The Promise

by May McGoldrick

  “Would you be kind enough to tell me…what it is exactly that you have planned?”

  “Why, to make love to you.”

  She seemed to stop breathing as he backed her slowly toward the stone wall of the mill. His fingers were already working on loosening the laces of her dress. “Do you remember our first kiss here at the mill?”

  She nodded, rising on her toes and capturing his lips in a kiss. His body pressed against hers, his hips rubbing intimately against hers. She broke off the kiss and, laying her head back against the wall, looked up to him in wonder. Stanmore could no longer see any fear in those eyes—only awareness and anticipation.

  “I have dreamed of making love to you against this wall—on this grass, in that lake—since that day.” His hand cupped her breast through the dress, and her eyes closed. Hearing the moan deep in her throat, he brushed his lips against hers. “What say you, Rebecca? Is this a day dreams are made of?”

  “I am yours to take!” she whispered fiercely. “Heart, soul, and body! Yours to have for…”

  Stanmore captured her mouth before she could finish. For now! He had no desire to hear such things. All that mattered was now…but the future began now, as well!

  And right now he wanted her to become frenzied with need. Continuing to kiss her mouth, he captured one of her hands and guided it downward from his chest to the front of his breeches. The hard fullness of him must have startled her first, for she immediately withdrew her hand. But an instant later, she sought him out—timidly, slowly, feeling him, exploring him. A low groan of pleasure emitted from deep within him, and this appeared to give her the courage that she needed.

  “You must tell me if I am doing anything wrong.”

  “There is nothing you can do to me that would be wrong.” His fingers finished undoing the laces, and he pulled down the dress and lace chemise from her shoulders. He stroked her full breasts with his palm. “But you are only allowed to stop when I drop at your feet unconscious.”

  The sound of her soft laughter warmed him, and he thought of all the years they could have together, enjoying each other and sharing such a life.

  He bent his head to her breasts and took her sweet flesh into his mouth, but she was clearly determined to not allow him to again lift her alone into a state of bliss. Not this time. Coaxing his mouth back to her lips, she seduced his mouth with her lips and tongue and with soft murmured cries in her throat. Before he could recover from that, she was undoing the buttons of his breeches with timid fingers.

  Stanmore was lost the moment she reached inside and actually touched him. Of all the control he’d employed last night, he could not summon any of it this afternoon. His hands were shaking when he drew her down onto the blanket with him and pushed up her skirts. “This is too quick,” he groaned when she lay back, pulling him on top of her.

  “No! Give me all of you!” With an air of absolute certainty, she guided the tip of his manhood to her wet folds, and he was a lost man. He drove into her with a single motion and stopped, forcing himself to retain some semblance of control. She gave no cry, but the tears gathering in the blue orbs bespoke her pain. He waited—fighting the urge to pull back and imbed himself deeply again—and instead made love to her mouth and teased her breasts until she was writhing beneath him and pulling him into her. He rolled them on the blanket until she was on top of him, and her eyes opened in surprise.

  “Can we make love this way?”

  “You’d be surprised at all the ways.”

  She looked down at him in awe, but he was the one dazzled by the sight above him. Her dress lay open, her exposed breasts caressed by the breeze and kissed by the sun. Her skirts billowed around them, hiding the most intimate contact of their flesh. Her face took on a questioning look, and he smiled. Stanmore reached beneath the skirts and, cupping her buttocks, lifted her and lowered her again, sending her on the journey to fulfillment. And as her straining body writhed in the rhythmic dance of love, he reveled in her cries of ecstasy.

  Rolling her again beneath him, he heard Rebecca’s whispered declaration, and an instant later Stanmore burst into a place he never knew existed this side of heaven.

  ***

  She felt the dampness of the shirt on his back and gathered him tightly in her arms. Last night, and for the first time, she had experienced a sexual release. But not until moments ago had she realized what it was like to have the earth stop turning and time stand still, to have the very breath catch in a lover’s chest as they flew toward their mutual fulfillment. In the span of these few precious moments, Stanmore had been able to open a most wondrous door. He had forced her to glimpse the beauty of a life that lay beyond it, a life that emanated from two people committed eternally to each other, a life that she could never have dared herself to dream.

