Courting Susannah (33 page)

“This is important, Susannah. What we are about to do is irreversible. Once it's done, the marriage will be binding, legally and morally, forever and ever. There'll be no room for second thoughts.”

“No—second—thoughts-” Susannah confirmed, already lost.

“It will hurt,” he pressed.

She knew that, expected it, but her needs were greater by far than the prospect of pain. And she trusted Aubrey to handle her gently. “Only this once?”

He kissed each of her breasts in turn. “Only this once,” he agreed.

“Please,” she whispered. “Now.”

Aubrey positioned himself at the entrance to her body and waited there; she felt herself expand to receive him, and yet it seemed impossible that she could take something so large as his member inside her. “Dear God,” he breathed, and she had the briefest inkling of what a price he was paying for his restraint.

“Now, Aubrey,” she pleaded, and arched her back, presenting her breasts to him in all their fullness, a gift of utter vulnerability, of trust and abandon.

With a rasped oath, he took a nipple hard into his mouth and, at one and the same moment, with a single hard thrust of his hips, sheathed himself in Susannah to the depths.

In the first instant, the pain and pleasure were interwoven, one inseparable from the other. She opened her eyes wide and cried out, partly in joy, partly because her maidenhead had been breached. Aubrey continued to take suckle at the breast he'd claimed, and slowly, slowly, he began to guide Susannah up and down along the length of his erection. Gradually, the stinging sensation gave way to a sort of sweet friction, a fullness that was pleasing, while creating a sense of rising tension and a state of the most delicious suspense.

Aubrey made no effort to catch Susannah's cries; soft at first, they grew more lusty as he accelerated their pace, as he strained deeper and deeper within, pushed her further and further toward the outermost regions of her soul. She knew only that she was about to lose herself completely, to transcend physical and spiritual boundaries she had never imagined before.

“Oh,” she sobbed, galloping upon him now, shameless and wild. “Oh—Aubrey—please—
please
—”

He tasted her mouth, feverishly, as hungry and breathless as she was, and, gently rolling a well-taught nipple between his thumb and forefinger, sent her shouting and clawing over the brink. She was still flexing upon him, in quick, spasmodic jerks, when he gave a low exclamation, stiffened, and spilled his seed into her. The primitive intimacy of that wrought a final, sharp release in Susannah; she rode it beyond the brink of sensibility itself and then collapsed, gasping, against
Aubrey's shoulder. Had he not been holding her, she probably would have slipped to the floor, for her muscles had turned to sun-warmed honey, and she was wet with perspiration from head to foot.

For a long time, neither of them spoke, though their breaths and heartbeats had at some point aligned themselves, one to the other. To Susannah, the joining had been a profound experience, just as holy, just as sacred, as the marriage ceremony itself, and she did not yet trust herself to assemble thoughts into words.

Aubrey found his voice first; after pushing aside her hair, he leaned a little to kiss the side of her neck, then said, “I knew it would be like that between us. The first time I saw you, I knew it.”

Spent though she was, Susannah felt something awaken within her as he tilted her head back and slid his mouth lightly, lightly over the flesh of her throat, finding the pulse. He was still inside her, stirring there, and there was power in him. “I can't—not again—”

“But you will,” he said. He was rising, swelling, filling her again. Having her again.

She moaned, pressing her knees into his thighs. “I've nothing left,” she said. She'd given it all, taken it all. Hadn't she?

He chuckled against her mouth. “You'll be surprised at yourself,” he promised. And he grasped her hips in his strong hands and began to move her smoothly, slowly up and down, reaching deep.

“I'll die,” she whimpered, though it felt impossibly good, having him inside her, part of her, hard and hungry and insistent.

He nibbled his way down her jawline, along her neck, over the plump roundness of a breast to the nipple he sought. “Ummm,” he said.

It took much longer to complete their journey that
second time. Aubrey showed Susannah the far side of the stars, again and again, and brought her back only when he knew he'd wrung the last quivering climax from her straining, exhausted body. Somehow, they got to the bed, collapsed together onto the sheets, and slept.

