Chapter Eight

The stout fir was half-decorated in the corner of the sitting room, and dinner was over, Brenna gathered the dishes and carried them to the kitchen. The amount of washing-up seemed pitifully small compared to the mountain she normally faced. The mountain she wished for tonight.

“Brenna?” Micah’s tone was cautious as he peeked around the door.

Hot tears flooded her eyes, and a knot in her throat cut off speech. She swallowed hard and forced out, “Yes?”

“Are you all right?” He stepped into the room, but wisely, held his distance. “You’re acting a little—well, not yourself.”

“Go home, Micah. I’ll come to you later.” She hoped he could not see the reflection of her face, but she could see his. Perplexed. Concerned. Frightened? She supposed he had a right to be. He was right, she wasn’t acting like herself. Or maybe she was. Finally.

He stood, waiting.

“Please, Micah. Go home. I’ll come to you as soon as Martha is settled.”

She watched him turn and retreat through the door. A wave of need hit her. She needed him. Without him, her life would be more of a half-life than it was now. She couldn’t just go, pour out her deceit and walk away. Not when she loved him so. And who knew, maybe he’d understand what she was about to offer him was the only gift she could give before she left.

****

Micah sat behind the desk in the empty jailhouse, waiting. The dread he’d fought all through the evening meal threatened to overwhelm him in the silence. Except when she brought food from the hotel when they had prisoners, Brenna didn’t come here. And yet, tonight, she said she’d come to him.

The wall clock chimed eight, and the door opened. Brenna entered, and wordlessly, fastened the shutters tight against the outside world. She deliberately locked the door, walked past him to the other entry at the rear of the small building, and locked that, too.

Her face had the haunted, pinched look she’d worn all through dinner; those whiskey-colored eyes ringed by dark shadows that hadn’t been there just hours before.

“Brenna—”

She quieted him with a touch of her finger to his lips. Then her mouth took his. Not in one of the chaste pecks that they’d exchanged before, but deeply, with a desperate, ravaging hunger. In spite of his shock, his body leapt to attention, his hard length straining to escape the constraints of his clothing.

“Brenna—” he tried to protest. She couldn’t possibly want this, couldn’t truly know what she was doing.

“Shhh…” Her mouth crushed down over his again.

He heard the rustle of fabric then she was on his lap, straddling his lap, pushing herself against him. He groaned, grasping her shoulders and gently pushing her away.

“Brenna, you don’t know—”

“I do know.” Her gaze locked on his, and he was only vaguely aware of her hands slowly working the buttons of her shirtwaist, then the quick movement that stripped it off.

He read determination in her eyes. Something else, something raw he’d never seen.

“I do know,” she repeated, breaking the contact as she looked down at her breasts, their bounty bulging over the top of her corset. She slowly pulled down the chemise covering them and lifted one like an offering to him with one hand and pulled his face down to the proffered nipple.

He had no more resistance. He sucked the rosy tip into his mouth with the same eagerness Brenna displayed when she kissed him. She moaned, and he nearly stopped, thinking he’d hurt her, but just then she pressed her hips hard into him again, beginning to work her body against him in time with the rhythm of his suckling.

He switched to the other breast, taking the hard pebble of its peak in, working it with his tongue. She wrapped her arms around his head to hold him there, her woman’s place working hard against the rod in his pants. She made a choked sound and arched against him like a drawn bow, holding herself still while her breath came in ragged jags.

Finally, she relaxed pulling away from him just slightly. In a breathless voice, she said quietly, “Let’s go to your bed.”

****

Brenna led him back to the windowless space off the jail’s main room, her fingers entwined with his. The chamber was as bare and utilitarian as the one where she slept at Holly Hill, so small the narrow bed nearly touched the walls

She reached up, unbuttoning his collar, pressing her lips to the hollow of his throat. She had never wanted like this, never thought desire could overwhelm her control and reason. The cost to have him may be great, but to have this memory for the rest of her lonely life would make it worthwhile.

The groan shuddering in his throat, right below her lips, sounded as much like agonized defeat as pleasure. He’d succumbed to his craving for her, and the knowledge filled her with boldness. She undid the rest of the buttons on his shirt and stripped it off him, then turned her back and her corset lacings to him.

“Unlace me.”

The rough calluses on his fingertips scraped against the softness of her skin as he fumbled with the laces. As the tightness gave way, she felt her lush body unfold, softening, readying for him.

Dropping the corset to the floor, followed by her thin chemise and pantalets, she stood before him, naked in the pale light cast by the lamp in the outer room.

He stood, shocked into stillness, so she reached out, loosened his trousers and pulled them down his long, muscled legs then she came close and stroked the hardness of him through the flannel of his union suit. He swayed under her touch as she shamelessly cupped him, caressed him. A few quick moves and she had freed his erection to spring forward and slicked her hands over the velvety flesh. An animal cry escaped him as her hands stroked and teased. When she sensed he was nearly overwhelmed by the sensations, she slowed, stopped, then lifted the rough blanket on his bed and slipped underneath, holding it open to him.

