“Oh, I hope not completely,” Victoria said with amusement. “Teach the stubborn little nun not to fear a man. Then you will both be free.”
Wolfe turned his back on Victoria and looked at Jessica with cold indigo eyes. “It’s not too late to stop this farce, my lady. You’ll soon tire of being the common wife of a common man.”
“I shall not tire of being your wife.” It was a vow, and Jessica said it as such.
“Yes, you shall,” Wolfe said.
And that, too, was a vow.
1
St. Joseph, Missouri
Spring 1867
“D O be reasonable, my Lord Wolfe. It wasn’t my idea to dismiss Betsy and the footmen.”
“I’m not your lord. I’m a bastard, remember?”
“I find my memory improving with each moment,” Jessica said under her breath. “Ouch! That pinched.”
“Then stop wiggling like a worm on a hook. There are twenty buttons left and they’re as small as peas. Damnation. What silly idiot made a dress that a woman has to be helped into?”
And out of.
That was the worst of it. Wolfe knew the time would come eventually when he would have to undo each of the glittering jet buttons, and each undoing would reveal more warm, fragrant skin and fine lace lingerie. She was an elf who barely came up to his breastbone, but she was bringing him to his knees with raw desire. Her back was supple and elegant as a dancer’s, graceful as a flame; and like a flame she burned him.
“I’m sorry,” Jessica whispered unhappily as Wolfe’s words scorched her ears. “I had hoped—”
“Stop whispering, damn it. If you have something to say, say it and damn all this aristocratic foolishness about talking so softly a man has to bend double to hear you.”
“I thought that you would be glad to see me,” Jessica said with great clarity. “Until this morning, I’ve not seen you once in the months since we exchanged vows. You haven’t asked me how my voyage was, nor about the train trip across the United States, nor—”
“You said you wouldn’t complain if I left you alone,” Wolfe interrupted curtly. “Are you complaining, Lady Jessica?”
Jessica fought against a wave of unhappiness. This wasn’t how she had imagined her reunion with Wolfe. She had been looking forward to riding over the Great American Desert with him on eager blooded horses. She had been looking forward to long days of comfortable silence and lively conversation, to nighttime fires beneath the blazingly clear American sky. But most of all, she had looked forward to seeing Wolfe.
“When your letter came asking me to meet you here,” she said, “I thought you had gotten over your pique.”
“Pique. Now there’s a mincing, aristocratic kind of word.” His fingers fumbled and touched warm flesh. With a savage curse he jerked his fingers back. “You don’t know me very well, lady. I wasn’t piqued. I was bloody furious. I will remain that way until you grow up, agree to an annulment, and return to England where you belong.”
“Nor do you know me very well. You thought I would give up and beg for an annulment at the prospect of traveling alone to America.”
Wolfe grunted. That had been precisely his thought. But Jessica had surprised him. She had arranged for her own passage and that of her maid, hired two footmen with the small inheritance that had come at her marriage, and crossed the Atlantic alone.
“I doubt that you’ll find traveling with me as pleasant as you found being alone. Not that you were truly alone, my lady. Your entourage took care of your every need. Damn it, can’t you even keep your hair out of the way?” he asked roughly as a long, silken tendril of hair slid from her grasp and over his finger.
Jessica’s arms were weary from holding her hair on top of her head, but all she said as she gathered up the fugitive lock was, “A maid and two footmen aren’t an entourage.”
“In America they are. An American woman does for herself and for her man as well.”
“Betsy said she worked in a household that had twelve servants.”
“Betsy must have worked for a carpetbagger.”
Jessica blinked. “I don’t think so. The man sold stocks, not rugs.”
Wolfe tried not to let humor blunt his anger. He wasn’t completely successful. “A carpetbagger is a kind of thief,” he said carefully.
“So is a rug merchant.”
Wolfe made a muffled sound.
“You’re laughing, aren’t you?” Delight and relief were in Jessica’s voice and in her face when she looked over her shoulder at him. “You see? It won’t be so bad, being married to me.”
