“Thank you, brother,” she said.
“Saint filled in all the things I didn’t know about Wilkes,” Thomas said. “There have been a good dozen people in and out of here all morning. I think half the male population of San Francisco is looking for that bloody bastard.”
She looked at him hopefully. “Do you think he’s really gone for good?”
“I don’t know, Thomas said thoughtfully. He gently stroked her hair back from her forehead. He tried a crooked grin. “How he could want you—a tangled little raggamuffin—well, it’s beyond me.”
He wouldn’t want me if I were pregnant.
She said, “Tell me about the ball. Did you have a good time?”
“After what happened to you, very little. Del and I kept it under wraps, so not many people know.”
“I thought you said people were trooping in and out all morning.”
“I mean friends, not acquaintances.”
“Michael has a lot of friends,” Jules said.
“And so do you, love.”
“Thomas?”
“Yes?”
“Have you ever made love to a girl?”
“Good grief, Jules! . . . Ah, Saint, you’re just in time to save me from embarrassing questions!”
“What embarrassing questions?” he asked, smiling from Thomas’ rueful expression to his wife’s flushed face.
“I asked him if he’d ever made love before,” Jules said, thrusting up her chin, “to a girl.”
“Shall I leave, Thomas, so you can say what you will to this inquisitive wife of mine?”
“No,” Thomas said hurriedly. “Actually, Saint, I think that knock on her head must have addled her wits.”
“I think that happened a long time ago,” Saint said, and sat down on the bed beside her. “How is my impertinent patient?” Why, he wondered, had she asked such a question of her brother? He decided that he really didn’t want to know.
Jules managed a shy smile. “I’m all right,” she said. “Truly, even though I do look like a tangled raggamuffin.”
“That sounds suspiciously like a brotherly description.”
“Sure was,” Thomas said. “Now, Jules, you behave yourself and do as Saint tells you. I’ll leave you to her, Saint. I’m off to see Bunker Stevenson. Of all things, the old buzzard wants to talk to me about my future.”
“Bunker? What future? He’s not a doctor.”
“Lord only knows,” Thomas said, grinning. “If I’m not here for dinner, don’t miss me, all right?” He strode from the room, whistling, his walk cocky.
“That young man,” Saint said, “is going places.”
“I think this must have something to do with Penelope. Thomas was marvelously nasty to her last night.”
“Intrigued the little twit, huh?”
“Thomas did say that she needed a man to teach her manners. It seems he’s decided he’s just the man to do it.”
Saint laughed. “What a pair you two are. Now, Jules, let’s see how that lump is doing.”
She expected an explosion of pain, but there was only a dull throbbing at his touch. He was very close to her, his eyes intent—his doctor’s look, she thought. She felt his warm breath on her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“So you should be,” he murmured, still intent on his examination. “But we won’t speak of it again for a while. Not until you’re back in top form.”
“I’m going to be twenty next month,” she said.
“Are you, now? I’d forgotten.”
“I’m not fourteen anymore, Michael.”
His hand stilled for a moment. He said slowly, “No, you’re not. You want to know something else, sweetheart? You’ve got a very colorful jaw.”
She didn’t want to talk about her wretched head or jaw, she wanted to talk about being celibate, but she was so drowsy, her head fuzzy. “When I’m in top form,” she said, her voice slurred, “then I’ll do . . .”
Saint pulled back and looked down at his sleeping wife. “What will you do, imp?” he asked softly. He gently smoothed the riotous curls from her face. Twenty years old. His mind leapt forward without pause. So many women had children by the time they were twenty. He frowned to himself even as his hand slid beneath the cover and rested lightly on her belly. He stretched his fingers, measuring the distance between her pelvic bones. He whipped his hand back, furious with himself, but he couldn’t stop the thought. She wasn’t as small as he’d believed she’d be. He left the bedroom, not looking back at her.
“It makes me so bloody angry I want to yell!”
Jules smiled at Chauncey. She was sitting up in bed, feeling quite marvelous, really, despite Michael’s insistence that she remain off her feet for another day. “Michael says Wilkes has disappeared,” she said.
