A Season of Seduction (47 page)

Gently, he pulled away. Becky blinked, and he came into focus. Dark shadows loomed behind him. Garrett, she realized, was scowling at them. Tristan, too, though his expression was somewhat more benevolent. Kate, Sophie, Cecelia, Lord Stratford, and the children crowded around to congratulate them. Her cheeks heated, but Jack smiled at her, and she couldn’t help grinning back.

Epilogue

O
n New Year’s Eve, the weather was cool but not frigid. Last week’s wind had given way to calmness, and most of the Christmas snow had already melted. After they made certain their luggage had been packed in their cabin, and their servants—Josie and Sam had volunteered to go with them to America—were properly situated, Jack and Becky huddled together on deck beneath a blanket. The sailors went about their duties behind them, silent for the most part except for an occasional harsh order from a superior.

“Good-bye, England,” Becky whispered as the
Washington
slipped through the waves and the busy Portsmouth waterfront vanished into the fog.

Jack tightened his arm around her. Since they’d married, he’d felt a swirling combination of jubilation and guilt for taking Becky away from everything and everyone she’d ever known. The guilt had intensified when he’d witnessed their tearful good-byes.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I know how much it hurts you to leave your family.”

She smiled wistfully. “They are all that I’ve ever had, until now. But I know that they will always be herefor me. We will write to one another. I hope that someday, when we are settled, some of them will visitus.”

“I hope they will.”

She leaned against his left side, her warmth permeating the thick wool of the blanket he’d wrapped around their shoulders.

“Jack?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think Tom Wortingham will survive?”

Jack sighed. “I honestly don’t know. In his warped way, Tom cannot forget Anne. He always loved her, but she never returned his affection. Not in the way he wanted. And he was never able to move beyond that.”

“Even if she had returned his affection,” Becky mused, “he was only a vicar’s son, and she was untouchable.”

Jack’s chest went tight in mourning for the loss of his one-time friend. “Yes, exactly. His actions were his means of vengeance, rooted in jealousy and competitiveness. And what did he gain from them? He had no money, no vocation, for he never followed his father’s footsteps and took orders. He dwelled only in the past. How long can a man live in such a state?”

“But now there is hope for him.”

“There might be.”

“What about you?” she asked quietly. “Do you dwell in the past?”

In a way he had. When he returned to England the memories had surged back, and Tom’s blackmail had pushed those memories to the forefront. But now they were sailing away from Tom, away from the past, away from England. He was gliding toward a new life, with a woman he loved beyond his wildest imaginings.

Jack sighed, and with the release of breath, he released the last vestiges of those feelings he’d kept bottled up inside for so long. Anger, grief, guilt, bitterness, despair. All of it blew away, leaving him clean and whole, and ready to live again.

“No,” he murmured. “I don’t dwell in the past. Not anymore.”

She sighed contentedly, and he continued. “Tom has existed in a perpetual state of anger and resentment. He believes happiness is unattainable.”

“That is sad.” She slid him a glance, her eyes reflecting the blue-gray of the ocean. “Yet despite his unhappiness, I cannot bring myself to like him. He caused you to be accused of a crime for which I cannot fault you. No one could, if they knew the story behind it.”

“The law could.”

Becky shivered, and he moved to stand behind her, wrapping the blanket around them both, careful of his shoulder, which still hurt like hell whenever anything touched it. She clutched its ends together in front of her while he slipped his good arm around her waist and rested his chin atop her blue velvet bonnet.

“Are you warm enough, sweetheart?”

“Yes.” She paused, and her stomach drew inward as she sucked in a breath. “Jack?”

“Hm?”

“I… should tell you something.”

His skin prickled at the hesitation in her voice. “Oh? What is it?”

“I…” Dropping the blanket, she turned within the circle of his arm and looked into his face. Her changeable eyes had deepened and darkened. “I think… well, I might be with child.”

Everything went still and hollow. Nothing seemed to move. Even the ship seemed to pause in its glide through the waves.

Finally, he found his voice. “Is… is that what you want?”

“I…”

“I mean, are you happy?”

Pressing her lips together, she nodded.

He touched a fingertip to her stomach. “Our child?”

“Yes. I am not certain it has truly happened… but I’ve read about the symptoms—” a pink flush suffused her cheeks, “—and they are all there. I’d been distracted and hadn’t noticed…”

He pressed his hand flat over the thick, dark layers of her stays, bodice, and coat. Shouldn’t she have told him sooner? Was she frightened he wouldn’t want to marry her if he discovered she was with child? He shook his head, confused.

