Night in Eden (29 page)

She sat in a chair beside the hearth, sewing a cap for the new baby and admiring the way the golden firelight played over the high cheekbones of Hayden's face.

They were in the private parlor of the Three Jolly Fishermen. Through the casement window, the sun glinted low over the bay. Nothing in the room had changed. Only they were different.

"I made an appointment to see the Colonial Secretary in the morning," Hayden said, leaning back in his chair and stretching his long legs out in front of him.

"I could simply have submitted the petitions, but I thought it would be better to meet with him personally. As it is, it will probably be awhile before the approval comes through. You should have time to have a wedding dress made."

"I don't need a new dress." She set another stitch in the cap she was making. "I have so many new dresses."

His eyes crinkled with amusement. "Nonsense. Every woman should have a new dress for her wedding." Then his gaze narrowed and moved restlessly over her, as if he knew there was something wrong but couldn't quite pin down what it was. "Bryony, you do want this, don't you? You don't seem very happy."

She laid aside her sewing and went to kneel at his feet so she could gather his hands up into hers. "I am happy, Hayden, for myself. It's only... I can't help but realize that as wonderful as it is for me, this marriage is a disaster for you."

His strong hands grasped her shoulders and pulled her up onto his lap. "Don't say that, damn it. Don't even think it. I'd call a man out for saying less, and I sure as hell am not going to listen to it from you."

Bryony laughed softly and put her arms around his neck. "What are you going to do, Hayden? Challenge me to a duel for insulting your wife?"

"If I have to."

"Ha!" She relaxed against him. "Then, I would get the choice of weapons, wouldn't I?"

"Now, that might be interesting," he said, but as she chose that exact moment to reach up and nibble at his ear, his voice had a slight break in it.

She smiled against the warm skin of his neck. "I can think of several possibilities." She let her hand trail lightly down his shirtfront.

He grabbed her hand just as she reached the top of his breeches. "You abandoned woman." He carried her hand to his mouth and placed a kiss in her palm. "I think I'm going to enjoy being married to you." She curled her hand so that she could run her fingers along the fullness of his lower lip, and he groaned.

"Enough." He stood up and set her away from him. "Or I'll be late for dinner."

"Dinner?" She went still, all the playfulness draining out of her.

"I've been invited to dinner at Government House."

He watched her carefully, his brows drawing together in
a
thin frown. "Under the circumstances I didn't think it would be politic to refuse."

She turned away so that he wouldn't see her reaction betrayed on her face. But he obviously knew anyway, because he came up behind her to wrap his arms around her and pull her back against the comforting warmth of his body. "I'm sorry, Bryony."

Because of course she hadn't been invited. Even if she'd already been his wife, she still wouldn't have been invited.

A woman like her would never be invited to Government House.

The candles on the altar flickered and then flared, casting long, cold shadows over the low-ceiling and whitewashed walls of the church. The morning was dull and overcast, the windows of the church so small and high-set that little daylight penetrated the gloomy interior. A stale, musty smell of disuse hung oppressive and unwelcoming in the chill air. Bryony, clad in a new blue silk gown embroidered over with tiny pink rosebuds, paused beside her husband-to-be and shivered.

She leaned toward him and whispered, "This place reminds me of a prison."

Hayden slipped his arm around her waist and ducked his head until his mouth was so close his warm breath tickled her ear. "It
is
a prison. Every Sunday, the government convicts are herded in here to have their souls saved—whether they want them saved or not."

"A-hem."

Standing on the platform before them, regally outfitted in full canonicals, the Reverend Richards cleared his throat and glared at them. He was a tall, thin man with a long, pointed nose and a pinched, disapproving expression. It might have been habitual, but Bryony suspected his acerbic mannerisms reflected his opinion of the ceremony he was about to perform.

Hayden removed his arm from her waist and tried to look solemn. The reverend opened his prayer book, cleared his throat again, and began to read.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God and in the face of this congregation..."

Bryony cast an involuntary glance at the dark, empty rows of pews behind them. The only other people in the church were Ann McBride and Gideon Shanaghan, pressed into service as witnesses. Dr. William Redfern, who had planned to attend, had been called away at the last minute to deliver a baby up at the Female Factory.

Her stomach knotted with distress as Bryony brought her gaze back to the man beside her. The absence of Hayden St. John's friends and peers spoke more clearly than anything else could have about society's opinion of this marriage. But if Hayden was regretting the noble impulse that had led him to brave social ostracism by marrying his pregnant convict mistress, it was not apparent. He seemed utterly relaxed, standing tall and handsome in formal morning dress.

