Romance: Detective Romance: A Vicious Affair (Victorian Regency Intrigue 19th England Romance) (Historical Mystery Detective Romance) (100 page)

     He was so impressed by her labors, in fact, that each evening he saw fit to treat her to a proper country dinner in the even more proper dining room of his lavish and exquisitely appointed ranch house.

     An impressed Elena gaped outright the moment she first stepped in to this exquisite dining area, which came complete with a long lace covered central table, matching curtains lining its broad bay windows, a corner ivory corniced cabinet filled to the rim with rose print china, and an overhanging candle lined chandelier engraved with images of additional florals, painted in a striking shade of pure scarlet red.

     “Well I gotta say it, Mr. Justin,” she commented, easing herself into the soft lavender cushion that lined the chair he pulled out for her, and at the head of his candlelit table. “For a strong and manly cowherd such as yerself, you do seem to be mighty partial to roses.”

     Claiming a seat beside her at the table, Justin shook his head from side to side as he explained, “Actually Ma’am, it was my mother and wife who favored flowers. I learned to grow roses at my mother’s sidein her garden, and also helped her to sell her best buds at the
market
. We turned a pretty profit, that’s for sure—and also attracted the attention of a lovely young filly who visited our booth on a regular basis.” He paused here, smiling at the memory, “Deidre and I would stand around for hours at our booth, buyin’ rose after rose while she and I talked about everything under the sun. Then finally I took the hint, bought her some roses myself and eventually mustered up the courage to ask her to supper.”

     Elena nodded.

     “Was Deidre your wife?” she asked, tone low and gentle.

     Justin nodded.

     “Hence began our life together,” he revealed, adding as he stared out his wide bay window with a wistful, starry eyed gaze, “It only seemed natural for two smitten kids to grow roses on their ranch; and we often talked of passing on our land—and our prized crop—to the child that we waited for with such great hope and excitement.” He paused here, adding with a slight chuckle, “If the new child happened to be a girl, in fact, we planned to call her Rose.”

     Elena smirked.

     “And what if the child had been a boy?” she queried, adding with eyebrows arched, “Would you have named him Bud?”

     Justin guffawed.

     “Well now we never did think of that one,” he chortled, adding as he took her hand in his, “You know what, lady? This is the first time that I’ve been able to talk and laugh when I talk about my Deidre,” he paused here, raising her hand to his full moist lips for a gentlemanly kiss, “As a matter of fact, this is probably the first time I have laughed at all since…well, you know. You, Elena, are something of an elixir.”

     Elena nodded, pursing her pearl pink lips as she considered these all too relatable words.

     “I myself thought my days of fun and laughter were done and gone when I lost my Blake,” she revealed, adding with a slight smile, “Yet this day that we’ve shared has been so much fun, I can’t begin to tell you.”

     Justin made no verbal reply to these words, instead making a broad gesture in the direction of the impressive spread that lay before them on the table; a grand Southern feast that consisted of country fried steak, buttered mashed potatoes, fresh vegetables and hash brown casserole—along with a hearty sampling of Texas brewed tea and some delicious hot buttered biscuits.

     “Our evening aims to be even more fun,” he assured her, adding as he graced her with a playful nudge, “So let us eat, drink and forget about our troubles—at least for one evenin’.”

     Following her host’s directive with particular glee, Elena dove right in to her homemade feast as she and Justin traded jokes and stories of their lives on the open range.

     Having been confined to a limited budget back at her own ranch, one that restricted her and her husband to very simple and rudimentary meals containing basic ingredients they had grown on the farm, she took endless joy in devouring the meal before her; also in the fact that, unlike many gents she’d come across, Justin encouraged her to eat as much as she liked and enjoy the experience—as opposed to expressing his keen concern that her actions were unladylike, or that she just might bust a corset or (horror of all horrors) gain a half inch around her slender waist if she dared overeat.

     “Even my dear Blake would cast a somber look in my direction every time I ate a bite too much—not that such overindulgence was ever possible, given our budget and the diet it ensured us,” she mused, adding aloud and with a warm smile to her host, “You know what, Justin? You’re all right.”

     She thought he was really all right a couple of hours later, when he showed her to her guest room at the ranch house; a room that he explained once served as a feminine retreat for his wife and—when they were visiting—his mother and sisters.

     After gracing her with a chaste but very warm kiss on the cheek, one she nonetheless felt right through to her soul, Justin bid her good night and wished her sweet dreams; sending her into just the sort of ethereal paradise that could serve to inspire and oversee these very dreams.

     Bordered by walls covered in a paper of shiny scarlet brocade, the room came complete with polished ivory bureaus and wardrobes that shone in their brass trim; as well as a corner pair of crystalline paned French doors adorned with thick, lush floral jacquard curtains.

     Serving as the centerpiece of this luxurious, very feminine room was a bed that seemed a place of dreams; doused as it was in a lace trimmed rose print comforter and overseen by a sheer lace canopy.

     Changing quickly into the plain gingham nightgown that she’d brought along for the trip, a happy but exhausted Elena collapsed between soft cotton sheets and blew out the blazing white vanilla candle that burned at the center of her bedside table.

     Shutting her eyes tight, Elena drifted off to sleep almost immediately; expecting once again to meet her dear departed husband in the realm of their own personal dreamscape.

     She jumped in her bed moments later, as the man who approached her in this ethereal plain—one filled on all sides with light fluffy clouds and overseen by an illuminating beacon of pure golden light—seemed all too familiar in appearance; not to mention downright handsome.

     He was not, however, the man she married.

     “Justin?” she called out to him, squinting to make out the tall muscled figure who emerged
like
a faraway dream from the clouds before her. “Is that you?”

