Echoes in Stone (18 page)

Jessa, too, had risen, to stand before the fire. The brandy must have relaxed her. Her shawl slipped from her shoulders, exposing her pale, unmarked skin. The distraction made it difficult to keep track of her words. He watched in fascination as the color came and went on the milky expanse of skin.

Her neckline, maddeningly, was high enough to cover the tops of her breasts, but when she drew a deep breath, or sighed, they’d rise just enough to give him a tiny glimpse of the cleavage there. The creature in his trousers, with a mind of its own, showed less interest in the story Jessa told than in wondering if her thighs were as velvety as her breasts looked.

Dash returned to the sofa, discreetly arranging himself while Jessa’s back was to him. She’d still given him no reason to trust her. She was Lily’s stepsister. Or rather, her half-sister. Lily would’ve been climbing all over him by now. Jessa simply employed a different tack.

“Jessamine, please, come sit back down. What happened when Lily came home?”

She hesitated, then returned to the sofa. Once more, she drew the shawl about her, shielding the view of all that smooth skin.

He sighed with regret for the loss.

“You must remember, I was only eleven. The adults did much to conceal the unsavory details from me. Then later— I was away when much of this happened. Papa told me some of it, as did Uncle Stan. Luther talks little of that time. Marguerite, not at all.”

Jessa leaned forward. The shawl slipped again. Another swallow of water did nothing to ease the growing discomfort between Dash’s legs. Dammit! He was no schoolboy. A grown man should have better control.

“Word came that Marcus Wilkerson was dead. He’d been living in Scotland, on a small estate he’d won gambling. He’d become inebriated one night and fell asleep while smoking. He died in the resultant fire. Lily escaped. We found out about it the way the rest of the world did, in a broadsheet next to the morning tea.” Jessa sighed, then hurried on with her story.

“There was no longer any deterrent to Jack and Marguerite marrying. Marguerite was, at last, truly a widow. They decided it would be easier if Jack went to retrieve Lily under the auspices of being her stepfather. Vows were quickly made. Papa arranged a discreet adoption of Lily. She came back under the name of Lily Palmer. No one ever need know she was little Lily Wilkerson, the child abducted by a savage. Her past would be hidden. She’d be like me, just another of Papa’s illegitimate daughters.”

Dash watched the small smile flickering about Jessa’s lips. Again, his cock stirred. Again, he chose to ignore it.
Listen to the story, dammit. Jessa’s plump lips have nothing to do with this
.

“Lily was sixteen,” Jessa said. “I was thrilled to have a big sister, especially one who looked like a fairy princess. You remember her hair. Like wildfire. All of her was like that. She crackled with energy, and laughed a great deal. At church, she was always more beautiful than any of the local girls, more exotic, more enticing somehow. The boys buzzed around her. But she wasn’t always good.” The flicker of Jessa’s smile died.

“Sometimes she’d be cruel to me. She caught me once, trying on her ribbons. She came after me with scissors, threatening to cut off all my hair. When Luther stopped her, she cut up his cravats instead. She was temperamental. She threw things when she didn’t get her way. She and Papa fought often—and loudly. He wanted her to show more restraint. She wanted to do as she wished. Marguerite was no use at all. When Lily was being difficult, Mama would retire to her room for days, crying.” She stared into space for a moment, as if watching the memories play out on an imaginary stage.

“Luther and Uncle Stan,” she said at last, “finally convinced my parents Lily might be a bad influence on me. They sent me away to school, supposedly just until she could get settled in. More accustomed to a normal life. Except for holidays, I rarely came home again for the next eight years.”

Jessa sighed, dropping her shoulders. Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “When I visited, I spent every minute with Papa. Those were wonderful times, but Lily resented it. She was grown by then, but our parents were loathe to push her into marriage. Considering her childhood, no one could predict how she’d react to it, although Papa thought it might settle her a bit to a have a good man and a child or two of her own.” The tears now rolled down Jessa’s cheeks.

Dash handed her his handkerchief, but held his tongue. A twinge of guilt twisted in his gut. Her tears were his fault. He’d demanded she tell him the truth about herself. About Lily. Jessa’s tears moved something in him. Lily’s had only infuriated him. Then again, perhaps she was simply a better actress than Lily had been.

