Chapter Eight
Pain gave way to bliss. Jonas crashed into her. Or did she crash into him?
Joining with a man wasn’t what she expected, this shock of emotions and sensations. Tender skin twitched between her legs. She’d be sore. The benefit of an older, once-married sister was whispered confidences of the marriage bed.
But she was not married to Jonas.
This was an assignation in her tower, fully dressed while surrounded by the smells of vinegar and Roman antiquities and dirt. The past always came with a little dirt.
Jonas lay on top of her, breathing hard and sucking her neck. Hot, wanton flares burned down to simmering spangles. Her body was alive. Was it possible sex was meant for a woman’s well-being? Further exploration was necessary. A complete study to catalogue all the things a man and a woman could do to each other and the corresponding response. Her body craved more…his waistcoat’s slippery silk on her stomach, her fingers combing his short hair, Jonas’s earring skimming her arm. The metal was warm from their embrace. Velvet abraded her nipples. Big, hairy thighs rubbed hers. Sensations pummeled her, too many to assess properly. One feeling, though, was most curious.
“You’re shrinking inside me.”
Jonas laughed against her neck, the vibration as satisfying as his stones resting against her vagina. He nuzzled her earlobe and her booted heel dug into the mattress when he found a ticklish spot.
Her hips wiggled. She tested her inner muscles, squeezing him again. “Definitely softer now.”
He pushed up, his smile a white crescent in the dark. “As it happens when sexual congress ends.”
“I should like to do this again.” She tugged down her shirt when icy air bit her exposed skin. “But with less clothes and a warm chamber.”
“Have plans do you?” Gentle mirth filled his words.
Jonas withdrew from her and rose from the bed. She felt the stickiness of his seed and her sex mingling between her legs. The slickness of it.
His loss chilled her, but she was in no hurry to get up. “I liked you kissing my neck afterward. There should be more of that.”
“Duly noted,” he said, pulling up his breeches.
It was fascinating watching Jonas collect himself. He tucked in his shirt and didn’t bother to retie his smalls. Was that a post-sex habit of his to neglect his smalls? Jonas scowled, too, when he smoothed his shirt inside his velvet breeches.
“You understand this was rushed. It all happened too quick.”
She mumbled something, the words unintelligible from her finger resting on her bottom lip.
“Sex should be longer. A thing enjoyed for a night,” he explained.
A man dressing was just as intimate as the undressing. With the mullioned window at his back, light outlined broad shoulders and made the gold glint on his ear. Black velvet strained to cover him, the fabric denting where his shoulder curved in to meet his bicep. Jonas had always been strong. He’d been her protector in their youth. When other village boys didn’t want her along, Jonas had defended her. When raiding local orchards, Jonas would toss the choicest fruit to her with a wink. When he labored in the Captain’s shop and she’d happen to stop by, he’d give her a moment and the promise of a ramble once the work was done.
She loved the smell of sawdust and wood, of ripe plums and Jonas.
Was it wise to tell a man she loved him the same night she’d confessed to being promised to another?
She covered her mouth and watched his beautiful hands button his waistcoat. He colored her childhood with fond memories. How much better and richer a future with him would be.
“We must do this again outside in the sun at the height of summer,” she said wistfully.
Fingers slowing, his blue gaze stabbed her heart. Summer was out of the question. He wouldn’t be here.
“Don’t say it.” She buried her nose into the sheets. “I forgot.”
Talk of lying naked with him meant a future together. Jonas wouldn’t be here past Twelfth Night. Her mouth filled with a plea for him to stay longer, but that would make her a grasping woman, especially since she was betrothed to another. She pulled the ends of her waistcoat together, tears pricking her eyes. Oh, this was lowering. Elspeth was quick to cry. Not her! Why, then, was this her second spate of weepiness in the same night?
Is this what happened when a woman yearned for a man? Wanting him turned her into a blubbering coil of emotions?
She would have none of it. Wiping her face, she’d not let him see these tears. They belonged to her alone. Nudging herself up, the sheets rustled a last invitation to stay put. Jonas didn’t feel the same pull. Fully dressed, he plucked her coat off the floor and tossed it over his shoulder.
“Come. The first order of business is to see you home.”
Chin to chest, she rose, stretching her shirt hem over her naked thighs. There had to be a better way for sex to end. Wasn’t it more romantic than this? She was half-dressed but fully bared to him, as good as admitting this was more than a lustful tumble. Accepting her coat, she couldn’t meet his gaze.
Jonas walked to the table for his coat and hat. “It’s late.”
She began putting herself together. Shirt hastily tucked in her breeches, she fixed her waistcoat. Her fingers fumbled on the straight line of buttons and button holes. The garment gapped where she’d missed two buttons.
“It’ll have to do,” she mumbled to herself.
