“Never about babies. Now, say something to your poor wretch of a husband. He looks ready to collapse.”
But Chauncey said, “I forgot to ask you where you got your nickname. Now you’ll probably never tell me.”
It was Saint who brought Alexandra Aurora Saxton downstairs to the assembled group.
“I am so relieved,” Byr
ony said to her husband sometime later as she climbed into bed beside him. “Such a beautiful child. She looks like the female counterpart of Del.”
“Chauncey’s labor was blessedly short,” Brent said, as if in surprise. “Of course she had a doctor and her husband with her.”
He turned beside her and took her into his arms. “What is this thing? A nightgown on my bride?”
“It’s cold.”
“I can guarantee you’ll be sweating soon enough.”
“So, the stallion is ready to mount his mare?”
The hand stroking the nape of her neck stilled. I won’t fill her with my seed, Brent thought. I can’t. He released her abruptly and turned onto his back, his arms pillowing his head.
“What is this?” Byrony asked, balancing herself on her elbow above her husband. “You wish the mare to mount the stallion?”
“I’m tired,” Brent said, not looking at her. “Let’s go to sleep. There’s a lot to be done tomorrow if we want to leave for New Orleans on Friday.”
She moved closer and he felt her breasts against his chest. He gritted his teeth. “No, Byrony.”
Byrony realized what was on his mind. He was afraid she would become pregnant. He was afraid she might die, and he would hold himself responsible. She was utterly relieved to learn that his wish for her not to become pregnant was because of his terrible experience and not because he didn’t want to stay with her. At least that’s what she thought were his motives. “Very well,” she said. She slowly, gently spread her fingers over his chest, tangling them in the soft tufts of black hair. “You feel so warm.” He was very still beneath her hand. Her fingers drifted downward.
“No, Byrony.” He sounded like a drowning man even to his own ears.
“Why, Brent? If you are worried that I’ll become pregnant, I will accept that. But why shouldn’t I give you pleasure?”
Her fingers closed over him at that moment, and he trembled with the shock of it. She felt him swell in her hand. “Felice told me that men liked this,” she said, her warm breath on his belly. He felt her hair streaking over his chest, down over his groin, and then he felt her mouth close over him. He nearly leapt off the bed.
He thought he’d die.
“I love how you feel and how you taste.”
His fingers were in her hair, and he knew it was nearly over for him. Her inexperience and her obvious interest in what she was doing to him were an exhilarating combination. “Byrony.” He moaned again. “Oh God.”
He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to control. “Stop it, Byrony, now.” His chest was heaving as he pulled her off him and onto her back. He felt her legs close about his hips, felt her tremble as his fingers found her. “You’d make a saint forget himself.” He went deep into her. His control was nearly gone and when he would have pulled out of her, she closed her thighs tightly about his flanks and arched upward.
“I’m giving you nothing,” he panted. “Byrony, you’re my wife.”
There was a wealth of possessiveness in his voice, and to her surprise, Byrony felt her body respond. She was enjoying her power over him until that moment. She wrapped her arms around his back. When his tongue was inside her mouth just as his sex was in her body, she cried out, unable to help herself. He took her soft, keening wails into his mouth, and forgot his fear, forgot everything but her, his wife, her pleasure, and his.
She raised her face and kissed him. She nestled close, and said sleepily, “There’s so much to be done tomorrow if we’re to leave on Friday.”
“I can’t believe it,” he said more to himself than to her as he fitted her against the length of his body. “Seduced by a very proper little lady.”
TWENTY-FOUR
Laurel Hammond breathed in the sweet scent of magnolia blossoms as she walked from her small music room at the back of the house into the garden. A glorious day, she thought, neither too warm nor too humid. She walked slowly through the garden toward the gardenia bushes. She would pick the blossoms for Mammy Bath, bossy old crone, to make her more perfume. The meager supply Drew had dutifully bought her from Paris was gone. The thought of Drew brought a frown. He was a grown man, damn him, yet he was so slippery—no, elusive. If she dared question him, he called her “Stepmama.” She hated that.
As she plucked the gardenias and laid them in her small wicker basket, her thoughts went inevitably to Brent. No word, nothing. It had been well over six months since his father’s death. She had to assume that he’d been notified by the lawyers, for after all, Drew knew he was in San Francisco. Why hadn’t he written? She’d wondered so many times what kind of a man he’d become. What did he think of her? Did he hate her? After nine long years? Of course he couldn’t. It had been he who had seduced her, after all. It hadn’t been her fault, not really. She’d just been so lonely, so unhappy with her husband, cold, domineering Avery.
The will, that wretched document. Laurel shivered under the shade of a huge moss-strewn oak tree, and walked into the bright sun. Drew, insolent bastard, had dared to laugh when that pompous, bewhiskered old fool Mr. Jenkins had read it aloud to them in the library two days after the funeral. She’d been too surprised to say anything, too surprised and too frightened. She dropped a gardenia onto the green grass. The fear was still there.