  Rebecca fought the painful knot that was forming in her chest. She brushed her lips against his hair as he rested so serenely on top of her. She could feel the pounding of his heartbeat beginning to slow. She cherished the feel of his weight. The strength that flowed from him. She turned her attention to the present and tried to not mourn what was to come.

  CHAPTER 28

  “I do not understand this. Have I died and gone to heaven?”

  “Only if I am there, too.” Jamey jumped onto the bed and pulled his feet up, sitting cross-legged. “You are at Solgrave.”

  “But they shall come after me…to take me back!” Israel glanced anxiously toward the door, where a young serving woman had just gone out with an empty bowl of broth that she’d been cheerfully spooning into him.

  For as long as he’d been awake, there had been people around him. White people. Taking care of him. The doctor. Mrs. Ford. The kind old housekeeper, sending servants in and out as she herself had seen to his face and back. This morning, Israel had even been stunned to see the earl of Stanmore come in to ask after him, before taking Mrs. Ford away. In fact, this was the first time that he and Jamey had been left to themselves.

  “No one is taking you, Israel. Squire Wentworth was already here, but my father sent him on his way.”

  Israel’s turned his battered face questioningly to Jamey. Through his swollen eyelids, he met the other boy’s gaze. “The bailiff must have followed me to our cottage. He caught me there with your mama’s wrap and…and he was set to kill me.” His ribs and body ached so badly that he wanted to cry, but he blinked back the tears. “Outside…when he was beating me with that old stick of his…and kicking me, too, for good measure…I saw the earl coming. I heard him shout once at Mickleby before the bailiff clubbed me in the head again. After that, I don’t remember a thing…until waking up here with all your folk around me.”

  His fingers touched the soft linen of the sheets hesitantly.

  “Never in my life have I slept in a real bed.” His body was too beaten up to feel anything but throbbing pain, but he knew this bed was softer than any cloud in the sky. And the people seeing to him had been nicer than any angels he’d ever dreamed of running into in heaven. “His lordship saved my life, Jamey. You were right. Lord Stanmore is different.”

  “You should have seen him. He beat that dog of a bailiff real good. I think my father would have killed him if the cowardly cur hadn’t run away.”

  Jamey had said it twice already. Father. Israel wanted to smile at his friend and tell him. But he decided Jamey already knew that he was looking on the earl in a different way. Besides, it hurt too much to smile, and he was getting very tired.

  “From now on, you’ll be living in Solgrave like me. I heard Daniel tell Mrs. Trent that my father is settling accounts with the squire, so no one at Melbury Hall will have any hold on you.”

  Israel’s gaze drifted up to the ceiling that seemed to be as high as the sky. If he looked really hard, he thought he could even imagine stars smiling down on him. “I know his lordship will be a good master. For years, I’ve heard Mr. Cunningham and Reverend Trimble sing his praises. I’ll do my best to be a hardworking slave.”

  �
�Not a slave, Israel.” The man’s deep voice in the doorway drew both of the boys’ faces. Lord Stanmore was leaning against the jamb. “You are to be free now, lad.” He walked to the bed. “As free as James, here.” He ruffled the other boy’s hair and sat down on a chair. “And you shall grow up as a free man.”

  The earl was far bigger than Squire Wentworth. He looked even stronger than Mickleby. But Israel was not afraid. Though his face was stern and he had a gaze like a black-eyed cat, there wasn’t a shred of meanness in his looks. In fact, his lordship made him feel safe—inside and outside.

  “I don’t know where I was born…or who my parents were, m’lord. I don’t know what being free means.” Israel’s words were a quiet whisper.

