied with his words, she relaxed. Her mouth curved upward to match his. “I’m cold too,” she urged softly. She ran her nails experimentally along the powerful muscles of the thighs that strained his tight breeches. “Please come to bed.”

  Quickly Raeburn divested himself of the last barrier to their union, giving Jessica a fleeting but heart-stopping glimpse of hard muscular perfection before he slipped beneath the bedclothes with her; then there was only the tilting of the mattress and the slide of flesh on flesh, petal smooth and hair-roughened, cool and radiantly hot. He was so large, his massive body filling her welcoming arms in a way that was familiar yet tantalizingly new, and when his great weight pressed her down seductively into the sheets, she closed her eyes with a sigh and groaned, “Oh, Graham, I had forgotten—” Then her words were crushed back into her throat as his mouth closed forcefully over hers.

  She could not get enough of him. Her need was too great, and every kiss, every stroke of greedy fingers frantically searching out the insistent secrets of his flesh served only to inflame her further. She began to writhe beneath him, trying to shift him into the final embrace. When he resisted, she stared wildly at him with glazed green eyes pleading mutely.