Authors: Jo Goodman
"Invite me inside," he said throatily, grinding his hips against her.
Jenny's hand traveled down his chest, flickered across the hard tips of his nipples, then followed the narrowing path of hair past his flat belly and lower still, until her hand curled around his throbbing erection. She guided him into her.
There was no holding back then. Christian drove himself deeply, feeling her contract all around him. "Did I hurt you?" he asked, levering himself up on elbows. He couldn't see her face in the darkness of their cocoon.
"No." She touched his cheek. "This is what I want. You. Inside me. Does wanting you like this make me a—"
Christian stopped her. Ducking his head, he had no trouble finding her mouth with his. "Shh," he whispered against her lips. "No talking. Just feel, Jenny. Just feel."
It was not a difficult order to obey. Christian began moving inside her, slow, deep thrusts that raised slender threads of tension in her arms and legs.
Jenny moved against him, sounding her pleasure in sharp little gasps that, had she but known it, excited Christian as much as her fingers curling into the hair at the nape of his neck. Their passion mounted as they made their payment in kind, bartering kisses, caresses, touches, and tastes until the sensations between them became too great to sustain.
There was a shared cry as tension melted, making their limbs liquid and lazy. They were awash in sensual pleasure; everything they felt in that moment was so clearly defined the very endings of their nerves seemed to sparkle with heat and light.
Christian was a long time moving away from her. She did not seem to mind that he stayed inside her or that he remained partially aroused. Jenny just held him, her long, slender arms a gentle chain around his waist. The back of his hand traced the curve of her hip.
"We should go downstairs," he said.
"No. Let's stay here."
"All right."
Silence settled between them, and Christian thought Jenny had fallen asleep until she said his name. "What is it?" he asked.
"Do you ever still think I am mad?"
"No."
"Never?"
"Never."
"Thank you for that," she said. Jenny rested her head on his shoulder. "If I were someone else... someone—I don't know—someone comfortably set... would you still have asked me to be your mistress?"
"Meaning, I suppose, that you think if you were the daughter of some wealthy society matron I could be induced to offer marriage. Well, nothing, not even an outraged father with a gold-plated shotgun, could make me offer—"
Jenny placed her index finger over his mouth. "You don't know what I was thinking," she said, amused. "Would you still have asked me to be your mistress?"
"Yes," he said. "Now what did that prove?"
"That I am not merely a convenience to you because I happen to live under your roof. That you would want me in the same way if I came to you on a silver platter."
Christian's brows pulled together in a thoughtful frown. "And that is all right with you? You wouldn't want to be anything but my mistress?"
Jenny laughed quietly. "Have you forgotten? I do not even want to be that."
"But—"
She shook her head, cutting him off as her hair rubbed against his shoulder. "That is not what tonight is about. It is about goodbye."
Christian did not believe her, but he didn't tell her that. The surest way to force her out the door was to inform her he believed she was bluffing. He had every intention of keeping her with him until he decided their odd, strangely satisfying, relationship was at an end.
"I want you again," he said, and was caught unaware by the edge of despair he heard in his voice. It mocked him, warning him that he might not know her as well as he thought. "Now."
"All right," she said.
Their lovemaking was like a punishment. It did not have the hard, brutal selfishness that Christian had tried to force on Jenny when he found her in the studio, but it had a certain wild fierceness to it that was more like the animal coupling he had professed to want.
Their touching was greedy, their caresses clumsy with need. The force with which he claimed Jenny left her breathless. His mouth was hard on hers. His teeth nipped at her throat, her shoulder, the tips of her breasts. He left tiny bruises where the hard, humid suck of his mouth caught her flesh. She left crescent brands on his skin with the tapered ends of her nails.
She wound her legs around him, and he was so deep inside her that she thought he must be touching her womb. Her willow-slender body was supple under the sinewy strength of his. "Christian," she said, "I can't... no more—"
"Yes, you can. Just a little more, a little higher... feel it, Jenny?"