When Susannah awakened, with the earliest light of dawn, they were entwined in each other's arms, and Aubrey was still breathing deeply, his eyes closed. She admired him for a while, in tender amusement; he was big, strong as the oxen that dragged great trees down out of the hills for planing in Seattle's busy mills, and probably one of the wealthiest, most powerful men that side of Chicago. The injuries he'd sustained at the hands of his enemies probably would have killed almost anyone else, including herself, but he was already moving beyond the experience, looking to the future. For all those things, there was something endearingly boyish in the way he slept, his lashes longer than she had imagined, his mouth softer in repose than she had ever seen it in wakefulness.

She was still reflecting upon those thoughts and others like them when he opened one eye, then the other. His grin was guileless and would be her ruin, she knew, if she didn't establish some defenses against it.

“Good morning, Mrs. Fairgrieve,” he said.

Susannah had not tried out her new name, perhaps because that would have meant thinking about Julia. Acknowledging her friend's prior claim on this man, on his home, his heart, and his child. The other woman actually might have been in the room, standing at the foot of the bed, so keenly did Susannah feel her presence just then. She tried to move away from Aubrey, but he was stronger and drew her close again.

“What is it?” he asked. His voice was low and gentle, and yet it left no room for hedging.

“Julia,” Susannah told him miserably.

“What about her?” The question was an impatient one, crisp and a little sharp at the edge. He did not relax his hold on her.

“She was the closest thing I had to family. You were her husband—”

“I was her fool,” Aubrey said, matter-of-factly and with resignation rather than bitterness. He leaned over, with an effort that showed in his face, and kissed her temple. “There is nothing wrong in our being together, Susannah. For all her—shortcomings, Julia loved the child. In her own way, at least. Don't you think she'd be glad to know you were here, looking after Victoria?”

Susannah blinked back tears. Aubrey was right, she reasoned. Victoria needed her; even Julia would have had to acknowledge that. She must allow herself this happiness, this gift, she decided, however fleeting, for it was something rare and precious. True, in time her husband might well tire of her—men of his sort and station seemed to keep mistresses almost as a matter of course—but in the meanwhile, she meant to know joy, even ecstasy. God willing, she might even have a child or two, to grow up with Victoria and fill that vast house with mischief and laughter, and there was always her music.

“Susannah?” Aubrey prompted.

“Yes,” she answered belatedly. “Yes, I'm sure Julia would want me to look after Victoria.”

He lay on his side, facing her, propped up on one elbow. Except for the tight bindings that held his ribs in place, he was completely, gloriously naked. “In the spring, we'll go to Europe. Would you like that?”

She stared at him, stunned. All her life she'd dreamed of crossing the sea, and she'd read about places like Venice and Madrid, Paris and London, but she'd never dared hope actually to visit them. “You don't mean it,” she said.

He laughed and touched the tip of her nose with one finger. “Oh, I mean it, all right. You'll enjoy seeing the sights, and I'll enjoy watching you see them.”

Susannah had been on the verge of sitting up; after all, the day was well under way, and it wasn't right to lie abed wasting light, but the prospect of such a journey drove all her tasks and plans for the morning right out of her head. “What about Victoria?” she asked. She held her breath for his answer, because if he wanted to leave the baby behind, she would stay in Seattle also. Although a great many people traveled without their children, Susannah had no intention of joining their ranks.

“We'll take her along,” Aubrey said easily. “With a nurse, of course.”

Susannah knew her eyes must be taking up most of her face. Why, just to imagine it—
Europe
. “How long would we be away?”

“Five or six months, I suppose,” Aubrey answered. “No sense going so far if you're not going to take the time to look at every significant fountain, painting, piazza, and castle.”

Rome, Susannah thought. Vienna and Austria, perhaps Florence as well, and Provence. “But the store—?”

“Hawkins can run it fine without me. Better, maybe.”

Although she had made up her mind not to think about Julia, at least not while she and her husband were lying naked together in their nuptial bed, Susannah could not help recalling letters her friend had written when her marriage to Aubrey had first begun to go sour.
He thinks of nothing but that dreadful shop of his…. He has all the money he could ever want or need…. He's taken a mistress, Susannah. Why does he want to be with her and not me?

