CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

Water sloshed over the rim as Amanda stepped out of the tub. She used two big towels to dry her body and her hair, leaving one wrapped around herself as she padded across the room and found one of the nightgowns. White, high necked, and shapeless, it made her look like a large moth—a large, half-crazed moth with her hair straggling every which way over her shoulders.

Mrs. Reeves had stoked the fire, adding a huge log to the embers and banking it liberally with extra kindling. The flames were hot and bright, and she knealt by the hearth to brush and dry her hair.

Surely an hour or more must have passed since he had dismissed her in the lower hall. Perhaps he was deliberately staying away to give her time to adjust to her new circumstances.

Only half convinced, she rose and carried her wine into the massive bedroom, pausing beside the incongruously feminine dressing table. She stared at her reflection a moment, knowing there was no one else she could blame for her predicament. Ryan would explode when he found out she had married Michael Tarrington. He would hate her and hate himself, and then he would hate Dianna for introducing Tarrington to Natchez. Sarah Courtland would live on smelling salts for the rest of her life, and Mercy would be driven to murder her mistress with a butcher’s axe just to get some peace.

Alisha was the only one who would laugh. Oh, how she would laugh and taunt and hold her up to ridicule for doing precisely what she, Amanda, had scorned her twin for doing: marrying for money and convenience.

And Verity. What would Verity make of this big, gloomy house full of strange things and strange people? What would she make of Mrs. Reeves? Did Mrs. Reeves even know there was a child coming to live at Briar Glen? For that matter, had Michael Tarrington taken Verity into consideration when he had made his grandiose plans?

Bribing a child with a basket of oranges and a doll was one thing. Assuming responsibility for her upbringing was entirely another.

The sound of a heavy footstep in the outer hallway startled every other thought out of Amanda’s mind and sent her hand fluttering to her throat. She gaped at the door in horror and when she saw the brass knob begin to turn, she averted her gaze in a rush of even greater shock. She did not look in his direction as Michael Tarrington came into the room and shut the door behind him. The best she could manage was to snatch up the hairbrush and drag it through her hair, over and over again as if her life was dependent upon her removing every last crimp and tangle.

At least she had the answer to one of her questions. He did expect her to live up to her part of the agreement tonight. He expected her to share his bed and fulfill her wifely obligations.

The brush moved haltingly through her hair. She had pulled it forward over her shoulder to enable her to carry each stroke the full length, and she used it like a shield to hide behind, acting as if she hadn’t noticed him entering the room or that she was not aware of him standing there, watching her every move.

 

Perhaps she should have looked. She would have seen that he was not just watching her, he was temporarily frozen to the spot and could not have moved if he had wanted to. The firelight was beside her, strong enough and bright enough to render the fabric of her nightgown almost transparent and if not for the curtain of hair rippling down to her waist, she would have appeared to be sitting there naked.

He had deliberately taken his time dealing with instructions for Foley and calming his own nerves with a glass of brandy. He had stalled until he had seen Mrs. Reeves waddle down the stairs and bid him a good night, then he had stalled again until he was fairly certain he had given his new wife time to fall asleep. He had only come up to the room to make sure she was all right and tucked safely away in bed. He had certainly not expected to find her sitting and brushing her hair, obviously waiting to uphold her end of the bargain.

With an effort, Tarrington moved away from the door and walked into the adjoining dressing room.

 

Amanda released a pent-up breath and lowered the brush to her lap, meeting her own gaze in the mirror as she looked up.

This is ridiculous, she thought. I am ridiculous. What is the worst possible thing that could happen? She wasn’t a virgin, for heaven’s sake. There were no surprises awaiting her in the marriage bed. He was aggressive and overconfident and he was a dangerous man to underestimate, but Michael Tarrington did not strike her as being either brutish or deliberately cruel.

He was still a man, however, and he would still be trying to prove something—how virile he was, how strong and manly and skillful he was when the lights were out and the covers drawn. And he was still a Yankee—an obstacle that might prove to be insurmountable in the long run. But for all that he had saved her family from falling into ruin, saved Rosalie from falling into Wainright’s clutches—she stopped and took a long swallow of wine to drain the glass—it was not such a dreadful bargain to have struck.