She felt it. She felt him. The sensation and Christian were one and the same. She was enveloped by the shattering tension, and her body shuddered against him. Christian went rigid as her pleasure swept from her into him, and it seemed they were no longer individuals but shared a singular identity.
After their ragged breathing had calmed, they fell asleep in each other's arms. Christian woke several times during the night, and each time he reached for Jenny she was there. Still, in the morning she was gone.
* * *
Christian arrived on Scott Turner's doorstep just as Susan and Beth were sitting down to breakfast. He was carrying the stack of
Herald
dailies under his arm. He stamped his feet to brush off the snow as Susan opened the door to him.
"Christian!" She couldn't mask her surprise. "Come in, come in! Goodness, but it is cold out there this morning." Susan shut the door briskly as an eddy of snow and wind whirled through the entranceway. "Scott's not here," she told him. "He's already gone to the hospital. If it's something medical, then..."
Christian shook his head. "That's all right. There's no emergency. I can talk to him later. Mostly I came to see you. I need your help."
"My help?" Susan was astonished.
"You don't mind, do you?"
"Mind? No, of course I don't mind. I'll do whatever I can." Her smile was friendly as she held out her hand for Christian's coat, hat, and muffler. She watched him transfer the stack of papers from one hand to the other as he shrugged out of his coat. "Does it have something to do with those?" she asked, pointing to the papers. She hung up his garments in the entrance hall, looking at him expectantly.
"It does. Is there someplace I can put them?"
"Come into the dining room. Beth and I were just going to have breakfast. Would you like to join us?"
"A cup of coffee would be fine." He dropped the papers on one corner of the table as Beth slid off her chair to clutch at his legs. "Good morning, brat," he said, ruffling her strawberry-blond curls. "How is the kitten? Muffin, isn't it?"
Susan was not fooled by Christian's gentleness with Beth. She saw the strain about his mouth and eyes, the forced smile and drawn skin, and realized that only something of extreme urgency could have brought him around this early in the morning. Sliding a cup of coffee in his direction, Susan broke into her daughter's excited conversation concerning the kitten. "Beth, why don't you eat breakfast in the kitchen with Mrs. Adams? I would not be surprised if she has a saucer of milk for Muffin."
That caught Beth's attention. She wiggled out from under Christian's hand with such alacrity that both adults laughed.
Susan shut the door to the dining room. "What's happened, Christian? Is it Mrs. Brandywine?"
"No," he said. "No, she's fine." He pulled back a chair and sat down, folding his hands around the steaming mug of coffee to warm them. "It's Jenny. She left me this morning."
"She's gone?" Susan's green eyes clouded, and she sank slowly into her seat. Jenny, he had said, not Miss Holland, and she had not merely left. She had left
him.
Interesting... and troubling. "But where could she possibly go? I was not aware that she had anyone."
"I think she might," he said slowly. "I'm not certain, but there might be someone who is waiting for her."
"Christian, maybe you had better start this story closer to the beginning." She saw him balk at the idea, his mouth flattening grimly. "All right then," she said, retreating a little, "begin with where you think she is. I know you probably imagine that Scott tells me everything, but he doesn't. I have never heard him hint that Jenny has family or friends."
"Because she has never said that she does. That's just it, Susan. Jenny's told us precious little about herself—next to nothing, in fact. What Scott and I think we know is mainly supposition, and even that is full of contradiction. Neither of us believes she is mad, but if she were
held in that lunatic ward against her will, why has she never said so?"
Susan shrugged. "Perhaps she is afraid to talk about her experience. Why would she want to hold such an ugly memory up to the light? I should think you would be able to sympathize with her on that count." She held up her hands, palms out. "Forgive me. I should not have said that. No more pointed thrusts, I promise."
Christian nodded, accepting the apology because it was important to her. In truth, her thrust had not hurt. He was numb. "Have you ever heard Scott call her the Princess?"
