A Midsummer's Sin (4 page)

With a final groan, he fell against her, his weight pressing her. She could barely breathe yet the feel of him on her was heaven. Long moments passed as his heavy panting slowed.

He shifted his weight to his arm propped on the ground, then cupped her face with his other hand. He looked down and the radiance of his smile was matched only by the softness in his eyes.

She smiled back. Never had she felt so close to anyone. The joy of their shared pleasure filled her. She put her hands to his head, touching his mussed dark chestnut hair and laughed.

His answering laugh echoed deep. Her spirit lightened as it had not done in years and she realised this was the first time she had heard him laugh. He looked young, free, unrestrained.

“Lovely, lovely Rose.” He lowered his head, his beautiful green eyes holding hers. He put his mouth to hers and kissed her deeply, lingeringly.

His taste…oh dear Lord, his taste—she would never get enough of it. Nor of the rough stubble on his cheek, scraping hers. She kissed him back, giving him every ounce of her energy until she was forced to push him away. She gulped for air.

He left her and went a space away to relieve himself.

The sweat on her body began to cool rapidly in the gentle breeze. Viscous wet seeped between her legs and her inner thighs rubbed stickily together.

Seed.

Her heart seemed to stop. Images flashed in her mind. His mouth on hers, his cock thrusting roughly into her. The feel of his narrow hips pressed between her thighs as she rode him fast and furious—

Their laying together was no longer a beautiful dream come true but a serious reality and one she did not want to pay the consequences for. Always in London, she’d had her herbs to protect her against conception. Well, she didn’t have any now and didn’t know how to procure them without bringing suspicion on herself.

What had she done? Her heart started again, slamming against her ribcage. Lord above, what had she done? She bolted to a sitting position.

His touch on her shoulders startled her.

She looked up into his face. His brows were drawn in an expression of utmost concern.

“Sweetheart, what troubles you?” His deep voice vibrated through her.

“What have I done? Oh Lord, what have I done?”

He embraced her. “Don’t fret yourself so. I claim the sin. I’m to blame.”

“It’s not the sin I fear but the earthly consequences.”

His expression sobered. “Oh.”

“Oh,” she replied. Yea, men rarely thought of the risks to a woman when they were intent on their pleasure.

The night creatures chirped in the silence. What if he had impregnated her? Her stomach began to ache. What had come over her to play the harlot?

He exhaled slowly. “I…I had been wed so long. I lost myself, I didn’t think. The habits of the conjugal bed—” He moved his hands up and down her upper arms in a caressing move, then he stopped and tightened them. “If it comes to that, we shall wed.”

His voice resonated with a grim, duty-bound tone. The tone of one who faces a severe penalty and must pay it.

That made her suck her breath in and a crushing sensation weighed on her. The hope she hadn’t even realised she’d been holding in her heart had suddenly vanished.

Marriage. Yes, she wanted marriage. But not with a man who wished to wed her to correct a sin. She’d learned much of these Puritans in the time she’d been here. They might be repressive, they might be strict in their habits but they respected their wives as helpmates. She wanted that. She wanted to marry a man who looked at her in such a light. It might be possible for her. But never with Thomas, for he knew her past and he held her in disdain for it. When the glow of lust wore off, his disdain would return. Oh yes, surely it would.

No matter if she loved him or not, she wouldn’t pledge herself to a man who held her in scorn.

“I cannot wed you, Thomas.” The words choked her and she had to pause and clear her throat. “I still owe Goody Wilson six years on my bond.”

“I shall buy you off her in that case.” He spoke in practical tones, as if he were speaking of buying a parcel of land or a cow.

 Could there possibly be a more painful moment than for the man she adored above all others to ask her to wed him in such an impersonal way?

Especially after what they had just shared?

A lump settled in her throat. She studied his expression and saw there the hard set of resignation. Now that the glow of their shared joy had faded, nothing had changed.

He still disdained her.

He didn’t want to wed her. But he was a dutiful, Christian man. He would take responsibility for his sinful actions.

Her vision blurred and she blinked rapidly while swallowing hard.

