Quickly scooping the package into her arms, Lettie hurried into the back storage room and closed the door. In a moment, she had stripped off her own clothes and reached for those in the package.
On top of the pile lay a delicate batiste camisole trimmed with insertion and a matching pair of underdrawers. Sliding them over her limbs, Lettie delighted in the texture and fresh scents of the undergarments. It had been so long since she’d had any new clothes. Especially new undergarments.
Breathing deeply in anticipation, she pulled aside the next layer of tissue to uncover a delicate corset made of grosgrain ribbons and lace. The kind worn only to bed … or on a wedding night.
Slipping it around her torso, she quickly cinched the garment around her ribs, tightening the laces as much as they would allow. Then she slipped on a dimity-flounced petticoat with an attached bustle and buttoned the foundation garment around her waist.
Unsure of what the Beasleys had chosen as a gown, yet knowing it would become her wedding dress, Lettie drew aside that last layer of tissue and gasped. Lettie had seen the gown before in Mrs. Goddard’s dress-shop window, and she had never hoped to own something so beautiful herself.
Lifting it free from its wrapping, Lettie first donned the gray cashmere skirt and buttoned it around her waist. The front tablier of the skirt was formed by tiers of puffed and gathered fabric, falling to a gathered ruffle along the bottom and decorated with a knee sash that swooped in a graceful arc, knotting in the center of the skirt. The back portion had been draped and tucked with yards of cashmere that fell into a demi-train in the back.
After fluffing the skirt to see that it lay properly over the bustled petticoat, Lettie slipped into the hip-length bodice of garnet velvet, fastening the hooks that edged the mock vest of smocked gray cashmere from neck to hip. Her hands trembled as she smoothed the full-cut bodice over her bust and hips, then reached to hook a matching cashmere capelet over her shoulders.
For a moment, Lettie stood trembling in her unaccustomed finery, blinking back a slight sheen of tears. There would be no family at her wedding, no guests, no flowers, no music. Instead, it would be a rushed affair that would appear unseemly to even her most liberal neighbors and friends.
And yet… there could be no choice. Lettie loved Ethan McGuire with all her heart. She wanted his name. She wanted his love. She wanted…
Him.
A soft knock interrupted her thoughts, and she opened the door to find Alma Beasley waiting for her.
“It fits!” Alma breathed in solemn pleasure. “I thought you’d be delicate enough to wear it—though why Mrs. Goddard makes all of her models in such an ungodly size, I’ll never know,” she added, in an attempt at lightness. But her humor seemed flat in the tension settling around them.
“Thank you, Miss Beasley. I don’t think you know how much this means to me. I love Ethan so much. I—”
Alma Beasley reached out to squeeze Lettie’s hand, and, for a moment, something vulnerable and aching lingered in her own eyes. “I know, Lettie. I know.”
“You’ve been so kind to me. And to Ethan.”
“A kindness you richly deserve.” Alma reached out to cup Lettie’s cheek with a soft, wrinkled hand. “You don’t know what a joy you’ve been to Amelia and me. We’ve watched you grow from a child into a woman.” Her voice grew whisper soft. “And we’ve seen our own youth in your eyes. My, what wonderful memories you’ve brought back to us.” Her lips wobbled slightly, and she tried to force a smile. “You’re a good daughter, Lettie. And a fine sister to Jacob. But just keep in mind that there comes a time when a young girl has to break free from the ties that bind her. Then it’s time to be a woman. Time to fly from the nest and find your own little niche in the world.”
Alma took her hand and patted it gently. “But now’s not the time for such speeches. We’ve got a wedding to attend.” She drew away, and Lettie followed, trying to accustom herself to the weight of the train behind her and the added boning in the bodice of the gown.
“Here’s your bouquet,” Alma murmured, handing her a nosegay of yellow summer roses that had been inserted into the center of a lacy handkerchief and tied with ribbons. “And your veil.” She took a square of tulle that she’d obviously obtained from the dressmaker and tenderly draped it over Lettie’s head. “Ready?”