  The earl looked down to his hands, and Israel saw his face harden in a frown. “I know that is true, Israel, and I am sorry about it. But you were born in the same way that James and I were born. God meant for all of us to be free.” He sat down and touched the blanket. “Being free means no one will claim it as a right to mistreat you. It means you shall control your own life. When you are grown, you shall choose where you wish to live and how hard you want to work and how you spend the fruits of your labor.”

  “But, m’lord, I have no place to live!”

  “You shall live at Solgrave,” the earl answered. “And when James goes away to Eton for the fall term…” he paused, and Israel watched as the father’s and son’s gazes met. There was no longer a fight in Jamey’s expression—only respect and acceptance. The earl’s gaze turned to Israel again. “You shall go to school in the village. You have done too much work with your hands for someone so young. I believe you might just enjoy working your mind a little now.”

  “I shall need to earn my keep, m’lord.” Israel promised.

  “I am certain you will, lad! Daniel makes sure everyone at Solgrave earns their keep. But you shan’t be beaten for it, and you shall earn a wage for the work you do.” The earl looked from one to the other and then rose to his feet. “I think you two will want some time to yourselves. Knowing Mrs. Trent, she shall be up here any moment, scolding James and me for not giving you enough rest.”

  As the earl of Stanmore left them, Jamey turned to Israel. “I do not like being sent away to school, but I shall go because the earl thinks I should.”

  “And I shall be here waiting for you when you come home.”

  The boy smiled and placed his hand on top of Israel’s. “This is very good, don’t you think so?”

  Israel blinked back the tears and tried to not think of the other slaves still at the Grove. He tried to not think of the whippings and worse that the others would still be living with every day. He tried not to see Moses in his mind’s eye—a giant of a man who cried every night in his sleep and wet himself at the very sight of a whip.

  “Very nearly,” Israel whispered solemnly. “This is very nearly heaven!”

  ***

  The stage floor had been rolling beneath her feet tonight, the faces of the audience indistinct. But Jenny had heard them well enough. By the devil, rowdy and lewd they were in the pit! True, she may have imbibed in a little too much spirits this afternoon and hadn’t remembered a few…well, more than a few of her lines, but it hadn’t mattered much to this rabble. With the uproarious laughter and the vulgar hilarity going on in the pit, no one would have heard a thing anyway.

  Jenny Greene groped toward the small changing room they all shared backstage. Rustics! Addle-brained fools! Just because she’d tripped and fallen twice coming on for her first lines, that was hardly reason enough to carry on so throughout the play! This Covent Garden crowd was becoming lewder and lower every year. Not like the old days, when she had played Ophelia and Rosamond and Lady Macbeth at Drury Lane.

  “Send him my way when you are finished with him, will you, Jenny?”

  “What?”

  “Never seen this one. Have you?”

  “He is a dream, Jenny!”

  Jenny leaned a hand against the wall to steady herself and looked confusedly at the three actresses who were pushing their way out of the dressing room.

  “There, love. You have the place all to yourself!” The fourth girl winked at her before slipping out the door.

  Lord, she thought. And still they come.

  After dealing with those rolling floor boards all night, though, Jenny was feeling a little queasy about lifting her skirts for yet another admirer. But her vanity soon quelled the thought. Now that she thought of it, it had been a long time since anyone of significance had been waiting backstage for her. Perhaps she’d just take a look at him. She reached inside the neckline of her dress to adjust the weight of her breasts and noticed the long tear in the side of the bodice. That first fall onstage must had torn it. Nice of her fellow actors to tell her, Jenny thought. No wonder they’d laughed in the pit.

  She saw the bottle of gin and the cups long before noticing the flowers and the gentleman.

  “Mrs. Greene, you are a marvel, ma’am.”

  It was difficult to tear her gaze from the bottle, but she forced herself to look at the handsome man towering over the dressing table. He was younger than the ones she’d been seeing lately and far better dressed. A lovely sword, as well. Quite lovely.

  “Performing dries an actor’s throat like little else.” She sauntered as casually as she could toward the bottle. “What is your name?”

  “Sir Nicholas Spencer…at your service, ma’am.”

