Rapture in His Arms (35 page)

“I don’t love Sabrina!” he exclaimed, clearly baffled. “Why would ye think I loved Sabrina?”

“I-I saw her in the parlor with you not long ago, and she was saying how much she loved the ring you—had given to her…”

“Jillian, I never gave Sabrina a ring. The ring she showed me was from John Lattimore. They are going to wed.”

Jillian felt as if a huge burden had been lifted from her shoulders, and she actually started to laugh. “You mean Sabrina is going to wed John Lattimore?”

“Aye, in a month’s time. I thought ye knew that.”

Jillian shook her head. “Nay, I had no idea.”

Donovan took her hand and kissed her fingers. “Ye worried for nothin’. I’ve never loved any woman but ye, Jillian. Forgive me for my poor treatment of ye.”

“Oh, Donovan, I’d forgive you anything. I’d do anything for you. I want you to know that I knew you were the masked man in the house.”

“I know that now. And my grandfather told me about how you went into Jamestown to ask the governor to release me from prison, only ye were captured by Bacon and his men. I had no idea ye stood upon the ramparts. If I had known …”

She placed her hands upon his lips. “Please don’t dwell on that. I have something I need to tell you, something you must hear.”

He moved onto the bed with her and brought her into his arms. “What is it?”

With eyes the color of a turquoise sea, Jillian smiled up at him. “I love you, Donovan. I love you with my whole heart and my whole soul. I hope only that it isn’t too late for us.”

A shudder ripped through him. He was silent for so long that Jillian wondered if he would ever reply. But then, he placed a sweet kiss upon her lips. “Ah, Jillian, my sweet. Ye have made me the happiest man on earth this day. I never thought to win your love. I love ye, too, and when ye are well enough, I shall show ye exactly how much.”

“I look forward to it,” she told him with an impish grin.

Cameron’s Hundred

One year later

Baby Emma sat upon her mother’s lap and watched Benjamin fishing from the bank of the river with Donovan and Grayson. Grayson had decided to remain at Cameron’s Hundred with his family. Emma pointed a chubby finger at Benjamin and squealed when the boy plunked a freshly caught fish down in the grass next to Jillian’s skirt. “Emma’s gonna be a good fisherman when she gets big enough,” Benjamin observed.

“Sure, son,” Grayson agreed but winked at Donovan.

“Why shouldn’t she be?” Jillian asked, raising her eyebrows. “Girls are quite as capable of catching fish as boys. ’Tis nothing to throwing out a pole into the water. I fished as a girl and was very good at it. Emma shall be, too.”

“Aye, I know she will,” Emma’s doting father admitted, reaching down to tickle the baby’s bare feet. Emma giggled and held out her arms to her father, who instantly took her and cuddled her. He smiled at Jillian and caressed his daughter’s blond silky hair. “This girl is gettin’ heavier by the day. She’s eatin’ almost as much as Benjamin. Soon she’ll be as big.”

“Nay, she won’t, Papa,” Benjamin disagreed. “I’m a boy. Emma will never be as big as me. Will she?” he asked, not too certain.

“Nay, Emma’s goin’ to be small like Mama.”

A second later, Grayson asked to hold the child. “Why don’t you both rest some?” Grayson asked. “I can take care of Emma and Benjamin.”

Jillian started to protest, but Donovan readily handed Emma to her great-grandfather. “I think that’s a splendid idea. Thank ye, Grandfather.” Donovan held out his hand to Jillian. “I think we’ll be takin’ a walk.”

Donovan’s eyes glinted wickedly, and Jillian noted the lust shining on his face. She gave him her hand, and soon they were wandering down the path that led to the cabin which Donovan had lived in as overseer. “Why are we headed this way?” she asked him.

“If I have to tell ye that, then I mustn’t be doin’ such a good job of bein’ your husband.”

“Oh, I think you’re doing a wonderful job. You always did catch on quickly to things.”

“Like what?”

She considered him a moment and then she smiled. “Well, like learning how to read, to form your letters, to cipher …”

“And pleasuring ye? How about that?” he asked and drew her into his arms to nip playfully her earlobe.

Her breath caught in her throat. “Especially that,” she whispered.

“My grandfather wants more great-grandchildren,” Donovan observed. “That’s why he’s watchin’ the children. He’s givin’ us time alone.”

“Grayson is a romantic at heart.”

“Aye, and so am I,” Donovan told her and plucked her from the ground as if she were a spring rose. Jillian laughed and kissed Donovan’s neck as he carried her into the cabin. For the first time in a long while, they were both lighthearted. Virginia had undergone a crisis after Bacon’s Rebellion; the government had been in turmoil for months. King Charles had sent a special commission to investigate the rebellion and decided that both sides were at fault. Governor Berkeley had been severely chastised for hanging many of the rebels and had left in May to plead his case to the king. But shortly after his arrival in England, he had died.

Tyler Addison had been condemned to death for Dorcas’s murder and had mounted the scaffold six months before. Benjamin never asked about his real father, having already come to think of Donovan as his father and Jillian as his mother. But he never forgot Dorcas, and Jillian wouldn’t let him forget. She wanted the child to remember Dorcas and to know how much his mother had loved him.

