Authors: Stephanie Laurens
T
he jail in Bramley Hollow had been built centuries earlier, a sturdy building meant to contain even the most heinous of criminals, but over the course of its existence it had held very few inhabitants. An occasional drunkard, and as legend had it, an infamous murderess, however for the last hundred years or so it had only seen the passing of the broom from one Holmes descendant to the next.
The lack of inmates didn’t mean the two side-by-side cells, separated as they were by great iron bars, weren’t kept ready and waiting. Inside each sat a narrow cot covered with a wool blanket, and a bucket for, well, for necessary business.
Holmes, quite taken with the gravity of the crimes laid before his prisoners, saw to his duties with the utmost vigilance. That wasn’t to say he was completely without compassion, for he’d hung an extra blanket between the cells to afford Miss Smythe a measure of privacy and given her a candle to keep her from being frightened.
Then he’d locked the cells and the doors tight and sought his own bed. After several days of watching his prey, he was glad to have this recalcitrant bride well at hand—if only to grant himself a much needed good night’s rest.
Amanda glanced at the flickering flame of her candle and sighed. So this was where her grand adventure would end. A solitary jail cell, with the only man she’d ever loved locked away next to her. He might as well have been cast away in a Paris dungeon, what with these iron bars between them. Now she’d never get to…
She shook her head. Not that he would have been so inclined to take advantage of her—he’d only been flirting with her out of pity. Cowhanded, indeed! And to think that she had really been starting to believe that all her foolish dreams might come true.
Hugging her knees to her chest, she struggled not to cry. Especially not in front of him.
“The least you could have done was not confess everything before our first dance,” Jemmy complained from his cell. “I was looking forward to it. ’Tis years since I’ve danced.”
“Harrumph,” she shot over her shoulder. “Save your flirtations for someone who doesn’t know better.”
She heard his cot creak as he sat up. “What the devil do you mean by that?”
“It means I heard everything. Everything you said about me to your friends. You called me ‘cowhanded.’ And how can I forget ‘Pity me, I’ve got to dance the first set with her,’ ” she said. “So please save your breath, for I know only too well that you never really wanted to dance with me.” Amanda swiped at an errant tear that spilled from her eyes despite her best efforts to hold it at bay.
“You heard all that and thought …You believed that I…” Much to her chagrin, he began to laugh. “Oh, you darling girl, no wonder you left.”
“Of course I left. I wasn’t going to stay and be humiliated.”
He crossed the cell and plucked down the blanket that separated them. His fingers reached out to touch her shoulder, but she pulled out of his reach, scooting across her cot until she sat at the very edge. “Amanda, my dearest Amanda, I didn’t mean a word of it. Not a one. Don’t you see I had to tell those feckless fools a real banger or they would have stayed around and discovered the truth.”
“Save your pretty speeches. I care not what you say,” she told him, tugging the blanket up and around her shoulders. “I know what the truth is— you never cared for me. You only pitied me, and barely that.”
“Demmit!” he sputtered. “Well, if you must know, I said those things because I was afraid. Afraid, I tell you.”
“Harrumph!” But after she sputtered her disbelief, she spared him a glance and spied the look of utter despair on his features. Not that she cared, truly she didn’t. Yet the passion in his voice called to her, gave her hope she knew she shouldn’t dare give any countenance. And out of that hope, she ventured a quiet question. “Afraid of what?”
“If you must know,” he told her, “I was afraid you’d arrive in that ballroom and realize you could have your choice of men. Any man you wanted. And if that was the case, why would you want me? For that matter, why would anyone want me—a useless, lame, scarred recluse.”
His words resonated through her.
Why would anyone want me?
She knew what that felt like only too well, for she’d thought the same of herself until the day she’d landed by happenstance in Jemmy’s arms.
Slowly she rose from the cot and turned to face him. What woman would want him? Any woman with eyes, she thought as she gazed upon him.