The floorboards creaked with Jonas’s approach. Head down to close her placket, bronze velvet swung into view. Jonas’s deep voice broke the awkward silence.
“I could’ve made the night better had I known.”
Eyeing him from under her lashes, she sealed two top buttons and left the rest undone. “If I told you I was a virgin, you wouldn’t have touched me.”
Mouth set, he handed over her cloak. “Probably not.”
“What is it with us?” She swirled the cloak around her shoulders and raised her hood. “We’re so close, yet out of reach.”
His jaw muscles worked. The subtle twitch telling her he mulled this problem, too. She waited for him to say something, to share an ounce of feeling, but the truth was he showed more reaction when he was inside her than fully clothed. Jonas stood stalwart as ever, a man of few words and closely held emotions.
This should have been a momentous night. She’d given herself to the one man she truly wanted—her dearest childhood friend. Yet, the past bond wasn’t enough to bridge a future together.
She sped for the stairs. Footfalls hit the floors after her. She raced down the winding staircase out to the cold. Cold midnight air burned her lungs. The back of Halsey Manor in view, she marched through the back garden aware of the male specter behind her.
“Livvy. Wait.”
“You don’t have to see me home. As you can see, it’s right here.”
She didn’t regret her waspish tongue. Even the best of men needed a good set down. And for all the hurt, Jonas was still a rare man. Tonight knocked him off the pedestal. Or did she see him more clearly now? That was the rub with memories. They framed a man with the veneer of perfection. A grown woman couldn’t be fanciful when considering the future—even the best of heroes had feet of clay.
And imperfect heroes persisted. At least Jonas did. His long legs cut through the snow alongside her as she rounded the manor. He didn’t give up. Jonas trod the wide steps up to her front door at her side.
“There’s more I want to say but not like this. Not in these circumstances.”
She pulled her cloak tightly about. This was promising. Perhaps she’d been rash? A single candle lantern lit the front door, one of the minor economies of late. Her family wasn’t down in the heel, nor were they as flush in the coffers as in the past. The lone candle served as a reminder she had obligations to the people she loved. They counted on her, and she counted on Jonas.
“You will come back to the tower tomorrow?”
Lapis lazuli eyes gleamed boldly at her. The rakish earring did, too.
“For the chair,” she said firmly. She would not ask again to lie with him.
Jonas smiled at her, the first glimmer of friendship shining in his face. “I gave my word to restore the chair.”
“Good. I’m sure we can get past this. We promised to remain friends…at least for, for however long you’ll remain in Plumtree.”
He stretched out his hand, palm up. She shifted from one foot to the other.
“What’s this?”
“My hand,” he teased. “I believe it’s customary for a woman to place her hand in a man’s palm when he offers it.”
“I know the custom. There’s no need for fine manners out here at midnight. No one will see.”
She set her hand in his anyway. Her fingertips had gone numb, but his breath warmed her knuckles. “It’s not about what others see. It’s about you and me.”
They’d both been remiss about donning gloves tonight. Jonas planted a chaste kiss on the back of her hand. Straightening to full height, he held her fingers longer than propriety allowed. But, they’d already dashed headlong from proper to improper in her tower.
Tenderness lit his blue eyes shaded under the brim of his hat. “I will come for you in the morning.”
With that, he turned on his heel and trotted down the stairs. She stared speechless at the wide line of his shoulders. The bottom of Jonas’s coat swayed with his—dare she say?—jaunty step. He trod the Halsey drive to the north road, a whistle drifting after him.
Head shaking, she opened the door and shut it quietly. She swiped her boots clean on the boot swipe, lost in the comforting stillness of home. The clock ticking in the hall. Her footsteps sinking in the entry’s thick carpet with its cream and light blue pattern. The medallion with a chip in the plaster above the cloak hooks.
And the empty chair where the housekeeper, Mrs. Tillmouth, or a footman usually waited for all to come safely home.
“I sent Mrs. Tillmouth to bed.” Her mother’s voice floated from the unlit hall until she came into view, her thick auburn braid rested on her shoulder like a laurel. Her eyes narrowed shrewdly. “I see you had quite an evening with Mr. Braithwaite.”
“What makes you say that?” She smoothed her coat, her stance awkward. It was foolish. She was a woman of twenty-four…not far from being on the shelf.
Her mother glided into the drawing room where she beckoned Livvy to follow. “Wet boots. Your rather quiet entrance…sans the Hastings’ carriage.”
Livvy followed her into the drawing room, and her mother shut the double doors behind them.
“And there are your waistcoat buttons. They are not properly fastened.” Her mother’s continental accent was light behind her. “Or should I say re-fastened?”
She gasped, both hands covering her midsection. Her mother strode forward, her elegant, blue dressing gown swaying. She lit a taper and touched it to a brass candelabra, fine lines etching her forehead.
