Saving Grace (The Grace Series Book 2) (6 page)

Sebastian had to concentrate to remember who Thomas Digby was. He didn’t know the man well, but Stephanie was right about one thing. He was old, more than twice her age. It wasn’t difficult to sympathize with her angst. Even so, he knew her father. Mr. Dunn doted on his daughter. He couldn’t imagine him forcing Stephanie to do anything against her will. “Surely you must have other suitors—someone else your father will consider for you?”

“I don’t,” Stephanie insisted, but then she bowed her head and lowered her voice. “Will you ever marry again?”

Sebastian glanced briefly at his wife’s portrait. “I don’t know.”

“Jessica Emerson is already married,” Stephanie said.

He looked at her sharply. “Why did you say that?”

“There has been talk. Everyone knows you like her. Everyone knows she comes here to visit with you all the time.”

In his befuddled state, Sebastian didn’t know whether to be angry or concerned. He was most definitely alarmed. Jessica mentioned once that she thought people were gossiping about them, but he hadn’t taken it seriously. Defensively, he said to Stephanie, “Jessica is my friend. We’re just friends.”

“Oh.” Stephanie leaned forward to reach the cup of tea he’d left for her on the coffee table and sat back again. The movement caused the robe on her upper body to loosen. The neckline was left open enough that Sebastian could see a delicate line of cleavage. He couldn’t help that his eyes were drawn to it.

Stephanie tilted her head to the side and began to blink at him—something she did frequently in his company—and she asked, “Reverend, do you think I’m pretty?”

Sebastian drew in a silent breath and forced his eyes upward. That perfume of hers… it was as intoxicating as the alcohol in his system. Absently, but quietly, he said, “Yes, you’re very beautiful.”

She reached again for her cup of tea, and the robe grew taught across her chest. When she sat up, the neckline was even farther open. Smooth, rounded, creamy skin captivated him. It was all he could do to refrain from looking. The innocence in her expression told him his initial instinct—that she was doing all of this on purpose—was not correct.

“Have I done something wrong?” she asked.

This time when she set her cup down, rather than leaning forward, she twisted sideways and set it on the end table. If Sebastian had been facing her he wouldn’t have seen anything, but from where he was, right next to her, the downward angle and the gaping flap of material made it possible for him to see her entire breast. She’d left none of her undergarments on. The very idea that she was entirely naked under the robe, stirred him in a manner in which he hadn’t been stirred for quite some time.

That wasn’t true. Recently he’d been stirred, but he kept a tight rein on those newly developing desires. Stephanie wasn’t the subject of them either, but right then, it didn’t seem to matter. All that mattered was that lovely, white, rounded flesh.

He thought she was blissfully unaware of what she was revealing, but her next comment changed his mind. “Do you like what you see?” she murmured throatily.

Before he knew what was happening she had his hand in hers. She was gently pulling his arm, guiding his hand inside the robe, and he did nothing to stop her. His own breath quickened as his palm closed over that beautiful, soft mound. She turned toward him and the lapels of the robe separated, exposing every inch of that lovely flesh. Through the fog in his head, Sebastian watched himself covering her, moving over her, cupping, squeezing. His other hand was there, too, to cater equally to the matching blossom.

“That feels nice,” she whispered.

“Does it?” he heard himself say. Her fingers were sweeping through the hair at his nape, drawing him in, pulling him closer.

“Yes… oh, yes, Sebastian…”

As if his given name was the license he needed, he buried himself in her supple skin. The scent of her perfume was so strong, so heady. As he breathed in, he took one perfectly puckered, rosebud into his mouth.

