Rapture in His Arms (20 page)

Donovan walked over to where she stood, stiff and unbending as a statue. She realized from the nervous smile he shot her that he was just as unsure and ill at ease as she. “Perhaps we should be goin’ to bed,” he suggested—and flushed. “I mean the day has been long and tirin’.”

She surmised what he meant but was too hesitant to say the words out loud, so she nodded in agreement. “Aye, we need to rest.”

“And leave early in the mornin’,” he declared with a yawn and stretched his broad shoulders.

Jillian’s heart pumped harder as her eyes traveled over his handsome face and superb physique. The dark brown jacket and white shirt suited Donovan’s deep bronze coloring and light hair. Never had she been more conscious of his maleness, his attractiveness, than she was at this moment. And soon, she’d see him without the clothes. She moistened her lips to imagine him naked.

“Is somethin’ wrong?” he asked her with a frown. “Ye look odd, Jillian.”

Quickly, she turned away and headed for the staircase. “I suppose I’m just tired,” she said without looking at him.

She felt his hand on her wrist, stalling her. “Ye can ready for bed first. Call to me when you’re finished.”

Jillian nodded, knowing that he was allowing her time to prepare herself for him. As she ascended the stairs, her legs nearly buckled, and she gratefully clung to the bannister for support. She entered the spare bedroom and caught a glimpse of her face in a wall mirror after she’d lighted the candle. She looked as pretty as a bride on her wedding day.

I am a bride on my wedding day, she thought, and a shadow of alarm crossed her face.

Night stealthily crept into the room like a thief who ached to steal the remaining seconds of twilight. Earlier that evening, she’d dressed for her wedding in this very room with Rose’s help, but she’d been too nervous to notice her surroundings. Lighting a candle on a wall sconce, Jillian then appraised the bedroom. A quilt in various displays of greens and yellows covered the bed, and a lacy white curtain swathed the window. A simple straight-back chair nested in the corner of the room, and beside it was a small table with a blue-and-white porcelain pitcher and bowl on top of it. Lying next to the pitcher was a yellow towel and a piece of lavender-colored soap. Jillian picked up the soap and sniffed the scent of lilacs.

With trembling fingers, she began to unlace the ties at the front of her gown. Because she hadn’t intended to spend her wedding night away from home, Jillian hadn’t a night gown to wear. She realized that her silk shift, which was the best one she owned and now wore, would have to do for the night. After taking off her dress and neatly placing it on the chair, she then took off her shoes and stockings, the whole time listening for the sounds of Donovan’s shoes coming up the wooden stairs. Silence. She then unbound her hair and found her hairbrush in the bottom of the wooden case she’d brought from home. After she’d brushed her hair—and the whole time her hands shook like leaves—she then completed her toilette by washing her face and arms with the lilac soap. Still silence. Turning down the bed covers, Jillian stood beside the bed and willed herself to look at it. Everything had happened so quickly, and now she felt totally unprepared for what was to come. The heavy silence was broken by the rapid thumps of her heart—and the sound of a creaking staircase.

Donovan was coming!

Embarrassed to be caught wearing only her chemise, Jillian dove beneath the bed covers, more frightened for the moment to be seen half-naked in the candlelight than to be found already in bed. She pulled the quilt up to her neck and waited with bated breath for Donovan’s knock. A second later, she heard it.

“Are ye ready?” he called out to her, his voice no more than a husky whisper through the door.

“I’m—ready,” she murmured lowly. Donovan evidently heard her for a second later the door slowly opened to reveal his large physique, standing in the doorway.

His gaze readily found her and lingered over her for a number of moments before he finally entered the room and closed the door gently behind him. Jillian saw that he had removed his jacket. As he drew nearer to the bed, she also caught the unmistakable scent of whiskey about him. Obviously, he’d imbibed spirits while waiting downstairs. At the moment, she wouldn’t have minded sipping something stronger than apple cider to fortify herself and still her nerves.

Donovan shot her an almost apologetic smile when he sat on the side of the bed and began taking off his boots. He kicked them into the corner after he stood up to remove his shirt. Jillian watched, hypnotized, while his fingers flew over the buttons and then in one fluid motion he yanked it off. His chest was bronzed and strong, the muscles taut but yielding beneath the flesh. Goodness, but he’s so handsome! she thought and purposely looked away when he started to undo his trousers, almost as if he were perfectly at home and used to undressing in front of women all of the time. Which, no doubt, he was, she realized with a jealous stab, imagining that he’d done these very same things in Priscilla Mortimer’s presence—and no telling how many other women he had fascinated in just this way.

Out of the corners of her eyes, she saw when he was entirely naked, even going so far as to watch when he blew out the candle in the wall sconce. When he turned around to face the bed, the dimming twilight barely illuminated his body. Jillian gulped, seeing his jutting manhood, and wondered at the feasibility of this marriage. How could she appease such a well-endowed man as Donovan?

He went to the window and threw open the shutters, allowing the scent of roses and wisteria from the garden outside to slowly permeate the room. A gentle night breeze lightly soughed through the trees, but inside the room the temperature was warm. “Ye aren’t hot with the quilt about your neck?” Donovan asked and settled himself next to her.

“N—nay,” she answered, but in truth Jillian found the heat stifling and would have loved to push the quilt to the floor. But she used the blanket as a barrier. When she was married to Edwin, he’d seen her in her shift many times, but that had been different because Edwin had regarded her as a daughter. Donovan regarded her as his wife—she could see the lust shining in his dark eyes, even in the dimly lighted room. And worse, he made no bones about his feelings, not even attempting to pretend to be a gentleman. She clutched at the quilt and held it tightly, half expecting Donovan to rip it out of her hands and claim her as his bride.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he placed the pillow behind his head and leaned against it in an upright position. Apparently, his nudity didn’t bother him nor did her covert glances, which he happened to notice once; he grinned when she hurriedly looked away. Her face flamed to have been caught.

