With One Look (52 page)

The priest leaped forward, his voice reaching Jade and Tessie where they sat spellbound atop Ariel. Jade gasped as the woman swung her fist to knock the Bible from the poor man's hands.

"She is damned!"

"De devil be a-waitin'!"

So, the shouts and epithets began. The violent swing of her fist to the Bible proved her damnation to the crowd.

She was led to the top of the scaffold. Tessie forced herself to watch.

A murky dawn had lifted. The breeze rustled the tree-tops. The constable raised his hand and signaled the executioner. The rain suddenly pelted them as the noose was brought around her neck. For one brief moment Tessie closed her eyes, squeezing them shut against the sound of the executioner's ax against the rope, which held up the trapdoor.

Thunder roared overhead.

Then she was hanging. Tears clouded Jade's vision, so she didn't see Sebastian and Victor racing up on either side of her horse, but she heard their exclamations and curses. She wiped her eyes. A collected scream sounded as sheet lightning cracked in the sky, searching for and finding the highest point to the ground, striking the body where it swung in the wind....

Children screamed, women fainted, many more fell to their knees, clutching their rosary beads to their breasts. Jade herself brought the heavy handful of crosses and the small wooden Mary to her heart and closed her eyes to the sight. 'Twas over now. The nightmare had ended at last.

Samuel, the groom, was not waiting as Victor rode into the courtyard and dismounted, perspiration already pouring from his frame despite a swim minutes before. He was wet. The house seemed so quiet. All the shades were drawn against a hot noon sun burning through the clouds. The morning rain had offered only the most temporary respite from the heat. Moisture lifted from the ground in a hot mist. Clouds regrouped in the sky. With any luck, it would rain again.

Even the birds made no chatter, the oppressive weight of the heat sending them into a lethargic slumber. Lord, it was hot.

All the world had decided to nap through the worst of it. He closed the gate to let his horse wander the garden, too hot to walk him the short distance to the stables and certain he'd have to put him to a stall himself anyway. He made his way to the cistern in back, where he doused his face and neck in the tepid water.

The house was quiet. He climbed the stairs and slipped into his room. The curtains were drawn and it was dark, mercifully cooler because of it.

Jade slept on her side, a thin sheet covering her to the waist, her back to his gaze. Her dark hair was pulled back and woven into a tight braid that fell like a dark rope over the side of the bed. He had never found her sleeping in the middle of the day before, but the stifling heat combined with the last few days of celebrations: first of Tessie and Luke's marriage, and then a much longer and larger celebration of the success of his first riverboats, a celebration that over the months of planning had somehow turned into the largest social affair of the season.

The last guests had left just this morning.

A red rose lay on a small piece of paper on the night-stand. He recognized it immediately. The night before the celebration, Jade had finally managed to get to bed about midnight. He had

arrived minutes afterward only to find her quite soundly asleep. He didn't have the heart to wake her, though he certainly had the desire.

He always had the desire....

She had been gone when he woke up, and then people were arriving and she, Mercedes, Carl and Tessie were excited with a hundred details to attend to, all of it a whirl in his mind. Later, he was standing with a group of local bankers, discussing the season's cotton prices, and he had spotted her across the room.

How beautiful she was! Her long hair had been artfully arranged, accenting the delicate lines of her face and her thin brows lifted as she listened to her friends' chatter. His gaze lowered to her slender neck, the shoulders and curves revealed in the silk dress. Desire had struck him so hard, so forcefully, he suddenly could hardly understand the words swirling around him, and then she was there, lifting up on her tiptoes and whispering into his ear.

"What?"

"Yes," she swore passionately. "Anything ..."

A plainly wicked grin lifted his face. He knew, of course, that every bedroom in the house would be full of women fussing over their hair, or sleeping children, and all those who had enjoyed one too many glasses of wine or champagne. "Anything, sweetheart?"

She nodded, her eyes misting with the force and passion of her love. "Then meet me in the linen closet in five minutes."

Her eyes widened, and she looked confused. "The linen closet?"

Too late, he turned away, his attention snatched by Governor Claighborne.... The linen closet ...

Over a hundred people flowed through their doors.

The gala was a wild success. The morning rain had not put a damper on anything. But the garden was drenched and so most of the people, especially the ladies, gathered and collected inside.

The conversation had been interesting, what Jade could hear of it. Which was actually not much. Still, she nodded and laughed with the group of women who surrounded her. She was trying to remember which lady she was supposed to be friendly to—as the lady's husband was considering investing in one of Victor's new steamboats—and which was the woman Mercedes had told her was conducting an affair with Monsieur Floure, but it was nearly midnight now and after her third

glass of champagne she felt a little tipsy. Really, she could hardly hear over the music and the laughter.

Distractedly, Jade searched for her husband and spotted him across the room. He looked so handsome in formal black attire! And serious as he stared back with a strange intensity, as if—

Agnes passed with a tray of battered-fried shrimp and little cheese balls, and stopped to whisper, "The bottom layer of the cake bust! Just bust like that! Chachie's in a .tizzy. She says she told Mr. Sebastian ain't no one in town who can do a three-layer sugared sponge cake, but he won't listen to—"

"Tell Chachie the cake looks as if it's surrounded by a moat of cream." She returned her gaze across the room but he was gone.

"She told me that he said a man can't help but wander elsewhere to save his wife from doin'

... well, the unpleasant things that no decent women would do—"

Jade's attention abruptly focused on this. "What unpleasant things?"

