“Your nipples,” he said, his voice deep, “I can’t feel their exact color. Pale pink?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“And soft as velvet. Now, let me see if they taste pink and velvet.”
It had been too long, she thought, as his mouth caressed her. She felt the familiar stirrings deep within her, and arched upward to give herself more fully to him.
She was responding to him, he thought, pleased, and so very quickly. He let his right hand journey slowly downward, pausing to trace her ribs, feel the small contour of her navel. He sucked in his breath, wishing desperately that he could see her face at that moment. His fingers were gently probing, caressing, and she was very warm to his touch, her woman’s flesh swollen and moist. “Jules,” he said, “does that please you?”
“It pleases me so much that I’ll scream if you stop.”
“The feel of you,” he said, his fingers exploring her, “it’s almost more than this simple male mind can handle.”
“If you don’t stop a moment, husband, I shall . . . Please . . . Oh, Michael!”
She pushed his hand away, her breath coming in hoarse little gasps that made him smile.
“Now for you, arrogant man!”
With his enthusiastic cooperation, Saint was naked in minutes. He knew she was looking at him, and since he could hear her breathing, knew she was very interested. She thought him beautiful, and that pleased him inordinately.
Her hands and mouth were a torture. “You are very methodical,” he moaned when at last her fingers were weaving in the thick bush of hair at his groin.
“Oh yes,” Jules said, her fingers lightly closing around him. “And you are most appreciative.”
He nearly leapt off the bed when she took him into her mouth, her tongue teasing and light, driving him nearly beyond control.
He felt her hand pressing his chest. “No, Michael, you must do what the doctor’s very excellent assistant wants you to. It’s all for your own good, so you hold still.”
When he could stand it no longer, he grabbed her beneath her arms and hauled her over him. He felt incredible need, incredible pressure, and he wanted to thrust inside her and . . .
She guided him into her at that moment and he thought he would die from the nearly painful sensations swamping him. “Jules,” he said, “you . . . Sweetheart, I’ve got to . . .” She took him deep inside her, and he couldn’t begin to think straight now, much less talk. But as she moved over him, her hands splayed on his chest, he pressed his own palm against her belly, feeling the motion of her body as she moved over him.
“Can you feel yourself inside me?” she asked, closing her hand over his and pressing it inward against her.
He wanted to laugh at that, but couldn’t. “Very nearly,” he said, and pulled his hand loose from hers. His fingers roved downward, purposeful now, to find her.
“Dammit, I want to see you!”
Jules was nearly frantic, her body taut, her legs locked against his flanks, but she heard the anger, the sense of betrayal in his voice. She took his hand and raised it to her face. When her body exploded into pleasure, his fingers traced her open lips, felt the warmth of her cries.
She was kissing him deeply when he gained his own release. He gasped into her warm mouth, “God, I want you, Jules.”
Jules was relieved he couldn’t see the tears shimmering in her eyes. He wanted her, he’d said so. Soon, she thought, trying desperately not to sniff, he would feel more for her than just want.
She smiled down at his face. He was lying quietly now, still deep inside her, his breathing even and slow.
Very gently she eased off him and rose. She thought he was asleep, and started when he said in a deep, satisfied voice, “I feel like I really am a saint at this moment. Nearly dead and gone to heaven. Lord, woman, you’ve worn me to the bone.”
She dashed her hand across her eyes and smiled. “I will let you rest awhile now, husband. Then we will see about this bone business.”
There was no thought of seeing about bones or anything else. An hour later Thomas came dashing into the house, his face white and drawn.
Jules jumped out of her chair, her face paling at the sight of her brother. “Thomas! What is wrong?”
“It’s Bunker Stevenson,” Thomas said. “The bloody damned man has had a stroke!”
25
“I’ll be right along,” Saint said without thinking. He pushed back his chair, kicked his foot into one leg and sent the chair sprawling. To keep his balance, he grabbed at the table, knocking his plate to the floor. He stood perfectly still, his hands braced against the table.
“Shit,” he said very softly.