Sebastian had only two lovers in his life. The first was a prostitute gifted to him by a well-meaning uncle shortly before his wedding. He and Margaret were eighteen when they married and together they’d learned the arts of lovemaking. Their mutual desires had been richly consistent until the bittersweet end. The breasts Sebastian caressed reminded him very much of Meggie’s. How he’d loved this silky, pliable part of her body. It had been so long, so very long, since he’d fondled his wife. This was a fantastic dream, a long lost memory come to life. He wanted to indulge and enjoy. He’d been through so much, he deserved one little indiscretion, one little dose of pleasurable recklessness…

Before long, he was kissing her. And oh, she tasted as good as she smelled. Before long, the robe was wrested from her legs and she was lying back. One of those insanely long, shapely limbs of hers was perched against the back of the sofa offering him a most glistening view. Like him, she was blond in the truest sense, and he was sure he’d never seen anything so radiantly delectable, and so wanting of sex. She touched herself there and the fire in Sebastian’s loins became so acute it was almost painful.

“I want you to make love to me, Sebastian,” she murmured.

His shirt was hastily stripped away. His fingers found her heat. Against her mouth he heard himself say, “I want to make love to you, too.”

She boldly explored his torso, kneading and scratching over the muscles in his arms and chest, and down from there. All the while she whispered to him, “You are so strong, so big. Do you know how long I’ve dreamt of holding you like this… oh, you’re such an awesome man…”

His trousers were open and shoved down to his thighs. He was on his knee, leaning over her. Faintly it occurred to him that she was very good at what she was doing. But he wanted something else and he didn’t want to wait any longer. Quickly adjusting, he nestled himself between her legs.

She was tight and warm, and felt so incredibly good. For a moment he remained still, relishing the long overdue feeling. She mewled his name, “Sebastian, oh, Sebastian,” as her legs encircled him. Movement below could no longer be denied. And it felt so damn good.

He was exceedingly stimulated, so he was sure it wouldn’t take him long. But he was wrong. Somewhere between the pleasure and the realization that his drunkenness would, of course, prolong his ability to climax, his mind began to stray. At first he tried to block out reality by driving faster, harder. It didn’t work. Three thoughts managed to fixate in his foggy head. The first was that the woman beneath him was no virgin. She’d intended to seduce him from the moment she walked into his house. The second was that he could make her pregnant, and if he did, that would be very bad. The last was that she wasn’t the woman he wanted. She wasn’t who he was pretending she was. She was Stephanie Dunn. Not Meggie. Not anyone else.

Between the confusion, conscious thought began to prevail. He couldn’t believe he had given in so easily to his lust, and a sense of overwhelming shame engulfed him. Even so, he tried to ignore the righteous voice in his head. He squeezed his eyes shut and willed himself to finish.

But he couldn’t finish. A curse flew out of his mouth as he propelled himself away from the couch. He yanked his trousers up and, as he struggled to button them, he tripped over the coffee table. It was all he could do not to go crashing into his fireplace mantel.

“Sebastian? I don’t understand? Why did you stop?” Stephanie said.

Briefly his eyes raked over the magnificent body of the woman lying on his couch and in that moment he was transfixed. But she was not an angel, or even just a beautiful woman. She was the devil come to tempt and torture him. He turned away. “I’m sorry, Stephanie. This shouldn’t have happened. Please get dressed and I will take you home.”

Stephanie sat up and yanked at the robe to cover herself. “I can’t go home,” she whined. “I want to stay here with you. We can get married. If I stay the night, my father will insist upon it. Don’t you see, Sebastian? From now on we can be together. Don’t you want to make love to me like this every night? Don’t you want to marry me?”

Sebastian’s head pounded. “I can’t marry you, Stephanie. I’m sorry. I’m going to hitch up the buggy. Please get dressed.”

Stephanie begged him to reconsider. Even after he told her he didn’t love her, she wouldn’t give in. Her contentions kept on until he pulled up in front of her home. By then, however, she was no longer sweetly pleading. She was furious.

“I will get you for this! You’ll be sorry, Reverend!” she spat. “I am going to tell everyone you raped me!”

“Do whatever you must,” Sebastian said, and he wondered, as he took in the horrible scowl on her face, how he could have ever considered her beautiful.

“I’ll make sure Jessica Kinsley knows what you have done! She will hate you as much as I do!” With that, she barged through the front door of her home. The slam was so loud it made Sebastian’s ears ring.