"Yes. He mentioned she was called that on the ward. It was one of the incongruities that intrigued him."
"I know." He gestured to the newspapers. "Do you read the
Herald?
The personal columns?"
"Sometimes," she admitted a trifle sheepishly.
"Recently?"
"No."
"Well, someone's been placing notices in there and signing them Princess."
"Oh, Christian." Susan laughed, shaking her head. "You can't possibly think that—"
"I do," he said firmly. "And even if I didn't, I would still have to investigate. There is no other lead, you see. If I cannot find her through this, then she is lost to me."
Susan's heart went out to him. This was a Christian Marshall others rarely were permitted to see. "You want her back?"
Christian was startled momentarily. "No... I don't know." He looked past Susan's shoulder. One of his early paintings hung on the wall. It was a still life, and not a particularly good one, but Susan had liked the colors and the way he had used light to make the apples appear as if they were ripening even as you looked at them. That painting was supposed to be in his studio with the others, but when Susan discovered he was removing them from the walls of Marshall House, she had begged one from him. "I want to know she is safe," he said. He thought of Jenny and how he would tilt her head to one side and use light along the curve of her neck and shoulder to show the translucent quality of her skin. Her lips would be glistening, ripening. He would paint desiring in her eyes.
"Do you love her, Christian?" Susan asked, watching him closely.
Christian's gaze dropped away from the painting. "No, Susan, I don't love her. That would be..." His voice trailed off. "No, I don't love her."
He
believed it even if Susan found just cause to doubt. She did not argue, though. "What is it you want me to do?"
Christian stripped away the twine that bound the stack of papers. "I have a little more than a month's worth of papers here. That is several thousand personal notices. I need help going through them. I want to find every reference to Princess or Butler. That is who Princess writes to. In yesterday's paper there was a reference by Butler to a location. I am hoping the specific site was mentioned in an earlier ad." From his jacket pocket he took out the notice from yesterday's edition of the
Herald
and showed it to Susan. "This is all I have to go on."
Susan read it aloud.
"Princess. All things required moved to new location. Arrangements in order. See Smith. Next? Butler."
Her eyes were doubtful. "You could be right, I suppose. There might be an address in these earlier editions. I assume that 'Next?' means Butler is awaiting further instructions."
"That's what I thought. I am going to pick up the paper for the next several days to see if there's anything in there."
"And Smith?"
"I have no idea."
"What arrangements, I wonder?"
"I am hoping that will become clearer once we find the other notices. Mrs. Brandywine mentioned there were others detailing some sort of list."
Susan pushed her plate of cold eggs and bacon to one side and rolled up the long sleeves of her russet day gown. "I detest newsprint on my clothes," she explained when Christian raised an inquiring eyebrow. "Hand me some of those papers," she said in businesslike tones. "We might as well begin now."
Christian and Susan read steadily right up until luncheon. The reading was tiresome to their eyes, which was precisely the reason Christian had not asked for Mrs. Brandywine's help. He did not even know if his housekeeper realized Jenny was gone yet. He had left the house without a word to anyone.
"What do we have so far?" he asked as Mrs. Adams brought them hot bowls of spiced tomato soup and slices of freshly baked bread. Christian leaned back in his chair and allowed Beth to climb onto his lap. He tucked a linen napkin into the collar of her dress.
Susan rubbed her eyes and then stifled a yawn with the back of her hand. "What we have does not amount to much," she said. "It is disappointing." She fingered the clippings to the left of her plate.
'"Butler. Contact printing frame. Rack. Stu will know. Princess.'
And:
'Princess. Need funds. Items on first list expensive. Suggestions? Butler.'"
Susan buttered a slice of bread and passed it to her daughter. "Don't dribble on Uncle Christian, dear," she said absently. "Here, Christian, this one is interesting.
'Butler. Watch Ruby R. Sterling—Princess.'
I have to admit that I am no closer to understanding than I was when we started."