Michael Tarrington was not the ugliest man she had ever seen in her life, nor the least appealing. She would, in fact, be hard-pressed to name a man with a broader chest or a stronger jaw. He certainly knew how to kiss a woman, how to make her feel as if her whole body were involved in that one simple act of touching mouths, and she hadn’t disliked the feeling entirely.

In truth, if she remembered correctly, she had been furious with herself for enjoying it too much.

She heard the bang of a dresser drawer being shoved stubbornly into place and she stared at the dressing room door. He wouldn't dare return to the room naked ... would he?

The thought set her to brushing feverishly again, filling the silence with the crackling static from her hair A moment later she saw the light go out in the dressing room and he was suddenly back in the bedroom, his big body clad in a long, heavily brocaded dressing gown. He barely glanced at her this time as he crossed over to the fire and gave the log a few adjustments with the iron poker. With a full glass of wine cosseted in his hand, he eased himself into one of the leather wing chairs and gave Amanda his full attention.

She noticed all of this without once taking her eyes away from her own reflection. The shock of glimpsing bare feet and bare chest through gaps in his robe was enough to keep her brushing furiously.

When her arm began to ache and her hair was as shiny as she would ever live to see it, she stopped and began to tame the glossy mane into a single thick braid.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” he said quietly. “I have always thought it a waste to keep something so beautiful twisted in knots and imprisoned with pins and nets. In your case, a terrible waste. Please … leave it loose.”

Amanda’s hands faltered and slipped down to rest on her lap. She heard the leather creak softly as he stood, and she saw the shadows disturbed again as he came over to stand behind her.

“Well, Mrs. Tarrington? Your face is nearly raw from scrubbing, your hair”—his long fingers began to toy with a silky curl—“could not possibly want for more attention. I would say the time has come for you to … lay your cards on the table, so to speak?”

Amanda tensed herself against the steady rise of panic in her chest. Her pulse was racing and her heart was beating like a wild thing. All of her lofty resolves liquified as he buried his hand deeper into the blonde cloud and caressed the nape of her neck.

“Please,” she whispered. “I …”

His hand paused, resting against her neck. "Yes?"

I've made a mistake, she thought. I don't want to go through with this. I want to go home.

"I ... would like a little more wine if you wouldn't mind," she whispered.

He returned to the hearth and fetched the bottle, tipping some wine into her glass. The edge of the bottle clinked softly against the lip of the glass and she was surprised to see a slight tremor in his hand.

"It isn't every day I get married," he said ruefully.

The admission somehow made it easier for her to lift her chin and square her shoulders. It brought her to her feet and enabled her to walk past him to the bed. She sat primly on the edge of the mattress and faced straight ahead, her eyes angled downward and fixed on the framed picture of Caleb where it lay on the open folds of her carpetbag. He seemed to be staring back at her, his face pale and rigid, stoically accepting the sacrifice she was about to make.

He had been so eager on their wedding night—eager and earnest and clumsy, struggling to temper his passion with the need to preserve and protect her modesty. Caleb had never challenged or defied her. He had never stood so boldly before her, his animal vitality throwing off enough heat to affect her breathing. He had never even let her see him naked or given her more than a brief glimpse of what he thrust with such embarrassed eagerness between her thighs.

Tarrington was all muscle, all strength, all confidence. That he was naked beneath the brocade robe, she had no doubt. He probably did not even own a nightshirt nor would he see any reason to wear one to preserve anyone’s modesty, least of all hers.

At the moment he was only a dark blot at the edge of her vision. He still had not moved. He stood with his legs braced apart, his arms crossed over his chest, his imposing silhouette framed by the glare of the firelight behind him.

“I'm curious,” he mused, “it this to be played out as a necessary evil, then? Something to be endured but—God forbid— never enjoyed.”

