“To bed,” Jamie told Jassy firmly.
She set her jaw, kissed Lenore, and then Robert once again, and hurried for the stairs. Jamie nodded to Molly, and Molly nodded gravely in return, and followed Jassy.
Jassy fumed to Molly about her ill treatment, and Molly, setting out one of her bed gowns and folding the lace ruff Jassy had worn fashionably about her neck, cheerfully ignored her. “Women do get temperamental in your state, so they say, pet! Oh, I do hope that I shall find out soon enough! Crawl into bed now.”
Curious, Jassy obediently crawled beneath the covers. “Now what does that mean, Molly?”
“John Tannen has suggested that we should marry.” Molly was trying very hard to subdue her excitement. “He is asking Father Steven if we might marry before Christmas Day.”
“So quickly!” Jassy gasped.
“And more proper than not,” Molly murmured. “Jassy, I spend so much time there with the children and … all. Oh, Jassy, I am so excited! I am getting on, you know.
And once I felt so old and worn and I thought that no man would ever have me … I have been honest with John, he knows all about my past, and he cares nothing of it. He says that all that matters is what lies between the two of us. He said that I was a whirlwind of giving energy, and that he cannot help but love me, for he has watched me with his son and his little sister-in-law, and thinks that they could have no finer a stepmother, nor could he choose a more tender bride.”
“Oh, how beautiful!” Jassy cried. “I am so very pleased for you, Molly.”
“It is all thanks to you, Jassy.”
“Molly! I did not make you kind and good and loving!”
“You gave me a new life. You and Lord Cameron.”
And Lord Cameron, Jassy silently acknowledged. She lowered her eyes and bit into her lower lip. He had made life good. He had made it a tempest, and he was still a horrible autocrat, but she could no longer imagine a life without him. He infuriated her, he stimulated and excited her to sheer abandon, and he was the force of her life.
She kissed Molly warmly. “I wish you the very, very best.”
“Oh, thank you, Jassy. I will need your blessing, and Lord Cameron’s.”
“He will give it freely.” That much she thought, she could say with confidence. Jamie would be pleased for Molly and John. In many aspects these were his people, far more so than their loyalty or lives belonged to any king. He was the governor here, the law, the only king that any of them knew, or could touch, reach, or recognize.
Both women started suddenly, for they heard Jamie’s footsteps upon the stairs. He was coming to the room, long-strided, swift and, sure. “Good night!” Molly told Jassy, and slipped away quickly. Jassy listened, curious, as Molly and Jamie greeted each other, and then Molly scurried down the stairs. The door to the room opened, and he was there, his heavy cloak covered in snowflakes. He cast it carelessly aside, his eyes still hot, curiously excited, and fevered as they fell upon her. He stumbled out of his boots, watching her all the while. She kept a wary eye upon him in return. Was he angry over Robert again? He had snatched her quickly enough from his friend, and he had ordered her upstairs.…
He wrenched off his doublet, and practically tore off his shirt in his haste to get it over his head. Approaching the bed, he pulled away his hose and garters but went no further. With some kind of a barbaric cry he leapt upon the bed, seized her to his side, and kissed her with a dizzying passion. She struggled against him at first, then gave way to the honeyed sensations that swept warmly and deliciously through her. His hands gently ravaged her, and when he broke away at last, a blazing and devilish smile touched his eyes and curved his lips.
Jassy moistened her lips. “What is it?”
“It? It is passion, and an obsessive desire, and I can bear it no longer, and, madame, we are so much more alone in our house!”
“Jamie, how can you be so crude—”
“Not crude, madame,” he said, shimmying from his trousers. “Delighted.”
“Robert is your friend.”
“Um. And your friend, too, milady. Tell me, do you ever think of him?”
“What?” she demanded, startled.
He cupped and cradled her breast and brought his body, naked and hard, flush to hers. “Do you still think of him? Wishing that you had not been so rudely caught within my arms on May Day?”
