It was a long time later before Megan’s tears subsided, and she lay resting against his chest. She felt oddly healed.
“Justin,” she said presently, pulling back a little so that she could look up at him. One arm stayed around her waist, but the other went to the pocket of his coat, from which he extracted a snowy handkerchief. He used it to tenderly wipe the tears from her cheeks. Then he held it to her small nose.
“Blow,” he instructed, the beginnings of humor quirking about his mouth. Megan did as he told her; grimacing, he folded the handkerchief, and pocketed it.
“Now,” he said. “You were saying?”
Megan smiled at him. Her lips were tremulous, but her eyes were at peace.
“I love you very much,” she told him clearly. He looked down at her for a long moment, his mouth straight and firm in his dark face. The look in his eyes made her want to cry again; it also made her want to laugh and sing and shout with joy.
“I love you, too,” he said at last, his voice low. Touched to the heart, Megan reached up to lay a gentle hand against his cheek. He turned his head so that his lips burned into her palm.
“Let’s go home, darling,” she whispered lovingly.
His arm was warm about her waist as she led him from the graveyard.
EPILOGUE
I
t was fifteen months later, and a gentle September rain was washing the second floor windows at Brant Hall. Megan was leaving the nursery, where she had just finished feeding her three-month-old daughter, Alexandra Justine. At Megan’s insistence, the little girl had been named for both Justin and his mother. But if she had known that Justin would persist in calling the child Alex despite her protestations, she would have chosen something less prone to corruption. Megan had a strong suspicion that their daughter would object to being stuck with a boy’s nickname when she had grown up sufficiently to recognize the difference, but by then it might well be too late. Even Janet had taken to calling the baby Missy Alex. And nicknames of that sort tended to stick.
Megan walked into the bedroom she shared with Justin, intent on washing her face and brushing her hair before going downstairs again to consult with Cook about dinner. Brant Hall was Justin’s ancestral home, a beautiful estate in the middle of Worcestershire where Justin had grown up, and his wife Megan
was very much the mistress of it. She had learned to be a capable, assured housekeeper, and her days were taken up with the hundred and one myriad tasks involved in running a house of such size. Deciding on a dinner menu was just another of those daily chores.
She had gotten halfway across the room before she registered the pungent odor of a cheroot drifting lazily through the air. Her hand flew to her throat in an instinctive reaction as she whirled. Justin was sitting in a chair beneath the window, his feet propped lazily on a small table, and smoke from the cheroot that dangled negligently from his fingers swirled about his head.
“You scared me to death,” she gasped. His eyes moved over her with casual possessiveness, taking note of the lovely picture she made. She was a woman now, not a girl, and a dazzlingly beautiful one. The simple chignon into which she had twisted the silken mass of her hair suited her, lending a sweet maturity to the porcelain-perfect features. Her breasts and hips had blossomed to a womanly fullness, while her waist retained its girlish slenderness. He felt a stabbing ache in the region of his groin, and his mouth twisted in a wry smile. The effect she consistently had on him never ceased to amaze him, and it seemed like years since he had been able to make love to her as he was dying to do. During the last two months of her pregnancy, the doctor had advised him to abstain, and since the baby’s birth he had been too fearful of hurting her to even suggest it. It was almost funny that he, who had never rated celibacy as worth any more than a passing
sneer, should have been celibate for nearly half a year and made no attempt to do anything about it. He could have gone up to London and eased himself with any of the all too willing ladies there, or even tumbled a local maid as many a man in his position would have done. But he wanted no woman but his wife, which was the best justification for marital faithfulness he knew. She had cast a spell over him, his violet-eyed little witch, and she still held him hopelessly in her thrall. He was ruined for all other women, and the knowledge both piqued and amused him. But he knew that he would remain celibate until Megan was able to become un-celibate with him.
“Sorry,” he replied to her accusing look with a glinting grin. Megan came to stand beside him, leaning down to press a soft kiss to his mouth. He caught her hand in his, and drew her down to his knees. She allowed him to pull her down willingly, resting comfortably back against his chest.