The line of Wolfe’s mouth flattened once more. All he could see from where he stood was a badly buttoned dress and the graceful curve of a woman’s neck. But Jessica wasn’t a woman. Not really. She was a cold, spoiled little English aristocrat, the precise kind of woman he had detested since he had been old enough to understand that the glittering ladies of privilege didn’t want him as a man; they wanted only to know what rutting with a savage was like.
“Wolfe?” Jessica whispered, searching the face that had once again become that of a stranger.
“Turn around. If I don’t get this bloody thing done up, we’ll miss the stage.”
“But I’m not dressed for the theater.”
“Theater?” Belatedly Wolfe understood. “Stagecoach. Not that you’re dressed for that, either. Those crinolines will take up half the bench.”
“Stagecoach?”
“Yes, my lady,” Wolfe said mockingly. “A means of conveyance having four wheels, a driver, horses—”
“Oh, do hush up. I know what a stagecoach is,” Jessica interrupted. “I was just surprised. We went by horseback and carriage before.”
“You were a proper little aristocrat then. Now you’re a plain old American wife. When you get tired of it, you know the way out.”
Wolfe reached for another button. A gold chain gleamed just beneath his fingers. He remembered giving the chain and locket to her. It was a symbol of a time that would never come again, a time when he and his redheaded hoyden had been free simply to enjoy one another.
Except for an occasional low curse, Wolfe silently finished fastening the maddening jet buttons on Jessica’s day dress.
“There,” he said with relief as he stepped away. “Where are your trunks?”
“My trunks?” she asked absently, wanting to groan with the relief of no longer having to hold the heavy, slippery mass of her hair over her head.
“You must have packed your clothes in something. Where are your trunks?”
“Trunks.”
“Lady Jessica, if I had wanted a parrot I would have become a sea captain. Where are your damned trunks?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “The footmen attended to them after Betsy unpacked.”
Wolfe raked a big hand through his hair and tried not to notice the picture Jessica made with her ice-blue day dress peeking through the muted fire of her unbound hair.
“Bloody. Useless. Lady.”
“Swearing at me won’t help,” she said stiffly.
“Don’t bet on it.”
Wolfe stalked out of the hotel room and slammed the door behind himself.
Jessica barely had enough time to hide her unhappiness beneath a serene expression before Wolfe reappeared with a trunk balanced on each shoulder. Behind him were two rough-looking strangers who were little older than boys. Each carried two empty trunks. The young men dumped their cargo and stared with great interest at the fashionably dressed woman whose loose hair tumbled in shimmering waves to her hips.
“Thank you,” Wolfe said to the young men as they set down the trunks.
“My pleasure,” said the younger one. “We heard a real English lady was in town. Never thought we’d get a chance to see one.”
“Actually, I’m Scots.”
The youth smiled. “Either way, you’re pretty as a kitten in a velvet box. If you need any help getting the trunks to the stage, just holler. We’ll come running.”
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Jessica flushed at the young man’s open admiration. “That’s very kind of you.”
Wolfe grunted and gave the youths a look that sent them out of the room in a hurry. The bold one turned back and tipped his hat to Jessica just before he shut the door.
“Bind up your hair,” Wolfe said coldly. “Even in America, a woman doesn’t let anyone but her family see her with her hair rumbling to her hips.”
Without a word, Jessica went to the small dressing table and picked up one of the brushes Betsy had set out before she left. Drawn despite himself to the implied intimacy of her unbound hair flowing around her hips, Wolfe watched from the corner of his eye as Jessica began brushing.
After a few minutes it became apparent that Jessica wasn’t happy with the brush. She kept shifting it in her grip, trying to figure out the best way to tame her seething, silky hair and make it behave as Betsy had. Twice, Jessica dropped the brush. The third time the brush fell, Wolfe picked it up, ran his fingertips over the ivory handle, and looked at Jessica curiously.
“It’s smooth, but not slippery,” he said, handing it to her.