She went very pale, wondering at the tension within him. “What do you want from me?” she asked harshly. “I am huge with your child, and still you would taunt me so! What do you want?”
He gazed at her a long time, his eyes indigo fire, so dark and enigmatic that they seemed black. “Your very soul, perhaps, milady. That which I do not hold.”
“No man should hold everything of a woman!” she cried. For then the woman, she thought silently, would be so sadly at his mercy.
“And what of the woman, milady? Should she hold everything of a man?”
“You are talking in riddles, and I do not understand you. You have whatever you choose you take.”
“What I choose to take …” he repeated savagely. His head lowered to hers, his lips seizing upon her mouth, and he filled her with the potent surge of his desire. He made love to her with tenderness, and with a searing and shattering sensuality. She rode the wild wind of the reckless emotion that haunted him, and she was cast higher into a realm of abandon and ecstasy than she had ever gone before. She had once thought that this thing between them could know no higher bounds, yet he taught her again and again that she could soar farther into distant heavens. When he had finished with her, she felt entirely sated and spent, somewhat awed, and thoroughly dazed. Exhausted, she curled against him and felt his hand sweep around what had once been her waist. She expected some arrogant comment from him, some taunting assurance that she was his possession and she would learn not to think of another.
He was silent for a very long time, then she heard him sigh, and he touched her gently. “Alas, my love, my fiendish pleasure comes too late. I should not have had you this night, fiercely or otherwise. Feel? The babe kicks. He protests his father’s rudeness. Did I hurt you, Jassy?”
She was glad of the darkness, for she flushed crimson. “No, you did me no harm.”
He kissed her forehead. “Well, milady, my wife, you will be free of me now, for some months to come.” Again he was silent. He teased her breasts with the idle play of his fingers, just touching the tip with his tongue. He hovered over her in the night. “Tell me, Jassy, will you be glad? Or will you not miss this … just a bit?”
“Jamie, please …”
He rolled away from her and got up from the bed. “Go to sleep, Jassy,” he said harshly.
“Jamie—”
“Go to sleep.”
She watched him miserably as he moved across the room, his naked back and buttocks tightly muscled and sinewed, and beautiful in a curious manner. He did not gaze back to her but stood before the fire.
She wanted to cry out to him, but she could not. The words would have tumbled from her lips fast and desperately, and she would have given away more than her soul; she would have cast her naked heart before him, and that she dared not do. She closed her eyes, and exhaustion overwhelmed her.
The house was very different in the morning. Lenore and Robert had taken Kathryn with them, and Charity had left to serve in their house, too, if only for a week or so, or until some girl was found to help with the household tasks. Elizabeth had opted to stay with Jamie and Jassy, if Jamie didn’t mind. Jamie didn’t mind Elizabeth at all—it was only Robert he had wanted gone. With Elizabeth, Jassy set out to see her sister’s new home, and Lenore was glad to greet them both, showing them about as if she had acquired a palace.
“This,” she said, showing them a little loft, “will be for the baby.”
“Oh, Lenore, you too!” Elizabeth cried with pleasure. “How far along are you?”
Lenore giggled. “Well, I am not yet. Except that I think that maybe last night … well, Ro
bert was quite determined.” She gave Jassy a smug, conspiratorial smile. “Men … Mostly he is so courteous, and not at all demanding. Last night he said that we must have children too. He has pointed out how very well you manage in your condition. He also pointed out how quickly you arrived in your condition.” She idly curled a lock of hair around her finger, studying Jassy. “But then you married Jamie Cameron, and he must be the devil himself in—in private.”
“Lenore!” Elizabeth gasped.
“Oh, don’t be such a little church mouse!” Lenore laughed. “Honestly. I was the one Jamie intended to marry. Sometimes I do wonder.”
Jassy was pink by then, but Lenore didn’t intend to let the matter drop. “It isn’t a ‘duty,’ is it? It is exciting and decadent and—”
“Lenore!” Elizabeth said entreatingly. “You’re making Jassy very uncomfortable.”
