Trust Me (44 page)

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“Well, guess what? I LOVED this novella by Natasha Blackthorne titled
A
Midsummer’s Sin
! It was lush, sexy with a story that warmed my heart. The
best of all was how the author managed to give me a satisfying story within a
novella, which doesn’t happen to me often. I also appreciated the author’s
flowing writing style a lot.

A
Midsummer’s Sin
has
a very erotic yet different and beautiful storyline with an appropriate
setting. It’s a story of two seemingly mismatched souls healing each-other and
becoming one...”
 
~ Punya Reviews

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“I
love Natasha's writing. It’s full of emotion without getting sappy, and
chock-full of historical details without losing sight of the story. Her
characters are rich and believable...I loved the hero, flawed but incredibly
masculine and passionate. I highly recommend this book to others who love
historical romance with a seriously erotic kick.” ~ Author Patricia Green

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“I'm
truly hooked on Natasha's works! I’ve not read much historical in my life, but
have read a lot of romance and erotica. She meshes them all into sensual,
seductive and touching stories that she has perfected telling ;)...This is a
very powerful, short and satisfying read that I recommend to all and any that
enjoy a sensually thrilling, historical story.” ~
 
Romance Book Junkies

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“One
of the things I love about a Natasha Blackthorne historical is her unusual time
periods and locations…in this ultra-religious community, their union is
strictly forbidden, so each encounter takes place either in the woods or the
barn, making this the steamiest of summer sizzlers!” ~ Melissa’s Mysteries,
Mocha's and More

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A MIDSUMMER'S SIN was honored with the “Recommended Read” award by
Two Lips Reviews:

 
“…a very sensual but romantic love story, and
having the hero as a Puritan with specific views of sex and marriage, and the
heroine a person with the same views though skewed by her own experiences only
makes their struggle to find some common ground that much more dramatic.” ~ Two
Lips Reviews.

~~

”Natasha Blackthorne spins a sweet tale of love and sin on a Midsummer's
night...two unlikely lovers together for one glorious night...” ~ Sensual Reads

He loved her but for all the wrong
reasons...Can a former harlot and devout Puritan find forgiveness and love?

Goodman Thomas Marlowe needs a wife. He loves
his neighbour’s bondswoman Rosalind Abramson but for all the wrong reasons. The
carnal passion he feels for her is at odds with his vision of the perfect
marriage—something shaped by the memory of the pure, pious union he shared with
his late wife. Valiantly, he fights to keep his feelings hidden.

Rosalind yearns for the handsome Goodman
Marlowe. Yet beneath his kind action lies a cool distance that tells her he
cannot forgive Rosalind’s shameful past. She’s determined to deny an infatuation
with a man who will never respect her.However,

Thomas cannot focus on finding a bride
while the unsuitable Rosalind is always so close and so alluring. Now he’s
about to take a teaching position in another town. It’s the perfect escape for
a man tormented by unacceptable desire.

Late one night, in the midst of a summer’s
hot spell, Thomas spies Rosalind in the woods, clad only in her shift, dancing
in the moonlight. It’s really more than a man celibate for three years can
bear. Thomas is in danger of falling into a sin so powerful it threatens to
challenge everything he believes in…

Excerpt
From
A Midsummer’s Sin

Copyright © Natasha Blackthorne,
2012, 2013

Chapter
One

New Balcombe, Massachusetts Bay Colony

Summer, 1690

She was clad in only her shift. Moonlight
illuminated the thin cloth into a shimmering veil. The glowing ivory of her
gentle, generous curves, hints of rose-pink nipples, a shadowy triangle between
her long, lithesome legs—all teased Thomas’ imagination. Blood rushed from his
head to fill his cock. Heart thundering, he leaned against the tree. He barely
dared to take a steadying breath lest the vision of that girl dancing in the
clearing might disappear and prove itself a mere figment of his long-starved
lust.

Dear sweet Christ. Not since his days at
Oxford had he seen a woman’s body displayed so wantonly, then only in dimly
lit, rented chambers. Never in brilliant moonlight. The wind calmed. The
rustling leaves of the tall trees grew silent. Her laughter carried to him. The
sound—so free, so girlish—sent pleasurable shivers through him, sensual and
immediate, as if a woman had raked her nails softly down his back. His erection
throbbed, getting bigger, stiffer, straining his breeches. Sweating, he grasped
himself and gave his aching shaft a firm squeeze. God. It was more than a man,
a widower of over a year, could bear. More so for Thomas. Physical passion had
repulsed his wife. For his beloved Patience’s sake, after the conception of his
son, he’d left her in peace. Now he’d been three years without the ease of a
woman’s soft, warm body…That girl—Rosalind Abramson—was everything he craved.
She was within reach. They were alone.

He wanted to go her. To seize her. To crush
that beguiling body against his own. No! He released his cock and took a deep
steadying breath. He’d learned how to master his passions. He was a Puritan
now, no longer a libertine. He would not yield. He closed his eyes, but all he
saw was hair burning like flames in the noon sun. He was taken back to a little
over a year previously when he had been riding in a carriage on a squalid
London street.

He had been with his family, on
his way to board the
Abigail
for Boston. His son had taken ill from the stench of the docks and had
forced the stopping of the vehicle. Thomas stood outside the vehicle, talking
with the driver as they allowed the interior to air. He looked up and saw her.
Rosalind. She wore no head covering—her curls bounced wildly as she ran towards
him. She held her skirts—the most garish hue of green he’d ever beheld—high
enough to display trim ankles and well-turned calves clad in pale pink silk
stockings that gave her legs the appearance of being completely bare. She
lifted her knees and run like a boy. A fine sheen of sweat sparkled on her
flushed face and on the exposed tops of her generous breasts.

