A Season Beyond a Kiss

  A sudden trembling took possession of her as she became inundated with all the heart-rendering possibilities. He might die, he might never wake from his stupor, he might become a raving lunatic . . . and on and on and on.

  “Enough of this!” Raelynn hissed angrily in the impenetrable gloom. “My husband will live! He must live!”

  SHE WAS A CHILD AGAIN. THE TALL, GLASS-PANED DOORS of her father’s study stood open just behind her, and in the enveloping serenity of the carefully tended garden, she could hear her parents’ muted voices, comfortably close, drifting out to the marble step where she sat playing with her dolls. Nearby birds were flitting from bush to tree, well out of the reach of her cat, Mischief, who cocked its head curiously as it watched them intently.

  Gathering her dolls in her arms, she tottered out across the granite terrace. Mischief followed along beside her, playfully pouncing here and there, fiercely attacking some leaf or bug it found along the way. The path led to a stone bench residing in a restful spot under a tree, and she crawled upon it to play. She called for her cat, wanting to dress it in doll’s clothes, but Mischief wouldn’t come. Sliding off the bench, she tottered along the lane, following to where she had last seen the fuzzy animal. Just ahead of her loomed the lofty, ornate wrought-iron gate that bordered her family’s property. There was something behind it, something she especially sought. But what?

  The gate was unlocked; it squeaked open as she pressed her face between the bars. With an elated laugh she dashed through and found herself in another garden. A butterfly fluttered past. She lifted her hand and ran after it. Bejeweled with color, it soared very high and swooped just as low, but always just out of the reach of her fingertips.

  A deep voice, laden with laughter, came from nearby. “You’ll never catch them like that, little miss.”

  She turned, meeting emerald eyes and a grin that awed her. Entranced by the black-haired young man, she approached and leaned her head far back to meet his smiling gaze. Like the gate, he loomed so tall above her that he seemed to reach to the sky.

  “Here now, let’s get you home before your parents come looking for you.” Strong arms swung her up and settled her onto his shoulder. Her perch was so high she squealed in fright and grasped a handful of his hair for security, but his hand held her tightly as he strolled along toward her home.

  It began to rain again, a gentle misting rain that dampened her curls and the black hair through which her fingers were entangled.

  DRIFTING UPWARD FROM HER DREAMS, RAELYNN BECAME came vaguely aware of a large hand searching upward beneath her nightgown. She thought she was still dreaming until her thighs were gently urged apart and the explorations deepened. Her heart soared with joyful relief as gentle fingers moved with tantalizing slowness over her softly swelling flesh, eliciting within her womanly being a quickening excitement.

  Nothing but total darkness greeted her when she turned her head on the pillow. “Jeffrey?”

  “Aye, madam,” a familiar male voice answered huskily. “I’m here.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Horny.”

  She giggled. “I was talking about your head.”

  “I wasn’t.” He patted upward in search of her hand and, drawing it downward, enclosed it over the engorged flesh.

  “I see what you mean,” she crooned, nuzzling his neck. “You feel very nice . . . very warm, in fact.”

  “So do you,” he breathed as his long fingers continued to ply her silken flesh, “but you have too many damned clothes on for my liking.”

  Raelynn readily sat up and shifted from hip to hip as she dislodged the tail of her nightgown. Whisking the garment up over her body, she dragged it off her head and, with an outward sweep of her arm, banished it into the sea of blackness beyond the bed.

  “Better,” her husband muttered against her throat after resettling her close against him. Her fingers threaded through the hair at his nape as his lips traced downward, and he heard her gasp in delight as his open mouth found a nipple. Hungrily he devoured the soft peaks, tasting their sweet nectar, licking, teasing, evoking small, quickening tremors that seemed to shake her whole body.

  Jeff braced on an elbow above her, prompting Raelynn to complain, “This bed squeaks, and Elizabeth’s bedroom is just down the hall. What if she hears us?”

  “Elizabeth is a widow, my sweet,” he breathed, in the dark void searching out her mouth with his own and murmuring against it. “She’ll understand a husband’s need after so long a wait.”