A half an hour later, he strode into his parlor and picked up the almost empty whiskey bottle from the end table. Expelling a growl of rage, he threw it into the fireplace. It shattered on the stone. The spilled whiskey caused the flames to hiss and flume.

The portrait above his mantel drew him. He stared until Margaret’s features blurred before him, until his raging self-reproach changed to outright disgrace. Aloud, he cried, “I’m sorry, Meggie! I’m sorry for betraying you. Please, oh God, please! Forgive me!”

But when he closed his eyes, the face of the woman he saw was not his wife’s.

* * *

The driving rain that had been falling for days made visibility very poor, especially at night, and the terrain was a muddy mess, even on high ground. With each step Buster’s hooves slurped in and out of the muck. It was all Herlin Jefferson could do to try to keep his old horse from wallowing out his ear-splitting hee-haws. Fortunately the whipping wind was loud enough to drown out the miserable animal’s noise. The Klansmen had not heard him.

Even so, Herlin waited from his hiding place. He waited until their white billowing costumes disappeared into the fog. And then he waited some more until he could no longer hear the muffled clopping of their horses galloping away. Only then did he turn his attention to the lifeless, dangling figure the Klan had just lynched.

Buster could never be deemed a swift horse and Herlin was no great horseman, but he pressed his old faithful mount toward the victim as quickly as he could. By the time Herlin reached him, the man was completely limp. That didn’t mean he couldn’t be revived. Herlin had seen the spook bring people back enough times to know it was possible. With knife in hand, he pushed up in his stirrups and caught the rope between the victim’s head and the limb of the tree above it.

“What do you think you’re doing there, boy!”

Herlin froze in mid-swipe. Even the pounding rain didn’t hide the distinct click of a revolver hammer. There were two of them, ghostly in their white garments, still mounted, just yards away. Both of them were brandishing revolvers—revolvers aimed directly at him.

“Get away from there and drop that knife, or I will put a bullet in that pea you call a brain!”

Herlin let his knife fall to the ground and raised both arms.

“Get off your horse, boy!”

Again Herlin did as they said. Buster hee-hawed loudly as he skittered off.

One of the Klansmen moved closer. “You reach under your coat real slow and get that gun you got hidden. You set it on the ground and kick it this way.”

“I don’t have a gun,” Herlin lied.

“Don’t be smart with me, boy! I saw it tucked in your pants. Do what I say or I will shoot you where you stand!”

“You’re gonna kill me anyway,” Herlin said.

“Smart for a nigger,” the man sniggered. He raised his weapon.

Herlin was staring down the barrel of the gun. It was over. He was caught and there was nothing he could do. Silently he whispered to his wife, Martha and his son, Willy. He was sorry, so very sorry. They knew he loved them, but he told them that, too. The only thing left to do was squeeze his eyes shut.

The shots came—two of them—in rapid succession. Herlin expected the force of the blasts to propel him backwards. He expected pain. But he felt nothing. Instead, he heard two crumpling thumps, and then out of the din, a horse. Its gallop was a steadily increasing rumble of thunder. There was only one man who rode like that. There was only one whose aim was so true.

Herlin opened his eyes to the see the black-draped figure hurtling through the fog directly toward him. The breath he held came out in a whoosh. The two Klansmen were on the ground—unmoving lumps of white. Their horses were already long gone.

Acting quickly, Herlin scrambled to retrieve his knife, and then his horse. He needed Buster in order to get the height necessary to cut the rope. But, he wasn’t fast enough.

“Herlin, get away!” the spook shouted.

Buster’s hee-haw was fierce. Apparently he wasn’t happy with the shove Herlin gave him. The loud rapport of gunfire spun them both. The rope above the victim’s head split and his body slithered to the ground.

From watching the spook Herlin knew exactly what to do next. He dropped down, flipped the victim onto his back, uncoiled the rope from his throat and wrenched his head back. Then he leaned over the lynched man, covered his mouth and blew.