“What are you doing home at this time of day, anyway?” she asked, smiling up at him as he took a quick puff on his cheroot. He had become vitally interested in agriculture, and spent most of his days supervising the care of various experimental crops that he had planted throughout the estate.
“It’s raining, my love, in case it has somehow escaped your attention,” Justin pointed out, his hand fondling her waist without his even being conscious that it did so. “Surely you wouldn’t want me to get wet?”
“A little rain never brought you home before,” Megan
pointed out, her finger tracing idle circles up his shirt front. He had removed his coat and neckcloth, and was dressed only in a plain white cambric shirt, buff pantaloons, and boots. Her teasing finger reached the open collar of his shirt, sliding beneath it to twist little curls in the fine mat of hair just below his throat.
Justin grinned a little lopsidedly. “Maybe I just thought I’d check on my two beautiful girls.”
Megan made a face at him. “Alexandra’s taking a nap, and I’m getting ready to decide what to have for dinner. Do you have any suggestions?”
Justin’s eyes met hers, and he laughed. “None that you could serve up in the middle of the dining room table,” he answered, leering at her. Megan snuggled against him, feeling the sudden hardness of him beneath her thighs with a quick upsurge of excitement. He had been forbearing and patient for months, and she was more than grateful at the care he had taken of her. But now she was quite recovered from what had, admittedly, been a rather difficult birth and his body was warm and hard against hers.
“Justin?” she murmured, her fingers toying with the top button of his shirt.
“Ummm?”
“Aren’t you going to kiss me hello?”
He looked down at her curled up on his lap.
“I don’t think so,” he replied after a moment. But he made no move to stop her as she slowly freed one button from its hole, and then another.
“Why not?” She sounded disappointed, but her eyes were smiling as they met his.
“Because right now I’m not in just the right mood for kisses.”
“Oh.” Megan had his shirt unbuttoned to the waist, and as she spoke she nuzzled her mouth against his skin. She could feel the tensing of all his muscles at her action.
“Justin?”
“Ummm?” His voice was beginning to sound faintly hoarse. Megan smiled to herself, and opened her lips against the salt-tanged skin of his chest, tasting it with her tongue.
“Neither am I.”
It took him a minute or so to absorb the meaning of that, and then she could feel the sudden increased tempo of his heartbeat beneath her mouth.
“My darling, it’s too soon.” The huskiness of his voice told her all she needed to know. She smiled against his skin, saying nothing as she sensuously ran her tongue down his taut abdomen to the waistband of his pantaloons.
“Megan.” The word was a half-hearted protest as she slid off his lap to kneel before him on the floor, her hands busy at the fastenings of his pantaloons.
“If you want me to stop… ” she murmured innocently, the wicked little glint in her eyes the only hint she gave that she was teasing him.
“God, if you do I think I’ll strangle you.” This half-humorous
response made Megan chuckle. She eased his pantaloons down just far enough so that she had access to the part of him which interested her most at the moment. As she touched him, her cool little fingers closing around him, he groaned. He had taught her well before her pregnancy had temporarily ruled out further intimacy between them. She knew what gave him pleasure, and as she stroked and caressed him she gloried in his heightened breathing, in the rapid rise and fall of his dark-furred chest. She loved the scent of him and the feel of him beneath her hands. Suddenly she wondered about the taste of him. Many, many times he had given pleasure to her in that way, but he had never suggested that she do the same to him and she had never thought of it. Now she did. She bent over him, and heard him gasp with a fierce little stab of triumph.
“That’s a filthy whore’s trick,” she heard him growl after a moment, and his hands were on her shoulders, pushing her away from him. Megan looked at him, surprised. He had been enjoying it immensely; she knew too much about his physical responses not to realize that. Then, as he slid down beside her on the floor, she caught the teasing glint in his eyes and smiled back at him.
“Who taught you that?” he continued in the same menacing growl, but she wasn’t fooled. He was still breathing fast, and his eyes had the hot, excited glimmer that she knew from experience.
“You did,” she answered truthfully, reaching out to touch him again. “Don’t you like it?”
“No.” He was pushing her back down against the floor. Megan went willingly, her hands on his shoulders pulling him down with her. “I love it.”