“Thank you.” Jessica looked at the baffling tool that seemed to do nothing more than make her hair leap and crackle with electricity. “I don’t understand what’s wrong. It worked well enough for Betsy.”
“It worked well enough for…” Wolfe’s voice died.
“You’re right. There seems to be a parrot loose in this room,” she said blandly.
“My God! You don’t even know how to dress your own hair.”
“Of course not. That was Betsy’s job, and quite good at it she was.” Jessica looked at Wolfe cautiously. There was a stunned expression on his face. “I take it that American women complete their toilet unassisted?”
“My God.”
“Ah, then it’s a religious custom.” Jessica sighed. “Very well, if every Betsy and Abigail here can do it, so can I. Give me the brush, please.”
Wolfe was too staggered to resist. Numbly he watched as Jessica brought the brush down through her hair with great determination and no finesse. The too-rapid stroke caused another surge of static electricity. Her hair crackled and fanned out, tangling with buttons and clinging to whatever it touched.
One of the things her hair touched was Wolfe’s hand. Fine strands wrapped around his skin and clung like a lover. The sensation was indescribably silky. His heartbeat doubled. With a curse he snatched his hand back, accidentally yanking her hair in the process.
Jessica’s breath came in with a startled sound as her eyes watered. “That wasn’t necessary.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose. Your hair attacked me.”
“Attacked you?”
“You have a point. We must do something about that blasted parrot.”
She turned and saw her hair wrapped around his wrist and tangled in the button on his cuff. “Are the teeth very sharp?”
“What?”
“Betsy warned me about my hair’s unruly appetite for buttons,” Jessica said gravely, “but she said nothing about flesh. I hope your wound isn’t serious.”
Wolfe’s shoulders moved as he tried to stifle laughter at Jessica’s solemn teasing. He snickered as he picked individual strands of hair from the button.
“Perhaps I’d better do that,” she offered. “If you startle the red ones, they bite quite savagely.”
Wolfe gave up and laughed aloud, knowing as he did so that he was a fool but unable to do anything about it at the moment. Of all the people he had ever known, only Jessica was able to make him laugh so easily.
“Damn it, elf…”
Jessica smiled and touched Wolfe’s hand. The light caress made his hand jerk, but he said nothing. When the last silky strand of hair was freed from his clothing, he went to the table and poured clean water over his hands from the ewer. Shaking off loose drops, he went back to Jessica.
“Stand still.”
Slowly, he smoothed his damp hands over her hair from her crown to her hips. Soon her hair was lying in obedient waves.
“Give me the brush,” Wolfe said.
His voice was low, almost hoarse, and his eyes were nearly black. He dampened the brush slightly, then returned to work on Jessica’s hair. Unlike her maid, he stood in front of her rather than in back as he brushed her hair.
“Wolfe?”
“Hmm?”
“My maids stand behind me.”
“Too many buttons. Don’t want to tempt the beastly appetites.”
Jessica looked up at Wolfe, curious about the velvety roughness of his voice. Her breath caught as she realized she was standing closer to Wolfe than she had when they waltzed on the night of her twentieth birthday. With other men, she hadn’t liked being close, but with Wolfe she had resented the decorum of the waltz that had prevented her from burrowing closer to Wolfe’s strength.
The pulse in his neck beat strongly, intriguing her. If she stood on tiptoe and leaned forward just a bit, or if she lifted her hand, she would be able to feel his heartbeat.
“Did that hurt?” he asked.
“Hurt?”
“Little redheaded parrot,” he murmured. He gathered a handful of hair, lifted it well away from Jessica’s breasts, and brushed slowly all the way to the ends as he talked. “When you made that odd little sound, I thought I had hurt you again.”
She shook her head slowly, sending the cool silk of her loose hair over Wolfe’s hands. “No. I was just thinking.”
“What were you thinking?”