  She picked up the bottle and tried to pour a drink, but the cup moved. It seemed to be moving more and more as of late.

  “Please allow me, Mrs. Greene.”

  She watched the man’s sure movements as he took the bottle from her hand and filled two glasses. He looked good—smelled good —she was certain he would even taste good. It had been a very long time since anyone had succeeded in whetting her appetite. Jenny let her gaze travel appreciatively down to the front of his breeches. Very long, indeed.

  “It is far too public in here for two people to get properly acquainted,” she cooed, accepting the cup from his hand. “Allow me to finish this, and we shall go back to my place. It isn’t far.”

  “Perhaps you will allow me to finish my drink, as well.”

  He put aside a pile of costumes that had been heaped on two chairs and set one of them by the dressing table for her. Jenny concentrated hard and successfully negotiated the seat on the first try. She took another long drink and eyed his muscular thighs as he sat down near her.

  “Are you fond of the theater, Nicholas?”

  “Indeed, ma’am. Though I’ve not much interest in the highbrow stuff.”

  “And do you attend often?”

  “As often as my schedule permits.” He leaned over, and when Jenny looked down, she found the cup in her hand already filled. “But the truth be told, I mostly attend the plays in which my favorite actresses command the stage.”

  The cup felt heavy in her hand, but she wasn’t willing to part with it. She took another drink…to lighten it. “And do you have many favorites?”

  “If I may be so bold, ma’am, there is none I esteem more highly than the inimitable Jenny Greene.”

  Jenny felt the excitement ripple through her—a thrill so long forgotten—a feeling far stronger and more pleasurable than anything gin could produce. Staring into the young man’s adoring blue gaze, she could see the legions of men who used to wait for her after the curtain fell. The gifts—the balls—the attention—the jealous looks of other women who knew they could never compete with Jenny Greene.

  “When was it you first saw me on stage? Was it at Drury Lane? At the Haymarket?” The young man paused an inordinately long time, she thought, and a pang of insecurity sent the cup again to her lips. As the liquid slid down her throat, it no longer tasted quite so pleasant, however. She downed the rest of it, nonetheless, and reached for the bottle herself, getting it on the first try.

  “To be honest, ma’am, it was your portrait that I saw first…before I ever saw you on
stage.”

  She saw him watching her hand on the bottle. Or was the rogue looking at her breasts? she thought with satisfaction.

  “I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life up to that moment. I recall standing there, for an eternity it seemed, staring at a woman who was surely a recreation of Venus herself.”

  She felt the snarl pulling at her lips, but she hardly cared a whit. He was enchanted with the woman she was. The beauty she had once possessed. She didn’t bother with the cup and the mouth of the bottle banged against her lips, spilling some of it down the front of her costume. She brushed at it without much concern. The damned thing was torn anyway. She peered at him and held the bottle tightly.

  “And where…” she said with an air of majesty, “where was this portrait?”

  He reached over to take the bottle from her, but she hugged the spirits against her breast.

  “Where was it?” She must have shouted her question, for there was a ringing in her ears afterward. Sir Nicholas, however, showed no sign of anything amiss, only a slight frown of concern crossed his face when she tried to take another drink from the bottle. Well, the devil take him!

  He shrugged his broad shoulders and laid his gloves over his knee. “I first saw the portrait when I was a lad. It was in the gallery of a villa in Hampton. My father had taken me to visit his friend, the great actor David Garrick.”

  “David!” She sank back against the chair, a piercing melancholy stabbing at her heart. “My beautiful, sweet, unfaithful David.”

  “You were on stage together for years, I believe.”

  “We were, indeed,” she whispered, her mind warming with reminiscences of the past. “He discovered me, you know. He was in love with me.”

  “How could he avoid it?”

  “True,” she murmured. “They all were.”

  “When was that portrait painted, Mrs. Greene?”

  Her grip on the bottle must have loosened, for she saw him take it from her lap and put it on the table. He placed her cup beside it.