Lettie nodded, tamping down her own nerves and her regrets that her marriage had to be so rushed and secret. “Yes. I’m ready.”
“Good.”
Taking her hand, Alma led her toward the door and helped her up the steps. Lettie carefully held her skirts and stepped through the top door, then looked up. A tightness gripped her throat when she saw that the Beasleys had taken a few minutes to decorate the iron bars of the jail cells with pink and white ribbons and yellow roses.
Her smile wobbled a little, and a tightness gripped her throat at the thoughtful gesture. But her pleasure was overshadowed by a much warmer emotion when she looked beyond them to find Ethan waiting beside Pastor Phillips. Though Ethan wore the same soot-stained clothing, he was freshly scrubbed and shaved, and his hair had been neatly combed back from his face.
“If you’ll step this way, Miss Grey,” the pastor intoned. Although he obviously felt pleased about saving her soul from eternal damnation, his eyes flicked to her stomach and he frowned disapprovingly.
But Lettie only had eyes for Ethan. Offering him a shaky smile, she took his side, then reached out to take his hand. Only then did she feel the irons encircling his wrists. Glancing up, she realized that, although he was free from his cell, he was shackled nonetheless.
“Let’s get on with this,” Rusty blurted.
“Yes, of course.” Pastor Phillips slipped his spectacles around his ears, then folded his hands around his prayerbook and eyed Ethan and Lettie with serious regard.
“The prospect of matrimony is not one to be entered into lightly.…”
As the pastor continued, Lettie glanced up at Ethan and soon found herself lost in the watchful, tender emotions she saw shining from his eyes. In all of her imaginings, in all of her fantasies, she had never dreamed that love could truly be like this. She never dreamed that it could be filled with such a measure of passion and pleasure… and pain. And yet, though she knew the future was far from settled between them, she also knew that she would have no regrets, regardless of what might happen.
So when the pastor asked her to repeat her vows, her words were strong, and sure, and sweet. And when Ethan spoke, she absorbed each word into her hungry soul, knowing that she would never forget this moment. Ever.
“The ring?”
Ethan lifted his hands, and his shackles clanked as he drew the ruby signet ring from his finger and slipped it over Lettie’s finger. Since it was far too big, she closed her hand to keep it in place.
“By the power invested in me by the Church and the state of Illinois, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
Ethan lifted a hand to her shoulder, turning her toward him. His eyes blazed with love and just a hint of buried desperation. “Never forget I love you,” he murmured for her ears alone, before folding the veil away from her face. “No matter what happens.” Then he tipped her chin with his finger and pressed his lips against her own.
Though the kiss was brief and tender, Lettie swayed toward him automatically, drawing back only when Ethan lifted his head. Time hung suspended for a fraction of a moment, filled with an unequaled sweetness made all the more precious by the uncertainty of their futures.
“Congratulations!” Amelia blurted, tossing a handful of rose petals into the air.
Alma beamed through a sheen of tears.
The pastor regarded them all in stern disapproval.
“Now all of you get out of here,” Rusty growled. “This is a jailhouse, dammit!”
Pastor Phillips needed no further urgings. “Sign this, please,” he stated, thrusting a set of marriage licenses in Ethan’s direction. Taking Lettie’s hand, Ethan drew her toward the wall and signed the papers against the rough stones, then handed the pen to Lettie. She hastily signed the licenses with the last bit of ink, then handed them to the pastor.
Affixing his final signature, the man handed Ethan one copy, then gazed at the newly married couple over his spectacles. “You’ve done the right thing. Come to me for the christening when the time comes.”
“Christening?” Ethan muttered, but Lettie silenced him with a glance.
“Now—all of you—get the hell out of this jail!”
The pastor
hurrumphed
deep in his throat and strode out. He was followed by the Beasleys.