“Enjoy? What in heaven’s name is there to enjoy about two people fumbling around together in the dark?”

“Absolutely nothing, I suppose. If that is all they do.”

“What else is there?”

The question appeared to amuse him, and he offered a husky laugh as he moved toward the bed. “Absolutely nothing … if you don’t want there to be. Or if you have been told there wouldn’t be—which should have been up to your first husband to prove or disprove.”

She cast him a fulminating glare, one that held up even as he came within arm’s reach. “Caleb was kind and sweet and gentle. He had no need to prove anything to me.”

Tarrington laughed again. “My lovely innocent … who would have guessed?”

“Guessed what?” she demanded. “That I wouldn’t crumble to my knees and beg you to be merciful and swift?”

“No,” he drew the word out speculatively. “That the beautiful, icy, sensual queen of the Mississippi riverboats would look and act as frightened as a virgin staring down the throat—or should I say the breeches—of a Hun bent on rape and pillage.”

Amanda’s jaw clamped firmly around a muttered reply. “I should have expected you to be nothing less than vile and vulgar, Yankee.”

“Whereas I expected you to be … shall we say, a tad more at ease with the physical aspects of marriage. You have been in a man’s bed before, and you have been enthusiastic enough in your endeavors to have produced a child.”

Amanda lowered her eyes. “One does not necessarily have to be enthusiastic to be successful in such things, only lucky. Or unlucky, as the case may be.”

“True enough,” he agreed. “But it can be a lot more fun if both parties are relaxed enough to cooperate with each other.”

“I am cooperating,” she said through her teeth. “What more would you have me do?”

“I might have you stand up, for a start,” he said quietly. “To begin on equal ground, so to speak. That way I wouldn’t feel quite so much like the lecturing dean.”

Amanda only laced her hands tighter together on her lap. “I prefer to remain seated, thank you.”

“Do you now? Very well.” His hands moved to the knot of his belt and he had it unfastened before Amanda could anticipate the action. As determined as she was to keep her eyes averted and as thick as the shadows were, she caught a glimpse of naked thighs and a smooth, washboard-hard belly. She glimpsed something else as well, pale against the dark explosion of hair at the top of his thighs, and the sight sent her shooting to her feet with a small, airless gasp.

“Ahh,” he murmured. “The lecture endeth.”

Standing this close, it was difficult to ignore the sheer size of him. His wide shoulders seemed even wider against the backdrop of firelight, his arms filled the sleeves of his robe so that the elegant brocade did not simply hang there, it molded to the muscles with pride. It was difficult not to remember how it had felt to be held in those arms or crushed up against that chest. It was difficult, yet she was adamant about doing so, refusing to quail before him, refusing to fuel his humor at the expense of her own pride.

She drew a deep, determined breath. If he wanted the icy, sensual queen of the Mississippi, that was who he would get. It would be easier for her, in fact, to slip into the skin of Montana Rose and pretend this was all happening to someone else. It was how she had survived all those nights on the riverboats. It would be how she could survive this.

The change that came over her face was subtle and fascinating, and Tarrington realized at once what she was doing and why she was doing it. It was like watching a chameleon slowly shift colors to adapt to its surroundings. She was going to adapt, she was going to give him the performance she assumed he wanted, and in that moment he knew, with his ingrained aversion to defiance of any kind, that as soon as she thought to outmaneuver him with that I-dare-you-to-make-me-feel-anything look, there could be but one outcome. Up until that moment, he’d had every intention of letting her have the bed alone and undisturbed tonight. Until that moment he had been fully prepared to wait until they were both better adjusted to the circumstances.

If anyone should have been balking against anything, it should have been him, for he still had no idea what mad urge had brought him to this point. Married? He’d never even entertained the thought of an engagement before and had avoided all romantic entanglements like the plague. He had actually regarded it as an added bonus, being a detested Yankee in the heart of the South, knowing there would be no fear of ambush from keening mothers sharpening their claws to snare him for their desperate, grasping daughters.

