Honor Reclaimed (All About Honor) (25 page)

“Please do not stop.
 
It is wonderful; I am just a little
scared.” She replied.

“I do not want to scare you.”
 
He stopped right then and pulled her
kirtle and dress back up over her breast. Turning her around, he re-laced her
dress in the back.
 
“That is enough
for one day.
 
We do not need to
rush things.
 
We have all the time
in the world to ease into our relationship.
 
Shall we go check on our son?”
 
He took a moment to make some adjustments of his own so that
his condition would not be as noticeable to his father or anyone else he might
run into.
 
“Alright, give me one
more kiss.”
 
He said as he drew her
briefly back into his arms.

Re-entering the parlor Drew could
not help laughing, “Father, I would ask you not to spoil the boy.
 
You will please remember that we will
have to live with him when you are through ruining him.”
 
Drew teased his father.

“Nonsense, you can not spoil a boy
this age, besides I have missed out on five years of spoiling.
 
I will spoil him exactly as much as I
want to.”
 
Sir Alex responded.
 
His attention was about ninety percent
on his grandson, but he did not fail to notice the flush in Elle’s checks, the
kiss swollen lips of them both, and the telling evidence of his son’s arousal
as well as they entered the room.
 
Maybe things were going to turn out all right after all.
 
He felt safe that he would be rewarded
with many more grandchildren as his son and his bride to be were so attracted
to one another that they could not keep their hands off each other.

He still wanted to know what the
full story behind young Alex’s birth was.
 
He was sure that there was more to it than would meet the casual
eye.
 
This young woman was not the
type to share her favors indiscriminatingly.
 
It was incredible that she bore a child out of wedlock to a
man of Andrew’s stature and did not even notify him of his impending
fatherhood.
 
Most young woman would
have used it as a tool to snare herself a title and financial security and the
fact that she did not spoke volumes for her integrity, or to her
stupidity.
 
She did not seem at all
stupid to him.
 
He believed he
would learn to like and respect this young woman his son had decided to marry.

Two days later Drew invited Elle and
Alexander to lunch at his home.
 
It
was not proper for her to come unescorted, but since they were to be married in
a little over one week, and since they already had a child together, Elle decided
to slip over to his house without letting Gwen and Thomas know.
 

She was a bit surprised when Drew,
himself, met them at the door.
 
He
greeted her with a deep kiss that left her knees weak.
 
It was all he could do to restrain
himself for from holding her and touching her in ways that their son did not
need to see.
 
After thoroughly
greeting Elle, Drew picked up his son and devoted the next ten minutes to
listening to how Alexander’s day had gone.
 
It would seem that his son was enthralled with horses and
more than anything wanted one of his own.
 
Drew promised him that once they got to Virginia he would see to it that
Alexander got a horse of his own.
 
Alexander was so excited that he could barely eat a bite of his
meal.
 
After lunch, Drew gave Elle
and Alexander a tour of their new London home and then the gardens.
 
While in the gardens Drew and Elle were
seated on a bench under a tree while they watched Alexander playing with the
kittens that the stable cat had presented them with a little over a month
ago.
 
They could not help laughing
at the antics of both the kittens and Alexander.
 
It was a toss up for who wore out first, the kittens or
Alexander, but soon they were curled up together asleep in the shade.
 
Drew made the most of these quiet
moments to steal a few kisses from Elle.
 
He was still hesitant about pressing Elle for sexual favors.
 
He knew she had been severely
traumatized by her rape and he did not want to do anything to renew those
memories.
 
He had hoped she would
take the lead and indicate to him how far she was comfortable in taking their
relationship.
 
They would be
married in about ten days and maybe then he would feel more comfortable with
just asking her to take the lead, until then he would bide his time.

“You do not think it is too hot out
here for Alex do you?”
 
Drew asked.

“It is rather warm.
 
Do you think we should carry him into
the house?” she asked.

Drew bent over and scooped Alex up
in his arms.
 
They carried him in
the house and up the stairs to one of the spare bedrooms.
 
He lowered him gently onto the bed and
then pulled a light cover over him.
 
After placing a gentle kiss on his son’s cheek Drew straightened up only
to find Elle standing there with tears of happiness sparkling in her eyes.
 
She immediately wrapped her arms around
his neck and then pulled his mouth down to hers.
 
They shared a deep and passionate kiss that went on for
several minutes.

“I think you should show me where
our rooms will be.”
 
Elle said with
a voice made husky with passion.

Drew took her hand and walked her
down the hall and in to the last door on the left.
 
