Forbidden

Forbidden

By

Julia Keaton

(c) copyright by Julia Keaton, January
2010

Cover art by Eliza Black, (c) January
2010

Published by New Concepts
Publishing

Smashwords Edition

ISBN 1-978-60394-407-6

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All
characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and
not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or
events is merely coincidence.

Prologue:

Dear Damon,

I’ve never been one to beat around the
bush, so my bluntness now should come as no surprise. I might not
have long left and I find that I need your help most
desperately…

∞

Blood.

The thing about it was, what most
people seemed to forget, or what they simply never considered, is
that blood is warm.

It’s hot.

It burns.

Because it comes from another living,
breathing, human being, encased in its flesh from the very moment
it was brought squirming and miserable into the world.

In Damon’s fevered nightmares the
liquid flames of hell coursed though his veins and pumped through
his heart, squirmed in his brain and burned away the forgiving
oblivion sleep should have brought.

But there was no forgiveness … there
was no rest.

There was, he admitted to himself as he
woke screaming into the night, no peace.

For a moment all he could do was sit
there, breathing ragged as he tried to remember who and where he
was. The nightmare was always the same and he ran shaking hands
down his sweat soaked face in an attempt to drive the lingering
images from his mind. After so many years, he thought the scenes
would have lost some of their clarity, but instead it seemed as if
they’d become even more focused. As if he’d been deceiving himself
and only now the full force of what he’d lost and what he’d done
hit him. Shaking his head at his own stupidity, Damon got up from
his bed, sheets sticking to the sweat on his back and legs before
he shook them off so that he could walk over towards his wardrobe
unhindered.

Just as the dreams never changed, his
response to them remained the same as well. What he needed was
Isabella. To feel her hot breath on his face and her gentle mouth
on his fingers. Her muscles moving and stretching between his
thighs as he gripped the silky strands of her hair and let his mind
float away empty and clean.

Isabella would make it
better.

Isabella would make it
right.

If only for a little while.

∞

“Did you miss me?”

Isabella mouthed a loose strand of his
hair as he leaned his face against the side of her head. Her big
brown eyes were earnest and a little sleepy since it was still so
early in the morning.

“Sorry to wake you up, but it’s been
one of those nights, Bell.”

It was eerie how the horse butted him
softly with her nose as if she understood enough of his turmoil to
offer sympathy. For a moment he just stood there, letting the
weight of her sink into his chest before he pulled himself together
and stepped away to saddle her. He was growing more than a little
pathetic if he was trying to assuage his loneliness with Bell. He
had made his decision a long time ago and it was best to learn to
live with it. He refused to suffer like he had after Orissa, and
the best way to prevent that from happening was to keep his head
clear.

Damon only needed two things in life.
Himself and the crops, and he wouldn’t be adding one more thing to
his list of regrets simply because he’d been too sentimental to
remember that.

He gave Bella her head once they’d
crossed the creek bed. The fields that surrounded his plantation
would make good farming ground. His holdings were small and it was
high time he expanded, however, with the space the crops took up,
his own house and stables, plus the servant’s houses, he had little
to no room to ride Isabella. While it was selfish of him, he wasn’t
ready to let this last bit of freedom go.

He rode on until well past morning,
mind wandering as he watched the rising sun cut through the mist
hovering over the wet ground. He let Bella roam as she pleased and
was unsurprised by the amount of preening and prancing the horse
was able to accomplish in such a short time despite the lack of
audience.

Though he regretted it, he signaled to
Bella that it was time to head back to the house and it was while
she was trotting up the drive that he heard someone call out behind
him.

Looking over his shoulder, Damon reined
Bella to a halt. She pranced in place for a bit, impatient and not
at all happy to note the strange horse and rider plodding up to
meet them.

“Thank god I caught you. I seem to be a
bit lost. This wouldn’t be the Burleigh plantation would
it?”

Damon’s head canted to one side as he
regarded the too skinny messenger with his shifty eyes and greasy
hair.

“It is.” He answered in a relatively
neutral voice.

The man’s rat like face collapsed in
relief. “Wonderful, you’re one of the workers here
then?”

“You could say that.”

Reaching into the saddlebag slung over
the rump of his horse, he pulled forth a wrinkled white
envelope.

“I have a message for the master of the
house there. Take me to him.”

Settling comfortably in his saddle once
again, the messenger straightened his spine and let his face smooth
out in what Damon assumed he thought to be an aristocratic
expression. Damon watched him, unmoving, until the man realized he
had no intention of leading him up the driveway and to the main
house. Smiling a bit, Damon reached out one large callused hand and
snapped his fingers, devilishly pleased when the man
bristled.

“I’ll be taking that now if you don’t
mind.”

“This letter belongs to Damon Burleigh
and I couldn’t possibly be so lax in my duties that I would and
it--”

“If it’s about your pay,” Damon
interrupted, “I’ll be happy to send one of the servants into town
to settle the debt later on today.”

