Patricia Rice (18 page)

"Because it is garbage!" Nicholas flung his hand up and released the rest of the papers in a whirlwind that spun and fluttered to the floor. He could read the defiance in her face, but he resisted the urge to reach out and strangle her. Strangling wasn't what he really had in mind. What he had in mind was the same thing that had been on his mind for quite some time now. It would be better if he had it over and done with.

"I will find you a husband," he stated flatly, staring down at her, daring her to defy him.

"That won't solve the problem." Eavin crossed her arms beneath her breasts and regretted it instantly when the focus of Nicholas's attention shifted.

"I don't see the problem. You have come out of your dowdy clothes and no one has molested you. You have been kissed and you haven't resisted. Unless Dominic or someone else was given to beating you, I cannot see what you fear. It is all in your head."

That wasn't the problem Eavin had referred to, but it was the underlying source. Leave it to Nicholas to go to the heart of the matter. Still, she couldn't let him see he had struck so close. "I am talking about the gossip. Buying me a husband won't halt the gossip. They will forget I exist if I stay in the nursery. Escort Mignon to these functions and the gossip will stop."

"No, it won't. And that is the garbage to which I refer. It isn't the gossip bothering you. It isn't my reputation bothering you. It's Jeremy. And Alphonso. And Clyde Brown. You're afraid of them. You're hiding behind your pretense of coldness. Hell, you're the least cold woman I've ever known. You've got a temper like a firestorm, and I venture to say a passion to match. Ladies like Francine and Lucinda are the cold ones. They have talked themselves into believing that lust is for animals, which consigns all men to the animal kingdom. But you're not like that. I can touch you, and you ignite in a blaze. You don't turn your nose up in disgust."

"I do not," Eavin whispered defensively, knowing the argument was degenerating rapidly as it always did. "I don't like it when men touch me. I didn't like it when Dominic touched me, and he was my husband. And this argument is senseless. What difference does it make whether I want to be touched? The only purpose to marriage is to have children, and we both know that I can't."

"Everybody wants to be touched. It's human nature. Why do you think you hold Jeannette and caress her? Because she loves it and so do you. Life is empty without someone to share it. It doesn't have to be Jeremy or Clyde. Someone else will come along, but you'll never know it if you hide behind that nonsensity you keep telling yourself."

Tears sprang to Eavin's eyes. "Why can you not just take my word for it? Don't you think I'm old enough to know myself?"

Nicholas reached out and buried his hand in the thickness of Eavin's upswept tresses. She shivered beneath his touch, but he didn't believe she was afraid of him. Still, he pressed no further. "Let's experiment," he said.

Eavin held herself still and watched him warily. He wasn't laughing. Neither did he seem to be angry. There was a look of curiosity on his face, and something else. She supposed it was mischief, or lust. She wasn't certain, but it was much less fearful than anger. She offered a watery smile in return.

"Experiment? Like dropping a feather and a stone from the roof to see which lands first?"

"That sounds amusing, too, but it isn't what I had in mind. An experiment is designed to test a hypothesis." Nicholas released her hair and stepped backward, placing his hands behind his back as he observed her reaction.

Eavin wiped a tear from her eye and stood straighter, folding her hands and regarding him with expectation. Nicholas like this was a fascinating man. She had heard him expound upon the politics of the embargo and Napoleon, extol the merits of the cotton gin and the shift in production that would result, and denounce the system of slavery that would inevitably come of it. She waited now to be enlightened by the lecture on experimentation.

Satisfied with this reaction, Nicholas chose his words carefully, knowing his audience well. Eavin had been raised simply, her only concern the day-to-day matters of surviving. Although he had found her extremely intelligent and ready to grasp the most complex of topics, she was not accustomed to the convolutions of logic and philosophy that permeated the arguments of better-educated men. Had he asked her how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, she would have handed him a pin and told him to count them. So he eliminated all but the simplest of explanations.

"My experience tells me that: one, ladies of my class on the whole have been taught sex is only a distasteful means of procreation, and two, that women of other classes have been taught a more earthy appreciation of the attractions between men and women. You do nothing to disguise the fact that you are from a working-class Irish family who cannot claim any closer association with ladies than working for one. Therefore, I must conclude that you find yourself not suitable for marriage to someone of my class because you are not a lady, not because you are cold. My hypothesis is that you are perfectly capable of enjoying the marriage act, but for some reason you are afraid of it, and you are disguising your fear behind protestations of unsuitability."

Eavin wrinkled her nose up in concentration as she tried to follow this exercise in logic. "Not being a lady didn't keep me from marrying Dominic," she finally responded, not knowing where else to take the argument.

So much for the principles of logic. Nicholas threw in the towel and went straight to the point. "Being afraid of sex is keeping you from marrying anyone else."

Eavin stiffened and primly drew her lips tight. "I am not afraid. I simply do not like it."

"If you're not a lady trained to believe that, that's poppycock. You've just never been taught what making love is all about."

He stood there with his hands behind his back, the lamplight catching the golden strands of his hair, exuding male superiority. He had not thrown aside his coat yet, but it hung loose and unfastened from his wide shoulders as he waited confidently for her to fall into his trap.

Eavin's gaze fell on the opened collar of his shirt, and she had the urge to grab his cravat and strangle him with it. But that wasn't the only urge she was experiencing.

"You are an arrogant bastard," she whispered, almost to herself.

"But I'm right." Nicholas lifted her chin until their gazes met. "Let me prove it."

Eavin stared at Nicholas as if he had just proposed that they rob a bank. The stark light emphasized the aristocratic hollows of his features, the elegant lines of his masculine frame, the intelligence gleaming behind his amber eyes. She couldn't think of a single reason in the world why he would make what she knew was a highly improper suggestion. He had everything. She had nothing. Why would he bother?

