ROMANCE: PARANORMAL ROMANCE: Coveted by the Werewolves (Paranormal MMF Bisexual Menage Romance) (New Adult Shifter Romance Short Stories) (301 page)

Kenneth was sitting on the edge of her bed, thumbing through a book with a familiar yellow cover.  Her horror intensified as he turned page after page, shaking with silent laughter and shaking his head.  He had found her book.  And now he found her ridiculous.  She shook out of her daze and took a step forward, and at that moment, the brooch that had been pinned rather loosely to her dress decided to make its clattering way to the floor, startling Kenneth out of his quiet reprieve and highlighting for her the sheet idiocy of the situation.

He put the book down and took a step towards her, amusement lighting his features.  “Good morning, sunshine,” he said, and she felt her face redden impossibly.  How dare he?  How dare he intrude on her private chambers, on her—her private time?

“Why did you take my book?”

He wrinkled his brow in confusion, eyes still alight.  “Does a husband not have the right to visit his wife and take an interest in what it is she occupies herself with?” He paused, waiting for a beat or two, and then asked the inevitable question.  “Why is it that you’re reading this book, Clara?”

She clammed up.  She felt caught, trapped in a cage of her own making, unable to undo the damage done and likewise unable to take a step forward out of it.  How to explain, how to put the vague stirrings into words without abandoning decency?  How to allow yourself to express the vulnerability that would put you on an uncharted map where you were neither the captain of the ship or able to direct the rudder?

So she did what she had always done, ever since her arrival in the states all those months ago.  She jammed her lips tight together, allowed her face to flush scarlet, and ran.

*                     *                    *

He never had been able to understand women.

The fact was was that he thought he had her all figured out, this prim and proper miss with a true sense of purpose no matter what she put her mind to.  He had not truly thought before entering her room, but he knew now that he had offended her sensibilities.  Things were different across the ocean, he heard.  You were not supposed to enter a lady’s bedchamber without knocking, even if she was your spouse.

Something inside of him had changed character, for lack of a better word, when he saw her, asleep in that chair.  He had noticed that ever since that night in the barn, she had not been able to sleep like before, always pacing late into the night in her room, her soft little footsteps thunderously loud in the still of the night.  And so he had been glad to see her finally at rest, poor thing.

A yellow book had fallen from her hands and was laying by her feet on the ground.  He picked it up, and the title,
Sex Tips
, caught his eye.  Kenneth felt stunned right into the ground.  What was Clara doing with a book about such intimate acts?  Who would even write a book on such a topic?  Furthermore, the course of his reasoning led him to ask the one question he was most curious about—what had prompted his reserved, resilient little bride to pick up such a book in the first place?

Without even thinking much about it, he had begun turning the pages.  And the laugh that had eventually roused Clara from her sleep had begun.  This woman, Ruth Smythers, was a loony, a basket case.  She featured the bride as an innocent young creature whose time to shine came on the wedding day—why he felt a pang of guilt, he could not say—and that afterwards, she should be wary of giving in to her “sensual and lusty husband.”  Why was Clara reading such nonsense?  And was that truly how she saw him now—as a man who would go back on his word to her and touch her without her permission?

He had barely begun to ponder this when the advice tips began to spill out, one after ridiculous one.  “What could have been a proper marriage will become an orgy of sensual lust.”

“By their tenth anniversary many wives have managed to complete their child bearing and have achieved the ultimate goal of terminating all sexual contacts with the husband.  By this time she can depend upon his love for the children and social pressures to hold the husband in the home. “  That one hurt a bit as he recalled Barbara, but the next,

                         “If he lifts her gown and attempts to kiss her anyplace else she should quickly pull the gown back in place, spring  from the bed, and announce that nature calls her to the toilet,”

                       Caused him to break out in laughter that was so helpless that he finally woke her.

                         He would never forget the look on her face from that moment either.  She had, at first, looked as innocent as a child, and then, when her gaze fell upon the book in his hands, it transformed into one where he felt as if he had physically laid harm to her body.  She looked betrayed.

                         Kenneth had no idea where she had fled to, but assumed that she would come back for lunch.  When the hour came and past, he felt a vague nagging in his head, asking questions without forming words.  When two more hours went by, the nagging notions had formulated into complete thoughts, and he began to worry.  A storm was brewing, and Clara knew almost none of their neighbors; the nearest ones were only accessible by horse, anyway.  What was she going to do out there—what if she got lost in a field or ditch or—or—

                         He could not understand how he had not gone after her when she left.  It had not been, after all, his desire to embarrass her.  How could he have let hours go by without looking for her?  Not daring to ask himself why the sense of panic was rising high in his throat, he pushed aside all the thoughts he had of not being able to come home to her snapping blue eyes anymore and thundered down the stairs outside into the barn to saddle a horse.  Perhaps he would have a chance to find her before the full fury of the storm hit.  And, he hardly dared to think this, what if he did not?

                         Something in him, without quite knowing why, said he would look for her until he found her either way.  And that shocked him damn near senseless.

                         But not so much as the realization that there was someone in the barn besides himself and the horses.  He tread softly, hardly daring to disturb the low murmur of a voice coming from Betsy’s stall.  He crept silently, unseen, until he could just make out a woman’s voice whispering softly.  He peeked into the crack between the door and its hinge on the stall door and he could just make out Clara’s small form, pressed against the warmth of the new colt.  She was stroking its head gently with her tiny hand, and tears stained the top of her silk dress.