Jessa drew a ragged breath.

Dash regretted that her black shawl hid the full effect of that breath.

“Then, Papa died.” She dabbed at her eyes. “I was at school. I only know what Luther told me,” she said, barely controlling the hitch in her voice. “It was dinnertime, but Lily hadn’t come in. Papa went looking for her. Then the fire bell began clanging. The barn was ablaze. They believe Papa must have gone in to save the horses. They found him in one of the back stalls. One of the horses must have kicked him. Our groom was found in the ashes as well. The inquest said he must have been smoking in the barn.”

Alarm bells were also ringing in Dash’s head. What in blue hell was going on here? First, Lily’s father died in a fire. Then her stepfather. A groom died in the barn fire, and another in the carriage fire that claimed Lily’s life. And someone had tried to kill Jessa the same way.

Something was very wrong.

“I went back to finish school after the funeral,” Jessa said. “Marguerite must have decided it was time for Lily to marry. I don’t know. I only know I got a letter from Lily, telling me she’d met you on vacation in Brighton, had fallen in love, and you were married.”

Dash flinched, but didn’t interrupt. Had Jessa really been fed that pack of lies?

“She wrote infrequently, but always lovingly, about her life here,” Jessa said. “Then, about three years ago, Lily came for a visit, with Holly. She said you were too busy to come.”

More lies. He’d had an emergency with his business and had been called away. Lily had taken advantage of his absence to visit her mother. He’d only found out about it by accident later. They’d had yet another towering row over it, just one more in an endless chain of them.

“The child was only six months old,” Jessa said, unaware of the memories she’d stirred up, “the most beautiful little girl I’d ever seen. I fell in love with her. After that, Lily wrote more often, telling me how Holly was growing. But there were also hints of growing unhappiness. She said nothing overt; it was more in what she didn’t say.”

Jessa stopped fidgeting, sitting very still. She looked straight into Dash’s eyes. “Then we heard she was dead. You know most of the rest. What you don’t know is that I received one more letter from Lily. She begged me to come, to help her take Holly and leave here. She said she was afraid.”

Dash scowled. “How like Lily, to over-dramatize everything. To see villains where there were only friends. You took your sweet time answering your sister’s pleas, didn’t you? If you thought she was in such danger, why wait until now to come to her rescue?”

“Captain, I only received the letter recently. It was dated one month ago.”

She lied. It couldn’t be. He sneered, but Jessa never blinked. “That’s not possible. Lily’s been dead for six months.”

“I know, Captain. What I came to find out is this—if Lily didn’t send me that letter, who did?”

Dash surged up from the sofa and strode to the fireplace. He leaned one hand on the chimneypiece, then stretched his neck to work out the knots building there. God, what was going on here? The horror of Lily’s death, the turmoil before that— Dammit, things had just begun to settle down. And now this woman had come, bringing chaos with her. And temptation. Dash couldn’t deny it. He turned to look at her. She’d dropped her head, the handkerchief pressed to her face. Her shoulders shook with soundless sobs.

What the blazes is she doing to me
? Emotions warred in him. Fury that she’d overset his home. Guilt that he’d wrung her story from her and driven her to tears.

And lust. It couldn’t be denied. That damnable shawl had slipped again. Hunched over, her gown dipped in the back, exposing smooth skin to the firelight. So vulnerable. Was she truly just another in the long list of Lily’s victims?

Dash moved without thinking to kneel beside her. He reached up to rub her back, to comfort her as he would have done for Holly.

The instant his fingers touched the soft skin, heat shot from his hands straight to his loins. When Jessa turned to look at him, her green eyes swimming with tears, he was lost. Desire won out over every other emotion.

He moved beside her on the sofa, gathering her into his arms. He laid her cheek against his shirtfront, stroking her back while raining gentle kisses on top of her head.

To his astonishment, she didn’t stiffen or try to draw away. Instead, she relaxed against him, wrapping her arms around his waist to return a gentle caress on his own back. She sighed, then pulled back to look him full in the face.

“Captain, I don’t know what’s going on here. This is wrong, for so many reasons. I don’t want to feel this way. I don’t want—” She shook her head, huffing an exasperated breath.