As soon as he closed and locked the door behind him, he took
her in his arms and began smothering her with kisses.
 
He showered her face with kisses and then he began to nibble
on her ear lobe, which caused Elle knees to feel weak.
 
Scooping her up in his arms, he carried
her to the bed where he laid down beside her.
 
For several long minutes, he just held her stroking her
face, her arms and her back.
 
He
unpinned her hair and spread it out on the pillow.
 
He loved the feel and the smell of her hair.
 
“Elle, I want you so bad.
 
I can barely restrain myself.”
 
Drew wanted to be honest with her.

“I need you too.
 
Please make love to me right now.”
 
Elle pleaded.

Those were the words he had wanted
to hear, but when he did, they brought back memories of an earlier time.
 
They were almost the same words she had
used the night Alexander was conceived.
 
He was not going to make that mistake again.
 
“No Elle, I will not make love to you tonight and not until
we are legally wed.
 
We have been
down that road, and I will not take a chance of impregnating you again before
we are married.”

“But darling, we are to be married
in a little over a week.
 
What
difference does one week make.
 
I
need you.”
 
Elle begged.

“One never knows what might happen
and I do not want you to find yourself in the same position again.”
 
Drew was adamant.
 
“There are other ways to satisfy
ourselves without taking that chance.”
 
With that, he proceeded to show her just what he meant.
 
Within minutes, they were laying naked
in each other’s arms.
 
Drew kissed,
touched and caressed nearly every inch of her body and left her begging for
more.
 
Elle’s response to his
efforts were so intense that the chamber maid cleaning the room down the hall
found herself being aroused by the sounds of pleasure coming from Drew’s
rooms.
 
“Please Drew, please finish
it.”
 
Elle begged

“No sweetheart I will not.”
 
He refused.

“Drew, I need to know that I can be
a true wife to you.
 
I am so afraid
that I will freeze when the time comes and not be able to do my duty by
you.
 
I need to know that I can be
a real woman for you before we wed.”
 
She was afraid that maybe her rapists had stolen something from her that
she would never be able to recover.

“Sweetheart that is nonsense.
 
You respond so naturally and intensely
to my touch that I no longer have any fears that we will not be able to have a
normal relationship.
 
You are a
natural at this love making business and that is one of the many things I love
about you.”
 
Drew surprised
himself.
 
Had he just said that he
loved her?
 
Where did that come
from?
 
Did he really love her?
 
How did she feel about him?

“I love you too Drew.
 
How could I have been so lucky to have
you come back into my life?
 
I
promise I will try to be everything you deserve and will never make you regret
marrying me.”
 
It was obvious to
Drew that Elle did not value
herself
as she should.

“Sweetheart it is you who have
honored me.
 
I do not deserve your
love.
 
I want very much to be a
good husband to you and a good father to Alexander and any others that may come
along.
 
I never thought I would be
good marriage material, but I really want to be for you.
 
I will try very hard to make you
happy.”
 
With that said he leaned
down and placed one last kiss on her nipple.
 
“We had better get dressed before Alexander awakens and find
us in bed together.
 
Give me one
more kiss woman.”
 
He just could
not get enough of her.

The wedding was to be small owing to
the nature of the marriage.
 
The
less attention that was drawn to it the less likely people were to ask
questions.
 
If they could just be
married without undue notice and then leave for the colonies, they might get by
with it.
 
Drew did not care for
himself.
 
He was used to being the
talk of the town, and for a man that was not necessarily a negative thing.
 
For Elle it would be devastating and
for his son ruinous.
 
To carry the
stigma of a bastard would ruin any prospects he might have in the future.
 
Drew wanted him to be his heir as he
rightly deserved, and that would require some legal maneuvering, but let them
get married first.
 
He wished he
could turn to John to work through these problems for him.
 
In the past, he could have explained
the situation and then leave it to John without having to worry about it
again.
 
He knew that Thomas was a
capable attorney.
 
He had proven
that when he got John cleared of the murder charges right after William had
been born, but he just did not know Thomas as well, and he missed his
friendship with John.

Chapter 12

Two days before the wedding Gwen and
Thomas were visiting her parents for the evening and Drew and Elle were alone
at the Lewis townhouse.
 
Alex was
already asleep and the doors were drawn to the parlor.
 
Drew could not pass up the opportunity
to steal a few kisses and maybe a little more from Elle.
 
He had really backed off on their
physical relationship since the afternoon at his house, this time he wanted to
do things right.
 