He smiled into the man’s eyes and
watched him pale. “But in the meantime I’ll be taking my
letter.”

* * * *

Jocelyn Holbrooke liked to
dance.

If you asked anyone who lived in
Richmond about the Holbrooke girls they would tell you,

“The older girl’s a dancer, a
ballerina. You’ve never seen a more beautiful sight until you’ve
watched her spinning around the ballroom on the tips of her toes.
And the little one, Ava? She’s a painter. Takes after her poor
deceased Mother may God rest her soul.”

So up in her room, her little Ava wept
over her paints, while Jocelyn … Jocelyn danced.

After so many years the routine had
become instinctual, so much so, that she no longer had to
concentrate or really even think about them before her body moved
to obey the instinctual rhythm.

First position, second position,
pirouette and stop.

From fifth position move into a tondeu
to the side and go on to the fourth position.

Now three turns, and stop.

Stop.

STOP!

Wrong.

Again.

From fifth, tondeu, forth, passé and
turn three times. Eyes focused on one point so that the head whips
forward to that spot each time. Focus, focus, focus.

A’ la hauteur, ninety % angle,
Arabesque. Now keep it. Bring the leg down into attitude en
pointe.

Fifth position, fourth position, third,
second, and first.

Stop.

It was all wrong.

All of it.

She was supposed to go see the
performance being held at the theatre next month. Whenever the
dancers came her father always took her to see them.

“Stupid papa, you promised. I really
wanted … I really wanted to see--”

Jocelyn’s gut twisted and her lower lip
began to tremble even though she tried to force it not to. Her head
throbbed, her chest ached, and her throat burned as if some phantom
had come and tried to rip it out.

“Stupid … Stupid papa.” Her voice
trailing off, Jocelyn ran a shaking hand beneath her nose and as
she was lowering herself into the position for Battements Tendus
she found the strength leaving her legs and before she knew it she
was sitting on the cool surface of the ballroom floor.

Then the tears came, hot, scalding,
punishing. And her throat ached, and her chest throbbed, and the
twisting pain in her stomach tightened until she felt as if she
might die.

Chapter one:

I know I’m dumping a lot on you all at
once but you’re a good man. One of the best I know, and always have
been, even before that bloody mess in India. I believe that more
than anyone, I can trust you with my girls, my most precious
treasures.

“Miss?”

Jocelyn barely controlled her small
sound of surprise as the doorman’s voice broke the oppressive
silence in the drawing room. She smoothed her skirts and made sure
to blank her expression before she looked over her shoulder at
Jeremy.

“What is it?”

“There’s a carriage coming Miss. The
stable boy saw it as he was out with the horses.”

This was indeed strange news. With the
death of their father people had been coming from all over to pay
their respects this was true. It had only been a week since his
death, but even so, everyone he’d ever met or locked eyes with had
come knocking on their door. That an unfamiliar carriage should
appear was nothing new.

What was, was that the carriage, and
the one driving it, had roused enough concern in the staff to have
them come and speak to her of it. Usually they simply waited until
whomever was calling had come knocking on the door before they
announced their arrival, not wanting to disturb the young
mistresses of the house any more than necessary.

She frowned. From across the room Ava
looked up from her sketch pad with dull eyes. Questioning, she
looked at Jocelyn.

“Who on earth--”

As one their eyes widened and they
leaned toward each other, blatantly ignoring the distance that
separated them.

“He must have heard about it by now,
right?” Ava said, setting her sketch pad on the table beside
her.

“He must have. It’s the only
explanation.”

Ava stood and walked to the window,
pulling aside the drapes to peer out the window. “Papa talked about
him all the time.”

Jocelyn nodded, moving beside her. A
little thrill quivered in her belly. “They were best
friends.”

“And if he left right after he got the
news--”

“And traveled hard and packed
light--”

“He might have been able to make it
here by today.”

They stared at each other, hopeful and
shamelessly excited, before Jocelyn reminded herself not to be so
childish. So it was a strange carriage, so what? Chances were it
wasn’t whom they hoped it would be and getting her hopes up only to
have them crash down again would be too much after everything else
that had happened. Ava seemed to sense her change of mood because
the dark blue eyes that had been twinkling a moment before glossed
over once again as she sat back in her chair and went back to her
sketches.

Sighing, Jocelyn turned from the window
and noticed that Jeremy still stood politely in the doorway. She
flushed, embarrassed that she’d forgotten about him so quickly. Her
father would have never done something like that. John Holbrooke
had been a man who was meticulous from his days as a soldier and
never slacking when it came to people and the little details. You
couldn’t expect to run an entire plantation, raise two children by
yourself, as well as manage investments if you forgot as simple a
thing as a footman in the doorway.