He caught her chin and looked into her eyes. “Dash,” he said. “Please, Jessamine, call me Dash. I want to hear my name on your lips.”

She licked her lips, then whispered, “Dash.”

He was undone. He crushed his lips against hers, pushing her back against the sofa cushions, his arm under her. She gasped, stiffening in his arms, fear warring with desire. He licked her lips, sucking, nipping, feeling her ease against him. Feeling the fear drain from her and a new kind of tension take its place. His ran his fingers through her hair, pulling out pins.

She writhed beneath him, not trying to escape now, but pulling him closer. She returned kiss for kiss, feeling oddly young and untutored for one who’d grown up in such a licentious household.

To hell with it. Jessa’s play at innocence was far more alluring than if she’d revealed herself as a practiced seductress.

Dash tore off his cravat, flinging it after her hairpins. He ripped the studs from his waistcoat and shirt. “Your hands, Jessa. I want to feel them on my skin.”

She placed a palm on the chest he exposed for her. Her eyes followed the path her fingers traced, over hard muscles, through curly black hair. He watched until he could stand no more. He threw back his head, closing his eyes, giving himself over to the sensation of the heat igniting every place she touched.

He lowered his head once more. “Open for me, Jessa mine. Open your mouth and let me taste you.” She welcomed him. He swept his tongue against hers, savoring the taste of wine lingering there. Wet. Sweet. “Now, my sweet, it’s your turn. Put your tongue in my mouth. Taste me.”

Jessa hesitated, then followed his lead.

He wondered again at her shyness, her apparent innocence. Surely, it wasn’t possible— His thoughts scattered, lost in the wonder of her mouth against his. He drew her in, his tongue giving a poor imitation of what he ached to do with his cock, plunging into her moist heat. Her moans inflamed him further.

Dash withdrew from her mouth, but licked a trail from the base of her ear along the throbbing pulse at the side of her throat. In the hollow of her collarbone, he paused. Sucked. Childish, but he wanted to leave his mark there on her. Tomorrow, when she was dressing, she’d find the tiny bruise. Be reminded of the heat they shared now.

Her fingers raked through his hair, undid the ribbon holding it in a queue, tossed it away. She turned her head to give him greater access to her throat. At the same time, she rose to lick the pulse throbbing in his own neck.

Dash drew back, struggling out of his jacket and waistcoat. He pulled his shirt out of his waistband, hastily undoing buttons. It did nothing to ease the painful tightness in his trousers.

“Please Jessa, let me see you.” He pushed back her shawl, reached for the closures on the front of her dress.

She put her hand on his, halting him, then looked into his eyes. Silence stretched between them. She moved her hand under his shirt, resting it on his shoulder. “Yes, Dash. Please. I know this isn’t right. I know I should be trying to stop you. But I don’t want to, Dash. I want more.” She closed her eyes, sighed, then looked up at him again. “I feel as if I’m on fire. As if something’s crawling under my skin. It’s there, every time I touch you, every time I look at you. Dash. I don’t know what to do.” A tremor shook her. “Please Dash, help me.”

Something she’d said niggled at him, but the thought was swamped by tide of desire pouring through him. “Hush, my sweet. I’ll help you. I know how to give you relief. If you want me to stop, you need only say so.” He bent, kissing her lips again. “But please, Jessa, don’t say stop.”

24.

…passion destroyed Lily…

JESSA LOWERED HER EYES, watching as Dash undid the fastenings of her dress. She shifted to allow him to push her sleeves down her arms, unhook the light corset she wore beneath, and pull her camisole over her head. A wisp of thought—
passion destroyed Lily…
.

Then he closed his eyes, groaning. The sound drew her. Focused her. There was nothing but him. His taste. His hands. His heat. He cupped her breasts in his large hands, kneading the flesh, then nestled his face between them, licking the inside of first one, then the other. The slight stubble on his cheeks abraded the soft skin, but the roughness sent a thrill to her core.

Flares of heat shot to the secret place between her legs when Dash drew a pebbled nipple into his mouth, suckling hard on it,

“So beautiful, Jessa mine,” he murmured. “You have the most beautiful breasts in Christendom.”

She pushed back his shirt, exposing his heavily muscled shoulders. He struggled out of the shirt, before returning to rub the crisp hair on his chest against her breasts.