Thomas jumped forward. “I didn’t mean . . . That is . . . Oh hell, Saint! I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that. Dr. Pickett’s with him, but it doesn’t look good. Mrs. Stevenson, as you can imagine, is in hysterics.”
“And Penelope?” Jules asked, her eyes on her husband’s rigid body. She saw that his knuckles were white from clutching the edge of the table so fiercely.
“She’s all right. Hell, she can’t collapse, not with her mother carrying on like a Bedlamite.”
Jules didn’t really hear her brother’s words, for she was too worried about Michael. What could she say? It seemed to her at that awful moment that anything to come out of her mouth would but hurt him more. Merciful heavens, he was hurting enough now.
“Thomas,” she said very calmly, breaking the tense silence, “why don’t you sit down a moment? I’ll get you something to eat. You too, Michael. Would you care for some wine, perhaps?”
Saint wanted to lash out. Hell, if there were a full moon, which he couldn’t see in any case, he’d howl like a crazed animal. He got a grip on himself, turning toward his wife. “Yes, thank you, Jules. A glass of wine would be just fine.”
“Excellent. Why don’t you sit here, Michael?”
He allowed her to take his arm and lead him to another chair at the table. His mouth was drawn in a thin line. When he heard her pick up his plate, he couldn’t help himself, and shouted, “Damn you, leave it! I made the mess, and I’ll bloody well clean it up!”
Jules slowly straightened. She saw Thomas’ startled look, and silently shook her head at him. No excuses, no pity. He wasn’t a hurt child, to be soothed. He was a man and he was proud. And he was frustrated and angry. She supposed she would be also.
“No, I will clean it up,” she said, forcing a bit of humor into her voice. “Since for the time being you can’t see a thing, I will be your eyes. Besides, Michael, the peas scattered all over the carpet. I don’t want you to squish them with your big feet.”
“Jules—” he began, then broke off abruptly.
She continued smoothly, “Thomas, tell Michael exactly what happened and what Dr. Pickett is doing for Bunker.”
Jules listened with only half an ear to Thomas as she cleaned up the mess on the carpet. Then she poured each man a glass of wine. She said nothing, merely took Michael’s hand and placed his fingers about the glass stem.
“Thank you” was his stiff reply.
“So,” Thomas concluded a moment later, “Dr. Pickett thinks that the shock of the explosion at the foundry probably triggered the stroke. What do you think, Saint?”
“Perhaps,” Saint said, well under control again. “That and the fact that Bunker is fat as a stuffed turkey, something I’ve spoken to him about many times, to no good effect. You say his entire left side is paralyzed?”
Thomas nodded, then quickly added, “Yes.”
“But his speech isn’t terribly impaired?”
“Only a bit. That surprised Dr. Pickett.”
Saint said thoughtfully, “I’ve been Bunker’s doctor for over two years now. I tend to think that he’ll make it mainly because he’s so damned stubborn. But then again, helplessness and dependence tend to change one.”
Jules shot her husband a pained look, but his expression was unreadable, at least to her it was. It was difficult to
know what he was thinking with his eyes bandaged. Talk about looking helpless, she thought, staring at her brother. Thomas looked drawn and worried and scared.
Thomas said, “The question is, what am I going to do now?”
“I think, Thomas,” Jules said, smiling at him reassuringly, “that it might be the best thing if you married Penelope now and moved into the Stevenson house. You aren’t needed here, my dear, merely appreciated.”
Thomas would have protested, but Saint said quickly, “Jules is right, Thomas. Penelope and her mother are used to having a strong man about to take care of them. The two of you should probably marry immediately.”
Thomas and Penelope were married one day before Saint’s bandage was to be removed. It was a private ceremony at the Stevenson house, and Bunker was carried down by a servant and his driver to give his daughter away.
“I have never seen her so subdued,” Chauncey Saxton said to Jules. “I’m beginning to agree with Del that this is probably all for the best.”
“I certainly hope so,” Jules said. “Thomas is my brother, after all.” Penelope looked lovely, Jules thought objectively, and then realized: She’s now my sister!