Jassy smiled suddenly. “Lenore, I am quite content.”
Lenore laughed good-naturedly. “Jassy, I am quite content. You are something more, I think.”
Perhaps she was, but in the next few days it seemed that a breach widened between her and Jamie. He was gone long in the morning, and had much to do in the afternoons, and he started working at his desk until very late at night.
As Jamie had expected, Lenore and Robert were still with them almost as much as they were not. It was an evening only three nights after they had left the house when they returned for dinner. Jassy learned from Molly that Father Steven had approved her immediate marriage to John Tannen. With all of them present, Jassy broached the subject to Jamie.
Jamie was thoughtful at first, arching a brow to the very suggestion. In England, such a marriage would have been a breach of morality, for poor Joan was barely dead and cast to the sea for six months. In the hundred, it was a matter of good sense, for John Tannen needed Molly, and it seemed that Molly’s temper had been a matter of her mixed emotions.
“Father Steven has approved this?” Jamie asked Jassy.
“He has …” She hesitated. “I would like to have a reception for them here, following the ceremony.”
Silence greeted her suggestion.
Then Lenore spoke up, quickly and certainly. Such an event would have been an outrageous breach of society had they been home in England, she was quick to point out. But they weren’t in England, Jassy was just as quick to counter. And, standing by the mantel, her hands lightly resting upon her rounded abdomen, Jassy quietly reminded her sister that at home, in England, Jassy could barely muster into the ranks of society herself. “And you are forgetting one thing,” she reminded her sister, her head held high. “Molly is not just my servant; she is my friend. Her circumstances are much the same as my own. She was always at my side when I needed her, and I wish to do for her now what I can.”
Lenore stared at her sister, shaking her head, then turned to Jamie. “Can’t you stop this? Life is certainly different here, but …”
Jamie, paying little heed as he scoured his musket barrel, looked up at last, shrugging to Lenore. “Jassy must do as she chooses. It is her home.”
The matter was settled, and Molly was duly married, and amid the white snow of winter and with everyone in attendance, from the maids and carpenters and laborers to Sir William and Lenore and Robert and Father Steven, Jassy held her first party for her friend. It was fun, and it was a relief from the rigors of the weather and the dampness that could so easily chill the bones. Jassy danced happily with Sir William, the groom, and Robert. It was then that her husband cut in upon her. His eyes were grave, and she stiffened, wary lest he have some comment about Robert. He did not. He swept her around himself, saying merely, “I think it is time that you rested. In England, my lady, a damsel so far enceinte would not be so gaily upon a dance floor.” He hesitated. “You could harm the babe, love. Or yourself.”
Flushing, she dutifully left the floor and set herself the task of handing out warmed mead and ale. And when the party came to an end, she was filled with pleasure as Molly kissed and hugged her, promising her that she would forever serve her, and do so with love.
She was grateful to Jamie that night, but she was hesitant about making any overtures to him, for she still could not forget that she had attempted either to please or seduce him once, and had failed miserably in the attempt. He had said that he would not touch her again, but she did miss him. Still, she might harm the babe, and she grew more awkward daily. She was very heavy with the child, and she wondered sometimes with dismay how she could have grown so large so quickly. And so she did not attempt to seduce him; she crawled into bed and watched him as he disrobed. Even in the shocking cold he slept naked, and—in the days before his determination not to touch her—she had usually wound up so herself. After her first protests he had laughed and assured her that the warmth they generated together was the greatest form of heat they could achieve. She could not tell him, but she did not mind. She liked the feel of his hard body flush to hers while they slept. She liked the possessive splay of his hands upon her, and the tickle of the hairs upon his chest against her back. It was exciting—all of it, just as Lenore had suggested—it was comfortable, and there was also a soft and pleasant intimacy about it that caused her to yearn for more, for something she could not quite see, and for which she was afraid to reach.