As if sensing her troubled gaze upon him, Hayden turned his head slightly and smiled reassuringly down at her.

"Matrimony... is an honorable estate, not by any to be taken in hand lightly," she heard the reverend say, and she realized he was looking straight at Hayden. "Or wantonly," he added significantly, "to satisfy men's carnal lusts and appetites."

Hayden frowned. Bryony had to bite her lip to keep from smiling.

"Matrimony," continued the reverend, the word rolling off his tongue like an ominous clap of thunder, "was ordained for the procreation of children." Again he paused, this time focusing his malevolent gaze upon Bryony's belly. The folds of her high-waisted gown hid the soft swell of the growing babe, but Bryony felt herself flush anyway. Beside her, Hayden stiffened.

"Secondly," said the reverend, "it was ordained for a remedy against sin and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry and keep themselves undefiled..."

Hayden's head reared back, and when Reverend Richards paused again to cast the groom a censorious frown, the groom glared back at him with such lethal menace that the minister seemed almost to shrink before Bryony's eyes. The hand holding the open prayer book shook noticeably, and he continued in a rush.

"I require and charge you both, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it. For be ye well assured, that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God's Word doth allow are not joined together by God; neither is their matrimony lawful."

Again he stopped, and not even Hayden's cold stare could compel him to continue before a decent interval had elapsed. However incidental this part of the marriage ceremony might be elsewhere, in New South Wales it was not passed over lightly. With so many soldiers and convicts leaving wives or husbands behind in Britain, bigamy was almost as common in the colony as fornication.

The reverend waited what he evidently deemed a suitable length of time to prick their consciences. When both continued to merely watch him expectantly, he turned to Hayden.

"Wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?"

Hayden's gaze settled on her. One corner of his mouth quirked up in an odd smile. He sucked in a deep breath that lifted his broad chest noticeably, and said,
"I
will." His voice rang out loud and strong in the prisonlike church.

When it was Bryony's turn, the surge of joy that welled up from within her seemed to clog her throat. Her response was little more than a hoarse whisper.

"Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?"

There was an awkward pause. With commendable quick thinking, Gideon scrambled out of his seat, seized Bryony's hand, and offered it to the minister. Frowning disdainfully at the Irishman's convict garb, Reverend Richards took Bryony's hand and passed her quickly on to Hayden. "Repeat after me."

Hayden's hand closed over hers in a warm, protective grip. "I, Hayden Seymour St. John," he said, his eyes roaming over her in a slow, almost sensual caress. "Take thee, Bryony Peyton Wentworth, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part; and thereto I plight thee my troth."

Solemnly, reverently, Bryony repeated the same words.

The minister held out his prayer book expectantly. Hayden reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and brought out a small gold band set with a line of exquisitely tiny pearls, which he laid upon the open book for the reverend to consecrate. Reverend Richards reached to pick up the ring and hand it back to Hayden. But before his fingers closed on the symbolic band, the prayer book tipped violently to one side. The ring slid across the worn page, and tumbled to the floor to roll to a stop at Hayden's feet.

"Lord amercy," shrieked Ann McBride from her pew. "The ring! He's dropped the ring. Heaven preserve us, it's a sign. A bad sign."

Hayden bent gracefully and picked up the ring from the floor. As calmly as if nothing had happened, he reached for Bryony's left wrist, gently lifted her hand and, his gaze riveted to hers, solemnly said, "With this ring I thee wed, and with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow, in the name of the Father..." His gaze dropped to her hand as, slowly, exquisitely, he slipped the ring over the tip of her first finger. "And of the Son..." He touched the ring to the
second finger. "And of the Holy Ghost." His grip on her wrist tightening, he slid the ring home, then raised his eyes to hers again and whispered, "Amen."

The moment stretched out and became something they shared, something precious and memorable. Bryony was barely aware of the minister's voice, droning on in the background. It seemed as if every sense in her body was tuned only to the man who stood beside her, holding her hand in both of his, his thumb playing idly with the ring he had just slipped over her finger.

Then she heard the minister say, "... I pronounce that they be man and wife together, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."

She saw Hayden smile. It was a glorious smile of satisfaction and joy and promised passion, that started in the sparkling depths of his crystal-blue eyes, creased his lean, tanned cheeks, and parted his sensual lips in a delighted laugh.