Still dressed to the nines, he had every appearance of an elegant gentleman, from his dark coat, snowy cravat, and richly embroidered waistcoat, down to the snug breeches that fit him perfectly. There was the strong line of his jaw, chiseled and rugged, the breadth of his shoulders, his piercing gaze, all of it spoke of masculine strength and promise, enough to send any feminine heart aflutter.
But more than that, she saw the honesty in his gaze, heard the anguish in his words, felt the nobility of his intent as if it were the sheltering blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
His scars? His leg? What did they matter?
And yet he couldn’t believe that she, of all people, would see beyond his outer flaws. To her they were only more evidence that this was a man who lived his convictions, chased after his ideals rather than just boasted endlessly and uselessly of them over port and cigars.
“That’s what you think of me? That my feelings for you are so…so…fickle?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “If that is so, why would you want
me
?”
They stared at each other, both set in their own stubborn resolve, both too afraid to be the first to confess the truth that could mean their happiness or their unending despair.
“Oh, bother,” he said, waving his hand at her. “Forget I said anything. Think what you like of me.” He stomped back over to his cot and flopped down on it, lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. “I still would have liked to have that dance.”
“It wouldn’t have been our first,” she shot back, nudging her slippered toe against the cold stone floor. “We danced together years ago at Almack’s.” What did she care if he discovered the truth now? With her family so close, it wouldn’t be long before all her secrets were laid bare.
Besides, once he realized that she wasn’t the mysterious Miss Smythe, but merely plain old Miss Amanda Preston, his interest in her wouldn’t be as keen.
“We danced? How could that be?” he argued, rising up on his cot. “I would remember dancing with
you
.”
The way he said it, she didn’t know whether to be insulted that he didn’t remember her, or delighted that he thought her so special.
“I assure you, we danced,” she said. “Though I’m not surprised you don’t recall me. I was quite forgettable back then.”
He glanced up at her and smiled. “I would never describe you as forgettable, and I can’t believe that I danced with you and wasn’t completely and utterly charmed.”
She bit her lip and wished he had been. That he’d fallen in love with her that very night and they would have had all these long years together. And now…now it was too late.
“You wanted to dance with Lady Alice and she was already spoken for. There was room for an extra couple in her line, and so you set out to take advantage of her company, if only for the few seconds it would afford you. I was the closest female available, and so you asked me to dance.”
He groaned and buried his face in his hands. “I didn’t! Tell me I wasn’t such an arrogant lout.”
“You were,” she teased.
“But
you
,I would have remembered you,” he insisted, rising from his cot and crossing the cell. His fingers wound around the bars as if he wanted to tug them out of his way so he could pull her into his eager embrace. “You are not easily forgettable.”
“I’m not the same woman.” She shrugged. “Heavens, I’m not the same woman I was a week ago. Apparently learning of one’s imminent mortality has a way of changing a person. Challenging them to make up for lost time.” She glanced directly at him. “At least it had for me.”
“Hmm,” he mused. “I fear it had the opposite effect on me. I’m still a fool, I’m still unable to—”
She held up her hand to stave off his words. “It matters not what happened then or tonight. I don’t think you a fool.” That he truly thought her beautiful and memorable and kissable filled her soul with a joy she’d thought lost a few minutes ago.
“It matters very much,” he shot back. “I was an idiot back then. How can you ever forgive me?”
“There was never anything to forgive,” she said softly. And she meant it. She
had
been forgettable, allowing herself to get lost behind her sisters’ beauty, cowed by her mother’s criticisms, relegated to obscurity by her father’s parsimony. “If there was anything to forgive, you must believe that you’ve repaid me these past few days in ways you will never imagine.”
He shook his head. “I don’t see how. I’ve blundered your plans to go to Brighton. Gotten you arrested, and now…well, how will I be able to see that you wiggle your toes in the waves?”
“Going to Brighton wasn’t the only item on my list,” she told him. “I’ve discovered quite another dream come true here in Bramley Hollow.”
