Halfway Home, page 23
Wordlessly, he nodded.
“I was only eleven when she died, and she’d been sickly for years before that, so naturally we didn’t talk about—about that sort of thing. Later, after I’d grown up, there was Noreen. My stepmother. We didn’t really do all that much talking about anything, but I have this friend who went off to Illinois and got married, and she wrote me all about it.” Relieved to be back in control of the situation, she said gently, “I expect you’ve done the marriage act several times. You’re certainly old enough, and I know how it is with sailors.”
“You do?”
“And not only sailors. I’ve heard most men keep mistresses, and now that you’re fixing to set up a place for Ivadelle—”
“I am?”
“Well, yes. You said so, didn’t you?”
He looked for a moment as if he’d swallowed a plug of tobacco. “Leave Ivadelle to me, if you please.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Sara explained patiently. “I’m hardly a child, Jericho. I do know how these things work. You probably want an heir, which I can understand, and that’s a part of my duty. I just wanted you to know that I understand—”
“Yes? Just what is it you think you understand, Sara?”
“Well, that I—that is, that you and Ivadelle—but first, I reckon you and I need to—ummm . . .”
“I need to get my heir on you first, is that what you’re trying to say? And then I can take on as many mistresses as I can satisfy?”
Satisfy. The word brought on a whole raft of emotions, few of which Sara understood. One thing she did understand, however, was that having given her word, she was obligated to stand by it. When a woman had nothing to cling to but pride, her word of honor was everything.
“Then, I suggest we get started on it,” Jericho said, and before she could take in his meaning, he was propelling her toward the door.
Sara grabbed the door frame and held on. “Now?” she protested, peering back over her shoulder.
“Why not?”
“Well—well, for one thing, it’s not even dark yet.”
“I have it on good authority that heirs can be got around the clock.”
“Yes, but—what about tonight’s dinner? I was going to talk to Maulsie about what kind of foods you particularly like.”
“I’m not all that hard to please.”
“You’re not?”
She cast him one despairing look over her shoulder, and Jericho came close to relenting. Either she was shockingly ignorant, or she was still trying to deceive him. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what she had to gain by pretending to be experienced. It wasn’t as if he wouldn’t discover the truth for himself as soon as he could shuck her out of that hideous gown and spread her thighs.
So it had hurt, had it? He didn’t know what Ricketts had done to her, but he knew what the old sot had not done.
“Hester?” Sara cried out as he hurried her through the foyer.
“Never mind, Hester,” he said when the housekeeper peered around the parlor door. “Sara and I have some unfinished business to attend. We’ll be down directly.”
“You didn’t have to say that,” Sara whispered fiercely. “Now they’re all going to know what we’re doing!”
“You’d rather have an audience?”
“Jericho! For mercy’s sake—!”
“Hester’ll find some way to keep the other two downstairs if she has to anchor ‘em to the kitchen stove.”
Sara’s shoulders fell. She sighed. Then, lifting her skirts, plodded barefooted up the stairs with Jericho right behind her, watching the way her hips swayed with every step, inhaling the faint essence of citrus and spice that always seemed to follow her.
He felt his enthusiasm begin to rise. He would bed her, all right. Plain and straightforward, at least the first few times. Once she’d had time to forget whatever perversity Ricketts had practiced on her, he might explore a few of the more pleasurable variations, for he’d been well instructed in how to please a woman by women whose business was pleasure.
Sara had obviously not been instructed on how to please a man, which made it all the more curious that she pleased him so very much. Making no attempt at all to be seductive, she poked up the fire, closed the curtains and then turned down the bed, folding back the covers with mathematical precision and then fluffing up the pillows.
Jericho braced his shoulders against the door, watching in amusement and growing arousal as she marched around the room, checking to see that the pitcher was filled just as if she were an efficient housemaid instead of a woman about to be bedded by her husband for the first time.