  Raelynn curled her tongue into his consuming mouth, sliding it over, around and under his in a slow, sensual dance, all the while tasting the essence of the wine he had earlier quaffed. She turned upon her side to face him and mentally groaned when the bed protested her movement. She retreated from his kiss to ask, “How can I face Elizabeth on the morrow, knowing she’ll likely be aware of what we’re doing together tonight?”

  Jeff sighed in frustration and sank back upon his pillow. The heavy draperies were tightly closed over the windows, forbidding even a minuscule ray of moonlight to penetrate the sooty darkness. It was impossible for him to see his wife’s face, and he had no way of telling whether this was a true concern she voiced or nothing more than a lame attempt to reject his advances. “Do you want me to stop, Raelynn?”

  “No! Never!” she whispered emphatically, lifting a leg over his hip. Her heel pressed between his buttocks as she anchored her now vulnerable softness against the lengthy shaft. “I want you! I want to be your wife, your lover, your mate for life. I want to feel you inside me, to be one with you, to bear your children, to possess you as you possess me, to touch you as often as I wish, and to feel you quicken in my grasp. I need you, Jeffrey, most desperately.”

  She slipped a hand downward between them and, in a fierce grip, closed it over the manly flesh, causing Jeff to catch his breath at the sweet, brutal intensity of her possession. Her open mouth teased his in provocative invitation as she began a slow, methodical seduction upon his body, plying every skill he had taught her until the warm flesh was nearly throbbing for want of more. Indeed, it was all Jeff could do to keep himself from being swept away by his growing ardor as she worked her will upon him.

  His lips merged with hers in a rapacious kiss that soon had them straining against each other. His hand returned to her womanly softness and found no resisting barrier, only a wifely eagerness to accept his intrusion and to comply with his rutting urges. Soon she was arching her back, thrusting her breasts upward as an offering, and nearly writhing with the ecstasy of the tumult he created within her as he teased the sensitive swell and, with slow, purposeful deliberation, caressed the silken flesh.

  “Oh, I’ve missed you so much,” she gasped in a whisper, unable to bear the rushing excitement another moment without feeling him inside of her. Rising above him, she guided the hardened shaft into the moist cleft and settled down upon him, sucking in her breath at the heady bliss that began sweeping upward from the core of her being. Lifting her face to bask in this all-consuming ecstasy, she paused in quiescent stillness to luxuriate in the feeling of being one with him. She felt his long, beautiful hands moving over her naked body with mesmerizing slowness, but ever so much more pleasurable was the stirring warmth of him deep within her.

  “You feel even nicer than I remember,” she crooned, sweeping her hands upward over his chest.

  “You can sit upon my lap any hour or day you have a mind to, my sweet,” he replied huskily.

  She brought his hands up to her breasts and pressed the fullness into his encompassing palms, nearly shivering in delight as his thumbs thrummed across her nipples. Rising up from his pillow, Jeff buried his face between her breasts as he clasped the soft orbs tightly against his lean cheeks. In the next moment he became like a man driven by an insatiable desire, with predacious greed taking each nipple in turn into the warm, moist cavern of his mouth. Her slender fingers kneaded his shoulders as her hips began to move with slow, undulating strokes. Then his hand
s were clasping her buttocks, giving her driving momentum as he pressed her down upon the hardened shaft. A soft moan escaped her lips as his throbbing warmth began to surge upward within her, and she began to shudder as waves of bliss began to wash over her. Vaguely she was aware of the bed protesting their movements, yet there was no stopping now. Darkness became infused with myriad flashes of light that seemed to burst all around them, exploding in sharpening, scintillating ecstasy as they soared far beyond the galaxy into another universe entirely.

  Reality came winging slowly back, well after their awe over what they had just experienced together began to wane. They lay side by side, their fingers entwined, his knee bent and tucked beneath her thighs, her head resting upon his stalwart shoulder.

  “I love you,” Raelynn whispered.

  Jeffrey lay as if frozen, hardly able to believe what he had just heard.

  “And I’ve missed you so very, very much.”

  “Will you come back to live with me at Oakley?”