The comment elicited patient amused stares from the rest of the women. "You know ..."

Jade had no idea. The conversation continued as she tried to imagine unpleasant things decent women didn't do that made their husbands wander. It fired up her imagination as erotic images danced dizzily through her mind, and yet none of these were things she would refuse to do.

There was nothing she wouldn't do for him! She would do anything! She would! She loved

him so!

Her thoughts brought a blush to her cheeks. She looked around, as if someone might be

eavesdropping, as if someone else could see the tightening in her chest and the rush of shivers up her spine.

She felt a lift of excitement. She pressed a kiss to Mercedes's cheek as she passed the artful array of half-eaten food on the table. She swiped a finger through the fallen layer cake. The finger went to her lips as she lifted the hem of her pretty rose silk gown over her slippers and practically raced up the stairs.

Bright lanterns lit the long empty hall. Voices rose from inside two of the bedrooms she passed, but no door opened. The hall remained deserted as her hand reached for the latch, pressed down and stepped into the dark room.

The delicious scent of fresh lemon and sachets filled the space. She shut the door. No light shone in this small room. She could barely make out the dark shape of his outline against the wall.

"Victor? 'Tis so dark...."

He first made no reply, but she felt the probing scrutiny through the dark quiet. Then: "Madame, you of all women have experienced the curious, effect darkness has on the other senses, have you not?"

Another shiver of excitement raced along her spine, and her breath caught as he took her hand and brought her to stand before him. He seemed so tall; she could hardly see his face, though she felt the heated desire of his gaze as his fingertips brushed her shoulders, reaching for and finding the back buttons of her gown. Her abdomen quickened with a spreading heat.

Her breath caught. "I compliment your resourcefulness." His lips found her neck. "I demand more. A reward." She whispered softly, "I am ever your servant!"

"For which, my love, I am eternally grateful."

His hands slid over her shoulders, drawing the silk straps off, sliding around to cup her breasts beneath her stays, pressing the uplifted swells even higher, so they spilled over the top in a lift of white softness. She gasped as her head fell back, offering her neck to his lips as his thumbs playfully teased the peaks to erect points. Warm firm lips kissed, and then bit, the curve of her neck, her shoulders, the lobe of her ear. Chills tingled in waves along her body.

"Kiss me.... Victor, please ..."

With a husky groan, he obliged, finding her pliant lips soft and parted to his demanding tongue, a welcome surrender to his plunder as he impatiently reached toward her knees, to explore beneath her gown. He expertly maneuvered through the flimsy undergarments. His caressing fingers moved between her legs, where he stroked, entered, and tested the secrets of her softer recesses, finding her shamefully open and welcoming.

She broke the kiss only to catch her breath and issue a soft cry of pleasure. Somehow her own hands were pulling apart his shirt front, reveling in the feel of his cool skin as if it were the height of luxury and pleasure—and it was, it was. She reached to his pants, unfastening the catch even as his large hands fitted around her buttocks and he was lifting her off her feet until his lips reached the rosy tips of her bare breasts, which flushed with passion as his lips and tongue sucked them to swollen fullness.

The world became a swirling of searching lips and demanding caresses. She was lifted higher, then his hard shaft pressed against her own opening desire. Burning sensations licked

through her abdomen as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her hungry lips to his as she felt him slowly fill her...

Jade felt his lips land on the curve of her cheek and a very real voice call her up from the sweet depth of love. "Jade Terese ..."

She opened her eyes to see the man who could land her on the very real shores of that erotic dream. Her already warm blood heated more and she slipped her arms around his neck to pull him to her. He leaned over and kissed her mouth. So tenderly, so sweetly did he kiss her, it caused a renewed spark to coil deep inside her.

He broke the kiss. "I've a present for you, sweetheart."

A smile curved her lips. She propped herself up on her elbows and glanced across the bedroom. "What is it?"

"You have to get up."

"Oh ..." She fell back against the bed. She felt toasty warm and drugged with sleep. All she wanted was him and nothing between them but a long lazy afternoon.

She seem to doze off again and he smiled. For a long moment, he just stared. His desire rose as he watched the lush offering of her naked body. He wanted her badly, but first she had to see his present; he had worked harder to obtain this gift than he had for any other thing in his life.

His arms fit under her and he lifted her from the bed. She opened her eyes with a gasp, coming full awake. "What is it?"

“A gift. It's out on the balcony."

One of the doors was open a bit. He carefully carried her through it to the balcony overlooking the garden. "There," he said quietly, pointing as he set her to her feet. "For you, Jade Terese."

She beheld it with a gasp. Her eyes widened to encompass a magnificent spectrum of sunlit colors arching from the distant sky over the garden. A rainbow. A real rainbow, more glorious than anything she ever imagined, and she stared with awe and wonder until the rain started falling and the rainbow shimmered and faded, and yet would never disappear. Not really. For the moment would live in her heart forever.

She turned to him, her arms sliding up and around his neck as he stared down into the lovely green eyes he loved.

"I love you…”

And the kiss that followed spoke sweetly and potently of this most precious gift....

*****

If you enjoyed reading this book, would it be possible for you to write a review at the place from which you purchased it? These reviews have been so kind to me and this means so much! Not only are they much appreciated, (I wish I could underline that!) but they help direct other readers to my stories.

One more thing: Be sure to try A Kiss In The Night, Forever and a Lifetime, Awaken My Fire, Passion’s Joy and Virgin Star, all five star romances.

THANK YOU!

Jennifer