The Secret Rose (47 page)

“Me, too, Tom.” They had done this so often, made love so many times that she had lost count. But this moment of desire was no less sweetly fraught with anxious anticipation than the first. She reached down and stroked his thigh lightly, reveling in the feel of the silky hair that furred him.

His hand moved from her breast, trailing slowly, slowly charting with a single finger an invisible line from her ribs to the valley of her belly and then the mossy mound below, which he tenderly probed.

Her breath caught and her hand moved, found him, and closed. She heard his sigh of pleasure at her knowledgeable
handling. She had learned so much from him, of loving, and trusting, and being loved. Yes, he had taught her even that, how to accept being loved. And he loved her so well. Not just with his body but, in this moment, she needed him as much as he needed her.

A month was too long to be away, Thomas decided as he bent a knee on the bed between her parted thighs. The twins were nearly three. By spring, when he had to go to Sydney, they would be old enough to travel with them. He would take them all. But first and now, he would take his wife.

He came into her swiftly, entered her with an unexpected urgency that drew a gasp from her. He could not stop, not now. His hands dove under her buttocks to lift her up to make his access easier, deeper. Again and again, he plunged into her inviting heat, glad for the welcome of her. It was a quick, grappling pleasure that he had learned to his amazement that she enjoyed as much as he. When need be, she looked every inch a lady, all lavender and lace and prim bonnets. But there was sand in her, and strength, and a wantonness he needed.

He heard her gasps of joy in gratitude as he felt the summing of his own pleasure. Hard and quick, like a gallop across the meadow, and his sweet, dear Aisleen keeping pace.

He was distracted to hear her laughter even before he got back his own breath. “What’s wrong?” he groused.

“Your boots! You
sthronsuchl
You left on your boots!”

The room brightened slowly while Aisleen lay beside her sleeping husband. She wouldn’t tell him just yet that she was pregnant again. He would feel guilt over his rough play, and she had no regrets. She had needed him high and hard inside her. It was a confirmation of life, of all that they were and were to be. He had not lied to her, after all. She had a home, a husband, a new life. How foolish she had been to fear this.

In the last three years, she had learned to forgive every trespass in her life. She had even forgiven herself. How sad it was to know that her father had never known the peace and security of this kind of loving. How grateful she was that she had not been able to persuade her mother away from finding it with Patrick Kirwan.

The magic of life lay in finding and keeping love. And if her world was strangely haunted by the most amazing of coincidences, she was too wise to ponder them.

She rose up on an elbow and looked down at Thomas, her hand straying over his chest and down into the black tangle that began below his belly. She lightly kissed his chest and he moved, his legs sprawling wide.

It was there as always, tucked inside his upper right thigh, the exact duplicate of her own: a single rose-shaped birthmark.

She bent and kissed it.
My bouchal. Two halves of a whole.

“Da! Ma?”

Two glossy black heads peered in through the doorway as Aisleen jerked the sheet up Perhaps she’d name her daughters Meghan and Deirdre