“I want you,” she said simply.

Looking dazed, he fell onto the mattress beside her, and she curled into his warmth.

“Where did you—” he started, but she hushed him again.

“We’ll talk—after.” She kissed him, pressing her bare flesh against the flannel that covered his body. Lifting away, she tugged at the undergarments. “Take this off.”

Like a man in a trance he complied, letting her go further and push him down against the mattress and straddle him again. Pressing her lips to his, she lowered herself until her breasts flattened on the hardness of his chest, rocking her hips slowly, slicking the wetness of her sex over his rod.

His breathing quickened, and he began to strain up, bumping desperately against her. Taking her cue from him, she lifted herself, letting his staff leap out from his body.

Reaching down, she found the rigid length and stroked the head of it between her dripping nether lips. She found the right spot and sank down, impaling herself with him.

She threw her head back, relishing the feel of his thickness filling her. She felt him arch up, his hands grasping her hips, tugging at her as if trying to hurry the act. Taking his hands, she moved them up, placed them on her breasts.

“Touch me here,” she urged and began the undulating ride to her pleasure.

The tension rose higher as she rose and fell over him, the urgency deep in her belly growing. Soon, the rough palms tormenting her nipples were not enough. She leaned forward to present them to his mouth. At the nip of his teeth at the hardened pebbles, the first wave of her climax washed over her, and her movements became harder, faster as her body quaked in its completion.

Micah’s mouth loosed its hold on her breasts. He held her hips firmly, taking the lead, bucking up hard into her, his eyes closed; the grimace on his face intense. She felt the first tremor of his climax coming, even before he did, she suspected, her channel excruciatingly sensitive after her own fulfillment.

Bending close to his ear, she whispered urgently, “Fill me. I want you to let go inside of me.” At that, his fingers bit into her skin, slamming her tight onto him one last time as he exploded within her.

She stayed still as a stone for a time, waiting until the last throb of his climax had died away and he’d slipped, limp, from her. Then she sank, exhausted, onto his chest. His heart beat steadily under her ear, and for one lingering moment, she pretended this could last. But the time she’d dreaded for so long had finally come.

She couldn’t let him learn about her life in New York from Clarissa Lawrence or from the gossip that would rage through the town like a brushfire.

“Micah, I have to tell you something.”

She felt him stiffen under her. “Go ahead.”

“I—we—I can’t…” She stumbled over her words. All of the times she’d rehearsed them, she’d never been able to find exactly the right ones. “You can’t marry me, Micah.”

He lurched up, but the weight of her body weighed him down. “What are you talking about? I can marry you, and I will. In just a few days. We just—”

“No, you can’t. What we just did was a gift to you. You don’t understand—you don't know.” Where were the words? The ones that would hurt the least, the ones that would make him understand. Finally, she gave a heavy sigh. “Maybe I should tell you the long, weary tale from the beginning.”

“Maybe you should.” His voice held controlled anger, and if she’d had any hope that this would turn out well, it withered with his words.

“You know how my mam and I came from Ireland to join my da in New York, only to find him weeks dead.” She paused until he nodded his acknowledgment. “We had no money and no place to go, except the Five Points.”

“The Five Points?” That pulled a reaction from him. “You lived in that hellhole?”

“You know about Five Points?” she asked innocently, even though she knew people who’d never been fifty miles from Jubilation recognized the name of the violent, filthy neighborhood.

“I heard horror stories about it when I worked for Pinkerton’s.” He shuddered. “It’s the worst slum in America. People living ten and twelve to a room, stealing to survive, gangs—”

“Whatever you heard, it’s worse. And they’d started cleaning it up some by the time we’d gone there. But a man could still be killed for his shoes or his coat. I even heard once that a girl no bigger than Martha was killed for a penny.” She hadn’t thought of that for a long while, but now, knowing she’d once lived in such a place sickened her.

“Mam was sure we wouldn’t be there long,” she continued, trying to rush her mind past the unpleasantness. “She was an educated woman. Before she met my da, she was a governess for some landed gentry. But that didn’t count for much, not many would hire the Irish, and living in the Points marked you as unscrupulous and unsavory on top of it. No one wanted a governess, or a housekeeper, or even a chambermaid from there. So she took in piecework, lots of the women did. But it wasn’t enough; it was never enough.”

She stopped fighting down the memories of the fear, the poverty, the hunger. The stench and noise and feel of people crammed cheek by jowl came alive, and she let them overtake her, speaking, but letting the words tumble out without regard for her audience.

