With This Kiss (18 page)

“Any luck?” she asked with a soft smile.

His game, as she well knew from what little she had witnessed, had been less than stellar. He gave a light shrug and replied, “I shall sleep easier knowing I have done my part to keep the local population in generous supply of coin for at least the next month or so.”

“It was good of you to play.”

“You’re commending me on my ability to blend with the common rabble?”

Her smile instantly faded. “I should commend you on your ability to nonchalantly refer to my friends as common rabble without the least bit of embarrassment on your part. I consider that an even more extraordinary skill.”

“If I didn’t know better, princess, I’d swear you were calling me a snob.”

“There is nothing common about either Henry or Annie.”

“I don’t recall saying that there was.”

“Perhaps not directly, but—”

“One more game,” called one of the sailors with whom Morgan had been playing, his voice carrying across the room. “But this time let’s sweeten the pot. Rather than mere coin, the winner is rewarded with an even greater victory: a kiss from the bride — our own fair Julia.”

The suggestion was greeted with a round of good-natured cheers and friendly laughter. The game was played just as before, but with one minor variation. The winner received a chaste kiss on the cheek instead of coins. The money from that round of play went to the bride and groom, accompanied by wishes of prosperity and good fortune. It was, Morgan knew, a harmless bit of innocent fun and well-meaning tradition.

Despite that knowledge, he was struck by an impulsive sense of possessiveness. The appreciative looks Julia had received as she had moved among the tavern’s patrons had not escaped his notice. Nor did the bawdy jokes that circulated among the men at the prospect of winning her kiss, even under such innocuous circumstances. Thus when she — after a questioning glance directed at Morgan — offered her reluctant assent, he immediately countered, “Under one condition. I am allowed to play as well.”

“But you already claim her,” objected the sailor who had proposed the game.

“My point exactly,” replied Morgan. Catching Julia’s wrist, he lifted it and pressed a dramatic kiss against the back of her hand. Smiling as he raised his head, he asked the crowd, “What man could blame me for not wanting to share such a prize?”

Fortunately he succeeded in setting the right tone. His question was received with more cheers and laughter as the men crowded around, eager to participate. The game began almost at once. Pitch-and-toss was perhaps one of the simplest pub contests. A large glass stein was set on the floor some distance from the players. Each man tossed a coin at the glass, the object being to strike the glass and bounce off, the player whose coin landed closest to the stein — and in the heads-up position — being declared the winner.

When Morgan had played earlier, he had not given the game much thought, for he had been too distracted watching Julia move about the room. But now as his turn arrived, he gave the glass stein careful measure. Then he drew a twopence from his pocket and tossed it in the air. The coin struck the glass with a satisfying
clink,
and then dropped flat, heads up, one smooth edge still touching the stein.

A round of groans immediately filled the room. A few more men lined up and gave their best throws, but the game was effectively over. Despite the reception his toss received, Morgan experienced a ridiculous sense of victory. He was well aware that he had ruined the spirit of the game by participating, but he had not been able to resist. Never having been given to fits of jealousy, he was loath to put that label to his emotions. But the prospect of Julia pressing her lips against another man, no matter how innocent the gesture, struck him as simply intolerable. For better or worse, she belonged to him.

With the eyes of the room upon them, he turned to his wife to receive his prize. She hesitated for a moment, seemingly lost as to how to proceed. A roar of bawdy recommendations immediately filled the room. “Let’s see how the better half lives!” called one slightly inebriated sailor. “Show us how you kiss your husband!” This, one of the mildest of suggestions, seemed to finally prompt her into action. As a delicate peach blush spread across her cheeks Julia leaned forward, pursed her lips in an exaggerated pucker, and pressed a fleeting peck against Morgan’s cheek.

Morgan caught her as she pulled away. Tucking his arm around the small of her back, he pulled her tightly to him and pressed her body against his own until he could feel her every soft curve, her every gentle breath. The heat of her skin seeped through the thin fabric of her gown, wrapping him in a bewitching cloud of her soft scent and gentle warmth. Julia immediately stiffened in resistance and attempted to escape his grasp. Ignoring her tacit protest, he bent his head and crushed her lips beneath his own.

It was not a lover’s kiss. There was no finesse, no softness in his touch, no subtle seduction. As much as Morgan would have liked to please her, he was far too aware of his own needs. He had wanted this from the moment he had seen her, and he was not about to let the opportunity pass him by. In a desire born part of possessiveness and part of urgent need, he used the pressure of his jaw to force her lips apart. That accomplished, he thrust his tongue inside her mouth. He was rewarded with a taste of infinite sweetness, accompanied by an overwhelming longing for more than just that kiss. But Torn’s Rest was not the place for it. As that bitter understanding slowly seeped into his consciousness, he reluctantly released her.

Julia staggered backward, her breath coming in hard, deep gulps. She stared at him with a mixture of shock and dismay as a roar of merry cheers sounded behind them. Morgan merely lifted his shoulders in an indifferent shrug. “That, princess, is how you kiss a husband.”

Morgan moved through a sinister world of twisting gray phantoms. The smoke intensified as he moved forward. It billowed about him and curled into his lungs, constricting his breath. He could feel the strength draining from his body. He had forgotten what he was seeking; he knew only that he had to look. Time was running out. Not yet, he pleaded silently. Not yet. He had to find them. Who? He focused intently, straining to maintain a cohesive line of thought. Then he remembered. The children. Markum’s children. He had to find them. He had to get them out.