A fire crackled on the hearth of the private parlor. Bryony sat in one of the high-backed chairs, her head turned slightly to one side, her eyes closed, as if she were asleep. The firelight mingled with the light from the candles in the nearby wall sconces to cast a golden glow across her smooth cheeks.

He'd been called out to attend to an unexpected business problem that couldn't wait, and it had taken longer than he'd expected. Carefully, so as not to disturb her, Hayden held the handle and eased the door shut behind him. She didn't move. He leaned back against the panel, folded his arms over his chest, and looked at his wife.

She still wore the blue gown she'd had made for their wedding. It was cut high at the waist, with a scooped bodice that showed off her long, graceful neck and beautiful collarbones, and just a hint of the swell of her fine breasts. Her flame-shot hair was pulled up into a prim
and proper chignon at the top of her head, the way she had worn it that morning when she stood beside him in the church. But some stray tendrils had loosened and now lay softly against her cheek.

He remembered another evening, less than a year ago, when he had walked into this same parlor and found her asleep in front of the fire, her beautiful breasts bare, her hair curling in wild abandon about her face.

He wanted to see her that way again.

Reaching behind him, he turned the key in the lock. At the sound her lashes fluttered. She opened her eyes and saw him standing there. A slow, welcoming smile curved her lips in a way that brought a tightening to his loins. "You were a long time."

"I didn't want to be."

He realized a book lay open on her lap. She closed it and set it to one side. "Come," she said.

He didn't move. "Take down your hair."

She looked at him across the length of the room. Wordlessly she lifted her hands, her elbows held wide, and one by one pulled out the pins that held her chignon.

Her rich, flame-shot hair tumbled down about her shoulders, gleaming chestnut and gold in the mingling candlelight and firelight. She shook her head to loosen the heavy fall, sending it swirling about her shoulders. He felt the predictable, warm throbbing begin low in his belly. It was all he could do to stay where he was, his shoulders pressed against the door, watching her.

"Now your dress," he said, his voice low. "Take off your dress."

Her eyes widened slightly, but she reached back to untie the tapes that held the dress at the neck, then at the waist. Her gaze still fastened on his face, she slowly pushed one sleeve down over her bare arm, then the next. Rolling her hips to one side, she eased the silk dress from beneath her and let it fall in a shimmering blue cascade to the floor.

Besides her shoes and stockings, she now wore only a thin petticoat and a fine batiste chemise held at the neck with a blue satin ribbon.

"Your chemise. Open it."

She untied the ribbon and peeled back the edges of her chemise, baring her beautiful breasts to the gentle firelight and his eyes.

He sucked in his breath in a soft hissing sound between his teeth.

She leaned back in the chair and gave him a sultry smile. "Did you want me to take off anything else?"

"Not yet." He pushed away from the door and walked toward her, taking off his hat and coat as he walked. He tossed them on the table by the window. "Not yet." Reaching up, he loosened his cravat and started on the buttons of his waistcoat.

She watched him come at her, her beautiful brown eyes wide and shining, her lips parted with a gentle smile of expectation. And it occurred to him that she was the most relaxed, openly sensual woman he had ever known. From the day she had first given herself to him, she had never been shy or hesitant with him. She wanted him with the same hot, unquenchable urgency that he wanted her, and she was never ashamed to show it. It seemed impossible to believe she was now his wife.

He tugged off his cravat and waistcoat, then opened the top button of his shirt as he knelt on the floor between her legs. He laid his hands on her knees and ran his fingers slowly, enticingly, up the outside of her thighs, over her hips, over the soft swell of his baby in her belly. He stopped with his palms resting on her ribs, his thumbs curling up to lie in the valley between her breasts.

She sucked in a quickly drawn breath. Her gaze held his fast. He could see the desire in the depths of her eyes, feel her body tremble beneath his touch, as if her breasts ached for his hands to close over them.

"I remember the first time I walked into this room and found you asleep beside the fire." He brushed his thumbs,
ever so gently, against the sides of her breasts. She quivered.

"You looked like this. Your hair wild, all over your face, glowing like a sunset in the light of the fire. Your shift was open, your breasts bare. God, how I wanted you."

Her lips parted soundlessly.

"I wanted to put my hands on your breasts. Like this." He slid his palms up over her breasts, his fingers spread wide.

She was breathing hard and fast. He could feel her breasts rising and falling beneath his hands. Her eyes had taken on that glowing, heated look that always made him think of bed.

"I wanted to lay you down in front of the fire and take you, right then and there."

"I know," she whispered.

He smiled. "How did you know?"