With the covers about her, she watched Jamie as he finished some notation at his desk, stretched with his hands upon his lower back, and stood pensively before the fire, his elbow resting upon the mantel, idly stroking his cheek. He looked at her at last, and her cheeks burned, for he caught her scrutiny of him, and he smiled slowly, his brow arching.
“Did you mind the party so much?” she asked him.
“I did not mind it at all. And you enjoyed it.”
“Ah, but you did not come from the gutter,” she said, and as a scowl darkened his features she quickly repented her words. She looked down quickly at her hands, wanting to apologize, but not at all sure how to do so.
“This is a new world, indeed, milady. And I’m not at all sure that it matters where one was born to excel here.”
He turned away from the mantel and started across the room for his cloak. Jassy was startled, realizing that he intended to go out. Once she would have been inordinately pleased to have him leave her alone in their bed. Now her heart quickened, and she wondered if she hadn’t finally become so misshapen that she could no longer hold his interest, and she couldn’t help but wonder where he was going.
“Jamie?”
He paused, then came back by the bed. He lifted her chin and studied her eyes. “Go to sleep,” he told her softly. “I won’t be long. I feel a certain restlessness and want to see that the gates are locked, and that the guard is awake.”
Once he was gone, she lay awake, foolishly fighting a wave of tears. She didn’t know what she was feeling, except that she was in a tempest. She would never sleep. But as seemed usual of late, she was exhausted, and she fell into a restless sleep.
Somewhere in the night, he crawled in beside her. She sensed his presence, and her rest became more peaceful.
On Christmas Eve, Father Steven held church services, and the settlement crowded into the small chapel. They sang English carols, and despite the cold and the hardships, the night was one of revelry. Even Elizabeth was in good spirits, and she spent much time with Sir William Tybalt, which intrigued Jassy and gave her hope for her sister’s future. She would love to see Elizabeth happy and wed.
The family exchanged small gifts in the hall when the services were over. Jassy had muffs for her sisters, and for Robert and Jamie she had sewn soft leather jerkins. She was anxious to see Jamie with his gift, and when he had lifted the doublet, she showed him the shirt beneath. It was made from the best of the silk that had come to them on the Lady Destiny. He sat across from the fire, and Jassy was pleased that they were a certain distance from the others. She was anxious to see his reaction to the gift.
He looked at her quickly and curiously, fingering the cloth. “It is
probably the best piece brought over. And you’ve certainly used the best of the lace upon the sleeves and collar. I had thought that you would have wanted a dress made from this.”
She shrugged, fingering the pendant that lay against her breast, his gift to her. It was a gold medallion, engraved with the Cameron crest and studded with precious jewels. “Do you not like the shirt?”
He studied her carefully. “I like it very much. Who made it?”
“I did.”
“I never saw you work upon it.”
“I meant for it to be a surprise. I worked when you were out of the house. Are you surprised?”
“Very. The cloth is rich, madame. You did not take it for yourself. If you do not take care, I will begin to imagine that you did not marry me entirely for my money. I thought that you craved the best of everything, my love.”
Jassy flushed, still fingering the precious golden medallion. He taunted her, but it was Christmas, and she did not care.
“I never craved the best of anything … material, milord. I did seek not to starve, I admit. And I did seek …”
“What?”
“Never mind,” she said, swiftly turning aside. He would not let her go. He stood, catching her arm, pulling her back to him. “You did seek what, milady? Tell me.”
“Jamie, it is Christmas. We have guests—”
“And may God bless them. Answer me. You did seek what?”
She lifted her head and met his demanding stare gravely. “I sought not to die, nor to live, like my mother. Please, could you be so good as to release me now?”
His hand fell away from her arm. She lowered her eyes quickly from his and hurried back to the fire. Tamsyn sat upon the hearth, playing a rousing melody upon a flute. Lenore and Robert were dancing to the curious tune, while Kathryn, the Hume girls, and Mrs. Lawton laughed and applauded. Breathless at last, Lenore fell into a chair before the blaze. “Alas, if only it were England!”
“Are you so homesick, then?” Elizabeth asked her.