His giving into
his desires with Elle in the hut that evening six years ago contributed to her
abduction and lead to the devastating results.
 

Elle had other ideas.
 
Drew held her in his arms kissing her
gently until she slipped her tongue into his mouth.
 
He responded, as she knew he would, and returned the
favor.
 
He keep his hands busy
caressing her face, playing with her hair, rubbing her back, but staying away
from her breast.
 
Finally, Elle
could not stand it any longer.
 
She
took his hand and placed it on her breast holding it there with her hand on top
of his.
 
He was only human and
could not resist the invitation.
 
In minutes he had unlaced her gown and held her bare breast in his hand
rubbing his thumb over the hardened nipple.

It was at that moment that John and
Eirian, having just arrived back in London, entered the room.
 

John flew into a murderous
rage.
 
He speed across the room and
dragged Drew off Elle, punching him first in the stomach, and then in the
chin.
 
“By God I have had it!
 
I will no longer tolerate your
disrespect to the women of this family.
 
First, you get Elle pregnant and abandon her, then you rape my wife, and
now I find you making love to Elle again.
 
It has to stop and I am going to see to it.
 
I am calling you out and we will settle this once and for
all on the field of honor.”

“As you wish John, but I hate that
it has come to this.
 
I do not
blame you for being angry however, if you would listen to me, I can explain a
lot of it.”
 
Drew was incredibly
sad that it had come to this.
 
He
glanced down at Elle to find her still sitting there with her breast
exposed.
 
She had not moved or
spoken since John made his threat.

“Elle honey, let me get you covered
up.”
 
He knelt down in front of her
and tucked her breast back in her gown then laced her back up.
 
She never moved.
 
It was as though she were still in a
trance.
 
“Sweetheart, it is going
to be alright.
 
Please honey, talk
to me.”
 
She just stared off into
space.
 
He gathered her in his arms
and tried to sooth her when all of the sudden she began to scream and struggle
to get away from him.
 
He was
stunned.
 
“Honey what is
wrong?”
 
He tried to take her back
in his arms but she struggled against him as if her life depended on it.
 
“Elle, I do not understand.
 
What happened?”

“Get your hands off of her or I’ll
kill you right now.”
 
John was
serious.

“John, I love her.
 
We are getting married the day after
tomorrow.
 
I do not understand what
happened.”
 
Drew was beside himself.

Finally belated recovering from her
own shock, Eirian went to Elle and took her in her arms.
 
Elle clung to her crying.
 
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.
 
He raped you.
 
I’m so sorry.”

“No honey, it is not what you
think.
 
He did not rape me.
 
It is all right honey
,
it is all right
.
 
You are safe.
 
It is
alright.”
 
She held her until Elle
quieted.
 
Holding her back from
her, Eirian pushed Elle’s hair out of her face, including the hair that was
stuck to her face by her tears.

Hearing Eirian admit that Drew did
not raped her nearly ripped John’s heart in two.
 
He had just about succeeded in convincing himself that
Eiraian
was not willing participant in betraying him.
 
He had wanted to absolve her of blame,
but now, by her own words, he knew he could not.

“Gentlemen, please leave us for a
few minutes, and I expect you to behave yourself until I get through with
Elle.
 
You should both be
ashamed.”
 
Eirian was angrier with
John than she was with Drew.

“Honey, you have to listen to
me.
 
I did not know until tonight
that Alex was Drew’s child.
 
I am
not sure how I did not know; it seems so obvious now that I do.
 
You will have to tell me that story
some day, but I need you to know that Drew did not rape me, at least not in the
way that you were raped.
 
He was
very ill; he did not know what he was doing.
 
He did not hurt me.
 
I should have been able to fight him off, but I think, maybe, that I did
not try hard enough.
 
I have to
admit that I was very attracted to him.
 
While I did not ask for it and I did try to resist him, I still cannot
deny that there was more pleasure than there was pain.
 
On some level, I think I wanted him,
but I did not want to be disloyal to John.
 
Maybe if I had fought harder he would have let me go, I feel
sure he never would have intentionally hurt me.
 
I feel like it was as almost as much my fault as it was
his.”
 
Eirian felt like she had
betrayed John again by admitting that she had found pleasure in Drew’s arms,
but Elle’s sanity was more important than her vanity.

“He did not rape you?”
 
Elle sobbed.

“No honey, he did not rape me.”
 
Eirian lied to Elle, at least in part.

“You are the one he told me he was
in-love with aren’t you?”
 
Elle
asked.

“I would imagine so.”
 
Eirian admitted.

