The Haunting of Brier Rose

PATRICIA
SIMPSON

The Haunting of

B
rier
R
ose

85,000 words

Paranormal Romance

Then Tiny wept, and
said she would not marry the disagreeable mole.

"Nonsense,"
replied the field mouse. "Now don't be obstinate,

or
I shall bite you with my white teeth."

—
Thumbelina
, Hans Christian Andersen

To Noreen

For your special friendship

and
your knowledge of
secret worlds

within
and without.

Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1670

"Hurry!" Constance called. "We haven't much
time!"

Nathaniel stumbled up the trail, half-blind in the twilight, but
too worried about being discovered to carry a lantern. In the dwindling light,
he could just make out the white oval of Constance's face as she waited for him
near the sundial, her shawl and dress wafting around her in the late September
breeze, a small satchel at her feet. For a year he had courted her, suffering
the silent scrutiny of the Bastyr family, always conscious of their
watchfulness, their censure, their severe morality. And now for the first time
since he had spoken for her hand, he was meeting her alone. He broke through
the ring of oak trees that surrounded the small clearing and ran across the
grass, grateful for the full moon that illuminated his path.

"They didn't see you go?" he asked.

"I don't think so. But they'll soon miss me and come
looking. We've only a few minutes, Nathaniel."

He paused, suddenly unsure of himself. He had never embraced
Constance, never touched her hand,
never
kissed her.
She had always held herself back from him, worried that one little slip would
bring down the wrath of Seth Bastyr. Nathaniel knew she would rather die than
lose him to the Bastyrs' strict code of ethics.

"Connie!" A smile of welcome pulled at the corners of
his mouth. His gaze swept across her lovely pale face, made pale by the light
of the moon and her fear of being discovered in her tryst with Nathaniel.
Fright widened her cerulean eyes, parted her full lips, showing the barest
ridge of her flawless white teeth. Nathaniel stared at the mouth he had longed
to taste for the past year and the skin he had longed to caress for what seemed
like an eternity. He had lost count of the evenings spent sitting at the Bastyr
hearth, pretending to listen to Seth's sermons about colonial politics and the
moral decline in the New World, when all the while his every sense was trained
on twenty-year-old Constance Meybridge, the English bond servant and distant
relative of widower Seth Bastyr.

Now she was here alone, willing to cut every tie and run away
with him to Jamaica, and to become the bride of a man she had never even
kissed.

"Is everything ready?" she asked.

"Aye. We sail at dawn."

"Oh, Nathaniel, I'm frightened!" she exclaimed.

"Frightened? Why?"

"I'm afraid that it will never come to pass." She
looked over her shoulder and back at Nathaniel. "No matter what I do, Seth
seems to be watching, always watching!"

"Well, he isn't here now."

"How do you know? He could have followed me. Sometimes I
swear he can read my mind."

"No one can read your mind, Connie. Don't worry." He
grabbed her hands to reassure her. The contact of her warm fingers in his sent
a bolt of desire through him, as it must have for her, because she glanced up
at him sharply, her eyes darkening as her pupils widened. Was it her feelings
for him that darkened her eyes? Or alarm?

For a moment Nathaniel was at a loss for words, overcome by the
heady closeness and the sudden possibilities of being alone with her. He drew her
hands to his lips and kissed her fingers. "It will happen. We will be man and
wife tomorrow, Connie. Joined forever."

"I only wish tomorrow were here!" She closed her eyes
and lifted her face, her auburn lashes dark against her porcelain skin. God,
she was beautiful. How could he have found a woman so beautiful and yet so
innocent of the power of her beauty?

The chill wind blew through the oaks, singing softly in the
brittle leaves, lulling Nathaniel into a special world where the Bastyrs did
not exist, where contracts and duty had no place, where the declining morality
of the New World had no business interfering. All Nathaniel could see was the
surrender of her upturned face and the rise and fall of her breasts, and all he
could feel was the burning, undeniable hunger for her in his heart and loins.