It was a rather unsettling thought, given the fact that Jules’s only sister, Sarah, hadn’t played that role with much warmth or caring. Please, she prayed as the two solemnized their vows over the loud sniffling of Mrs. Stevenson, let it work out properly. Let Thomas be happy.
There was, of course, champagne, and heavier drinks for the men. Chauncey had helped with the buffet, and it was impressive. Jules was slowly eating a lobster canapé when she heard Bunker say in his loud, carrying voice to Michael, his speech only slightly slurred, “Well, my boy, here we are, two war horses, shot down! But Dr. Pickett tells me you’ll be eyeing that lovely wife of yours again in no time at all now.”
Sally Stevenson, her mother’s duty accomplished, was smiling now, accepting congratulations. But, Jules thought, she looked ill, her jowls noticeably sagging, as if the shock had aged her five years. She wondered if the shock was about her husband or her new son-in-law. Thomas had never said if his mother-in-law approved or disapproved of her daughter’s marriage to him, a penniless young man. I must tell Mrs. Stevenson how very lucky she is.
Thomas didn’t let his bride out of his sight, his hand always either under her elbow or around her waist. Jules knew about desire and passion and she saw both in her brother’s eyes when they rested on Penelope. As for Penelope, she looked somewhat dazed, her voice and movements mechanical.
Jules couldn’t get near her husband. Friends surrounded him, unwilling to leave him alone. Some were studiously careful to avoid any reference to his blindness; others, like Bunker, spoke freely, then went on to other matters.
She moved closer, hearing Brent Hammond say to Michael, “You’ll not believe how Wakeville is shaping up, Saint.”
“Thackery gives me progress reports. And how is your pregnant wife, Brent?”
Brent grinned. “My own little fat spider,” he said, winking toward his wife. “She says she feels fine and for me to stop driving her crazy, but—”
“I know, the first child and all that.”
“Well, by the time the first perfect child makes his or her appearance, you should be back on your feet and back into your eyes, old man.”
Byrony joined the group. “He is driving me utterly mad, Saint. Would you please tell him that his part in this entire affair is well over?”
“Hell no,” said Saint. He stretched out his hand toward Byrony, and clasped her fingers in his large hand. It took Jules a moment to realize that it was a thoroughly doctorly thing he was doing. She heard him say after a moment, “No swelling. Good, Byrony. How about your ankles?”
“Here I thought you were getting forward with my wife,” Brent said on a chuckle. “Her ankles swell if she doesn’t lie down every couple of hours,” he added.
“Just see, Brent, that she does lie down, then,” Saint said, patting Byrony’s hand. “Alone.”
Brent moaned, and if it was possible for a woman to guffaw, Byrony did.
“It was well carried off,” Jules said to her husband as Thackery drove them back home.
“Yes,” Saint said.
“Do you think Thomas will continue wanting to be a doctor?”
“I don’t know,” came the clipped reply. Oddly enough, Saint was thinking about his rearranged closet. He’d always been neat and orderly with his belongings, but not sufficiently for a blind man. It had galled him to have Jules hand him each item of clothing in the morning. Usually she’d have to rebutton his shirt, for he always seemed to mismatch buttons and holes. He’d said nothing to her, but that morning she’d led him to the closet and had him run his hands over the array of shirts, then trousers, vests, and coats. All in magnificent order now, all arranged with darkest coats first, then the blues and grays. He’d managed to dress himself for the wedding, and he supposed he should feel good about it. But he didn’t.
Jules eyed him with mounting frustration, but said nothing more. When she helped him into bed an hour later, she smiled into the darkness, slipped off her nightgown, and snuggled next to him.
He said nothing, nor did he move to touch her or kiss her.
Jules swallowed her disappointment and leaned down to kiss him lightly on his closed mouth. “I love you, Michael,” she said, kissed him again, and settled beside him to sleep.
She awoke suddenly at the sound of an anguished moan. She blinked, and saw that it was still quite dark.