“Susannah.” He arched an eyebrow in challenge. Were her thoughts so plain as that?

“You're different,” she said.

His expression was solemn. “In what way?” She tried to avert her gaze, but he took her face in his hand and made her look at him. “Tell me,” he said.

She swallowed. “The store meant everything to you once. More even than Julia.”

He thrust out a sigh. There was acceptance in the sound and, at the same time, regret. “Things change, Susannah.
People
change.”

“Situations do. But people? Not overmuch, in my experience.”

He smiled and kissed her forehead. “And it's vast, your experience?” he teased.

She remained serious. “Human beings grow into their identities very early in life, it seems to me—their talents and tendencies, foibles and finer attributes are pretty well set before they learn to read and cipher. Take Victoria, for example. As young as she is, she already shows an independent spirit, and she's stubborn, too. She's smart, and she'll be beautiful when she grows up but perhaps a bit too aware of the fact. Humility will not be her strong point.”

Aubrey chuckled. “How can you know all that? You're only guessing.” He tugged on the top sheet, revealing her breasts, which he had enjoyed with unabashed enthusiasm the night before. Now, he regarded them with frank admiration and not a little avarice. He pulled the sheet down further, to lie across Susannah's hip bones, and, when she reached for it, seized her hand. “Oh, no you don't,” he said. “You're my wife, and I want to look at you.”

A hot shiver went through Susannah, leaving a toeto-hairline blush in its wake as it passed. It was then that she realized that her will was no longer entirely her own; in some very elemental ways, she belonged to Aubrey.

Using just the tip of one index finger, he made a small, feather-light circle on her belly, 'round and 'round her navel. In spite of the grimmest determination not to react, she made a whimpering sound and stretched under his caress.

He chuckled and kissed her, and when that happened, all was lost.

“Delphinia Parker's body washed up on Alki Point, sometime last night,” John Hollister announced. He had come to the Fairgrieve house to bring the news in person. Out of the corner of her eye, Susannah saw her husband brace himself for what would inevitably come next. “They've arrested your brother for her murder.”

Aubrey closed his eyes against the announcement. Susannah, standing beside his chair behind the desk in his study, laid a hand on his shoulder. “Why Ethan?” he asked.

Hollister sighed. “The two of them had a serious row before she disappeared; there's no doubt of that.” He paused and regarded Aubrey for a while. “You might have been a suspect yourself, were it not for your—incapacitation.”

“What happened to her? How was she killed, I mean?” Aubrey's flesh was gray; his jawline turned to granite while he awaited Hollister's reply, which was slow in coming. When he spoke, there was no doubt of the reason for his hesitation.

“He used a knife. She was nearly unrecognizable, in fact, but the manager of the Pacific Hotel identified her, all right. Said she'd had a suite in his establishment since—” The detective glanced at Susannah and cleared his throat. “Since you and she became acquainted.”

Aubrey let out a long breath. His expression was grim, and little wonder. Whatever his feelings for Delphinia might have been, he wouldn't have wished her
dead, especially not in such a horrible way, and neither, of course, would Susannah. “Ethan couldn't do a thing like that. Hell, he'll hardly skin a rabbit or clean a trout.”

“She shot him,” Hollister pointed out. “Had his only brother beaten within an inch of his life. Accused him of trying to rape her—” Another wary glance at Susannah, followed by an awkward silence.

“I've heard the word
rape
before,” Susannah said crisply. “My husband is right. Ethan isn't capable of murder, and I don't believe it would even occur to him to force himself on a woman.”

“Especially that one,” Aubrey remarked thoughtfully. He turned his gaze back to Hollister's face. “Has bail been set?”

The former Pinkerton man shook his head. His carefully brushed derby hat sat on the table beside his chair, along with a pipe rack and a copy of a very thick book written by a man named Adam Smith, and he reached for it with some relief. “He's considered dangerous,” he said. He cleared his throat as he stood. “Fact is, there are those who say he hasn't been right in the head since that Chinese girl left the country. The one he was going to marry.”