“Her too,” Rusty snapped, gesturing to Lettie.
“Lettie?” Amelia gasped. “But she’s just been married.”
“I don’t care. Out!”
The Beasleys erupted into a storm of protest, while Ethan grasped Lettie’s waist and pulled her tightly against him.
A shrieking whistle pierced the air, and all turned in surprise as Alma lowered her fingers from her mouth.
“Rusty, a word please,” she murmured in a genteel manner, gesturing to the staircase. Walking ahead of him, she forced him to follow her by her very silence, while Amelia took up the rear.
Once at the bottom of the steps, Alma gathered the basket that contained their reticules. Turning, she flashed Rusty a disarming smile. “Be reasonable, Rusty. They’ve just married.”
“I don’t care.”
“They need some time together.”
“I don’t care.”
“Can’t we persuade you to reconsider?”
“No.”
Alma sighed. “Then I’ll go fetch her.”
Brushing past him, Alma took one step, then turned. “You really won’t reconsider?”
“No.”
Sighing again, Alma withdrew her sister’s reticule from the basket. “Then I fear I simply must take matters into my own hands.”
With a smile of apology, she brought the concealed paperweight crashing down onto Rusty’s head.
He issued a garbled yelp and stared at them a moment in incredulity. Then he crumpled to the floor.
Alma slipped the reticule back into the basket and turned to regard her sister. A blaze of determination shone from her eyes. “Those two are going to have a wedding night if I have to crack open the skull of every lawman from here to Kansas. Now find the key to Ethan’s shackles, so we can get the honeymoon started upstairs.”
A few moments later, Alma and Amelia returned to the cells and smiled blandly in the newlyweds’ direction. “All set. You can stay.”
They walked toward the couple, and Alma removed a key from the hidden pocket of her skirts and inserted it into Ethan’s shackles. “You have until dawn, Lettie. We’ll cover for you until then. I wish there were some way to see to Ethan’s escape, but with the crowd outside, I don’t see how—even if Ethan dressed up like a woman.”
Ethan flushed, but Lettie smiled in gratitude. “Thank you. Thank you both.”
“Our pleasure, dear,” Amelia responded, her eyes blinking against a sheen of unshed tears. “I’ve never seen a more beautiful bride, or such a handsome groom. I know you two will be happy together. So happy.”
“Come along, Amelia. We have work to do.”
“Yes, Alma. Congratulations, you two.”
Once downstairs, the two sisters each took a heel and dragged Rusty’s inert body toward the cellar door. They tied him with a piece of rope, shoved a gag into his mouth, and rolled him onto the top step leading down into the storage space below.
“Now what, Alma?” Amelia asked, gasping for breath. Just for safekeeping, they locked the door, then dragged a heavy crate in front of the threshold.
“We take care of this jailhouse and see to it that no one disturbs our newlyweds.”
Alma strode into the outer office and Amelia followed more slowly, gazing at her sister in confusion. “How are we going to do that?”
Alma crossed behind the desk and threw open the door to the gun cabinet. “Grab yourself one of these rifles and load up, Amelia.”
Ethan twisted his wrists free of the shackles and threw them onto the floor by the wall. They hit the stone with a loud clatter, then settled into a puddle of iron.
“You should go,” Ethan stated quietly, staring at the dark shackles lying against the rough stone floor.
“No.”
“Despite the roses and ribbons, this isn’t a pretty place.” He looked up, spearing her with his glance. “This is a jail, and I’m a prisoner. No amount of fantasizing is going to change that fact or make it any prettier.”
“I know that.”
“I don’t want you here, Lettie. Not like this.”
“I’m here, and I’m not going.”
He stepped away from her, moving back into his cell. When Lettie turned to follow him, she ached at the rigid set of the shoulders.
“Ethan, we’re married. Why are you pushing me away?”