  “Oh, yes, just as soon as you’re able.”

  “I’m able now, madam.”

  Rolling toward him, Raelynn laid an arm about him and rubbed her nose against his corded neck. “Dr. Clarence said you shouldn’t be moved right now.”

  “I can move myself,” Jeff protested.

  “Nevertheless, we’ll remain here until I know for certain you won’t suffer any repercussions after being waylaid.”

  “It was that damned post that waylaid me!” he argued.

  Raelynn giggled. “Now that you’ve become my captive, dear husband, I don’t intend to let you go. You’ll serve my purposes here in this bed until you can’t wield your little finger much less anything else.”

  Jeff grinned into the blackness looming over them. For a man who had oft been teased about his backbone of steel, he gave in to his wife’s coercion with an alacrity that evidenced his eagerness to submit himself entirely to everything she threatened and a lot more besides. “We could stay for a day or two, at least until we’ve entirely exhausted this poor bed. Indeed, by the time we’re finished with it, Elizabeth will be of a mind to buy another.”

  His wife snuggled contentedly beneath his arm. “I thought you’d eventually reconsider.”

  For another half hour or so their silence remained unbroken, allowing Raelynn’s eyelids to sag closed.

  “Raelynn?”

  Drowsily she stirred against her husband, making every effort to open her eyes. “Yes, Jeffrey?”

  “I love you, too.” He waited for an interminable length of time, listening for some response. He hardly expected to hear a tearful sniffle. Rising above her, he pressed his hand gently alongside her cheek and, feeling the moisture trailing down it, asked in amazement, “Are you crying, madam?”

  “Yes,” she choked through gathering tears.

  “But why?”

  “Because I’m so happy.”

  Jeff fell back upon his pillow, dumbstruck by the oddity of her declaration. Would he ever understand this beautiful creature he had married well enough to recognize the difference between weeping for joy and crying in sorrow?

  “OH, ELIZABETH, I’M SO VERY HAPPY FOR YOU,’’ RAELYNN assured the woman in her kitchen on Saturday morning a pair of days later. Raelynn felt especially honored that the dark-haired beauty had thought enough of her to give her the news before revealing to another soul the fact that she and Farrell would be getting married. Already Raelynn was beginning to consider Elizabeth as dear a friend as her own sister-in-law, Heather. “Have you given him a date?”

  “No, not as yet. I had to discuss it with Jake first. He really likes Farrell, but one can never predict how boys will react when their mothers decide to remarry, especially when they’re only four, but I’m hoping we can be wed fairly soon. We’ve spent all this time apart, thinking the other didn’t care. It’s time we made up for all the lost years.”

  Elizabeth was even more convinced of that particular rationale after waking several times to the distant, rhythmic squeaking of her guests’ bed. Suffering through those titillating episodes with a heightening perception of her own cravings had made her yearn for instant appeasement, and she had wondered how best to approach Farrell about the matter. Although he had said it would be up to her to set a date, he hadn’t made any mention of that since. Presently she was of a mind to think that they shouldn’t plan anything at all, just simply get married, but as yet, she hadn’t gotten up enough nerve to suggest a hasty wedding.

  “We want it be a private affair, just intimate friends, you understand. Farrell holds Jeffrey in the highest esteem and will want him to stand up for him as best man, and, of course, I’ll want you as my maid of honor.”

  “I’d be delighted,” Raelynn answered happily. Perhaps she was coming to know Elizabeth as well as she knew herself, but she sensed her friend wasn’t entirely comfortable with the delay. Mentally acknowledging the possibility that she was being tempted to speak out of hand, Raelynn bit her lip and almost refrained from doing so. Still, the woman’s distant expression led her to be bolder. “Elizabeth, do you really want to spend all that time planning a wedding when you and Farrell could be enjoying marriage tonight?”

  Elizabeth gave a little groan as she collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table. “How in the world can I tell Farrell that I want to be married right away?”

  “Don’t you think he’s eager for that, too? I’ve seen the way he looks at you, as if he could devour you half a room away. If you’d like, when Jeffrey wakes up, I could ask him if he’d talk to Farrell about moving ahead with the wedding.”

