Courting Susannah (31 page)

A
s soon as Hollister had finished his largely fruitless interview and left the house, Aubrey hoisted himself to his feet, teeth clenched, eyes squeezed tight shut. He was just thinking what a good thing it was that Susannah couldn't see him when he turned and found her standing in the open doorway, gazing at him. She looked pale, and there was a tightness around her mouth.

“You did it for Victoria,” she said.

She was referring to the Pinkerton investigation, of course. Because of Hollister's lack of enthusiasm for the project, it had never really gotten past the initial stages, but he, Aubrey, had hired the man all the same. “Yes,” he answered. He stood beside the desk, supporting himself with one hand and hoping he looked casual. “At the time, I planned to settle a fortune on you and let you raise the child wherever you chose. Before I could do that, I had to know you weren't—how did you put it?—oh, yes, a murderess, a typhoid carrier, or an embezzler, wasn't it?”

She offered a tentative, rather reluctant smile. He wanted more than ever to take her to his bed, lay her down and pleasure her until she cried out from it, but it was the middle of the day, and besides, he might kill himself in the attempt. “And?”

“For all I know, you could be any or all of those things. Hollister resigned from the investigation right away, because he wanted to court you. As for me—well, I found myself trusting you, for good or ill.”

She took a step toward him, paused, her hands clasping each other. “You were going to allow me to take Victoria away?”

He nodded. “A child needs a mother,” he said. “A father, too, of course, when possible. But a mother's love is vital.”

He saw tears spring to her eyes and wondered what he'd said to cause her pain. Then she hurried over and put her arms around him, gently, so as not to do him hurt. Maybe it was that that caused him to place his trust in her, her gentle ways. Then there was her courage, her honesty, her humor …

“You are a good man,” she said with a sniffle, “for all that you try to pretend otherwise.”

He caught her chin in his fingers and bent his head, at great cost, to kiss her lightly on that delectable mouth. “Oh, Susannah,” he breathed. “How I need you.” He thought he saw a flicker of sorrow in her eyes before she smiled, and, once again, he was puzzled.

“Do you, now?” she asked.

When he made no reply, she slipped beneath his shoulder, supporting him as she had done while they descended the stairs. “Come along,” she said. “It's time you got back into bed.”

Aubrey groaned aloud at the suggestion. And this time, it wasn't just because of the pain.

When Susannah finally got Aubrey up the stairs and into his room, she was breathless from the effort. He
was a big man, and he seemed to let himself lean on her more than usual.

“Sit down,” she said. “I'll help you off with your boots.”

Aubrey sank to the edge of the mattress, and Susannah picked up one of his feet. He drew in a sharp, hissing breath and murmured what she thought must be a curse by its tone. “Stand between my legs,” he said, “with your back to me. Otherwise, you're going to kill me.”

She did as he told her, though she was mildly suspicious of his motives. When she bent over and he pinched her bottom, she knew she'd been right. She turned to glare at him, her face hot with embarrassment and another sensation she wasn't about to admit to.

He laughed. “Just pull my boots off. I promise to behave myself.”

She bent, and he pinched her again. She jerked off the second boot and flung it aside, whirling to look down into his face. The boyish twinkle in his eyes softened her immediately, and when he laid his hands on her waist and drew her close, she couldn't resist him.

He buried his face in her stomach and nuzzled her, and something grabbed inside Susannah, clenching tighter and tighter. She had a very unseemly desire to lean back in his grasp and surrender herself to all the nuzzling he wanted to do.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Dreaming,” Aubrey answered, his voice muffled by her uncorseted midsection and the heavy fabric of her dress. She was wearing a gown of dark green woolen, not taken from Julia's wardrobe and altered, like most of her other clothes, but bought with her own money, earned by giving piano lessons.

She supposed she should retreat—in fact, she was certain of it—but she couldn't seem to move away, even though she knew he would never hold her against her
will. “Aubrey,” she protested, but she sounded weak, even to herself.