“It’s true, if all of Saint’s criminal friends say so,” Chauncey said. “Thank God Thomas was there.”
“Indeed,” Jules said. She added, tired of speaking of Wilkes, “I understand your dear friend Penelope is in the throes of a transformation.”
Chauncey giggled, clearly distracted, as Jules had hoped she would be. “Lord, how I would love being a fly on the wall in the same room with your brother and dear Penelope. As to any transformation, I should live so long! What do you think?”
“Oddly enough, Thomas likes her. He says beneath all those layers of shrewisness beats only half a shrewish heart.”
“I wish him luck. Oh, incidentally, the most ironic thing has happened. I suppose it’s divine justice and all that. Did Saint tell you about the Butlers up and leaving San Francisco just yesterday?”
“Who are the Butlers?” Jules asked.
“Oh dear, I should have known Saint wouldn’t say a thing about it.”
“The cat’s escaped, Chauncey, you might as well tell me.”
“It’s a rather long story.”
Jules groaned. “Not another storyteller.”
“All right, it’s a very short story. You see, Ira Butler married Byrony DeWitt, who is now Byrony Hammond. He married her because, in truth, his half-sister, Irene, was pregnant with his child.”
Jules could only stare at her.
“My sentiments exactly,” Chauncey said. “In any case, Byrony agreed to pretend that she was pregnant and that Irene’s child was hers. She didn’t know then that the child was the result of an incestuous union. She found that out later. Del had the marriage annulled, and Byrony married Brent. It always bothered me that the Butlers got away with their deception, for Byrony was hurt very badly. Just a couple of days ago, if what I’ve heard is right, a new maid walked in on them, in bed. Their house of cards collapsed. I understand they’ve left to return to Baltimore. Now, that wasn’t too long or too involved, was it?”
“What it is is amazing. Poor Byrony, I had no idea—”
“Not many people do. Just our little group, I suppose you’d say. Now, my dear, I think I’ll leave you alone. Saint told me not to tire you.”
“Oh, Chauncey. How much money did the ball make for the Hammonds and Wakeville?”
“Nearly fifteen thousand dollars,” Chauncey said, preening a bit. “Both Brent and Byrony are esctatic, needless to say. Now, you rest, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Jules wondered before she indeed fell asleep why people’s lives were never so simple as one would imagine. Her first thought upon waking several hours later was: Tonight I’m going to seduce my husband. I’ll prove to him that his nobility is no longer necessary. The next time I see Jameson Wilkes, if there is a next time, I’ll stick my pregnant stomach out at him.
She giggled.
18
“Jesus, I’m tired.”
Jules looked at her husband and smiled. You won’t be soon. She said, “I’m sorry. A difficult patient?”
“Make that plural. How do you feel, sweetheart?”
“Just fine, top form and all that, and you aren’t going to sleep downstairs tonight, are you?”
Saint swallowed, automatically drawing back from her. “I
don’t want to disturb your sleep,” he said.
“But what if I wake up during the night, ill? Do you want me to crash a chair against the floor?”
Saint sighed. “I suppose I could sleep in the guestroom with Thomas.”
“In that case, I could simply shout, I suppose,” Jules said calmly, watching him closely. “Of course, that might hurt my head dreadfully.”
Saint floundered about for reasons, any reason in fact, to stay away from her. Finding none for the moment, he said, eyeing the tub, “You had a bath.”
“Yes, and Lydia washed my hair for me.”
“I see,” he said, beginning to inch toward the door.
Jules played her ace. “Please don’t leave me alone, Michael. It’s nightmares . . . and I’m frightened.” Please forgive me for the fib.
She thought she heard him curse very softly, and kept firm control over the smile that threatened to break free. “Very well,” he said, and his voice sounded like a condemned man’s.
He turned off all the lights and undressed in the dark. Jules didn’t mind. She rather hoped he wouldn’t wear one of those ridiculous nightshirts. But he did.
“Good night, Jules,” he said as he slipped in beside her, hugging the far side of the bed.