She moved closer to the bars. He stood facing her, clutching the ancient iron bars, and so she twined her fingers around his. His hands were warm and strong, and his strength once again lent her the courage to take the reins of her life.
To seize what was before her.
Meeting his gaze, Amanda saw only too clearly his hunger for her.
For her
, she marveled. He wanted her as passionately as she desired him. She didn’t waste a second.
She leaned forward until her lips met his. It wasn’t the same as when she could feel his body against hers, but his kiss welcomed hers hungrily, and it sent the same warm tendrils of desire trailing down her spine.
When his tongue drew a tempting line across her lips, she opened her mouth to him, inviting him in, like opening the door to an eager pirate hungry for plunder.
She rose up on her toes, as she sought to claim every bit of his kiss that she could with these wretched bars separating them. His arms reached through and pulled her closer, stroking her back, teasing her hair out of its elaborate display and into a tumble of curls down her back.
His touch left her weak and trembling, her heart thundering with passion. His lips teased hers, drew her into a heady, tempestuous tangle of wanton desire and passion. Oh, how she wanted him, wanted him to kiss her until this trembling, teasing need found release.
Then to her chagrin, he drew back for a moment. “If it wasn’t for these demmed bars, I’d have you—” He stopped himself. “I mean to say, I’d—”
She caught hold of him, dragged him back to her lips, and kissed him anew. Then she asked him, “You’d what, Jemmy? What would you do to me?” She stared into his stormy gaze and willed him to tell her what he’d do.
“I-I-I’d—”
“Make love to me?” she asked, hopefully. “Ruin me beyond redemption?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes, you wicked girl. That is exactly what I would do.”
She caught hold of the bars that were now her enemies and rattled them with all her might. “This isn’t fair,” she cried out. “I have waited all my life to be ruined, and I will not be thwarted now!”
He laughed and caught hold of them as well and joined her in her lament.
“Decidedly unfair,” he called out to the heavens. “Release the lady that I love.”
And all of a sudden a shower of dust fell down on them.
But Amanda hardly noticed. “The lady that you what?”
“Never mind that,” he told her. “Grab hold of this bar again.”
“I will do no such thing,” she told him. “Not until you tell me again what you just said.”
He paused, grinning at her, a mischievous, rakish light glittering in the blue of his eyes. “I love you, Amanda. I love you.” Then he winked at her, and nodded toward the cell bars. “Now will you just grab hold of this one again and give it another good shake.”
“You just told me that you love me, and all you want from me is to shake that bar?”
“Yes, very much so,” he said, studying something up at the top of the cell.
“Don’t you think that’s a little unusual,” she said, glancing up at the ceiling as well, but seeing nothing that appeared more interesting than what he’d just said. “Really, Jemmy, usually when a man makes such a declaration he does so on bended knee, or at least follows it with a kiss,” she hinted.
“Greedy girl,” he teased. “You can have that and more, if you will just help me.”
“Help you do what?”
“Get this bar loose. I think this one may be enticed to break free.”
“Truly?” She glanced up at the tiny shower of mortar falling down on them as Jemmy gave it another good shake. “Why didn’t you just say so,” she said, grabbing the bar enthusiastically and putting every bit of strength she possessed to break it free. And come free it did—the centuries old plaster crumbling down atop them. And when the neighboring bar proved just as easily removed, Amanda had enough space to slip between the bars and find herself locked in the happy prison of Jemmy’s embrace.
“
R
uin me,” Amanda pleaded as she looked up into Jemmy’s gaze. “Love me tonight.” “Tonight?” he whispered, as he gently fingered a stray tendril of her hair. “Not just tonight, but for always.”
As he said the words, she knew without a doubt that these were not the beguiling and false promises of a rake, but the vow of a man who loved her. Truly and deeply loved her above all else.
“Me?” she asked, still unable to grasp the notion of it. Jemmy Reyburn in love with her? Her long-held misgivings and uncertainties knew such a notion was preposterous. But the woman she’d become in the last few days, possessing the confidence gained by a man’s admiring eye, and better still, his kiss, did her best not to listen to those niggling voices of doubt.