Slowly, he slid his hands up her rib cage to cup her breasts. Susannah gasped and let her head fall back, though she knew she would have crowned any other man with the nearest blunt object for doing the same thing. With his thumbs, he chafed her nipples to attention, then pinched them ever so lightly through her dress and the camisole beneath.

“Close the door, Susannah,” he said, dropping his hands.

She swayed for a moment, half dazed. He steadied her by grasping her hips. Kissed her woman place through the weight of her skirts and instantly set her afire, inside and out. Nerves screaming, flesh ablaze, she stood stupidly in his hold, not trusting her knees to carry her as far as the doorway.

“Throw the bolt, too,” he added.

She moved then, like a sleepwalker, to do his bidding. The room seemed to pulse and waver around her, as though it were an illusion, the landscape of some erotic dream. She leaned back against the heavy panel, her hands behind her, gauging the distance between herself and Aubrey Fairgrieve. Between herself and destruction.

“We aren't married yet,” she reminded him. Her voice sounded somewhat fitful, it seemed to her.

“No,” Aubrey agreed. “That's why I'm not going to take you, Susannah. I'm only going to make you wish to God I would. Come here.”

She went to him. Like a fool.

“Help me out of my clothes.” He stood, and she obediently pushed his coat back over his shoulders and slid it down his arms. She lowered his suspenders, pulled his shirt tail from inside his trousers, unbuttoned and removed both those garments.

She had never seen Aubrey naked before, or any other man, for that matter, and she would have expected such an intimate look at the masculine anatomy to shock her. Instead, she felt compelled to touch him and closed one hand around the magnificent erection he presented.

“Great Scot,” she muttered.

He laughed, but there was a low moan stitched through the sound. His ribs were still bound, but above and below the wrappings curled a glorious mat of maplecolored hair. His shoulders and thigh muscles would have done credit to a statue in some Grecian garden.

“Now, your clothes, Susannah,” he prompted, grinning at her. He was all mischief and manhood, standing there, and she had never been more conscious of her own femininity. Nor had she ever been so vulnerable; the moment was terrifying, exhilarating, wildly daring, and she'd been born for it.

Still some shyness remained. She swallowed and shook her head. “I—I can't.”

“Then let me.” His voice was low, and the sound of it reached inside her to caress her in private places.

She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue in a quick, nervous gesture and then nodded. He let her hair down first, pin by pin, tress by lock, until it tumbled freely to her waist. She was already wishing he would make love to her, and even in her innocence she knew he hadn't really begun to seduce her.

Next, he unfastened the buttons at the front of her gown, teasing each bit of flesh with the light pass of a fingertip as he exposed it. Susannah was trembling by the time he reached her waist.

He tugged the bodice off over her shoulders, took his time easing the long sleeves of the dress down and down her arms. He lifted each wrist, in its turn, to his mouth, and sampled it like some delicacy.

Have me
, she wanted to cry out.
Have me now
. But she knew he would refuse, and she still had enough pride left to restrain herself, though she was slipping fast.

At last, the dress fell into a pool at her feet. He unlaced the camisole to free her breasts, and she looked past his shoulder at the snow gliding past the window, knowing that if she met his eyes she would be completely lost. She would beg.

He held her breasts in his hands, caressing and fondling them until he wrung a low moan from her. Then he untied her petticoats and let them fall, to lie forgotten on the floor, along with the dress. He left her drawers till last, instructing her to take off her shoes, posing her in her stockings and pantaloons with one foot on the seat of a chair.

Then he removed a garter from above her knee, rolled down the stocking. Her flesh sang where he bared it, quivering in the wake of his caress. Taking his time, he repeated the whole process with her other limb.

At last, she stood naked before him, not ashamed but proud as a pagan goddess. For the very first time in her life, Susannah felt completely and utterly captivating. She knew she was subject to Aubrey's powers then, but the reverse was equally true. Looking into his eyes, she saw a brazen sort of surrender that affirmed her importance to him in the deepest way.

“Lie down beside me,” he said. It was a command, and also a plea.