“I don’t wish to marry you.” She spoke quickly, the lie clipping off her tongue in snappish tones. “I’d never marry you.”

“I see.” He dropped his hands from her body. “Let us hope then there are no consequences, else we shall have no choice.”

He moved away from her quickly. Stiffly. Hurt? Oh heavens, yes, hurt. Disgusted with her wantonness? Undoubtedly. She watched him walk away, moonlight highlighting every beautiful, lean, hard-muscled line of his body. Feeling too exposed herself, she cupped her hands over her breasts. He bent, picked up her shift and turned. Cheeks flaming, she dropped her gaze. His feet sounded softly on the grass. Her shift floated down to her like a white cloud dropped from heaven.

She pulled it on hastily then scrambled to her feet and began walking away.

“Rosalind…”

She stopped and turned. With his breeches on now, he stood holding his shirt.

“What?”

“You should take some time now and consider marriage with me. It would be far easier to wed before I leave for Harvard College than after. And neither of us would want to face the charge in court of a seventh-month child.”

His tone was that of a man speaking of a necessary but unwelcome task. His features once again wore that remote expression, as if they had not shared the most passionate of intimacies. He looked older. Stern. Every inch the pious Puritan who taught schoolboys in town and worked endlessly at his own farm. Duty, work, piety—and aye, obedience. That was all he offered her in wedlock. And likely a hefty helping of resentment over being forced by his lust to marry someone lesser, more wicked than himself.

A cold, hard, ball of nausea settled in the pit of her stomach.

“I told you, I have no…” her voice broke and she swallowed several times, “no desire to wed you, ever.”

His chest rose and fell, a long inhalation as if he were seeking forbearance. He practically glared down his nose at her. “I don’t favour a marriage with you either. But tonight…this lapse of all control and morality that has occurred between us takes all our free choice in the matter away.”

So that was how he termed it now? A lapse of all control and morality? Nothing deeper than that? Sickness twisted through her innards. Pure regret.

“This never happened.” The stridence of her proclamation shook through her, making her voice rattle. She swallowed and raised her tone. “Do you understand? This never happened.”

* * * *

Though every window was open, the meetinghouse remained hot and close. Unbearably so. The minister’s voice droned, mimicking the hum of the huge bumblebees outside. Thomas shifted on the wooden bench, sweaty and itchy in his black wool Sunday best. His bones felt like jelly. The deep carnal satisfaction of last night still affected him. He had forgotten physical contentment. Patience had made it clear she was prepared to be dutiful, to give him his release. However, he’d lost his taste for bedding a woman who did not want his kisses or his hands intimately on her body. He had transmuted his passion into a higher, intellectual, pious love.

It had been enough. He had not resented her for it.

He hadn’t.

He could never have resented Patience because he had loved her more than his life. She had saved him.

Now he had betrayed everything he’d committed to with Patience. Everything he had committed to God. He had lain with a woman who was not his wife.

How had he allowed himself to weaken like that?

Yes, once he had hoped there could be a way to reconcile his lustful love for Rosalind and his need to remain true to the new beliefs that had made a changed man of him. He’d tried to get to know more about Rose, to see if there were any intellectual and religious depths beneath her sensual appeal.

One winter’s day at Goody Wilson’s farm, he’d attempted to engage her in the most basic discussion of theology.

She had listened with the careful kindness of one who bears the most tedious torture. Then she had tilted her head back, exposing the delicate cords in her throat so that he was nearly overcome with the urge to seize her and put his lips on her to trace every delectable line. A smile had broadened her full red lips. “Oh, look what a lovely shade of periwinkle.”

Frowning, he had looked up and seen nothing but dull, winter grey sky.

“It is a gift from God.”

“You think this?” He’d been unable to hide his dubiousness.

She had lowered her head, her eyes luminous with joy. She’d been so lovely, his heartbeat had quickened.

“Yes, it is a message that we must seek beauty even when and where least expected.” She had spoken with perfect conviction.

He’d glanced back at the sky seeking this miracle.

He’d failed.