“About two years later, Mam’s oldest sister, Maeve, came. Brian Malone was on the same ship. He’d known Mam when she was a girl and started courting her right away, saying he’d always carried a torch for her. He would come by with sweets and sometimes little toys for me. He whittled them and managed to sell them here and there for a pittance.”

“He was Tom and Martha’s father?” The question brought her back to him.

“Thomas’s,” she confirmed, trying not to let bitterness seep into her tone. “He’d been all honey and presents before the wedding. After, he was all drink and fists. He told Mam that he shouldn’t have to provide charity for all her useless relatives—meaning me and Auntie Maeve, although he’d stopped making the toys and spent most of his time in the corner pub. It was the three of us doing the piecework that made what money we had.”

“Then Tom was born, and he had no use for me at all. He seemed to think Mam could only mother one child at a time, and I was taking her from his son.” Suddenly, she needed to be self-contained, not connected to anyone. She rolled off Micah’s warm body and sat up, hugging her knees to her.

Micah’s hand ran down her bare back. “Lie back down, you’ll freeze.”

The room was cold, but she barely noticed. When she made no move to return to him, he sat up, too, pulling the blankets around them. “So, where did he think you could go?”

“To the streets. To beg, or sell myself. He didn’t care. There were two orphanages in Five Points by that time and most likely, they’d have taken me in. But Mam heard they put the children on trains and sent them west for people to take in like stray animals.” She found herself wanting to lean into him for warmth but couldn’t. If he showed her any compassion, she would shatter.

“The orphan trains.” He nodded against her head. “I’ve heard about them.”

“I looked older than my age, so Mam lied about where we lived, scrubbed me clean, and found me a position as a chamber maid at a grand manor house uptown.”

“How old were you?” he asked gently, stroking back her tumbled hair.

“Twelve.” She sank back into the past. “The work was hard, and the pay near nothing. But it was better than letting men poke at me in back alleys for a penny or two. I worked there for a year or so. Then at the house next door. Then at a house down the street. I looked into my future and saw nothing but years of the same.”

“So what changed?” He nudged when she stopped.

“I saw a girl I worked with back at the first house. I was in the park on one of my half-days. She looked rested, well-fed, and was decked out like a circus pony. She said she was working in a ‘gentlemen’s club.’ It really was—”

“A high-class whorehouse,” Micah filled in tightly.

“A high-class whorehouse,” she confirmed. “An exclusive one—a group of fifty or so very wealthy men.”

“So, you—” She could hear the hurt in his voice.

“No!” She cut him off. “No, I didn’t do that. Not that she didn’t offer to introduce me to the proprietress for—that. But I couldn’t. When Brian Malone turned me out, I vowed I’d avoid selling myself if I had to starve.” She looked down at her hands. “But she did tell me they were in need of someone to cook and clean and do light sewing. And it paid—well, more than I could imagine at the time. Enough to put some back and begin to make my own way.

“So you took the job.” His voice was void of emotion again.

“I took the job. And just that job,” she assured him, then read on his face the doubt, probably due to all the things she’d just done with him, and added. “But I always listened very closely while I was serving breakfast. I was quite curious about the goings on.”

He laughed, and she laughed, too, and for a moment, everything seemed just as it had been before, then when she remembered it never could be, she went on.

“One man, Albert Lawrence, came nearly every night, but he seldom—well, never, that I actually witnessed, went upstairs with any of the girls.” Gingerly, as if she feared rejection, she leaned into him. “Most of the time, before the evening was over, he’d be in the kitchen with me and Bella, one of the ladies who’d gotten too old to service the men, but who’d stayed on to help with the meals and the sewing. He seemed so sad. He was older. Quiet. Married. Sometimes he’d listen to the piano player for a while. He might have a drink or two. Then he’d come into the kitchen with me and Bella, and ask me to make him some tea and sit and talk about—well, just normal things—like you and Jeb and I.”

“Did you fall in love with him?” he asked.

She looked up at him. In the dim light, she couldn’t make out if his expression was jealous or merely curious. “Love him? Like I love you? No. But I grew quite fond of him.”

“And what happened?”

“Tom’s da was knifed in the back for trying to steal a man’s shoes in the dead of winter. Not that he deserved better, he was a poor excuse for a man.” She felt a sob rising in her throat. “Mam was sick, very sick. Tom was only a boy. The money I’d saved for my new life went for rent and doctors and food, and then it was only enough for a few months.”

This was the part of the story she hadn’t wanted to tell him. But confession was good for the soul, wasn’t it? And her soul had been sick for carrying this secret for so long.

“I was desperate. Even though I’d sworn, I wouldn’t sell myself, I told myself that what I decided to do was different. Albert was a good, kind man who’d made no secret that he wanted me. I knew he was married, but he was very wealthy, and he could provide for all of us for a year on what his wife spent on one new ball gown and he was willing to do it.”

She still couldn’t see his expression, and, for the first time regretted not bringing a lamp into the room with them.