“Good night,” she said softly, and prepared to wait. Not too long, just enough time for him to relax.
“Michael?” she said finally, not moving.
“Yes?”
He sounded too alert, she thought. Well, there was no help for it. “What do you think of celibacy?”
She heard him suck in his breath. “Go to sleep, Jules,” he said, his voice harsh.
“Do you think it’s more difficult for a man to be celibate than a woman?”
She was going to drive him crazy, he thought, inching even closer to the far side of the bed. She was so bloody innocent, so guileless . . .
“I don’t like being celibate.”
Guileless, hell! “All right, Jules,” he said, turning toward her, “what the devil is going on?”
She said very calmly, “Aren’t we married?”
“I repeat, what the devil is going on?”
She sought the word Del Saxton has used. “I think we should consummate our marriage.”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“Jules, please, no. I am not such a monster, and you are hurt, and I won’t add to it, do you hear me?”
He continued, his voice jerky, about how he didn’t want her to be afraid of him. She said nothing, merely waited until he had gotten it all out of his system.
When at last he fell silent, she smiled into the darkness and squirmed over to him. She took his face between her hands and kissed him. She missed at first because it was so dark, but then she felt his mouth beneath hers. “No,” he said, trying to shove her away.
She clung like a leech. She wanted to tell him that she loved him, but knew that he didn’t want to hear that. It would make him feel guilty because he didn’t love her. She said in the most seductive voice she could manage, “I want you, Michael. You are my husband. I am a woman, not a child. Please.”
Saint felt her words crash through him. His body was taut, on fire. Lust, you damned bastard! “Jules,” he began, “I will not hurt you.”
“Why would you hurt me?”
He’d turned to face her, his strong hands clasping her shoulders. “Any man would hurt you—if not physically, then . . .”
“You think my weak woman’s mind would snap or something?”
She managed to slip one hand free, and with unerring instinct let her fingers rove down his belly. He gasped, now trying to escape her. “Stop it,” he moaned.
Her fingers found him, hard and throbbing through the nightshirt. “No,” she said, “I won’t stop. You are my husband, and you owe me certain things. You keep telling me that I’m your responsibility. Well, be responsible.”
“Get your hand off me, Jules, or I won’t be responsible for—”
She laughed.
“You damned little . . .” He had no time to search out the right word, for she pressed herself against him, her hand between them, holding him gently but firmly.
“I am not afraid, Michael. Not of you, in any case. Please, be my husband.”
“Oh damn,” he said, still not moving. Suddenly she released him and moved away. He drew a jagged breath, aware of relief and dreadful disappointment.
He reached out his hand, not really meaning to, thinking that perhaps she was upset and needed reassurance. His hand met bare flesh. Her shoulder. She’d pulled off her nightgown. Very slowly he rose from the bed. He lit one lamp, turning to face her.
A sheet was pulled just barely over her breasts. She looked very beautiful, her eyes luminous, her hair tousled about her face, her shoulders white and slender.
She was smiling at him.
“You look silly in that nightshirt,” she said.
“Yes,” he said finally, “I suppose I do.” He pulled it off, standing very quietly at the end of the bed, naked. He was aware that she was studying him, and his member, the focus of her attention, thrust outward.
“Have you had enough yet?” he asked, his voice hard.
He watched her lick her lower lip. “Oh no,” she said, holding out her hand to him. “Please, Michael, don’t be afraid of me.”
“I am afraid for you, Jules. Look at me, for God’s sake!”
“I have, and you’re beautiful. You were perhaps more romantically beautiful that night on the beach when you came out of the water—”
“I am not beautiful. I am a big, hairy man, and you know very well that if I touched you, you would hate me.”
“And be terrified of you?”
“Yes, damn you!”
“Aren’t you getting cold standing there with only your hairy chest on?”
She was goading him, and doing it very well, he thought, frowning at her. She let the cover slip, on purpose of course, and obligingly he dropped his gaze.
“Jules,” he said finally, reaching for his dressing gown, “you don’t know what you’re asking. I would touch you and caress you, and I would come inside your body. It would bring back all the pain and fear you felt with Wilkes.”