“I’ve never noticed the pulse beating in your neck before. Once I noticed it, I thought of touching it, of feeling the very movement of your life beneath my fingertips…”
Wolfe’s hand jerked at the sudden surge of his heart. The motion brought him very close to touching her breasts. He stopped brushing her hair.
“Dangerous thoughts, Jessi.”
“Why?”
“Because it makes a man want to let you touch the life in him.”
“Why is that dangerous?”
Wolfe looked down into Jessica’s clear eyes and knew that she hadn’t the faintest idea how much her words might arouse a man.
Teach the stubborn little nun not to fear a man’s touch. Then you’ll both be free.
Wolfe wondered if Jessica was teasing him solemnly once more, as she had about the ferocity of her silky, unbound hair. Slowly, he decided that she wasn’t teasing him. She truly didn’t know what he was talking about. The extent of her innocence astonished him. The aristocratic ladies he had known in England acquired new lovers the way a gambler acquired new cards—frequently and unemotionally.
“Have you ever touched a man like that, feeling his very life?” Wolfe asked, lifting the brush once more.
“No.”
“Why not, if it intrigues you so?”
“I never noticed it before now. And if I had, I would have done nothing.”
“Why?”
“I would have to stand quite close to a man to touch him like that,” Jessica said. “The thought appalls.”
“You’re standing quite close to me. I’m a man.”
“Ah, but you’re my very own Lord Wolfe. When the storm had me in its teeth, you snatched me close and held the thunder at bay. When other children teased me savagely about my common blood, you came and put an end to it. You taught me to shoot and to ride and to fish. And no matter how I teased you, you were never cruel to your elf.”
“Very few men are cruel to elves.”
A delicate shiver of pleasure moved over Jessica’s skin as Wolfe resumed brushing her hair.
“You’re shivering. Would you like a wrap?”
“It was pleasure, not a cold draft that made me shiver.”
Again, Wolfe’s hand hesitated as the meaning underlying Jessica’s words sent a shaft of desire through him.
“Did Lady Victoria teach you to flirt like this?” he asked curiously.
“Flirting consists of feints and sighs and lies. I am merely telling the
truth. It never felt this good when Betsy brushed my hair.”
There was a time of silence broken only by the whisper of soft bristles through Jessica’s hair. Finally, Wolfe put the brush aside, turned her until her back was to him, and divided the dark red mass of her hair into three equal lots. The touch of his hands on her nape made her shiver again.
“It’s a pity we’re all wrong for each other as man and wife,” Wolfe said quietly as he wove her hair into a single thick braid. “There is passion in you, Jessi.”
Abruptly, Jessica’s body became rigid. “I think not,” she said distinctly. “The thought of lying with a man makes my stomach twist.”
“Why?”
The quiet question startled Jessica. “Would you like a man doing that to you?” she demanded.
“A man?” Wolfe laughed. “No, not a man. But a woman…ah, that’s a different thing entirely.”
“Only for a man,” she retorted. “He is strong enough to say yes or no as it pleases him. When it’s finally finished, he doesn’t lie weeping on the bed. Nor does he scream in agony months later, as what he put in the woman’s body tears her apart trying to get out!”
“Someone has filled your head with nonsense. It’s not like that.”
“Not for a man, certainly.”
“Nor for a woman.”
“From what great font of wisdom do you draw this conclusion?” Jessica asked sardonically. “Have you attended a woman in childbed?”
“Of course not. Neither have you. Hand me the light blue ribbon.”
“Ah, but I have,” she retorted, grabbing the ribbon and holding it over her shoulder.
“What? I can’t imagine Victoria permitting that.”
“It was before I went to live with her.”
Wolfe’s hands paused. He took the ribbon and began wrapping it around the tail of the single braid he had woven.
“You were only nine when Lady Victoria became your guardian. What was a girl so young doing at a birthing?”
Jessica shrugged. “I was the first born. My mother had many pregnancies before cholera took her.”
“You never told me you had brothers and sisters.”
“I don’t.” An involuntary shudder moved over Jessica as memories tried to surface, memories she had banished to her nightmares years ago.