She grinned at him. “I thought so.”
“Too much,” he added grimly. “I don’t think I can wait any longer.”
“I don’t want you to,” she answered, her eyes as soft as her voice. He was leaning over her, his eyes passionate as they met hers.
“My darling, are you sure you’re well enough?” The hoarseness of his voice told her of the control he was exerting. She smiled at him, shaking her head at the same time. Her hands crept up over his shoulders to curl around his neck.
“What does it take to seduce you, Justin?” she murmured provocatively. “Do you want me to beg?”
“Yes,” he answered promptly. She laughed up at him, moving her body so that it was pressed intimately against his. The bare flesh of his stomach and thighs burned her through the figured silk of her dress.
“Can’t you hear me, Justin?” she whispered, pressing herself even closer against him. “I’m begging.”
“God, I love you,” he muttered, and at last lowered his head to claim her lips with his. His kiss was hard and yet tender, taking and giving at the same time. Megan opened her mouth to him willingly, touching his tongue with hers, exchanging caress for caress. Her arms were locked hard around his neck, and as she felt his hands slide beneath her to work the fastenings of her gown she sighed blissfully. The familiar quickening
excitement began to spiral maddeningly inside her, radiating out along her limbs, making her tingle and yearn for him.
“Good Christ, why do you women have so many damned hooks?” he groaned against her mouth, and Megan giggled helplessly despite her own rising excitement at the frustration in his voice.
“To keep things interesting, of course,” she responded pertly, and he bared his teeth at her in a mock snarl.
“I’ll make things interesting for you, my saucy wench,” he said, and promptly abandoned the hooks to jerk her dress and the chemise beneath it down to her waist. Megan gasped with surprise at his action, then felt color wash into her cheeks as he stared down at her breasts. They were beautiful, full and soft and creamy white, tempting enough to eat.
“These look like strawberries,” he muttered hoarsely, bending his head to flick each nipple in turn with his tongue. They instantly quivered erect under the erotic tutelage of his mouth. “But they don’t taste like strawberries. They’re much, much better.”
As his mouth divided its time between her lips and her breasts, his hands were coming up under her skirts to tug at the ribbon fastening of her pantalets. When at last he got them untied, he pulled her pantalets down her legs and tossed them aside. Then he pushed her skirts up around her waist. Megan felt the rough scratchiness of the carpet against her bare bottom, and her eyes flickered open. Justin was looking at her, eating her body with his eyes.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered, and suddenly all the teasing was gone from his eyes. His mouth came down on hers, and he settled himself over her body. His weight pressed her into the carpet, crushing her against the unyielding floor beneath, and Megan loved it. Boldly, she rubbed her breasts against his hair-roughened chest, exciting herself as well as him. His hand slid between her thighs, fondling her; sensations so intense that they drove her nearly mindless swamped her. She writhed against his hand, wanting him. And then she reached for him, guiding him to her, opening her legs and panting in her eagerness for his possession. He held back for a moment, wanting to prolong the pleasure for both of them, but then with a groan he gave in, plunging deep inside her with no more preliminaries. Megan welcomed his entry with a hoarse cry, her legs locking around his waist, her fingers stroking his hair and shoulders and back and anything else she could reach. His hands were beneath her, cupping her buttocks, lifting her so that he could plunge deeper and deeper inside.
“Justin!” she cried out when she could stand his exquisite torture no longer. “Oh, yes, Justin. Yes!”
With a groan he stifled her cries with his mouth. The violent contractions that racked them both seemed to go on forever.
It was a long time before Megan opened her eyes to find Justin propped up on one elbow beside her, looking tenderly down into her face. She smiled at him.
“That was wonderful,” she said huskily. “You’re wonderful.”
He grinned, his white teeth cutting a bold slash across his dark face.
“Thanks for the recommendation, lady,” he murmured teasingly. “Need I add that all the ladies tell me that?”
Megan doubled up her fist and brushed it playfully across his chin.
“Conceited oaf,” she muttered lovingly. She knew perfectly well that he had eyes for no one but her, and he knew she knew it. She started to say so, but then a clock chimed from some distant part of the house.