She felt a surge of warmth at the very graphic image his words created in her. Wilkes and her experiences with him were a million miles away. As were those with John Bleecher.
“Please, Michael.” She wanted to touch him, wanted to feel his body covering her. She wanted him to kiss her and tell her how much he wanted her, how much he loved—Her thoughts broke off at that. He didn’t love her, at least not yet he didn’t. She would make him love her.
“Please,” she said again. “Come to bed, Michael.”
“You’re my wife,” he said very quietly to himself. He chucked aside the dressing gown and climbed into bed beside her.
He lay quietly, still uncertain. Then she was pressed against him, her soft breasts against his chest. He swallowed, and without further thought, he clasped her to him. “Oh God,” he whispered, gently pressing her onto her back. He lowered his head and lightly touched his mouth to hers. A bolt of searing need shot through him, and he trembled with the force of it. He had to go slowly, very slowly. If he frightened her, if he hurt her, he would never forgive himself. He called on every bit of experience he had. He remembered his wedding night with Kathleen, her pain when he entered her that first time. It was a pity that women couldn’t be like men in that regard. No maidenheads, no pain. He drew a deep breath. Very slowly. He merely kissed her, gently, giving her time to decide, to pull away from him, or to react to him. He felt her hand stroking down his back, caressing his buttocks.
“Jules,” he whispered into her mouth. “Let me love you, it’s better that way.”
“Why? I want to touch you.”
“Because I won’t be able to control myself,” he said, his voice raw. He clasped her hands and drew them above her head. The cover came only to her waist, and his eyes were draw
n to her breasts. “You are so white . . .” He said his thought aloud: “You are a man’s dream.”
“And you are my dream,” she said, looking at him while he studied her. She felt his warm breath on her breast. Would he touch her there, as Wilkes had done? Make her feel ashamed and somehow dirty? Stop it! He is not Wilkes!
But when his mouth closed over her, she felt a moment of utter terror. She didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. He was so very gentle, his tongue playful and teasing. He raised his head and looked at her in the dim light. “I don’t know where to kiss you first,” he said. “I want all of you at once.”
He came back over her and clasped her to him. He kissed her ears, the tip of her nose, smoothed her eyebrows with a fingertip, told her over and over how beautiful she was. “Now, you must learn how to kiss properly.”
She smiled at that, and waited, willing her mind to ease, to allow her pleasure with him.
“Part your lips,” he said, and she did. She felt his mouth, firm and warm, felt his tongue glide slowly over her lower lip. “Breathe through your nose, Jules,” he said, and tested the waters. “Excellent, little one,” he said, smiling warmly down at her.
“Now, I want to feel your tongue. Yes, that’s it.” He thought he would explode with the intense sensations swamping his body. She was so giving, so trusting. . . .
He released her wrists and she brought her arms about his back. When he thrust his tongue into her mouth, then quickly withdrew, she sucked in her breath in surprise. He laughed softly, and said into her mouth, “I will come into you like that, Jules.” He grinned ruefully. “But I doubt I’ll leave you so quickly. I’ll probably want to stay inside you—” He broke off—he had to. Odd how his own words, his own images, were making him crazy.
“When?”
He closed his eyes a moment, willing himself to control. But he couldn’t help himself. He eased on top of her, balancing himself on his elbows above her. “When you are ready for me,” he managed, and kissed her again, slowly, thoroughly.
Jules felt his swollen member against her closed thighs. She wanted to feel him, and tried to open her legs.
“No,” he said. “Not yet, sweetheart.” Saint wanted to caress and kiss every inch of her, but he held back. The thought of her freezing in embarrassment made him stop cold. But if he didn’t bring her pleasure, he would hurt her, he knew it. Slowly he eased off her. “No,” he said softly when she tried to press herself against him, “no, just lie still.” His fingertips stroked lightly over her bruised jaw, downward, feeling the soft flesh of her shoulders, the silken flesh of her breasts. He took a taut nipple between two long fingers. “You feel so soft . . . and so pink.”