"Connie!" He choked on the effort it took to speak.

Suddenly, after the long year of dreaming about her, aching for
her, living for her, she was in his arms, her soft woman's body pressed against
his hard male frame.

Like an untutored schoolboy, Nathaniel lost control of himself.
The response to her was instantaneous, overwhelming, a swelling of need so
great that be moaned in painful surprise. He had wanted a woman before, but he
had never waited this long to slake his desire. And with Constance, there was
so much more than simple desire. His feelings for her were like circles that
wound around each other, spiraling upward into glorious rapture, threatening to
set his heart to bursting.

"Connie!" he said against her lips, unable to put his
feelings into words. Nothing he could say would ever do justice to the way he
felt about her. He could say he loved her a million times, and he had declared
his love in previous encounters, but words could never convey what his body
longed to shout to her. He backed her against the edge of the huge granite slab
of the rustic sundial, pinning her between the stone and the undeniable flag of
his desire. He only hoped the raw honesty of his body would not scare her away
and
send
her running back to the Bastyr house.

As if to allay his fears, she wrapped her arms around his neck
and pulled him down to her sweet lips for a kiss that was so innocent and yet
so ardent that he melted inside, like a candle set too near the flame. His hat
fell off, but he paid it no mind. She wasn't afraid! He had known in his heart that
she shared his love. And her hesitant mouth and small trembling hands upon his
shoulders were proof of it.

"I've wanted to touch you for months," he breathed.

"And I you, Nathaniel!"

"Ah, love!" Nathaniel swept his hands down her back and
over her hips, fanning his hands over her skirt to press her into him. He
forced her back against the stone while she gasped, spreading her hands upon
his chest. "I want to touch you everywhere, know every inch of you."

He could not deny the truth of his love for her, nor would he
hide the fact that he wanted her as a man wants a woman. How he wanted her! His
blood roared through his ears, his mouth went dry, and his skin felt as if it
were aflame. All he could do to keep himself in check was to kiss her, deeply
and
passionately,
showing her with his tongue what he
longed to do to the innermost reaches of her.

"Nathaniel!" she cried, breaking away from his mouth.
Her lips were swollen, her eyes cloudy with passion, and her nipples hard and
erect, quite visible through the woolen homespun dress she wore. His body
surged anew at the sight of her. "We must stop! The Bastyrs—"

"They don't know you're here, love." His voice was
hoarse; his mouth felt as if it were stuffed with cotton. "And we'll have
no privacy on the ship."

"But—"

"Connie, I've waited more than a year just to touch you, to kiss
you. I can't wait any longer."

"We've got to go to the ship—"

He silenced her protests with his mouth, kissing her lips and
then her throat and ears. Her head rolled back, and she let out a moan of
pleasure as he put his hand on her sensitive breast and kneaded the firm rounded
flesh. He moved against her belly until he thought he would explode with
longing.

"I'm to be your husband, Connie, and you're to be my wife.
The captain on board will make us so. But we'll have no chance to be alone like
this. Not for weeks!"

"But, Nathaniel, what if Seth finds us?"

"He won't!"

She closed her eyes, moaning again when he pushed aside the shawl
and her fichu, exposing most of her left breast. Then he slipped his hand into
the furnace of her bodice and encompassed her breast with his hand.

"Nathaniel!" she gasped, her voice queerly constricted.

"I shall die of wanting you," he murmured, amazed at
the desperation he heard in his voice. "Let me come into you, Connie. Let
me."

He stepped into the apex of her legs, making his intentions even
more blatant than his verbal request. She raised her knee to accommodate him,
angling it alongside his thigh, and he growled with hunger as she presented the
more intimate position to him. Clutching her slender thigh with his left hand,
he dipped slightly and came up against the heat of her most guarded flesh for
the very first time. The contact, even through the layers of their clothing,
galvanized both of them.