He didn’t turn, but she heard his harshly indrawn breath. “Don’t you understand! I only married you to protect you. I only married you to see that you had some means of support. It was my way of saying thank you before I left you to deal with the mess I’d left behind.”
Lettie gasped, feeling as if he’d slapped her.
“I see.” Stinging beneath his cruel remark, she gathered her tattered dignity around her with some difficulty and turned to escape the close confines of the cellblock. But at the door, something stopped her.
Turning, she moved slowly, silently, toward him. She gave no warning of her approach. Yet she knew the moment he sensed her presence behind him.
Reaching out a hand, she tried to turn him to face her, but he resisted. Filled with a burning determination, Lettie moved around him and looked up into his face.
“Oh, Ethan,” she murmured, her own voice echoing the pain she saw etched upon his features.
He tried to turn away, but she reached up to hold his face, forcing him to look at her and share a part of his soul that he had never shared with anyone before.
“Tell me,” she whispered.
Ethan shook his head, but she tightened her grasp, forcing him to meet the love shining from her eyes.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
The cell shuddered in silence for a moment, and then some of the tension seemed to falter within him.
“I would have wished better for you than this.” He reached up and twined his fingers around Lettie’s wrist, drawing her hand to a vicinity just above his heart. His throat moved as he swallowed. “You deserve better than this. You deserve flowers, and poetry, and a man of honor.”
Lettie stood on tiptoe and wrapped her arms around Ethan’s shoulders. “You
are
an honorable man, Ethan McGuire,” she murmured against his neck. “You’ve met your mistakes head-on and changed them for the better.”
“Things should have been different between us.”
“None of that matters. Nothing matters … as long as I’m with you.”
His arms slid around her waist, and he clung silently to her for a moment, his embrace fierce. “They’re going to kill me, Lettie.”
“No!”
He forced her to look at him. “This isn’t one of your fantasies, Lettie. Not everyone lives happily ever after in this world.”
“Ethan, don’t—”
“They’re going to kill me, Lettie,” he repeated bluntly. “And heaven help me, I should send you marching out that door. I’ve already hurt you more than I ever dreamed I would. But I won’t lie to you. I won’t paint pretty pictures about what will happen, because, by lying, I’d only hurt you more in the long run.”
He took a deep breath, and one broad hand reached out to caress her cheek. “But right now, I can’t bring myself to force you to leave.” His voice deepened, growing husky and low. “Because I need you, Lettie Grey. I need your softness, your sweetness, your hope.”
Lettie tried to smile, tried to lighten the moment; she really did. But her attempt was unsuccessful. Instead, she felt something within her letting loose of childhood for the very last time, and she knew she could never again be that young girl who fantasized of the Highwayman and recited Poe by lamplight. Instead, she had to trust a man enough to give him a piece of her soul.
“I’m not leaving. I want to make love to you again tonight, Ethan McGuire,” she whispered. “I want to know you—heart, and mind, and body. And if this is all there can ever be, then this is all there can ever be.”
Slowly, ever so slowly, Ethan’s head dipped, and she rose on tiptoe to meet him halfway. Yet when their lips touched, Lettie noted there was a sense of wonder to the caress, a worshiping.
Knowing that their time together would be limited at best, Lettie basked in each soft brush of his mouth, each tender stroke of his fingers. When Ethan pulled back, burying his mouth in the softness of her hair, she sighed, taking a shuddering breath as her heart began to beat with slow, heavy strokes. She wanted this man. She needed him.
“If I had my way, our wedding night would have been spent in a luxurious hotel.”
She smiled, and her arms reached to cling to the firm muscles of his back.
“I love you, Ethan McGuire, no matter where we are.”
Her hands slipped from his nape, to his shoulders, to the buttons of his shirt. When Ethan lifted his head, she gazed at him in rapt adoration and slipped the first button free. Her thumb brushed across the exposed flesh, then moved to release the second button. Then the third. Softly tracing the vee of skin she’d exposed, she bent to place a kiss against his throat.