“Of course, you,” he said, dipping his head and catching her mouth in a searing kiss.
The moment his lips touched hers, her fears fled in the face of his fiery passion. Never before had she felt so alive, and now Amanda understood what it meant to live.
She met his kiss with her own demands, leaving her tentative innocence behind as well. If she was to live, she would do it with all her heart. And so much more…
As his tongue dipped to stroke hers, she moaned, welcoming his invitation. He tugged her closer, drawing her up against his chest. His body felt hard and so masculine against hers, and so very welcome.
As were his hands, as they moved over her, stroking her back, running over the curve of her hips and then up her sides, his thumbs casting a lingering line over her breasts. He cupped her breasts, teasing first one nipple, then the other, until they were both taut and hard. His touch sent a tangle of desire tumbling and unwinding through her, leaving in its wake a breathless, trembling need.
She moaned and arched up to meet his touch. But to her chagrin he stopped.
“You’re trembling,” he said. His hand paused over her heart, which beneath his touch pounded dangerously. “Do you think this is wise?”
“Please don’t stop,” she said, her fingers curling around his hand, and drawing it up to her lips.
“But didn’t the doctor warn you of just this?” he asked, pulling his hand free and putting it back over her heart.
“He said to beware my heart,” she told him. “And I have no doubts that right now it is in good hands.” She edged closer to him, so her hips met his, so her body pressed against the hard evidence of his desire. “Love me, Jemmy. Love me tonight,” she beseeched him. To urge him further, she reached down and stroked him, amazed at her own wantonness and even more dazzled by the desire it brought forth—in him and her.
Jemmy closed his eyes and groaned as she touched him. But he didn’t stop her.
Emboldened, she continued to tease him, drawing her fingers up and down the length of him, leaving him straining in his breeches.
How she longed to touch
him,
not just the wool of his breeches. To feel the steely length in her hands, to feel it within her, to let him ease the ache between her thighs by filling her, teasing her past the clamor of need that his kiss had awakened.
Unlike most young ladies, she wasn’t ignorant of what happened between a man and a woman. Her older sister had taken great delight after her marriage in regaling her two younger sisters with all the mysteries of the marriage bed. But the sweaty, ridiculous mechanics her sister had described scarcely resembled the passion Jemmy evoked, the heated frenzy his touch promised. And Amanda’s curiosity knew no bounds.
“Ruin me, Jemmy,” she whispered.
He groaned as her hand swept over him again. His mouth took hers, and he devoured her in a breathless kiss. Any tenderness he might have held was gone, as his hand slipped inside the décolletage of her gown and freed her breast.
She bit her lips together to keep from crying out as he took the hardened peak in his mouth and sucked and lapped on it until she thought her legs would buckle beneath her. With each sweep of his tongue, with each pull of his lips over the pebbled flesh, her thighs trembled, her breath caught in her throat in short, staggering gasps.
His deft fingers found the laces on her bodice and quickly undid them, freeing her from its confines and giving him ample leeway to explore her at his pleasure. His lips sought her again, trailing teasing kisses behind her ears, down her neck, and back to her breasts. It was like a waltz of passion, with each movement more provocative than the last.
How and when, she knew not, but she found herself undressed down only to her stockings.
For a moment he gazed upon her, and she held her breath.
“Demmit, Amanda, you are the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“Truly?” she whispered.
“Oh, aye,” he said, with almost a reverent air to his words. “I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve what you are offering.”
“I think I’ll be the judge of that,” she told him, her fingers tugging at his coat, tossing it aside, and then setting to work on his waistcoat. Her fingers faltered over the tiny buttons, and he pushed her hands aside and ripped it free from his body, sending a shower of tiny pearl buttons across the cell floor.
She laughed, then eagerly helped him. As he tugged his shirt free from his breeches, she pulled and unwound his cravat, their hands and arms tangling in happy purpose.