“As much as I should scold you for letting Mr. Braithwaite kiss you, we have bigger problems than your evening’s escapades.”
“Father?”
“No. Mr. Haggerty. He’s here.”
“Here’s here now?” Livvy sunk into the nearest chair. The man she’d unofficially agreed to marry.
“Sound asleep upstairs thanks to Mrs. Tillmouth’s tincture. He complained of a headache when he arrived. But between you and me, the good woman spiked it with one of her stronger herbs in an effort to save your hide, my dear.”
“I didn’t think he’d be here this soon.”
Her mother poured port into a crystal glass. “Your Mr. Haggerty is most anxious to have the banns read. He brought his solicitor, Mr. Kendall.”
Humph! Her Mr. Haggerty. He’d want nothing to do with her if he knew what had happened tonight. No one could tell. Not even her mother. The comment about letting Jonas have his way with ardent kisses was enlightening. That’s what her mother believed had happened. Brushing hair off her face, that’s what she’d let her mother keep thinking.
Livvy’s shoulders sagged inside her coat. What about Mr. Haggerty? He was their best chance for the best price for the chair.
But how could he know what she’d done? Sex didn’t brand a woman.
Her mother took a sip of port. “Mr. Kendall asked for a copy of the settlement deed allowing a female to inherit Halsey lands.”
Livvy’s heart sunk to knees. “It’s happening, isn’t it?”
She stared out the glass doors which opened to the garden. Snow peppered the garden’s low hedges set in geometric rectangles. The keen observer could spy two sets of footprints had trailed through the simple maze, having come from Halsey Tower. The medieval structure tipped like an old friend waiting for her. Inside the stone pile, she’d given her body to Jonas. She’d given her heart, too, even if he didn’t grasp what she’d done.
She’d been giving pieces of her heart to Jonas Braithwaite since she was a little girl. Her strong, silent neighbor with his sturdy shoulders and brilliant blue eyes was the one she loved.
Jonas was her hero.
“Despite his enthusiasm for the financial benefit of marriage, I do believe he has a tendre for you,” her mother said quietly.
Livvy winced and locked her fingers together on her lap. If she listed the fine qualities of Mr. Alistair Haggerty, the man was a dream. Handsome, educated, a well-to-do merchant of antiquities. He treated her well and even supported her wish to write stories about Roman heroes. A perfect man in every sense, except for one—he wasn’t Jonas Braithwaite.
“Mr. Haggerty insisted on going to the Sheep’s Head.” Her mother studied her over the crystal glass. “One can only wonder if he would’ve found you there.”
Livvy bit her bottom lip. Her mother suspected some mischief. There were many things she could tell her mother, but what she’d done tonight was not a confessional she cared to give. The drawing room’s far glass door reflected the two Halsey women, but there was also her sister to consider. Dear Elspeth. Gentle-natured, rare to venture outside Society’s rules, and a widow with three children. The weight of her sister’s needs bore down on her.
Marriage to an accomplished merchant benefitted everyone. Marriage to a furniture-maker’s grandson only benefitted Livvy’s heart—if he even wanted it.
A hush of footsteps sounded on the carpet and her mother was kneeling before her, folding warm hands over hers. “I see the longing in your eyes. Does your pirate feel the same for you?”
“I don’t know.”
Her mother hummed thoughtfully. “If a man truly loves you, if he truly wants you, he will declare it from the mountaintops.”
Brows pinching, Livvy’s bottom shifted on the cushion. “I don’t know if Jonas has such mettle. He’s not one for emotions, grand or otherwise.”
“Then I wonder if he truly loves you,” her mother whispered.
She jerked in her seat. “Mother—”
“Oh, I know he cares for you. He was always quick to look after you, but lifelong, abiding love between a man and a woman?” Her mother cossetted her hands, her voice full of passion. “He must be unafraid to declare it.”
“I, I don’t know…”
Motherly arms reached up and hugged her.
“Fate has not been kind to us of late. Your father’s infirmity. Elspeth losing her husband. And you, toiling to save us when you should have your own life.” A long sigh punctuated the silence and the hug tightened. “Promise me, Olivia, you will not be rash tomorrow. Please. Much rests on what you do.”
Exhausted, she mumbled agreement and lost herself in the motherly embrace. Jasmine, light and spicy, scented the air. Her mother’s perfume. In it was a history of understanding and tender love. Livvy was grateful her mother never prodded her into the Marriage Mart. The daughter of an antiquarian, her mother experienced firsthand the joy of historical finds. She understood it and she understood her daughters. Both of them and how different they were.
Despite recent hardships, life had been rich. But, Livvy wished for traditional things like a husband and children to warm her on cold nights.
The question was…who would be that man?