“How long have you known?”

“Since Christmas. Moments before I came downstairs to… marry you.” She shifted uncomfortably and looked up at him, a frown creasing her brow. “Everything has been too hectic since then, what with arranging for everything and saying our good-byes to everyone. I was waiting for the right time to tell you.” She hesitated. “Are you unhappy?”

“God, no. No, Becky. I…” He swallowed hard. “I’ve never been happier.”

She buried her face in his coat. “I’m happy, too,” she murmured, her voice muffled. “So happy.”

“I love you,” he said fiercely.

The ship seemed to resume its smooth motion, and he saw glimpses of the shoreline through the fog as they moved away from England and toward their new life. One he would spend every moment savoring.

She shuddered.

“Are you still cold?”

“A little.”

“Let me take you below. Your maid said there would be some tea ready. That should warm you.”

She looked into his eyes, and her lips curved into a beautiful smile. A seductive indigo sparkle lit her eyes. “Nothing can warm me as you do, Jack.”

Her words heated him from the inside out. His heartbeat thrummed through his veins, flushing his skin. “Well, then,” he said with a grin, “I’d best lock the door.”

He led her down to their sumptuously appointed cabin, and as promised, he drew the bolt behind them. Turning back to face the interior of the room, he smiled at Becky as she untied the ribbons of her bonnet. Steam wafted lazily from a silver tea service set on the table, but he ignored it.

Jack tugged the bonnet from his wife’s head, tossed it aside, then pulled her into his arms and proceeded to warm her.

Thoroughly.

After five years in the West Indies,
Serena is back in London.
But so is the one person she never
expected to see again…
Jonathan Dane—her very own
original sin.

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Confessions of
an Improper Bride

the first book in Jennifer Haymore’s
sensual new series!

Available in 2011.

Off the coast of Antigua

July, 1822

S
erena had not slept well since the ship had left Portsmouth. Eventually, the roll of the
Victory
always lulled her into a fretful sleep, but before then she’d lie awake for hours next to her sleeping sister, her mind tumbling over the ways she could have managed everything differently. How she might have saved herself from becoming a pariah.

Tonight was different. She’d started off the same, lying beside a sound-asleep Meg and thinking about Jonathan, about what she might have done to counter the force of the magnetic pull between them. Sleep had never come, though, because a lookout had sighted land yesterday afternoon, and Serena and Meg would be home tomorrow. Home to their mother and younger sisters, and bearing a letter from their aunt that detailed her disgrace.

Meg shifted, then rolled over to face Serena, her brow furrowed, her gray eyes unfocused from sleep.

“Did I wake you?” Serena asked in a low voice.

Meg rubbed her eyes and twisted her body to stretch her back. “No, you didn’t wake me,” she said on a yawn. “Haven’t you slept at all?”

When Serena didn’t answer, her twin sighed. “Silly question. Of course you haven’t.”

Serena tried to smile. “It’s near five. Will you walk the deck with me before the sun rises? One last time?”

The sisters often rose early and strode along the deck before the ship awakened and the bulk of the crew made its appearance for morning mess. Arm in arm, talking in low voices and enjoying the peaceful beauty of the sun rising over the bow of the ship, the two young ladies would stroll along the wood planks of the deck, down the port side and up the starboard, pausing to watch the sun rise over the stern of the
Victory
.

What an inappropriate name, Serena thought, for the ship bearing her home as a failure and a disgrace. She’d brought shame and humiliation to her entire family. “Rejection,” “Defeat,” or perhaps “Utter Failure,” would serve far better for a ship returning Serena to everlasting spinsterhood and dishonor.

Serena lit the lantern and they dressed in silence. It wasn’t necessary to speak—Serena could always trust her sister to know what she was thinking and vice-versa. They’d slept in the same bedroom their whole lives, and they’d helped each other dress since they began to walk.

After Serena slid the final button through the hole at the back of Meg’s dress, she reached for their cloaks hanging on a peg and handed Meg hers. It was midsummer, but the mornings were still cool.

When they emerged on the
Victory’
s deck, Serena tilted her face up to the sky. Usually at this time, the stars cast a steady silver gleam over the deck, but not this morning. “It’s overcast,” she murmured.