She lifted a quilt off the rack and unfolded it. He was about to tell her that she wouldn’t be needing that to keep her warm when she flung it over the mirror.
Coming away from the door, he said, “What the devil is that for?”
“The quilt?” And then she blushed. Even in the dim light, he could see her embarrassment. “Oh. Well, my friend from Illinois—remember, I told you about her?” He nodded, wondering what kind of harebrained hoodoo he was going to hear next. “She read this book, all about houses of—you know—in London? You probably won’t believe it, but there’s one that actually has mirrors all around the bed. Can you imagine anything so—well, so embarrassing?”
Jericho could see right off that his bride was going to need a masterly hand to overcome a shocking degree of ignorance, not to mention all the misinformation coming out of the state of Illinois.
“Sara, come here,” he commanded in a quiet, commanding tone. Dutifully, she came and stood before him, still buttoned up to the chin, her arms covered all the way to her wrists. “Do you want to undress, or shall I do it for you?”
“Undress?” She screwed up her face, still fiery red, and looked him right in the eye. He gave her half marks for courage. “Are you sure you want to get it done right now? I mean, we could always, um . . . go for a walk or something. With the sun and all, I expect it’s real warm outside, and—”
“Sara?”
“What?”
“Kindly hush up. Now turn around and let me unbutton you, and then, if you’re of a mind to, you can do the same for me.”
Never before had Jericho realized just how little he knew about dealing with a woman. Leastwise, with a decent woman. All his adult life, with a few brief exceptions, he had lived solely among men. It had been his experience that at times like this, a man simply made his choice, paid his money, and followed the whore to her quarters, where nature took its course without all this backing and filling.
The women of his experience had known their business. Invariably, they wore only a few scraps of lace that could be quickly disposed of. When it came to divesting a gentleman of his clothing, their fingers were as nimble as any dockside purse lifter.
With a sigh that gave him some idea of just how much she dreaded what was about to happen, Sara turned her back to him. Jericho was clumsy, but then, the buttons were so blasted small. Frowning, he slowly bared her back, and with each inch of skin revealed, recalled the way she had looked when he had brought her upstairs and lowered her onto the bed in the next room.
Delicate. That was the only word to describe her shoulders. She put him in mind of one of those fine jade carvings he had seen over in China—delicate as lacework, but surprisingly strong for all that.
She smelled good. As he leaned closer for a better whiff, his face brushed over her neck and he felt his shaft thrust painfully against his breeches. Easy, cap’n. Easy as she goes . . .
With fingers that might as well have been ten thumbs, he finally managed to unfasten the last of her confounded buttons and ease the gown off her shoulders. Her arms came up to cover the front of the flimsy scrap she was wearing underneath, even though her back was to him.
Jericho’s gaze lifted to the quilt-draped mirror across the room. Unbidden, his mind painted a swift picture of what she would look like naked. He had seen her nearly so when Hester had removed her wet, muddy garments that night he had brought her home.
God, he had never been so scared in his life. He had died when he’d seen her lying half on her face in that blackwater swamp, her neck bent at an angle on that damned cypress knee. Even after he’d got her home—even when he knew she was still alive, he hadn’t been able to leave her side. All night and half the next day he had stayed with her, touching her hand to be certain it was still warm—watching the slow rise and fall of her chest to make sure she was still breathing.
He wanted to tell her how precious she was to him, for against all that was reasonable, she was. With all her odd starts, her stubborn ways and her strange notions, she had somehow managed to get under his skin. Somewhere along the way, he wished he had taken time to learn how to talk to a woman. To really talk to a woman, about something more than how he liked his meals served or how much she charged per hour for her services.
With a soft whisper of sound, the gown slipped down over her hips and billowed out around her feet. He wondered whether to untie her petticoats or take down her hair first. Or if she would rather take down her own hair.