He groaned, and, smiling, she continued.
Soon the garment gaped about his chest and she slid her hands inside, placing her palms flat upon the firm span of his waist. Her thumbs brushed back and forth against the firm flesh. When he gasped, she bent to place a kiss in the crease of his stomach, just above his navel. Then, inch by tantalizing inch, she trailed a path of kisses up his ribs, to his breastbone, to the hollow at the base of his throat. Finally, her tongue flicked out to tease the tender spot, and she felt Ethan shudder.
“Let me love you, Ethan McGuire,” she murmured.
His hands reached out to curl around her waist, then spread across her back. “Just promise you’ll leave in the morning. Before Jacob can find you.”
The tension seeped from her body in a willing breath. “I promise.”
He wrapped his arms more tightly around her, attempting to draw her close, but she slipped free, moving to the opposite side of the cell. Turning her back, she lifted her hands and began to pluck the pins free from her hair, her motions smooth, graceful… poetic.
When all of the pins had been freed from the glossy strands, she arched her head back, allowing the thick waves to tumble down to her hips, shimmering like a thick honey-brown curtain. Then she turned and reached for the hook of her capelet. In one smooth flick of her hand, the clasp lay open and the capelet dropped from her fingers to the floor.
Ethan swallowed convulsively. “Lettie,” he murmured, his voice filled with aching desire.
“I love you, Ethan,” she whispered, then began to unhook the bodice of her gown. Ethan took a deep breath, evidently striving for control. Though his eyes did not dip to follow her movements, she could sense a silken tension beginning to fill his body as, inch by inch, the bodice gaped open and the delicate unmentionables she wore beneath came into view.
“You can’t say I’m too young anymore, Ethan,” she whispered, slipping her hands under the edge of her bodice and sliding it from her shoulders.
Ethan’s eyes burned a trail from the delicate insertion of her camisole to the grosgrain ribbons of her corset and back up again. “Hell no.”
She smiled and reached behind her to flick open the button to her skirt, then that to her petticoat. In one lithe movement, she pushed the garments to her ankles.
Then she moved toward him and slipped the shirt from his shoulders. The muscles beneath her hands were warm and firm, slick from the sheen of sweat caused by the heat of the cell.
“Love me.”
“Yes.”
Ethan bent to kiss her cheek, his lips skimming down the line of her jaw to the tender skin of her neck. His hands cupped her shoulders, then moved in a sweeping gesture down to her hips. He shifted his weight, parting his feet ever so slightly before reaching out to clasp her buttocks and pulling her into the space he had provided.
Lettie gasped, feeling the urgent proof of his arousal against her. Her body was flooded with the remembrance of the pleasure she’d experienced in his arms once before, and she wanted that pleasure again and again. She clung to him even as the warmth of his hands seeped through the delicate fabric of her drawers. The sweat beading his chest teased the taut mounds of her breasts.
“Show me what to do, Ethan,” she muttered through a throat grown tight with a delicious tension she could not explain. “I want to please you.”
He drew back, and one hand lifted to cup her cheek. “You already please me. More than you could ever know.”
He tunneled his fingers into the hair at her nape and kissed her, long and slow and deep. Then, still engaging her tongue in an erotic duel, his palms slipped to push the edges of her camisole over her shoulders. Bending, he greedily explored the slopes of her shoulders, the swelling mounds of her breasts.
Lettie moaned low in her throat, feeling a heaviness settling within her and a burning tension. She couldn’t seem to get close enough, couldn’t seem to touch him enough. Gasping for breath, she reached to tug at the busc of her corset, dropping the garment to the ground.
Almost immediately, Ethan’s palm closed over one breast. She groaned in relief, but her relief was short-lived. Rather than easing the ache within her, his touch only stoked the fires, causing her to strain against him. Instinctively, her fingers moved to the buttons of his trousers, fumbling with the unfamiliar fastenings.