"You are making mock of me," she said, twisting her chin from his grasp.

"I am not." Nicholas didn't touch her again but positioned himself so Eavin could not easily escape. "I am being perfectly sensible. We can look at this as a purely scientific exercise to prove my theory. That's all it has to be. No more, no less."

He was still speaking in the crisp tones of logic, and Eavin's mercurial temperament couldn't resist seeing the humor of the situation. "If I prove as cold as I think I am, will that make me a lady and suitable to marry one of your friends?"

Nicholas's mouth curved upward on one side. "Alphonso perhaps? Reyes would be overwhelmed with my generosity."

"That's mean." Relieved that he was not taking this any more seriously than she, Eavin shoved Nicholas aside and escaped, grateful that he did not press her further. "Alphonso may be a trifle serious, but he is a gracious gentleman. Just because you and his brother never got along is no reason to single him out for your contempt."

Nicholas caught her arm before she could retreat to the door. "You're running away, Eavin. I know what it is to run away. Don't do it. Stand up to your fears and make them go away. You're only living half a life until you do."

Eavin jerked her arm free and glared at him. "I won't be your mistress, Nicholas. If that's the price of my staying here, I'll leave."

He ran his hand through his hair and offered a wry grin. "I'll admit, the proposition is tempting. There are damned few opportunities out here without causing tongues to wag all over the district, and it's been a long drought since I sent Jess packing. But you're right. As convenient as it might be in some ways, it would be suicide in others. I'm just talking one night, Eavin, one night to prove you have what it takes to be happy."

"That's ridiculous." Leaning over the table, she cornered him. "What would you get out of such an arrangement?"

Nicholas shoved his hands into his pockets and deliberately surveyed Eavin's lush figure from head to toe and back again. "Besides the obvious?" he asked arrogantly. Before she could throw the book her hand rested on at him, he added, "Proof of my theory. I like being right."

"You want to prove that I'm a whore because I'm Irish," she stated.

He winced. "
Touché
. You have a wicked tongue, Irish. If you applied it to pen, we would all be sliced to ribbons. But that isn't what I meant. Whores sell their wares but don't necessarily enjoy them. You have no need to sell anything."

"Thank you, then I shan't." Swirling around, Eavin marched out of the room before either of them could observe out loud that she had sold herself to Dominic. There was such a thing as too much honesty, and they were bordering dangerously near to it.

Chapter 16

Nicholas's words stayed with Eavin all the night. She swore at the closed windows and stuffy air as she tossed and turned in her cocoon of mosquito netting. She got up and opened the windows despite all the warnings she had received of the deadliness of the swamp miasmas. She returned to bed and kicked off the sheets, but the cool linen of her nightgown still twisted about her legs and stuck to her breasts until she was tempted to toss it aside, too. But lying naked in a bed that belonged to the man below raised too many fears.

She didn't want to imagine Nicholas doing to her what Dominic had done in those few uncomfortable attempts in Baltimore. In the darkness, her thoughts strayed to her wedding night. She had tried to be calm when Dominic led her to the room she would share with him. He had kissed her, and she had enjoyed it much more than the usual pawing caresses she had received in the past. Dominic was a gentleman. Eavin relied on that fact to bolster her confidence as he turned her into his arms once the door was shut.

Her confidence faltered as soon as she realized this kiss wouldn't be like his others. His teeth pressed against hers with urgent heat while his hand twisted her breast. When she opened her mouth to protest, he plunged his tongue down her throat, and Eavin could do little more than gag.

Only glimpses of those horrible minutes flashed through the curtain of time: Dominic pushing her back toward the bed, his hips already grinding against hers; the feeling of her skirt jerked around her waist; the piercing pain and Dominic's cry of relief.
 

Sleepless, Eavin stared at the canopy of netting over her head much as she had done those nights long ago when Dominic had repeated his performance time after time.

The pain had never quite gone away, as she had been led to expect. She had just endured the pain and humiliation as the price of respectability and sighed in relief when Dominic finally sailed with his ship. The nuns had been quite right in teaching her that such things were best saved for marriage and only then when a child was wanted.
 

The prospect of a child was the only reason Eavin would endure such an activity again, and that prospect didn't exist any longer. Why should she believe that with Nicholas things could be different?

But Nicholas made it so easy to believe in the fairy tale of marriage. He was the golden god every young girl dreamed of. She was too experienced to put her faith in white knights, and Nicholas would certainly never qualify for that designation, but his reality made it easier to believe. But she couldn't go any further than wishful thinking. Eavin knew the truth behind little-girl dreams of life after marriage.

When she finally fell into a restless slumber, she dreamed of Nicholas's brief kiss, combining it with other, less pleasant, incidents, until she woke up, wide-eyed and sweating.

It was a terrible state to be in. She couldn't even pace the room without taking the netting with her or closing out the first cool breezes of dawn. Other people had nightmares about floods and fires and disease. She had nightmares about kissing. She really was quite insane.

She couldn't differentiate between the groping hands of Nicholas and Dominic and the countless other men before them. She knew there were differences. Nicholas had been forceful, abrupt, and passionate. Dominic had been gentle but selfish. The others she wouldn't even think of. She still had mental images of the first man she had seen stumbling out of her mother's room. She had been little more than twelve but already developing a figure. He had still smelled of sex when he had twisted her tender breasts and slobbered over her lips. The shriek she had emitted then lingered on her tongue now.

Face her fears, he had said. Eavin made a disgruntled noise as she sat up in bed and refused to return to her nightmares. She faced her fears every day of her life. Her fears constituted half the population of the world.