They lay upon the bed together, side by side, face to face. Aubrey draped one arm loosely across Susannah's waist and kissed her forehead.

“You,” he said, “are beautiful.”

“So are you,” she replied instantly, and blushed.

He chuckled. “Bruises, bindings, and all?”

She traced the outline of one powerful shoulder. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Why are we doing this?”

“Because,” he answered, kissing her mouth this time, “I'm going to go crazy if we don't do
something
. I've wanted you since I found you standing in that corridor out there, looking at me as though I were the intruder.”

Wanting was very different from loving, though she supposed the two generally went together. If only, if only he would say he cared for her.

He ran his fingers from the hollow at the base of her throat, past her collarbone, between her breasts, over her belly. She shuddered when he made a teasing pass over the V of hair between her legs, instinctively parted them a little. And still the wispy snow fell, silent and fragile, past the bay windows across the room from Aubrey's bed.

“Make me want you,” she whispered.

And he did as she asked.

“You takin' a fever?” Maisie asked two hours later, when Susannah was bold enough to set foot inside the kitchen. The older woman's tone was serious, but her eyes were smiling.

Susannah poured tea and helped herself to a cookie from the platter on the work table next to the cookstove. Her knees were still wobbly, and her voice was hoarse, even though Aubrey had swallowed all her cries. She had strained and writhed beside him, and she had indeed pleaded with him, but he had kept his word. She was exhausted, she was flushed, and there was a grinding need lodged low in her belly, but she was still a virgin.

“I feel perfectly fine,” she croaked in belated answer to Maisie's question, and went red all over again.

“I don't doubt that,” Maisie said, and chortled.

“Where are Jasper and Victoria?” Susannah asked, mostly to change the subject. With Maisie in charge, she had no doubt that both children were safe and comfortable.

“Ellie's putting them to bed right about now,” she said.

Startled, Susannah glanced at the window. Twilight was gathering beyond the glass, and the snow was still coming down. Where had the time gone?

But of course she knew. She'd spent much of the afternoon learning pleasure, and it was a subject she yearned to explore further.

“Do you suppose the Reverend Johnstone is at home tonight?” she asked.

Maisie shrugged. “I reckon so. Why?”

Susannah drew a deep breath and let it out. “Aubrey and I have decided that it would be—well—prudent to get married.”

Maisie chuckled again. “Prudent, is it? Well, that's good news, it surely is.”

“Tomorrow,” Susannah clarified.

“So that's the way of it.”

Susannah lifted her eyes to heaven for a moment. Were there no secrets in this house? “That's the way of it,” she said. Maisie had made a hearty beef stew for supper, and she busied herself preparing a tray for Aubrey.

He ate with good appetite.

Summoned by one of the stable hands, Reverend Johnstone came calling in the late evening. Aubrey had already gone to sleep, and both Maisie and Ellie had retired as well. Susannah served her guest fresh coffee, hot stew, and buttered bread at the kitchen table and explained that she and Aubrey wished to be wed the next day, if possible.

“This seems like something of a hasty decision,” the minister commented, dabbing at his mouth with one of Maisie's crisply starched table napkins. “Your feelings toward Aubrey have seemed quite—well—unmatrimonial at times, Susannah. If I may say so.”

It seemed to Susannah that he had already said so, but she made no comment on that. “I am very much in love with him,” she admitted. She had not made that confession aloud until that moment.

“And how does he feel about you?”

Susannah felt her face heat up again and could not quite meet the pastor's wise, gentle gaze. “He—likes me, I think.” Then, in a smaller voice, “And wants me.”

“I see.”

“I'm hoping that—in time—”

Reverend Johnstone reached across the table to pat her hand. “There, now. Plenty of good marriages have started this way. Often, love grows out of companionship, shared objectives and struggles. I should tend to trust that sort far more than the kind that strikes between one moment and the next and leaves a person moonstruck, I think.”

Susannah gave a tired sigh, cupping her chin in one hand. “Have you ever been in love, Reverend?” she asked.