Ethan broke away, arching his head back and gasping for breath. “Slow down, Lettie girl.”
“But I want you.”
Despite the drugging effects of their passion, he grinned. “And you’ll have me. Soon.”
Slipping his arms around her waist and beneath her knees, Ethan lifted her against him and carried her to the bunk on the far wall. After setting her on the fresh sheets and quilts the Beasleys had so thoughtfully provided, he stepped back and unfastened the buttons to his trousers. Then, turning to sit on the bed, he removed his boots and his socks.
Needing to touch him, Lettie pushed herself onto her knees, slipping her arms down his chest and bending low to place a string of kisses along his shoulders.
He reached up to wrap his arms around her neck, holding her there for one long, aching moment. But when Lettie arched backward to press her hips against his back, he groaned and twisted free.
Lettie shuddered at the unleashed passion she found deep in his eyes. Yet, for a moment, neither of them moved, neither of them breathed. Desire hung thick and tense about them like the heavy air just before a storm.
If Lettie had ever doubted that Ethan loved her, those doubts would have disappeared at that moment. He watched her now with a gaze that was dark and filled with a need that could only come from love. Not just a physical need, but a spiritual need as well.
Smiling, Lettie slowly lifted her hand and tugged on the satin ribbon of her camisole. The ribbons slipped free, bit by bit, then dropped between her breasts. The delicate cotton shifted against the firm swells of her breasts, and, since there was no fastening to the garment save the ribbon and a button at her waist, a creamy expanse of flesh lay bare to his gaze, nearly to her waist.
She saw the way he shuddered, the way he watched her every move. Then she fought to breathe herself as he reached out and, with a single questing finger, traced the flesh open to his gaze.
Her eyes flickered closed and she reached out to grasp his wrist, needing something to hold on to when, with a single touch, he sent her senses reeling. Then, as his hand paused, then slipped beneath the fabric of her camisole to cup her breast, she gasped, her fingers clenching around his wrist in support.
Ethan moved toward her, slipping the camisole from her shoulders. A sigh of delight escaped from his lips. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered, his voice rough from the labored quality of his breathing.
Basking in the adoration she saw in his eyes, Lettie released him and reached behind her to unfasten the button at the waist of her drawers. Beneath the power of his gaze, she twisted her hips, and her drawers dropped to her knees in a puddle of fabric.
Ethan moaned and pulled her tightly against him.
She wrapped her arms around his back and slid her hands beneath the waist of his trousers, filling her palms momentarily with the firm swells of his buttocks, then pushing the pants from his hips.
Obviously impatient and on the brink of losing any aspect of control, Ethan broke free and stepped from the last remaining barrier of clothing and drew Lettie tightly against him.
She reveled in the sensation of flesh against flesh, hardness to softness, rough to smooth. When Ethan took her weight and pressed her down upon the bunk, she willingly surrendered, her arms wrapping tightly around his shoulders.
His hand swept down her body from shoulder to thigh, then back again before he leaned toward her for a hungry kiss. Though they had only been separated for a handful of hours, the passion flared between them as if they hadn’t touched in years.
Straddling her hips, Ethan knelt above her, gazing down at the uneven rise and fall of her chest and the hectic flush of her skin. Slipping his hands beneath her shoulders, he drew her toward him and placed a kiss on the corner of her mouth, then the hollow of her ear. Her head arched back as his lips continued their tender torment down the line of her throat to the hollow of her collarbone. When his tongue flicked out to graze the tender skin, she clutched at his arms as he slowly lowered her against the ticking, trailing a moist path down to the hollow between her ribs.
For long, aching moments, he explored her with loving hands and gentle kisses. Each inch of her body seemed to pulse to life as he savored the softness of her skin and the womanly strength of her body. Soon her flesh seemed on fire and her hands clenched into the muscles of his shoulders, sifting through the damp curls of his hair.