He had failed in another area, the subject of God himself. Rosalind was not a Puritan. She had not yet heard the call to grace. He had tried to share the comfort given him by his faith.

She had wrinkled her slightly stubby nose up. “Oh, I shall never convert, so please save your breath.” She had smiled kindly, as if to an inferior who is mistaken. “But you are very kind to try.”

Her tone had been so final. He had lost all hope for persuading her. And that had broken his heart. For she had no interest in religion, philosophy or even politics. Yes, many a man would be happy with such a wife. Except that she didn’t seem to have any religion or beliefs save for her convictions, such as the belief that a winter’s dreary sky was a gift from God. Such independence of thought fascinated him to no end. Yet they had nothing in common upon which to build an intellectual and pious match such as he and Patience had shared.

After such perfect love born of mutual respect with his late wife, how could he possibly marry a woman like Rosalind?

He couldn’t.

He couldn’t risk being pulled into the kind of sinful focus on sensuality and earthy pleasures. He couldn’t imagine a more earthy, sensual woman than Rosalind.

The thought sent a leaden weight sinking down in his belly.

His gaze pulled to the side, drawn against his will to where she sat across the aisle. Her white cap covered her bright red hair. Sweat glossed her summer-tanned face, making it glow like rich honey against her coffee-coloured Sunday dress with its snow-white kerchief fastened tightly to her neck and her sleeves long and tight.

As if he had willed it, she turned his way and her eyes met his—velvet brown orbs framed by heavy dark auburn lashes—beautiful… He inhaled sharply. Even from this distance he fancied he saw her pupils enlarge. Her lush, rose-coloured mouth opened. He could taste her breath, her kiss, her wet, warm tongue. She ran her tongue over her lip. Arousal tingled through his loins and, inwardly, he groaned.

A sinful image burned in his mind. Of her on her knees before him, opening her mouth even further, that wicked tongue sliding—

Blood rushed into his cock, lengthening it. Her image seemed to leap closer, pushing everything and everyone else aside as if they were suddenly the only two there. His pulse thudded within his erection, straining against his breeches. Again, he shifted on the pew. The scent of her arousal, a memory lingering in his senses, seemed to grow stronger. He could feel her soft curves once again writhing against him.

“In Adam’s fall, we sinned, all of us!” The minister’s voice boomed, so loud it seemed to rattle the walls.

Thomas jerked his gaze back to the pulpit. The minister seemed to grow larger, to rush forward. His fiery dark eyes looked directly at him, their black depths searching his soul for sin.

Perhaps even seeing it.

“God despises the weak lust lurking in your hearts. Only his grace can cleanse us of our sin.”

Thomas caught his breath and glanced at his lap, unable to continue facing the minister.

This was serious. No matter how delicious the memory of last night seemed, what they had done was wrong.

It was his entire fault.

He had made his decision. Approached her. Kissed her. Clutched her soft, eager body to his own. His traitorous flesh twitched, straining against his breeches. He could not take his mind from her. Could not stop lusting for her.

There was one and only one way to right that wrong. It was no good to wait and see if she were with child. By taking her body, he’d taken her as his wife as surely as if he’d spoken the words. All that remained was for them to make it legal.

And with all due haste. He must protect her against the public shame of a seven-month child.

She was a little reluctant. He’d have to persuade her. He would apprise her of his coming prospects. Yes, all women liked to know a man’s prospects.

He smiled at her.

Her expression hardened and she turned away.

* * * *

Outside, watching as black-garbed mothers laid blankets for their children to sit on and eat their nuncheon, Rosalind struggled to catch her breath, her heart pounding in her ears… Covertly, she pressed her legs together, trying to staunch the wetness that seeped between them.

Elation still quickened her blood. Just because Goodman Thomas Marlowe had smiled at her. Yet, what a smile. Lust had lit his green eyes and transformed his sombre handsomeness into something sublimely beautiful yet undeniably masculine. The smile’s brilliance still burned into her mind. Tingling centred on her navel and radiated all over her body, to the tips of her ears and her toes.