They were truly contented, incredibly happy. As Donovan lowered Jillian to her feet and began to undress her, the blood pounded through her veins. She reached out to help remove his clothing after he’d taken her garments off. Together, they fell onto the small bed. His hands cupped her breasts and then his lips lowered to devour them sweetly and fiercely. Jillian felt as if her body might burst into flames. She whimpered and arched upward, enticing him with her movements. An ache within her womanhood began to blossom into ecstasy, and Jillian writhed beneath him.

Donovan’s hands tightened around her waist, and he flipped onto his back. Jillian found herself straddling him. His manhood was already thickly aroused, and Jillian wanted all of him inside her. She lifted her bottom upwards and then she positioned herself so that his shaft contacted with her pulsating essence. Her sheath enfolded just the tip of him, but she refused to take him into her body any further. Donovan grabbed her hips in his hands and gritted his teeth. “Woman, ye are drivin’ me insane with your wanton games!”

“Aye,” she whispered and seductively rubbed her hands across his bare chest. “I want you to fill me inch by inch, to plant your seed inside of me. I want all of you, all of you.” Lowering her head to his lips, Jillian kissed him hotly, and her tongue slipped into his mouth to mate with his own.

Donovan groaned and his hands began slowly to knead her buttocks, to pull her closer upon his shaft. Little by little, she started to impale herself upon him. She resisted the urge to push toward him and claimed his pulsating organ by degrees. “Ah, Jillian, I’m dyin’,” he raggedly told her.

The pleasure whirled within her, and Jillian felt she was on the verge of a sweet, ecstatic cliff. The wonderful sensations intensified, and Jillian knew she couldn’t resist any longer. With one final downward stroke, she pushed onto his shaft, Donovan took over then, and he thrust into her with wild abandon while Jillian rode him toward the pinnacle of ecstasy. And then, with one demanding thrust that took her breath, the bliss seeped through them and exploded into a blossom of pure pleasure.

Donovan cradled her in his arms later and stroked her hair. She cuddled against him, loving the smell and feel of him. “Your grandfather’s right,” Jillian murmured in his ear. “I think I would like another baby.”

Donovan gazed at her with a sweet longing in his eyes. “If ye don’t conceive today, there’s always tomorrow, and the day after that—”

“There’s tonight,” she whispered huskily.

“Ye are a wanton wench, Jillian. I swear ye shall be the death of me yet.”

“But isn’t it a lovely way to die, my dearest?”

“Aye,” he huskily agreed, not about to wait until the night to claim her again.

Jillian sighed when Donovan kissed her. And soon, as in all the days and nights to come, she found rapture in her husband’s arms.

END

The idea for
Rapture in His Arms
developed a number of years ago while I was researching another novel In
The Story of the Irish Race
by Seumas MacManus, mention is made that after Oliver Cromwell’s men had killed off a large portion of the Irish population who could bear arms, the remaining young men, women, and children were shipped as slaves to the American colonies and the West Indies. Between 30,000
and
80,000 Irish people were transported in an effort to decimate the population. It is believed that on some of the smaller islands in the West Indies, the black people there still spoke Gaelic up until a little more than a century ago. For my story’s purpose, Donovan Shay was sent to the island of Bermuda.

Since I had been interested in Bacon’s Rebellion and planned to use this aspect of Virginia history in a novel for quite some time, I found the perfect way to mingle the Irish slave information with the first reported rebellion in the colonies. I knew I must use Bacon’s Rebellion for a backdrop to my story after visiting Jamestown, Virginia a few years ago. Seeing the place where this rebellion took place and then visiting the beautiful plantations along the James River sparked my imagination. Thus, I knew that my hero would be an Irish slave and my heroine would be married to the man who purchased him.

I found Wilcombe E. Washburn’s book,
The Governor and the Rebel,
and Thomas Wertenberger’s,
Bacon’s Rebellion, 1676,
to be invaluable sources for their historical facts. I have endeavored to be historically accurate. Also, I must credit
Social Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century
by Philip Alexander Bruce as a superb reference book on this period. It is true that many women who were widowed remarried soon after their first husband’s demise. Because many young girls were married off at a young age, it was possible that they might be widowed more than once, thus remarrying twice or more and having children by these husbands. Especially if a woman was young and owned property, she was more apt to be courted soon after her husband’s death by eligible suitors. According to Philip Alexander Bruce, one man even went so far as to leave his property to his widow’s children by a second husband. This intriguing fact became the springboard for my story.

Rapture in His Arms
is a prequel to my novel,
Pirate Hunter’s Mistress.

Lynette Vinet is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, and a member of Romance Writers of America and Creative Minds Writers. She has always been intrigued by the history of her native city and the South, as well as Colonial America and the British Isles, probably because her ancestors were born there. An avid genealogist, she is also a member of the Genealogical Research Society of New Orleans. Over the last two decades she has published eleven historical romances as well as a number of genealogical articles. She is a wife, mother and doting grandmother.

~ ~ ~

If you enjoyed this work, please leave a review to help other readers decide if it’s a story they too would like to read. A couple of sentences are all you need to write. Thank you!

~ ~ ~

Subscribe to
Fresh Leaves
, the Steel Magnolia Press newsletter, to be notified of new releases and subscriber-only specials:
http://eepurl.com/gCgrX
.

~ ~ ~

Ebooks by Lynette Vinet available now or coming soon to Amazon (from Steel Magnolia Press)

Historical Romances

Pirate’s Bride
, Book 1 in the Liberty’s Ladies Collection