She heard him clear his throat and surprised her with his next words. “Tell me about yourself.”

She faced him, not quite certain she had heard him. “What?”

“I want to know all about ye. Did ye have any brothers and sisters? I’d like to know, now that you’re my wife.” He placed his arms behind his head and settled in for a long chat.

“’Tis nothing much to tell,” she admitted, a bit confused. She had expected him to claim his husbandly rights but he wanted to talk. What a strange man he was, she decided, and felt a bit pained that he hadn’t tried even to kiss her yet. And here he was lying next to her as naked as the day he was born, and she wearing only her shift! “I was an only child, my parents died years ago.”

“And before your father died, he asked Edwin to marry you and take care of you.”

Jillian nodded. “’Tis all there is to my life story. I loved both of my parents very much, and I loved my husband and was a good wife to him.”

“You’re proud of that, I take it.”

“Of course. Cameron’s Hundred means as much to me as it did to Edwin.”

“Then you’re not unhappy about marryin’ me?”

“I don’t yet know,” she answered truthfully.

Donovan reached over and touched one of her hands that clung to the quilt. “I’ll be a good husband to ye, Jillian. I promise ye.”

“I shall try to be a good and dutiful wife.”

“’Tis pleased I am to hear ye say that, but there’s a difference between this marriage to me and the one to Edwin. I expect ye to be my wife in all ways, and not shrink away from me when I touch ye. Can ye love me in that way? I know ye don’t love me with your heart, but your body needs no love to mate with me.”

Donovan certainly was candid. But she took no offense at what he said. Strangely, her body seemed to respond of its own accord, and she realized that her hands had loosened on the quilt and had lowered it to her waist. Her breasts strained against her thin shift, and she followed his gaze to her pouting nipples and blushed so intensely that even her toes warmed beneath the cover. She might as well admit to him what she felt, because Donovan had a way of making her respond to him. “I think ’tis pleasant when you touch me—and—and I like it very much.”

“Ah, Jillian, love, you’re a woman after my own wild heart.” Donovan’s hand reached up to her cheek and his fingers gently skimmed her jawline before he turned her face toward his and placed a light kiss upon her lips. For a second, he broke away and gazed at her with those dark eyes that penetrated her very soul. “’Tis a virgin bride ye are, my love, and I promise to be careful with ye. I don’t want ye to be afraid.”

She swallowed convulsively, no longer fearful of anything, not even her own pulse-pounding passion for this man. “I know you will.”

Donovan smiled and carefully he removed the quilt from her grasp and flung it to the floor. His eyes feasted on her, dressed as she was in the silk shift which had ridden up to her thighs and revealed her tempting curves. Then he enfolded her in his embrace and brought her against his hard chest.

“Ye know that I want ye, Jillian,” he huskily whispered. “I ache with wantin’ ye.” His fingers began a slow exploration of her neck and moved lower to the lace at the edge of her shift, and hovered, almost as if he waited for an invitation to continue. “I want to touch ye. Do ye want me to touch ye?”

“Touch me where?” she asked him in a breath above a whisper. She was barely able to concentrate, so filled with warmth was she just from his nearness.

His fingers lithely moved along the line of her breast, tracing the contour and stopping at her nipple. His thumb and forefinger gently massaged the protruding bud through her shift. “Here—and other places.”

She knew what other places he meant, and she very much wanted him to touch her all over. Somehow her own weak need for him overshadowed her uncertainty and fear. She nodded. “I want you to touch me,” she admitted, a bit surprised at her own brazenness.

In the gathering darkness, she felt his sensuous smile upon her. “Then ye must take off your shift.”

For some odd reason this news dismayed her. She hadn’t realized that Donovan would want her naked; in fact, she never considered that married people made love undressed. She remembered seeing Priscilla with Donovan, and both had been nude, but now she was in Priscilla’s place and more than inexperienced. Donovan must think she was an ignorant woman not to realize that she should disrobe, and she didn’t want Donovan to think she was less desirable than Priscilla Mortimer. So, she pulled off her shift, and was more than grateful for the darkness in which he wouldn’t see just how embarrassed she was.

His hands cupped her breasts, gently weighing them within his callused palms. “God, but ye are beautiful!” he praised with a trace of awe in his tone.

“Am I?” She had never considered herself to be beautiful—perhaps fair to behold, but never anything more. Actually, she had never worried about her looks. But now, she was seeing herself through Donovan’s eyes as if for the first time.

“Aye, so beautiful, so perfect are ye. I cannot believe ye are my wife.”

“I can’t believe you’re my husband,” she said in a rush, and then wondered if her words had sounded more like an insult than a compliment. “I mean,” she hurriedly amended, “you are so handsome, and I know you’ve had women before me who pleased you—”

“Sh, my sweet,” he crooned and took her face into his hands. “The women I knew before are nothin’ like ye.”

“How many women have you known?” she dared to ask but feared hearing the answer. “Were they all ladies like Priscilla, or servants, or slaves?”

“Ah, why do ye ask me such a question?”

“I need to know. I want to know how experienced they were.”

Donovan sighed impatiently. Now of all times Jillian wanted to know about other women he’d lain with, when he was on fire for her, fairly bursting for her. Why must this woman pester him with this odd question? What difference did it make? Apparently, it mattered to her, so he attempted to phrase his answer without too many details. “The first woman I lay with was a servant for Mortimer. I thought I loved her, but Mortimer learned of it and had his filthy way with her. She died givin’ birth to his bastard. The next woman I was with was a high-born lady friend of Mortimer’s, and then there were other ladies who fancied some fun with Mortimer’s white slave. And then came Priscilla, and I belonged to her alone.”