Thomas inhaled deeply and pinched the bridge
of his nose, willing the memory away. But the image only intensified.

She had increased her pace,
though it didn’t seem possible for anyone, much less a woman, to move that
quickly. She came upon him so fast and close, he thought she meant to crash
into him. His man’s body, so starved for the touch of feminine flesh, longed to
feel her body colliding with his. Such desire—it held him immobile. At the last
moment, as she turned, bypassing him, her eyes, dark brown and large, caught
his—full of terror—he could feel it reverberate in his own bones… His heart
contracted with sympathy. As she hauled herself into the open carriage door, a
whoosh of air, scented with roses and musk, blew over him. The carriage where
his wife had waited.

The crack of a branch snapped. Drawn into
the present, he opened his eyes.
 
She
was still there. Dancing in the moonlight. Half naked. As his neighbour’s
bondswoman, Rosalind was always so close, so desirable yet so utterly
uninterested in him. She was warm and friendly to others yet she dealt with him
differently. She often acted aloof, slightly superior, as if he’d never done
her any kindness.

But now she shared all with him, however
unwittingly. They were alone. Alone. A single chance to have her without risk
of discovery. There would be no consequences. He need only reach out and take.
He inhaled deeply. Dear God, give him the strength to resist.

Seemingly unaware of him and lost to her
enjoyment, she laughed again. And that did it. His cock became so rigid that
his arousal was agonising. However, this wasn’t simply lust. He loved Rosalind.
He adored the nut-brown freckles that spattered across her cheeks as summer
days grew long and hot. The way tendrils of her bright hair constantly escaped
her cap to flutter about her face and the way they grew frazzled on rainy days.
The curve of her smile and the timbre of her voice and the lazy sway of her
walk. He knew all about her, what she’d been—an actress, a woman of easy
virtue. It didn’t matter. She captivated him. He couldn’t even imagine marrying
anyone else.

Nevertheless, Rosalind was not the wife for
him. He loved her, aye with every breath he took he loved her more but in all
the wrong ways. To even think of wedding her—after the pure, pious love he’d
shared with Patience—was a sacrilege. How could he even think of making a
former actress his beloved daughter Hannah’s stepmother? God save him. His past
was full of sensual, sinful decadence. He’d filled his time with nothing but
transgressions before Patience had saved him with the example of her steadfast
faith and love. He had been so inspired by her. By the peace her religion gave
her. He’d been blessed with his conversion experience, changed forever.

Until now.

Dear God, he was lost without his Patience.

And never more lost than here in the
moonlight, alone with Rosalind. Just a fortnight away from leaving to teach at
Harvard College in Cambridge village—he’d almost escaped unscathed. He took a
step towards Rosalind. Then another. Then several more.

She turned. Her eyes, glittering in the
moonlight, caught his. She stopped, her hips in mid-sway. She backed away,
watching him, her eyes growing wide. Dark brown velvet eyes framed by
delicately arched brows. Tonight, those orbs were deep and smoky, almost black.
He couldn’t tear his gaze from hers. A dry-mouthed, pulse-pounding apprehensive
excitement possessed him. A sense of inevitability.

Dear God, he was falling. Falling into sin
with her. Her thick lashes swept down over her eyes, the dark auburn crescents
looking purplish in the moon’s light, and a slight smile curved her lips. His
focus dropped where her breasts rose and fell quickly, their tight, pink peaks
straining against the gossamer shift.

She didn’t attempt to cover herself but kept
her hands to her sides. That surprised him. However, he’d not been out of this
sport so long that he misunderstood. It was clearly an invitation.

Temptation pounded through his blood and,
with every beat of his heart, increased the pulsation in his cock. She was lust
incarnate. His body trembling with hunger, he fisted his hands.

He would not succumb.

* * * *

Breathless, Rosalind panted as the tall,
broad-shouldered image before her swayed in her dizzy vision. She beheld the
glossy, dark chestnut hair, the high forehead, well-shaped yet heavy brows,
long straight nose and full yet firm-looking mouth.

He wasn’t wearing his doublet. In the
moonlight his white shirt glowed and rippled in the slight breeze against a
body that displayed the sort of hard muscled strength and power that came from
strenuous daily labour.

Each time she saw him, her whole focus
narrowed on him, her body tingling yet weak. Oh, he was very familiar to her.
But she had never been alone with him.

However, she wasn’t afraid. He’d always been
kind. He’d assisted her that horrid day over a year ago when she’d needed
nothing more than to get out of London. Attained her passage to New England and
found her modest clothes in sad colours. Told everyone on the
Abigail
that she was his cousin’s widow and helped her falsify her last name—even
though she could tell he hated being dishonest.

But Thomas had saved her from the censure of
the other Puritans on the ship knowing she was an actress. She had begun to
love him then. Even though he was married.

Even though coveting him was a sin.

Now he was a widower. The town schoolmaster.
A stern-faced, hardworking, pious man. He’d never been able to completely hide
how he held her in disdain because of what she had been. Despite his kindness
he’d retained a certain dispassionate remoteness. Especially after the
mid-point of the voyage, when he’d lost his young son and, shortly thereafter,
his wife, to a fever that had raged through the passengers.

She sensed that he suspected the truth of
her past. For years, she had been a whore but not of her own choice. Her mother
had been a member of an acting troupe who had shared herself with many wealthy
gentlemen. Rosalind had never known her father. When her mother had grown ill,
they’d grown completely dependent on the troupe manager Mr Boger’s goodwill to
pay for the doctoring and life-extending medications. He had owned Rosalind’s
very soul. He’d forced her, trained her how to please men then sold her by the
hour to the highest bidders as if she were a pleasure slave.