"Yes, Nathaniel," she mouthed against his feverish
kisses. "Oh—"

He was barely conscious of rational thought. All the months she
had tempted him beyond reason without the slightest intention on her part,
driven him crazy simply by her gaze, were about to come to a screeching,
glorious halt. Tomorrow she would be his wife. But tonight she would be his
lover. He reached for the skirt of her dress, yanking it upward. He had to
strip away all barriers until he felt her hot, moist flesh enclosing his own.

"Please..." Her voice trailed off as he cupped her with
his hand and found that she was ready for him.

He fumbled with the buttons of his breeches. The mere touch of
his own hand as he unfastened the flap nearly sent him over the brink. He was
breathing heavily in anticipation before he even freed himself.

Constance's hands pushed into his hair, capturing him as she
kissed him in answer. He felt the surrender in her slender frame, in the press
of her thumbs at his temples, her fingers behind his ears. His tongue met hers
as he lifted her off the ground and let her slide over the hard planes of his
body in a rehearsal of the moment to come.

Then he felt for the ties of her bodice and unfastened than as he
showered desperate kisses on her throat. She moved beneath him, all fragile
warmth and softness, as he peeled away her somber layers of homespun to reveal
the ivory perfection of her body.

He could hear the rush of blood in his ears over their tortured
breathing, and was barely aware of an echo behind him, as if the wind and
leaves were chanting in time with his heart. Constance stood before him in her
chemise, her head thrown back, her eyes closed. Just as he reached for her,
something caught his arms, stayed his hands, and then he was jerked
unceremoniously away.

Nathaniel twisted around, shocked to see figures in black robes
standing in a semicircle around them, chanting.

Constance saw a tall robed figure stride up to the sundial. She
grabbed her discarded skirt and held it to her breasts, mortified that she had
been caught nearly naked, while Nathaniel hastily buttoned his breeches.

"Seducer!" the robed figure hissed.
"Fornicator!"

Constance recognized the dry tone of Seth Bastyr's voice and felt
another flush of mortification tinged with fear. He
had
known she had left the house. He
had
been watching her. Swallowing her fear, she stared at him, willing
her hands to remain steady and her eyes to remain clear of fright. She hated
Seth Bastyr and wouldn't allow him the satisfaction of seeing her cower in his
presence. But why he was dressed in the strange black robe?

Nathaniel, unarmed and defenseless, tried to shake off his
captors, but the two men only yanked back his arms.

"Leave him be!" Constance cried, seeing pain flare in
his face. "He meant no harm!"

"Meant no harm? He nearly took thy virginity!"

She flung back her hair. "I'm not a child, Seth Bastyr, I'm
a woman. And I have chosen Nathaniel as my husband."

"'Tis not a choice for thee to make!" Seth thundered.
His black eyes were wild. She had never seen him so agitated. His cold glance
raked her from her toes up to her tousled head, where her red hair had come
undone in the throes of passion. Constance felt a blush creep up her neck.

He smiled knowingly, which increased her embarrassment.

"I have gone to great lengths for thee, Constance," he
said, stepping closer. "And thou art mine to command."

"You have no legal hold on Connie," Nathaniel retorted.
"Her contract is fulfilled."

"'Tis not fulfilled yet." Seth turned on Nathaniel.
"There remains one night before she is free."

"A night cannot matter overmuch." Nathaniel pulled away
from his captors. "Come, Connie."

With a metallic swish, Seth drew a saber from the folds of his
woolen robe and held it out to block Nathaniel. "Not so quickly, Nathaniel
Cooper. Constance is not leaving with thee."

"Yes she is. We have made plans to marry."

"Constance will become a bride tonight, but not to
thee."

Shocked, Constance turned to stare at Seth. The Bastyrs expected
her to marry someone? Seth had not mentioned the fact. The Bastyrs rarely
discussed anything. In fact, they rarely spoke at all.

"Wh-what are you saying?" Constance stammered.
"That you intend to keep me here against my will?"

"Against thy will, dear Constance?" He smiled again, a
smile that echoed his humorless voice. "Where did thee get the notion that
thee would be dissatisfied?''