  “Are Jeffrey’s headaches easing any?”

  “The laudanum helps him sleep through them, but I have to slip it to him in his food. Otherwise he’d be as stubborn as an old bull about taking it. He was in such intense agony this morning, he barely got his breakfast down. I mixed some of the laudanum in his eggs, and I had to threaten to sleep on the couch before he’d finish them, so don’t pay him any mind if he complains about your cooking. We’re hoping to go home tomorrow, but we’ll just have to wait and see if Jeffrey is up to the drive. He has been sleeping so much after his injury, there’s no telling how he’ll feel once he gets on his feet again.”

  “I’ll miss you.”

  Raelynn gave her a puckish grin. “Not if Farrell is in your bed.”

  Elizabeth pressed slender fingers to her lips in an effort to subdue her amusement and then cast a shining glance askance at her friend as she flipped the end of a dishtowel toward her. “You should be ashamed of yourself, suggesting such a thing.”

  Raelynn chuckled, feeling incredibly happy now that she and Jeff were together again. “I may be married, Elizabeth, but I’m certainly not blind. Farrell is as nicely proportioned and handsome as my own Jeffrey.”

  The brunette was in full agreement and was led to recall an incident that even now brought a vivid blush to her cheeks. It was odd the freedom she felt with Raelynn, as if she could tell her anything without being condemned. “Aye, there have been many times when I’ve caught myself thinking how handsome he is, and yet I was afraid of being around him. I certainly didn’t want to find myself acting like some of those addlepated fillies who’d come into the shop just to gawk at him. I had my chance at doing that very same thing about six months ago when I went up to Farrell’s apartment to tidy up. At the time, I was under the impression that he had gone out for an appointment with a textile merchant, but I soon learned the hard way that the meeting had been canceled. The door of Farrell’s bathing chamber was standing open, and I entered without realizing he was at home. He was just stepping out of the tub, reaching for a towel when I barged in. I was so astounded, I couldn’t move. I just gaped at him.”

  If Elizabeth’s cheeks weren’t hot enough, they fairly flamed as she confessed, “My late husband didn’t have much to sport with in bed, but I was an innocent and didn’t know . . . ah . . . that some men have more in their breeches. I finally collected enough of my wits to flee, and thoug
h I later got up some gumption to apologize for my intrusion, Farrell was gentlemanly enough to brush it aside and say that it was all his fault for not warning me that he was there when it was my normal cleaning day. He acted as if nothing untoward had happened. Yet to this day, I haven’t been able to forget that morning.”

  Raelynn grinned back at her. “Which is only one more reason you shouldn’t delay your marriage. If you do, you both may find yourselves in bed together, and think of the eyebrows that would raise if anyone found out.”

  “Mama! Mama!” Jake cried, running into the kitchen where the two women had been icing a cake. “There’s a mean-looking man standin’ in front o’ our gate.”

  Elizabeth and Raelynn faced each other in sudden alarm, both suffering sudden apprehensions that another assailant had come. Elizabeth hurriedly pushed herself to her feet while Raelynn caught up her skirts and dashed toward the front of the house.

  “Gustav!” Raelynn gasped upon arriving at the front window and peering through the lace panel. The German stood before the gate with a bouquet of flowers clasped in his good hand.

  Elizabeth groaned. “I think Mr. Fridrich has come courting.” There was more concern in her tone than the like of such a simple declaration might normally have elicited. She beckoned Jake to her and immediately gave him instructions. “Go upstairs and tell Tizzy to run over and fetch Mr. Farrell, and to be quick about it!”

  “Yes’m,” the boy hurriedly replied and charged out of the hall, his high-topped shoes nearly flying over the rugs in his haste to comply.

  Raelynn clasped a shaking hand to her throat as she watched Gustav swing open the gate, step through, and then pause to pull it closed behind him. “What should we do? He’s coming in.”

  Trembling, Elizabeth grasped Raelynn’s arm. “I have Emory’s flintlock upstairs.” She could issue nothing louder than a strained whisper. “I could hold him off until Farrell comes.”