“But he had a wife,” Micah said finally.

“Aye,” she replied sadly. “I knew what I was doing. I was nineteen and had seen plenty of what went on in the world by that time. I weighed the cost of it all and saw no other way to save my family. And, for a while—for years—the price didn’t seem so high. We lived in a pretty little house in a respectable section of the city. Albert spent his evenings with us instead of going to the club. We looked like any other family. We were a family. I think that was what Albert needed more than anything. What he’d been looking for all along.”

“But he had a wife,” Micah said again.

“In name. Those typ of people are different, Micah. I worked in their houses for years. I saw how they planned marriages to worm their way a little higher up the society ladder or to combine two fortunes. Fathers and mothers manipulated their children, never stopping to consider if they were suited to each other, sometimes not even asking if they liked each other. Many times, like in Albert’s case, they were both good people in the wrong marriage. He told me, years after our affair began, Arabella knew about us. And she was content as long as he was discreet.” She held up a hand to stop his protest. “I know that doesn’t make what we did right. I’m telling you so, perhaps, you won’t judge us quite so harshly.”

“But what about his children? Did he have children?”

Brenna answered by pulling the garnet ring from her finger. “He and Arabella had a daughter named Clarissa. And his other child is here. With me.” She looked at the ring lovingly before handing it to him. “I was so overcome when you gave me this, Micah. I sold it once, and it broke my heart. I knew all the jewels Albert had given me over the years were meant to be sold. He told me as much, since he couldn’t make provisions for me in his will. But I held off selling this to the last because I got it the night Martha was born.” And to make sure he understood what she meant, she spoke it out. “Martha’s not my sister, Micah. She’s my daughter. My illegitimate daughter.”

He started to speak, but she put a finger over his lips. “I know you can’t marry me. You don’t have to say anything, but I do. I am so sorry. I was going to tell you all this before I sent for Tom and Martha and break things off, but I was selfish, I wanted to have you, to have the dream as long as I could. Then you asked, and I started to think, maybe, maybe I could have it. But I was wrong. Wrong not to have told you and wrong to think my sins would not find me out.” She reached toward the floor, feeling for her chemise.

“So what happened to Albert?” he asked.

Startled at the change of subject, she pulled herself back up. “What?”

“Albert. Did he get tired of you or did you leave him? Didn’t you love him anymore?”

“He didn’t tire of me, and I didn’t leave him. He died. In my bed. And not that way,” she added sternly before he could add a crude remark. “He was reading when he made this strange choking noise then he was gone. Had it happened at his uptown mansion with Arabella, there’d been no more fanfare than a nice obituary in the Times. As it was, the scandal spread all through the city, and I couldn’t walk to the privy without someone calling me a whore or spitting on me.”

“So you left.”

“So I left, once I settled Aunt Maeve with Tom and Martha. And I came west. I kept traveling until I saw Holly Hill. Then I knew what I wanted. After all, taking care of guests in a hotel is a lot like keeping house for a dozen fancy girls—and I don’t have to do their mending.” She dropped her gaze. She couldn’t look at him. “I never expected to meet you. Never expected to love you. Can you forgive me?”

In reply, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. A soft farewell.

“I’ll sell the inn and move on. To spare you as much embarrassment as I can.” She swept her hand along the floor again and came up with her chemise.

“Wait.” He stopped her from putting it on. “What do you mean you’re going to sell the inn? Why would you want to do that?”

“Because where am I to get a thousand dollars to keep Clarissa Lawrence from making a public announcement about it on Christmas Day?” She pulled the chemise down over her head with a jerk.

“Clarissa Lawrence? Albert’s daughter?”

“She was very angry when the scandal broke. She was promised to a young man with a good fortune and a promising future, who withdrew his suit as soon as the gossip started. She swore she’d get revenge. Now, she’s found me and is threatening to tell everyone in town that I’m a fallen woman and that Martha’s a bastard, if I don’t give her a thousand dollars.” She dangled her fingers off the side of the bed again and touched her corset.

“That’s blackmail,” he said. “That’s a crime.”

“It’s a crime, but even if you arrest her for it, what’s the advantage? I’ve still done what I’ve done, and the story will still come out. It won’t change the fact that you’re too good a man to be marrying the likes of me.” She pulled the corset onto the bed but decided against putting it on. She’d carry it under her wrap.

“But to force you to give up your livelihood—”

She brought her hands down hard into her lap. “Even if I had the money, which I don’t, she’d be like a hound after blood, never satisfied. When would be the next time she’d be coming back and what would she want then? The moon?” She calmed. “Besides, my love, how can I watch you come and go and think of what we could have had without it tearing my heart out by bits? No, it’s best that I disappear again.”

He nodded. “But not until after Christmas.”

“No.” Her voice cracked when she wondered how she’d get through those few days. “I won’t go until after Christmas.”