Yet here he was, feeling his temper bristling, married to a woman who was desperate to pretend she was someone else, grasping at any ploy that would enable her to imagine herself anywhere else than here with him.

“Look at me,” he commanded softly.

The tawny wings of her lashes lifted slowly, her eyes wide and calm and very, very blue. He raised his hand and saw her brace herself for the contact. “What do you suppose your Mr. E. Forest Wainright would be doing right about now?”

He let that thought sink in, but her mouth only pressed into a thinner, more mutinous line.

“I might settle for a kiss ... if it was freely given.”

Her eyes showed a brief spark of wariness. "Just a kiss?"

"Freely given."

Amanda felt his hand twine itself into the silky fall of her hair and push it slowly back off her shoulder. His thumb brushed along the sensitive curve of her neck sending a welter of shivers rippling down her spine. Her breathing turned shallow and her heart started pounding like a wild thing in her breast. His fingers raked deeper into her hair, tilting her head back, and there was no avoiding the warm, moist heat of his mouth, no ignoring the soft tickle of his moustache as his tongue trawled lazily across her lips, teasing and tasting until it sought an opening and insinuated itself inside.

Amanda stiffened against the slow, calculated plunder. He tasted of red wine and tobacco, the same scents that flavored his breath where it blew warm and fragrant over her skin. After the kiss in the garden at Rosalie, Amanda was alarmingly aware of his skill at seducing a response from a mouth that had never experienced such a thorough assault before, but she had come through it once with her senses intact and she could do it again. She could. She knew she could.

It was just a kiss, after all.

The kiss was long and leisurely, and Amanda was quite proud of herself when it ended and she was still standing upright. Her knees had begun to buckle halfway through and her hands had gone to his chest to grip the lapels of his robe. His tongue had explored and plundered. It had challenged hers to respond and it was only the need to gasp at a breath and startle some sense back into herself that she had been able to refrain from doing so.

When the kiss finally ended, she was almost out of her skin and had difficulty focussing on anything but his mouth, but she was able to meet him eye to eye. She was still the queen of the riverboats.

Tarrington’s grin widened, and he said very slowly, very softly, “I don’t think so, madam.”

“You don’t think … what? … Mr. Tarrington.”

“I don’t believe”—he twisted his fingers deeper into her hair and lowered his mouth to within a heartbeat of hers again— “you are as good an actress as you think you are.”

She started to pull away, but the hand at the nape of her neck prevented it.

"You said ... a kiss," she gasped.

"Freely given. That doesn't mean standing there like a wooden soldier with your mouth slack and your thoughts on my money."

She blinked and gasped again. "My thoughts were not on your money!"

The anger that surged through her veins made the fingers of one hand curl tighter around his lapel, while the other hand slid up and grasped a fistful of the wavy chestnut hair, pulling his head back down. Her mouth reached for his and while, in truth, it may still have been Montana Rose who answered the challenge in the gray, mocking eyes, it was Amanda Courtland who cried out softly and kissed him with all the pent up frustration, hurt, need, and longing she had kept bottled up inside for so long. Her tongue was the aggressor, tasting and exploring. Her lips slanted this way and that, wanting more, while her hands pulled her closer, both of them around his neck now, letting her body press recklessly against his.

A victim of few surprises, Michael Tarrington suddenly found his arms filled with a woman who was kissing him with enough passion to erase any noble thoughts he might have had about teaching her a lesson and leaving her to a cold bed. There was nothing noble in the swift, hard rise of his flesh. Nothing vaguely compromising in the way his arms went around her and pulled her close so she could feel the solid thickness of his arousal.

A groan came from somewhere deep in his throat and was answered by a soft, disbelieving whimper, but it was enough. With his mouth still firmly molded to hers, he swept her up into his arms and laid her on the bed. His blood thundered in his ears and his arms had to fight against the tremors that would have sent his hands tearing at the shapeless folds of her nightdress. It was lust, in its most pure and primitive form, and it was to his credit—and his increasing torment—that he was able to break the kiss long enough to search the shimmering blue eyes.