As he flung his shirt over his head, Amanda wondered that
she
should deserve
him
. She laid her palm upon his chest, and marveled at the heat and strength emanating therefrom. Slowly she touched him, reverently she explored him with her fingertips, tracing a path through the triangle of hair at his chest, over the flat plain of his stomach, to the top of his breeches.
“Amanda, I—”
Her gaze flew to his, and she placed a finger on his lips to still his words. They held an air of reluctance, and she wasn’t about to lose her chance now.
This time when she pressed herself into his embrace, her body melded to his, her breasts brushing against his bare chest. She had never imagined such a feeling, such a mingling could occur.
It was as if they were becoming one. One to the other.
“Tonight, Jemmy,” she reminded him, running her fingers over his chest. “You gave your word.”
“Aye, I did,” he said, his voice filled with smoky promise. And with that, he caught hold of her and gently lowered her to the cot.
As he knelt before her, his fingers toyed with the ribbons on her garters. “I’ve wanted to do this from the first day we met,” he confessed.
Amanda thought back and remembered his lingering gaze on her stockings as she’d been packing them. Then she’d been embarrassed that he’d seen them. Now she wanted nothing more than to have him remove them.
And he did, untying one of her garters and setting the stocking free, rolling it down her leg, his fingers lingering over the curve of her calf, the arch of her foot. Amanda sighed with languid joy. She lay back on the bed and held out her other leg for him, but for this one he had other ideas.
His teeth caught hold of the ribbon and tugged it free, then with his teeth drew it from her leg.
And if she thought he was done, she was mistaken, for once the stocking was tossed aside, his mouth began tracing a hot trail up her leg, going from one to the other. Slowly he climbed up her limbs, leaving kisses on her calves, behind her knees, on the soft skin of her thighs.
Then to her shock, his mouth nuzzled over her most private place, his warm breath sending a message of passion. Her mouth fell open, but she couldn’t speak, for he didn’t stop there, his hands prompting her thighs to part while he continued to kiss and whisper over the petals of sensitive flesh between them. And as she opened herself to him, she tried to breathe, she tried to make sense of the passion spiraling out of control.
Then his tongue lapped over her, sending her hips bucking up to meet him as if of their own volition. He laughed and ran another long lap of his tongue over her.
This time she couldn’t restrain herself. “Jemmy, oh, dear. Oh, my!”
If his kisses before had held a passionate promise, this intimate invasion invited a torrent of need, a thunderstorm of tremors.
He continued to tease her, leaving her panting and tense. She reached behind her and caught hold of the bars, grasping for something to hang on to as she felt herself rising upward on a tempestuous spiral of blinding arousal. When his kiss changed from teasing laps to suckling her, it became her undoing.
She felt tossed from a precipice as her body exploded in desire, the throes of it racking her with pleasure she could never have imagined.
“Jemmy, oh yes!” she cried out, reaching hold of him and pulling him up onto the cot, until he covered her.
She clung to him, wrapping her legs around him, riding out the waves in the confines of his arms.
“Oh, I never imagined,” she whispered once they had begun to subside.
“And we’ve only just begun,” he promised.
Amanda grinned. Mostly because he was a man who understood how to keep a bargain with a lady.
Jemmy watched the contented smile spread over her sweet features and smiled.
She stretched beneath him, her long, lithe legs wound around him. How he ached to bury himself inside her. To stroke a new fire between her thighs. But he knew this was her first time, and he wanted to ensure that the night was a long, pleasurable interlude.
He nuzzled her breasts again, and was rewarded with mews of pleasure. Her fingers wound through his hair, holding him there to enjoy the bounty of her perfect breasts.
And once he heard her panting with renewed need, he sought her lips again, and kissed her deeply.
Amanda, his tempting passionate Amanda. Jemmy had never thought that making love could be so fulfilling, but with her it became sacred, like keeping his promise to her. And keep it he would. In the morning he’d marry her with all due haste, then he’d hie her off to Brighton for a honeymoon by the sea.