GLOSSARY

1.
Aisleen
—Gaelic name: vision.

2.
Ard ittgfe
—High King.

3.
Avourneen maehree—
Darling of my heart.

4.
Bail up—
“Hold up!” Used during robbery (Australian).

5.
Beltane—
First day of May.

6.
Bheirim don diabhai sibh—
“The devil take you!”

7.
Billy/Billy Can—
Metal can used for brewing tea over open fire (Australian).

8.
Bouchal—
Boy.

9.
Brumby—
Wild horse in Australia.

10.
Bushranger—
Bandit who preyed on travelers and isolated
homesteads, often an escaped convict.

11.
Cha—
Tea (Australian).

12.
Colleen dkas—
Pretty girl.

13.
Coolyeens—
Curls.

14.
Croskeening—
Whispering.

15.
Dag—
feces (Australian).

16.
Damper
—Unleavened bread.

17.
Daoine sidhe—
Fairy
people.

18.
Deeshy—
Small.

19.
Dilse—
Love
.

20.
Dingo—
Australian wild dog.

21.
Dinkum—
“Fair and square.” (Australian).

22.
Dodhran—
Irish drum.

23.
Drover—
Person who drives sheep or cattle from property to property.

24.
Emancipist—
Ex-convict, one who served his time.

25.
Gean-canach
—“Love talker,” an Irish fairy.

26.
Grazier
—Sheep or cattle rancher.

27.
Jackeroo
—Stationhand on a sheep or cattle station.

28.
Jumbuck—
A sheep.

29.
Kelpie—
Australian sheep dog with dingo blood.

30.
Larrikin—
Tough young man.

31.
Macushla
—“My darling.”

32.
Musha—
“In truth!”

33.
Och—
“Oh!”

34.
Ochone
—“Oh
my!” (Irish).

35.
Pommie, Pom—
English woman or man.

36.
Pooka—
Irish fairy.

37.
Poteen—
Illicitly distilled whiskey (Irish).

38.
Rapparee—
Irregular soldier; guerrilla fighter (Irish).

39.
Ringer—
Champion sheep shearer.

40.
Sheila
—A female.

41.
Shivoo
—Spree or party.

42.
Skean—
Irish dagger.

43.
Sly grog—
Liquor
sold illegally in Australian gold fields.

44.
Squatter—
Large-scale grazier who owns a station.

45.
Sthronsuck
—“Lazy
thing!”

46.
Sundowner—
Tramp who avoided work by arriving at a station at sundown.

47.
Swagman—
Hobo, itinerant worker; carried personal
belongings in rolled blanket, a swag.

48.
Tanists
—Second in command to Irish clan chieftain
(Irish).

49.
Tucker—
Food (Australian).

50.
Vandiemonians—
Escaped convicts from Van Diemen’s Land in the 1850s who robbed the gold diggers of New South Wales and Victoria.

51.
Walkabout—
Travel; nomadic wanderings (aboriginal).

52.
Wirra—
“Oh!”

NOW ON SALE

Rose of the Mists
—Book One of The ROSE Trilogy

“Flows like a charming Gaelic folktale. Its freshness and

sensitivity will keep the reader entranced and wanting

more.
Superexcellence
in the field of historical romance!

5 stars!”
—Affaire de Coeur

EXCERPT

The slender arms that came around him from behind seemed a miracle of grace and benediction to his harried thoughts. The world ceased to exist outside the circle of her arms. “My love, take pity,” he whispered hoarsely.

Meghan rested her brow in the valley between his shoulder blades, her hands splaying over the flat expanse of his abdomen.
My love!
He had called her his love. He loved her. She felt the rapid rise and fall of his breathing under her hands and it comforted her to know that he was as moved as she. One hand moved up over the wide contours of his chest while the other descended, reaching lower until she found him.

“Mercy’s Grace!” Revelin shut his eyes and arched his back, involuntarily pressing himself into her hand. Her second hand joined the first and she cradled him.

He felt alive, like a dove, warm and throbbing. “Did ye always feel so?” she questioned in a serious voice.

“Always feel…what?”

Meghan considered this as her fingers searched his clothing for the placket that would allow her entrance. “Ye’re like a bull. The sheathing does not tell the whole of it.”

Revelin felt the rumble of laughter first in his belly, the immoderate kind of guffaw that was part amusement and part guilty shame. When he loosed it, the explosion startled the night, set the stillness crackling with human warmth and reality.

* * *

NOW ON SALE

A Rose in Splendor
—Book Two of The ROSE Trilogy

EXCERPT

“Shh,
acushla
,
do not weep,” he said softly, drawing her closer until his cheek rested against hers. “I did not mean to make you cry.”

Deirdre drew back from him. “Why, why have you come here?”

He grew very still and suddenly she was frightened. She had asked a question to which she did not want the answer. She looked down. “No, do not tell me.”

He lifted her chin until she was forced to look once again into his eyes and read the answer that she both feared and desired.

She knew that he would kiss her. She drew a quick breath, tried to make her mouth less tremulous than it was…and failed.

She failed, too, to prepare herself for the feel of his mouth on hers, the warm hunger and sweet fire of a kiss unlike any she had ever known.

The kiss deepened and the drum of pain within her was replaced by the thunderous pounding of her heart. He tasted of green grass, and she shivered deep inside to the languorous stroke of his heat-drenched tongue across her lips.

When at last he lifted his head, she could not draw breath and kept her eyes closed against the devastating effect of his kiss.

“What’s this,
acushla
,
have you never been kissed before?”

Deirdre opened her eyes to his gentle laughter and thought of Cousin Claude and the half dozen other young men who had dared press their mouths briefly to hers.

“No, I do not think I have,” she answered with wisdom of her new knowledge of a kiss.

“Good,” he answered and pulled her to him again.

They lay in the grass a long time, his mouth on hers, his hands on her shoulders, one long black-clad leg thrown across hers as though he feared she would flee. But Deirdre had no desire to move an inch, unless it brought her closer to him.

Finally, he rose away from her and lay back on the grass beside her and they both stared at the misty day about them.

“I did not know that kissing could be like this,” Deirdre admitted after a few moments, too timid to turn and look at him.

“Like what,
acushla
?”

“Like fear and joy, Christmas Day and its anticipation all rolled together.”

“Aye, ’tis like that,
acushla
.”

She smiled to herself. “Why do you call me ‘darling’?”

From the corner of her eye she saw him roll onto his side to face her. “What could you have me call you?
Madilse
?”

My love
.
Deirdre trembled inside. “Kiss me again.”

“No, lass.”

Confused, she turned to him and met his serious look. “You’d nae like it if I kissed you again.”

“Why?” she whispered, already suspecting what his answer would be.

“There comes a price with joy, and though I do not think you’d be sorry now, later you might come to regret the price you’d pay.”

Deirdre closed her eyes against the stark beauty of his face. It was a dangerous moment.