She was no longer tense, no longer trembling with anger. But there was something else. There was fear. He remembered the scorn and derision in her voice when she had challenged him to tell her what was enjoyable about two people “fumbling around together in the dark,” and he wondered if her first husband had been so thoughtless, so inept, so gentlemanly he had taken this magnificently sensual beauty into his bed and left her wanting for no better description than “fumbling”?

Some of the savage beating in his blood waned—not all, but some. The harsh light went out of his eyes and a more thoughtful look came over his face as he cradled her chin in his hand and tilted her face up to his. Her hair was fanned out beneath her. A flush was dusting her cheeks pink, and her mouth...dear god, her mouth was wet and soft and lush with the effects of the kisses.

He brushed the backs of his fingers across her blush and it was warm to the touch. The heat followed his fingertips as they traced a path from her chin to the pulsing vein in the hollow of her throat. Every nerve in her body was stretched and humming; he could feel it and see it in the tight, hard peaks of her nipples where they strained against the cloth of the nightgown.

Unable to resist, his fingers moved lower, draining the heat and color out of her throat as they traced a path downward and gently circled her breast before cupping the heat of his hand around it.

Amanda heard herself whimper again. His lips were there to capture the sound and then they were gone again, pressing first, with devastating results, into the curve of her throat before following his free hand as it untied the ribbon bows one by one and spread the nightdress open to her waist.

She remembered something about a kiss...just a kiss...and she thought there was something she ought to do to stop him. She should have cried out or twisted away or done something, anything to deter him. But the lower his lips roved, the more her senses scattered and the less control she had over her body. She could feel it shivering away, feel her fingers and toes tingling, feel the skin across her breasts growing so tight and sensitive she wanted to scream long before his lips ever reached them.

His hand was still around her breast and now it slid the nightdress aside to make way for the heat of his lips. He pulled the tender nipple into his mouth. He rolled it with just the tip of his tongue first, so lightly it was no more than a gentle tease. And then the force was harder, the suction rousing a strange, stormy intoxication in her blood that had nothing to do with the wine she had consumed. She cried out and twisted her upper body...not to break away but to arch higher into the devastating assault.

With his mouth outrageously overfilled with her flesh, his hands moved again, this time catching at the hem of the gown and dragging it upward to bare her thighs. His fingers stroked and skimmed. They probed and explored and scattered what remained of her ability to think. With his gentle guidance, her legs parted shamelessly wider and his mouth was suddenly there too...kissing the trembling flesh across her belly and along the tops of her thighs.

He breached the thatch of pale-yellow curls with his fingers first, curving them deftly into the sleek folds, stroking the silky lips until another cry broke from her throat and he felt a pulse of wetness slick his fingers. He exploited every little shiver and shudder. Her body was set, tense, vibrating with a dark desire that sent her hands clawing at his shoulders.

“Stop!” she gasped. “Oh please … stop!”

The muscles in his arms went rigid in response to her cry. His fingers grew still but he kept them buried inside her, feeling the distinct, clutching pulsations that belied the urgent plea.

“Please,” she said, her voice a mere thread of a whisper. “I can’t breathe. I … can’t breathe!”

Tarrington’s frown relaxed. "You don't have to breathe. You just have to say: yes."

Amanda's eyes shimmered and her body ached. His robe had vanished somewhere along the way and her hands looked so very small where they gripped his shoulders. His dark hair was fallen forward over his cheeks, and the wide, muscled expanse of his bare chest was hovering just above her, close enough for the smooth hairs to torment her nipples. His fingers were still, shockingly, inside her and as she searched his eyes, she could feel them stroking, curling, touching on places that only made her body want to thrust and thrust and thrust up into them.

"Say it," he urged softly, his thumb circling and pressing just enough to make her body arch and her fingernails dig into his shoulders.

"Yes," she gasped, straining upward, "yes, yes, yes..."

Tarrington's mouth covered the rest of her shivered cries and his fingers withdrew, making way for his body to slide between her thighs. He shifted his weight forward, angling himself up and into the sleek, velvety smooth passage, feeling an instant rush of liquid heat as her body spasmed around the intrusion.