Nodding in silence as he seared her with one of his devastating white toothed smiles, her ethereal host—clad only in a long ivory white toga that likened him much to an angel in repose—advanced toward her with slow, smooth strides; holding his arms open to her as he invited, “Come to me, my darling.”

     Soon the couple linked arms between them and launched their bodies into a heavenly reel; their joined beings moving closer and closer together as they stared deep into one another’s eyes.

     Justin and Elena spoke no words as they danced this slow, intimate waltz; and indeed needed no music as they swirled and swayed across a celestial skyscape. All they needed was the cadence of their slow, even breathing, and the joined pounding of their own besotted hearts.

     Staring deep into his azure blue eyes as she pulled her dance partner closer than close, Elena sank happily into his arms as he swept her up two strong arms; bending her body backward in a thrilling dip as his whisper soft lips touched hers once again.

     “Be mine,” he whispered
soft
against her lips. “Be mine, Elena. Now and forever.”

     With these words their bodies rose together in what seemed a binding embrace; twirling and swirling in a radiant constant until—slowly but surely—two became one.

     Suddenly a sweaty Elena bolted upright in bed; raising her calico covered arm to wipe a line of telltale sweat from the surface of her feathered brow.

     “Criminy,” she gasped out loud, adding as she blew out a long gust of hot, frustrated breath, “What is that man doing to me?”

*****

The next morning Elena rose at the crack of dawn; slipping into the fabrics of a simple work dress of red and green plaid calico; one whose modest appearance she hoped would not betray the tender yearning that now burned within her.

Soon she ventured out into the fields to work once again by the side of her ever attentive, endlessly talkative companion.

     Keeping her head bowed low above a fragrant crop of roses that caught the tint of the sun overhead in its long, lush petals, she avoided both the words and the gaze of the man beside her; one who seemed to have not quite mastered the concept of working in silence.

     “So tell me, Miss Elena,” he inquired at one point, his blue eyes searing her with a quizzical stare. “What first spurned your intense interest in growing yellow roses?”

     Elena shrugged.

     “Well my ma and I did grow these flowers in our garden back home. And she still grows them in a garden that she keeps at a corner of the ranch she runs with my pa,” she revealed, adding as she kept her gaze trained on the robust blossoms before her, “And back when he was courtin’ me, my dear husband Blake brought me fresh bouquets of bright yellow roses with baby’s breath, picked from his own family garden and tied always with a shiny red ribbon. When he proposed to me, he presented me with a single yellow rose as a token of his—of our—love.”

     With these words she conjured in her mind a lush mental portrait of her flower bed back home; forcing herself also to conjure a vision of the man with whom she planted and tended these ebullient florals.

     “We chose yellow roses as our principle crop, not only because of its potential value to our growing ranch,” she insisted, “but because of its incredible value to us a couple. These flowers really served to symbolize our love.”

     With these words she dropped her sharp metallic garden shears to the floor of the flower bed beneath them; covering her face with her hands as she let loose with a telltale sob.

     Immediately putting aside his own shiny work tools and taking her gentle into an all-encompassingembrace, a cooing Justin held her closer than close as he ran a soothing hand through her long blonde hair.

     “I know how hard it is to let go, baby,” he whispered, adding as he cradled her soft in his arms, “You think that you’ve escaped the pain, and gotten past the loss—and then it all comes back. All of the memories—all of the misery—come flowing back to haunt you.”

     Even as she rested her head on his massive muscled shoulder, Elena shook her head back and forth in response to her words.

     “It’s not just that, Justin,” she insisted, her voice cracking audibly as she continued, “Last night, as I slept in the bed that you supplied me, I did not dream about my dear departed husband—as I have every solitary night since he left me. Those nights that I could sleep, that is.”

     Justin arched his eyebrows.

     “So what exactly did you dream about?” he queried, adding in a softer tone, “Or should I say, who?”

     He cringed in spite of myself as the woman in his arms broke sharply and suddenly away from him; retreating to a far corner of the rose bed as she shook her head.

“I dreamt of you,” she confessed, voice soft and halting as she continued, “Oh, we did nothing sinful mind you. I at the very least did not abandon the morals and values that my ma raised me to embrace. Yet I did dance with you—and not like two casual friends would engage in a reel at a barn dance, just for laughs and frolic.” She paused here, trembling outright at the memory of her dream. “We—really danced.”

     She said these last words on an anguished groan that ripped at her very heart.

     And his, apparently.

     “Oh Elena,” he released on a whisper, moving forward to place a soft gentle hand on the surface of her trembling shoulder. “Please do not take any shame in the dream that we both shared. I thought and dreamt of nothing but you, from the moment that we parted last night to the instant that we came together this morn. And I could tell by the way that you avoided my eyes this morning, by that sweet adorable blush that colors your lovely cheek, you were thinking of me as well. Dreaming of me, even, just as I dreamed of you.”

     “Stop it!” Elena interrupted him, once again breaking their grasp as she raised a firm hand between them. “We were supposed to keep all this nice and professional, remember? I cannot and will not welcome one more complication into my life.” She paused here, kicking the dirt beneath her as she declared with one delicate fist raised high into the air, “I tell you, I will not!”

     Showing no surprise and anger in the face of all her drama, Justin instead heaved a weary sigh as he raised a tentative hand to stroke his own forehead; seeming eager to jog and stimulate the thought processes that would help them resolve this complex dilemma.

     “Of course I never would force myself on you, or pressure you to do anything you didn’t want to do,” he insisted, raising his hands before him in what seemed a defensive stance. “All the same I must ask you, how long are we going to keep up this charade? When, Elena, will you finally acknowledge the strong, undeniable affection that we have for each other? When will you finally answer the ad that drew you to my home in the first place?”