“No, dammit, no! Oh God, no!”
Saint lurched sideways, tangling himself in the covers, crying out.
Oh God, she thought, and began shaking him. “Michael, wake up! It’s a nightmare, love. Wake up!”
She felt the beads of perspiration on his forehead, felt the pounding of his heart beneath her hand. “Michael!”
“What?” Saint came awake with a shudder. For a moment he held himself utterly still. Then very softly he whispered, “God, Jules, I’m so bloody scared.”
She straightened the tangled covers with trembling hands, then pulled him close. “I know,” she said against his temple. “I would be too. But, Michael, listen to me . . .” For a moment she could think of nothing to say, for this large, proud man was shuddering against her, and she couldn’t bear it. “Listen to me,” she repeated, stroking his thick hair, hugging him. “If you don’t see tomorrow, then you will see next week. Your eyes will heal, I swear it to you.”
And if they didn’t? If he became completely blind? No, she couldn’t, wouldn’t, accept that, at least not yet, and she couldn’t allow him to give up.
“I dreamed that you needed me,” he said, his voice low and taut. “You were hurt, I guess. I told you I would help you, and I smiled at you and began to tell you a stupid story. And then suddenly I couldn’t see, and you were begging me to help you. I couldn’t see!”
He was clutching at her, his face buried against her breasts. He was shuddering as if he were freezing to death. “I was useless,” he said.
“Michael,” she said softly, “it was a dream, that’s all, just a dream. I would have been scared silly if I’d dreamed it was you who were in trouble. You know something else? I can prove that it was stupid, ridiculous.”
She felt him listening to her now, and she smiled, kissing his ear. “Yes indeed. You are incapable of telling a stupid story. You would have had me laughing and cursing you. If I had been doing any begging, it would have been to make you stop because I was giggling so hard.” It wasn’t good enough, she knew, not nearly. Jokes and humor were all right in their place, but not in the dead of night when monsters roamed freely through the mind.
“I will tell you something else, husband. I know you married me because you are an honorable man. That, and you did care for me, or at least you cared for that child you’d known.” She felt him tense, but continued inexorably, “No, it’s all right. But the fact is that we are married. We are a partnership. We are to share in e
verything. And we will. You said something about helplessness and dependence changing one. Well, if it does happen, if you don’t regain your sight, we will both of us change, and adapt and adjust. You would never be useless, and I think if you say that again, I’ll cosh you on your hard head.”
Saint felt her words seep into mind like soothing balm. The fear, the ghastly pain of the dream, were fading, leaving his mind free and alert.
“Do you believe that I could ever love you any less if you were blind for the rest of your life? Have you no idea of what I feel for you? How much I admire and respect you?”
“Jules, I . . . Oh, dammit!”
Suddenly it was too much. Jules burst into tears, scalding, burning tears, and she hated herself, but she couldn’t stem their flow. The dam had burst.
“Ah, sweetheart, no,” he said, moving against the pillows so he could take her into his arms, protect her, soothe her. He realized that they’d just reversed roles, and he smiled a bit. “Jules, don’t let me hurt you . . . my anger and bitterness, well, it’s all within me, and I’ve heard it said that the loved one gets all the misery. Hush, don’t cry so, you’ll make yourself hoarse.” He stroked her hair, kissed her, caressed her bare back. “I don’t know how a bastard like me could ever attract a beautiful creature like you, much less have her care about me.”
Her sobs lessened and soon she was hiccuping against his throat. “I’m sorry,” she managed after a few more minutes.
“About what?”
“You need me to be strong, and I just became what I despise—a weak, silly woman. I’m sorry, Michael, please forgive me.”
“No.”
It was as unexpected as it was angering. She reared up and stared down at him. She could see the outline of his bandage, the planes of his face, but she couldn’t see the smile on his lips. “Just what the hell does that mean?” she demanded.
He laughed, and she pounded his chest with her fists.
“Some weak woman,” he said, grabbed her arms, and tossed her onto her back. “Will I have to tie you down so I can have my way with you?”