She stood there, still as a statue. What was she thinking? Was she dreading what he was about to do to her? He wanted to tell her not to be afraid, but then, she might be wise to be afraid. He had never before taken a virgin. He’d heard tales, though. With some, it all but took a battering ram. He could never, ever inflict such pain on any woman. With others, he’d heard it was no more than a mosquito bite.
He hoped Sara was the latter kind, because otherwise, he would never be able to do it. His staff would shrivel right up if she so much as let out a whimper of pain, he was sure of it.
But then, perhaps not, he thought as she lifted her arms and began to take down her hair. Still with her back to him. Still without meeting his eyes.
His hands were shaking. His palms were wet. He wiped them off on his trousers and then fumbled to untie her petticoat. And then, with her hair falling over her shoulders like a heavy silk shawl, she stood before him in nothing more substantial than a pair of long ruffled drawers, a corselette with a doohickey on the stern, and a flimsy little undershirt that barely even covered her shoulder blades.
Jericho found himself shaking like a halyard in a high gale. At this rate he might even lose his priming before he’d fired off his first shot.
“Do—do you want me to help you with your buttons?” she asked in a voice so thready it was barely audible.
He cleared his throat. “No—that is, no thank you. Go to bed, Sara.”
Sara peered over her shoulder in time to see him shut his eyes. He looked as if he were in pain, but he was swearing under his breath.
At least his lips were moving, and she caught a word she hadn’t heard but once in her life, and that only when the boy who used to help Simon had let the ax slip and chopped off the tip of his own boot.
Obediently, she turned toward the bed, but before she could go two steps, Jericho caught her and swung her up in his arms. He brought his mouth down on hers in a kiss that was anything but gentle, and within seconds, every rational thought she possessed had scattered.
With his lips covering her, his tongue explored her mouth. He tasted of brandy and something even more intoxicating. Something dark, mysterious, enticing.
Slowly, he lowered her feet to the floor again, and she was acutely aware of the rough, rigid tension of his body as she slithered down over him.
“Ah, Sara, Sara,” he whispered against her mouth, “I don’t want to hurt you, but—”
She was already hurting in ways she couldn’t begin to comprehend, except that the feeling was remarkably similar to the way she felt every single time he touched her. Something between pain and the sweetest kind of pleasure. Like starving and feasting at the same time—which was plainly absurd. She kept wanting to rub against something the way a cat rubbed against a table leg. Only it was Jericho she wanted to rub against, not a piece of furniture. And since she seemed to have lost all control over her actions, she did just that.
Using his mouth, his tongue and his hands, he took her farther and farther from earth, into a strange and exciting new world. Pressing herself against him, she twisted restlessly, feeling his body shift and harden and change even as he moved against her.
Then, spreading his feet widely apart, he held her against that part of him that she had seen swell and change shape before her very eyes on more than one occasion. She grabbed his shoulders and hung on, her senses reeling. “Oh, my—” she gasped.
“Sara, I can’t wait,” he groaned.
“I want—please—” She didn’t know what she wanted, she only knew that Jericho and Jericho alone could give it to her, and if he didn’t, then she would die.
“Let me—” He eased her away and began tearing off his clothes. Buttons flew in all directions. Neither of them paid the least attention.
Sara fumbled with the buttons on his trousers. She had a dim recollection of having done this before, and she hurried instinctively, in case something happened again to interfere. “How do they—”
“This way,” he rasped, and his hands replaced hers at the front of his breeches. “Don’t be frightened.”
Grabbing a fistful of black serge and white knitted wool, she tugged it down over his lean flanks. Her knuckles raked over warm firm flesh, roughened with coarse black hair, and she paused to stare down at what she had uncovered.
Oh, my mercy . . .
“Don’t look at me,” he said gruffly.
“But I want to look at you. I want—”
“So do I. Sweet salvation, so do I!”
And then they were both naked, and suddenly stricken with a shyness neither had ever before experienced. It lasted only a moment, but it was long enough for Sara to think, that’s not going to work. There has to be some other way to . . .