                         He sagged with relief at having found her, wanted to rush in and shake her for causing him to worry.  Instinct told him, however, to bide his time, to hear her words.  For she was whispering to the colt, its brand-new mane satin against her fingers.

                         “You don’t know Edward and Sara, Ponyboy, but they were my whole world back in England.  I did not think it possible to love two people like I did them, but it was because I felt so needed back there.  I knew what my role was, what my purpose in that household was.  And now I am living with a man, a man who is foreign and strange and does not truly seem to need me at all.”

                         Kenneth felt his chest clench.

                         “I thought he liked me, I truly did, after you were born, because he talked to me about his Barbara.  He does not seem like a man who shares much with others, but he found words for me, he tried to make me understand.  And I understood, of course I did, for who does not know what it is like to be alone?”

                         He remembered her stories from the orphanage.  It seemed to be quiet, but she had just been lost in thought for a moment.

                         “What do I know about being a wife, horsey?” she asked, worrying it between its ears.  The colt let out a huge, contented snort.  “All I have is that book by that woman, and all it says is to avoid even breathing on your husband.  So what do I do, pony?  Of course I run from him.  I do not know any other way, and when he laughs at me, it makes me wish the ground would open up and swallow me whole.”

                         “Don’t.”

                         He said it without thinking, and Clara sat up with a start, realizing for the first time that she was not alone.  When he opened the stall door, her face changed.  She had nowhere left to run, and so she would not let the knowledge that he had heard her make her ashamed.  In a way, it might have been that she wanted him to hear.

                         “I’m not good at the words, Clara,” he said, the straw crackling beneath his feet as he approached her slowly.  Her face looked shy and tender.  “I don’t have the right words to tell you what I’m feeling, but I can tell you this.  I didn’t know how much I needed you until you came.  When I couldn’t find you today, I thought my heart would burst clean out my chest.”  He paused, locking his fingers underneath her chin and tilting it up, watching her lashes cast faint shadows on her cheeks.  “You don’t ever have to feel alone.  Not while you’re with me.”

                         When he kissed her, they melted into each other.  Everything that he had wanted to say, he said through his lips, through a fierce possessive kiss that bound her to him more strongly than any marriage license.  And then he led her back into the house where he made her his wife in more than just name.

                         And those were all the words that either of them needed.

THE END

The Duke’s Dark Secret

It would never do to be late to the social event of the year, and Charlotte Woodhall had every intention of arriving on time. But her sisters Margaret and Catherine were conspiring against her, as usual. Consequently, she was beyond frustrated as she rushed about trying to get her dress just so.

“You’ll never make it, you know.” Margaret mocked her, putting the last of her ribbons in her hair. “Mother said the carriage was to leave at 7:30 sharp.”

“Sharp, she said” Catherine piped up. She was the youngest of the sisters, but was always ready to support the eldest of the three of them in torturing Charlotte. “And you may as well not even bother, as once they see me, there won’t be anyone interested in dancing with you anyway. It
is
my debut.”

Charlotte held her tongue. Though certainly the youngest, Catherine was also by far the homeliest of the three, and with Margaret for competition, that was saying something. The eldest of the Woodhall daughters was rapidly approaching spinsterhood. Though known as a social climber and having some residual hint of aristocracy to claim offsetting the family’s dire financial circumstances, Margaret was able to compound a lack of physical refinement with the social graces of an artless butterfly. She would dart from conversation to conversation, seeking the nectar of gossip and distributing the same in equal portions, whether it was known to be true or false. Though it initially may have warmed her to the “right sort” of people in Bath society, she had managed to develop a questionable reputation by her eagerly wagging tongue.

While Margaret had harmed the family stock in social circles, it was Catherine who was noted for scandal. It was her social debut, but already she was noted for sneaking out, partaking in drinking, and stepping out with gentleman callers known to ride roughshod through the town in their carriages. On one such outing, a village blacksmith in a remote Somersetshire village had broken his foot and barely escaped being trampled by Margaret and her beau of the moment.

Charlotte- well, Charlotte was Charlotte, and as she gazed into the mirror feeling frumpy and frazzled, she began to dread the notion of being out at all. As though it were a charitable duty, her mother and sisters dragged her along to all such events, perhaps in the theory that there was greater safety in numbers. While she did not think herself plain with her smart, raven hair and pleasant cheeks and lips, the loud and greedy nature of her kin seemed to put off all interested parties. She was starting to fear that unless she were able to escape the vortex of her family’s sins, she would be left to languish alone at every dance, overlooked by men already unnerved by the Woodhall reputation.

She was becoming known as a wallflower, and it was a reputation that bothered her greatly.

“And still you dally.” Catherine mocked, and realizing she’d been staring forlornly into the mirror thinking about her plight, Charlotte let out a huff of impatience.

“I tell you I’d have been done long ago had you both not helped yourself to my things. I thought I’d misplaced them, but I see you’re using my good brush, sister, and Margaret is using ribbon I purchased not a week ago.”

“It’s not as though you were going to look any good in them.” Margaret sneered. “If you put a ribbon on a sow, it’s still a sow, isn’t it?”

Both girls cackled at this and before Charlotte could respond, the two flounced out of their shared room, crying, “We’re ready, mother, we’re ready!”

Charlotte rushed to fasten and clasp the last portions of her dress and quickly snatched up the brush to try to do something respectable with her hair. Fortunately, she’d had the foresight to get her short curls set early on, but wearing a bonnet as she’d gone for a walk and to read in the countryside had taken a slight toll on her intended appearance. As she was getting the bun reset, her mother slowly allowed the door to the room swing open as she darkened the doorstep.