Amanda’s head arched back into the bedding as she felt herself being filled, impaled, stretched to the very limit of sensibility. She was no virgin but this … this enormous invasion of hard flesh was like nothing she had borne before, or even imagined her body could accommodate. In desperation, she dug her heels into hillocks of feather ticking but that only seemed to open her wider, to allow him deeper, but before she could adjust, the first incredible wave of pleasure coursed through her body.

His shoulders, his arms, the great slabs of muscle across his back gleamed in the firelight, rippled with the motion of his hands, his hips, his bowed and questing lips. His breath was hot in her ear, inflaming her senses. Words were there too, blurred and husky, encouraging her, guiding her.

He raised his hips and rolled them slowly forward again and again. Warm and thick and smooth, his flesh slid against nerve endings that were already raw and sensitive. A low, ragged groan welcomed his heat into the deepest part of her, and she felt the first bright shiver of ecstasy grip her, shock her into twining her legs around his waist There was not one single part of her body that was not acutely aware of his strength, his power, his presence. He held her tight, and she felt the driving shock of his need. Deeper and still deeper he thrust until the pleasure swelled and burst within her, swelled again and shook her body with such stunning intensity, it shattered every notion of ecstasy she had known before.

It shattered all of Tarrington’s noble intentions as well, and he reared above her one last time, his head flung back, his body held in her pulsing, convulsive grip. The pressure flooded out of him in great throbbing bursts and he was only dimly aware of Amanda’s cry as she shuddered beneath him.

A final, harsh groan brought Tarrington’s senses reeling back to earth. He could feel the tight little twitches squeezing around his flesh, letting him know her orgasm had been as stunning as his own.

Amanda lay perfectly still but for the wild pounding of her heart. His body was heavy over hers, but it was a welcomed heaviness for she needed something to keep her from floating away. The incredible pressure inside her was waning, the tension ebbing, but his flesh was still very real and very much a formidable presence, thudding with slow, measured beats that filled her with yet another new and unsettling sense of awe.

She relaxed the deathlike grip of her hands where they were clutched around his upper arms. This was usually the point where Caleb would quickly roll beside her and ask if she was all right, if he had hurt her or been too rough.

Tarrington only shifted his weight to his elbows, not so that he could roll off her, but so that he could lift his head and gaze down at her flushed face.

After a long moment of silent contemplation, he touched a fingertip to her cheek, brushing away a thread of golden hair. He ran the same fingertip thoughtfully across the fullness of her lower lip before kissing the tip of her nose and offering up a repentant smile.

"My apologies, Mrs Tarrington. I realize you were determined not to enjoy that."

"I was ... no such thing," she whispered.

"Liar." He smiled and lowered his mouth to the curve of her neck again, nuzzling there for as long as it took to elicit another shallow whimper.

“And do I still frighten you?”

She was surprised by the tenderness in his voice, startled by the hard curl of pleasure that rippled through her body in response.

“I wasn’t frightened. I was merely …”

His head came up again, bringing a fine web of clinging gold hairs with him. One dark wing of an eyebrow was crooked upward over a look that was half curious, half bemused, wholly prepared to disprove whatever she was about to say by whatever means were necessary.

“… terrified,” she finished on a little puff of breath.

“And? Do I still terrify you?”

“No. Yes. I … don’t know.”

He stared at her intently for as long as it took to send her lashes wilting down over her eyes again.

“An honest answer, anyway,” he mused.

“Will you be equally honest with me?” she asked quietly.

“Depends what you ask me. If you want me to admit that I was equally determined not to enjoy myself and equally pleased and surprised that I did ... well ... I suspect it would be too easy to call my bluff."

She would have smiled had her question not been deathly serious. “Would you really have turned around and taken me home tonight if I’d asked you to?”

For all of two heartbeats, he debated the shine in her eyes and the silky wet tightness of her body where she still held him snug and tight."

“I don’t know. I honestly do not know.”