And then…well, he wasn’t going to consider the future beyond that; for now he’d feel blessed with the time he was allowed to share with her.
She shifted restlessly beneath him, her fingers moving over the top of his breeches, seeking out the buttons and undoing them, slowly, torturously.
He leaned up to help her, but she shook her head, her enticing gaze meeting his. There in her eyes, he saw her sensual delight as she explored his body. He didn’t know which was more exciting, her bold touch as she pushed his breeches away, or the surprise that glowed in her eyes as her fingers spread across the front of his groin, sliding through the thick tangle of hair, then entwining themselves around his manhood, hard and eager for her claiming.
She smiled, feline in her pride, and began to stroke him with her hand, her other reaching up and pulling his head down to hers for another long, languid kiss.
Jemmy thought he would lose himself in the pleasure of it all. His hands roamed over her breasts, marveled at the silk of her skin, ran down to touch her where she was once again hot and wet—as ready for him as he was for her.
“Amanda,” he said huskily, “let me love you.”
“Yes, Jemmy,” she said. “Oh, please.”
He shifted above her, catching hold of her hips and pulling her close. Amanda made a mewing sound of pleasure, then wound her legs around his hips. He entered her slowly, stroking her gently, letting her discover the pleasure that came when a man and a woman joined together.
Her eyes closed, and her head rolled back. Her hips arched to meet his, to bring him closer, deeper into her tight, hot confines. “Oh, Jemmy, oh, Jemmy, that feels so good.”
Aye, it did.
Jemmy held his own desires in check, waiting until she was writhing and moaning beneath him, then he drove himself into her, breaking her maiden’s shield.
Her eyes fluttered open in surprise, and he covered her mouth with his, lest she cry out—not that anyone was likely to hear them.
“Shh, my love,” he whispered into her ear. “It only happens once.”
“Then what happens after?” she asked him coyly.
And Jemmy showed her, pulling himself almost out of her and slowly filling her anew, his lips teasing the nape of her neck, catching hold of her mouth, and stroking her tongue with his.
She arched and moaned, meeting his rhythm with her own rising needs.
He could feel her mounting crisis, from the way her fingers clung to his shoulders, to the ragged thrusts of her hips. She reached back and caught the iron bars and clung to them anew.
“Love me, Jemmy,” she begged. “Love me hard.”
And he did, driving into her, her cries of ecstasy ringing through the quiet of the night and leading him to his own release. It pulled him from the darkness and led him into a glorious light, just as she’d done the day she’d walked into his life.
He drove into her, filling her until it was hard to tell where his body stopped and hers started. Their hearts, pounding and thundering, were like a chorus. Amanda continued to writhe and tremble in his arms, glorious evidence that she was still in the throes of her climax.
He kissed her again and continued to move with her, until finally the last shuddering vestiges of her release faded into memory.
She sighed and wound her arms around his neck. “That was so remarkable.”
“You are remarkable,” he told her, wrestling her closer to him—if that was possible. “Amanda, I love you so very much.”
“And I, Jemmy, love you.”
“But I am so different from—”
“Shh,” she told him. “I love
you
. The man I discovered in Bramley Hollow. You have given me my life, let me find my heart, shared with me your soul. You made me feel beautiful.”
He kissed her, softly, slowly, thankfully. “Make you feel beautiful? You are gorgeous.”
She shook her head. “Not like one of those London ladies.”
“Amanda, forget those shopworn cats—their beauty is purchased on Bond Street and fades like yesterday’s flowers.” He toyed with a strand of her hair. “Your beauty is that you don’t realize how lovely you truly are—and it shines from within. It glows in your eyes, it radiates from your heart. It is like a gift that has awakened me. You let me find my heart, my life…” he glanced down at his scarred and once broken limb. “My leg. You’ve taught me to walk again. Not just up stairs and across the lawn, but to walk with the living.”