“Do you love him?”
 
Elle countered.

“I do love him, much like a brother,
but I am not in-love with him.
 
I
am in-love with my husband and I always have been and I always will be.”
 
Eirian assured her.

Having returned from their evening
out Thomas and Gwen entered the parlor to find Elle recovering from her
breakdown.
 
Her eyes were still
red, swollen, and filled with unshed tears.
 
Her nose was red and running.
 
Gwen went directly to her, “Honey, what is wrong?
 
Has something happened to Alex or
Drew”, again Elle broke down in tears.
 

“Thomas, thank God you both are
here.
 
Please stay with Elle.
 
She has had a shock and I need to talk
to Drew and John before they kill each other.”
 
Eirian leaned down to hug Elle and whispered, “Please do not
say anything about Drew and me, for John’s sake.”
 

She hurried down the hall to the
study where she knew she would find the men.
 
She stopped to catch her breath and to take a minute to try
to collect her thoughts.
 
She over
heard the men finally talking like the gentlemen they were.
 
She entered just as Drew was saying
“John, I wish I could make you understand that I tried to honor my word to you
about Elle.
 
She was a virgin when
they abducted her, and I can tell you I used great restraint to insure she had
stayed that way.
 
I would not have
made love to her that night that I finally found her, but she threatened to
find somebody else if I would not.
 
If she found herself pregnant she wanted to believe that it maybe it had
been fathered by anybody other than the men that raped her.
 
I loved her.
 
Not only did I not want her turn to someone else, I was
afraid for her.
 
I held her in my
arms and made love to her all that night.
 
John it was love.
 
I treated
her with respect and tenderness.
 
I
tried to make her feel cherished and worthy.
 
I wanted to show her that there was a difference between
love and rape.
 
I would have
married her if she would have had me, but you heard her say that she would
never marry me.
 
Do you know how
much that hurt?”
 
Drew was opening
up to John in a way that he never had before.

“It just proves that you are a
damned fool.
 
She only said that
because she was hurt and afraid of your rejecting her.
 
If you will remember correctly, I
demanded that you marry her, you did not propose.
 
She knew you were going to leave her and she wanted to hurt
you as bad as you were hurting her.
 
For a man with your vast experience with women you really know nothing
about them do you?”
 
John was
trying to dig the knife deeper in Drew’s heart.

“I was going to propose, but you
interrupted us.
 
You forced her
hand before I had a chance to tell her how I felt.
 
I am sorry I did not stay to fight it out with her, but I
had never proposed to a woman.
 
I
thought no meant
no
.
 
I am not experienced at it like you.
 
You have two, no three proposals, under
your belt.
 
When she said no, I
believed her.”

Stepping into the room and making
her presence known to the men, Eirian drew down on her husband, “Oh yes John do
tell him how romantic you were when you proposed to me, not after you, in a
drunken stupor, raped me and took my virginity, but only after Joan walked in
and caught us in the aftermath.
 
I
know he could use some pointers.
 
Let me see, how did it go?
 
Oh yes, something like you would marry me because it was ‘an expedient
solution’ and that you would ‘regret it until the day that you died.’
 
Those are words that would turn any
girls head.
 
Drew, you really
should take a lesson from him about when I refused to marry him.
 
He threatened to go to my father and
inform him that we had already become lovers if I did not accept his proposal.”
 
John had the good grace to blush and
hang his head with the shameful memory.

“Drew raped me no more than you did
John.
 
You were drunk and did not
know what you were doing, and he was delirious and did not even remember what
had he had done.
 
Can you explain
how one is more shameful than the other?

Tonight we walked in unannounced on
a very private moment between two people who are obviously very much in love
and are about to be married in two days.
 
Yes, they should probably have used a little more discretion, but lovers
are often prone to getting carried away.
 
I remember a picnic in the woods that Thomas
interrupted.
 
It was only slightly
less embarrassing, but just as obvious.

John, I am sorry about what happen
that one night at the Inn.
 
God
knows I wish it had not happened, but it took nothing away from you.
 
I never wavered in my love for
you.
 
I never betrayed you in my
heart.
 
Neither did Drew.
 
We both still love you.”
 
Eirian did not know what else she could
say.

 
“Gentlemen, for me and for Elle, will you please shake hands
and try to be civil?
 
Elle is still
very fragile from her ordeal; she does not need the two of you constantly going
after each other.
 
We are going to
be family now so please start acting like it.
 
Now shake hands.”
 
She turned and glared at her husband. “John, I mean it.”