And for Jericho to think, she’s too small. God, she’s the most beautiful thing in the world, but she’s too small. Her hips—that tiny wisp of curls—there’s not room for me inside her.
He nearly wept.
“Sweetheart, I don’t want to hurt you—I’d never do that,” he said, sounding strained, sounding hoarse, sounding hungry.
“I don’t care, I’m hurting now,” she wailed. “Do something. Make it go away . . . please, Rico!”
He could do that for her. At least he could take away the hunger she was feeling. It surprised him that she was even feeling it, for with all the women he had known, it was part of the performance. Part of what a man paid for—the pretense that the woman they had hired for the evening or the hour or the quarter hour felt the same fierce, driving hunger their poor salivating slob of a customer was feeling.
Common logic told him it wasn’t so. Over the years, a few such women had taken the time to teach him how to pleasure them, but time was money, and he doubted if very many of them valued their own pleasure above gold.
“You’re trembling,” he whispered.
“So are you.”
We’re a fine pair, he thought ruefully. Reaching out, he lifted her carefully into his arms and said, “Don’t be frightened, Sara. I’m going to lay you on the bed, and then I’ll do—that is, I won’t actually—” Judas, how did a man describe such things to an innocent woman without sounding depraved?
He didn’t feel depraved. He only wanted to bring her pleasure. Wanted the act to be beautiful for her. Wanted to show her how much she meant to him.
Only how could he explain all that? What were the proper words? God, he was only a rough seaman! “Sara, what I’m trying to say is that there are ways—” Swearing silently, he lowered her to the bed. “At any rate, it won’t take long. I’ll see to easing your pain, and then”—and he vowed it was so—“I’ll leave you be, I promise.”
Chapter Nineteen
At first there was only the sound of two people breathing in gasps and small sighs. “Is this the way—?” Sara started to ask when with his hands and his mouth Jericho caused her to gasp again. Only now was she beginning to realize how much she didn’t know, and she’d thought she knew everything. She was intelligent. Sensible. How could she not have known? Every woman was supposed to know these things, else how did babies get born?
“One of the ways,” he said, his voice deep and rough, like torn brown velvet. He placed a chaste kiss on the very tip of her breast, his own flesh leaping to feel her grow turgid under his lips.
One part of Jericho’s mind was caught up in wondering exactly what it was Ricketts had done to her—for the man had surely done something. He’d been pulling on his clothes when his wife had come for him—his legal wife, that was.
“Sara, tell me what you want,” he whispered.
Staring at him helplessly, she said, “But I thought you knew.”
The scent of her body rose around him. He was kneeling beside the bed she was lying on, when he would far rather be in it. With her. Atop her. Or beneath her, with her astride his hips.
But all that could wait. He had promised to pleasure her without hurting her—without disgusting her. Without repeating whatever perversity Ricketts had practiced on her.
Unless she happened to have liked it.
It wasn’t seemly to talk about such things. Even a man of his own limited experience knew that much. Yet there was something inside him—some nasty little worm of curiosity—that kept gnawing away at his brain. Which only went to show that a man could as easily sink below as rise above his own expectations.
“Did he kiss you—here?” he asked, kissing, and then suckling her other breast. Her whole body seemed to lift right off the bed. She shook her head rapidly.
“He didn’t do that, but he, um—pinched my bosom.”
“That was when he hurt you?”
“N-not really.” She was clutching fistfuls of sheet, her body stiff and unyielding, limbs clamped together, arms at her sides. “My night shift was all bunched up over my bosom, so his fingers didn’t really hurt very much.”
He hadn’t even undressed her, then. The bloody old fool. “Where exactly did he hurt you, Sara? If you’ll tell me, I’ll do my best not to . . .” He had never felt so clumsy in his life. She was so small, so vulnerable. That any man had ever taken indecent liberties with her body infuriated him. That one of the men who intended to do just that was himself, infuriated him even more.