Smoke turned to flame. Everywhere, burning, blistering, hissing flame. Choking, Morgan shoved open a door and staggered blindly into a room. The floorboards cracked beneath his feet. Fire licked the walls. The ceiling peeled away, raining down upon him in sheets of smoking ash and plaster. His gaze shifted to a small, quivering form huddled beneath a cot.

Emily.

A surge of elation temporarily replaced the anguished despair that had gripped him. He lunged for the child and gathered her into his arms, carrying her with him to the window. Left with no other choice, he blindly dropped her into the crowd gathered below.

Swaying slightly, he turned back and scanned the room, searching for the rest of the children. His gaze stopped at a bright, shimmering flame that seemed to dance in one corner. Strangely captivated, he moved toward it. Then he heard the screaming.

High-pitched. Terrified. Ceaseless.

The screams were coming from within the flame.

Hideous understanding flooded through him, locking him in a paralysis of frozen horror. The knowledge of what he was seeing seized him in an absolute grip, obliterating all pain, all weakness, all other thoughts. Nothing mattered but the flame.

And the child trapped inside the flame.

Markum’s-four-year-old daughter Patricia. Patty. Morgan instinctively knew. Recognition was automatic and absolute. For a fraction of a second, he saw her as she had been yesterday, a giggling sprite playing peek-a-boo in his gardens, squealing in delight as she hid behind a mulberry bush. Everything came back to him in vivid detail: the way the sunlight had danced in her mop of light brown curls, how her dress had been stained with grass and mud. The sight, just a distracted glance from his study window, had meant nothing to him at the time. Now it loomed before him in painstaking detail. Patty’s eyes wide with innocence and wonder, clapping her chubby hands as she sang patty-cake, patty-cake… her gleeful screams as her brother thrust a frog in her face.

Now just the screaming remained.

Agonized, piercing screaming.

And flame.

Before he could move, a thundering
crack!
filled the room as a ceiling joist broke free and swung down from the rafters. Morgan was aware of a sharp, radiating pain as the smoking beam hit him directly in the chest, propelling him backward and knocking him through the window.

He reached out to grab hold of something to stop his descent, but he was too late.

He was falling. Falling and falling. Falling forever.

Then blissful black nothingness.

Morgan opened his eyes.

For a long moment he lay motionless in his bed, studying the shadows that flickered across the ceiling of his room. He almost expected to see a message there, some divine sign that might offer direction or meaning to his life. But the shapes and shadows amounted to nothing — just moonlight sifting through the branches of an old oak in the gardens outside his room. He had left his windows and curtains open in the hope of catching a breeze. A vain hope, apparently, for the air that filled his bedchamber was as hot and stifling now as it had been hours earlier when he had retired.

With nowhere for his thoughts to turn, he let his mind drift back to the nightmare that had awakened him. It was a familiar one. In sleep he relived that dark moment again and again; never able, even in his imagination, to alter the outcome. But in its recurrence the dream had lost its original power. He felt oddly removed from it, able to dissect the images with an almost dispassionate interest, as though the thoughts and feelings they generated belonged to someone else. Perhaps that wasn’t unusual. Two years had passed since the fire had occurred.

Now his emotions, like his scars, were deadened by time. He felt only… what? he wondered. Regret? But surely that was too shallow and trifling a word for the enormity of the weight pressing down on him. Finality, perhaps. A sense of irreparable damage, of having made a mistake so immense, so shattering and all-consuming there was no way to ever correct it.

But even that didn’t quite satisfy the scale or the scope of his emotions. Irritated at his ineptitude in failing to find the right words — at his own foolishness for even trying — Morgan threw back the pale linen sheet that covered his body and stood. He prowled naked about his room, consumed with restless energy. Needing an escape but not sure where to go, he drew on a lightweight cotton robe and stepped out onto the balcony that overlooked the gardens. He drummed his fingers restlessly over the wrought-iron rail, then gripped the cool metal in his fists. He glanced up at the sky. Judging by the path of the stars, there remained at least an hour before dawn.

As he moved to return inside, the soft flicker of lamplight coming from a window to his left caught his eye. Julia’s room. Thoughts of his beautiful bride instantly filled his mind. Unfortunately, they weren’t the lofty, inspired sort of thoughts of which Julia might approve. Instead his reflections were decidedly carnal in nature. As he recalled the brief kiss they had shared earlier that afternoon, raw need blossomed within him, accompanied by an ache he could feel deep within his bones. He would not seek comfort in her arms, merely a blind, meaningless release from the tension that held him in its grip. Surely that was not too much to ask.

Had the noise of him moving about disturbed her sleep, or was it the heat that kept her from slumber? In either case the discovery that she was awake offered him the perfect opportunity to enter her room in the guise of checking on her. A rather transparent excuse, he recognized, but it would suffice.

He exited his chamber, moving down the hall toward Julia’s room. He reached her door and rapped softly on the heavy oak. Silence greeted him. He knocked again, louder this time. When she still failed to reply, he turned the knob and slowly opened the door. Like him, she had kept her windows and drapes open when she retired. The soft, silvery glow of moonlight filled the room. He scanned the space, his gaze stopping abruptly when he found her.

She was lying on her back in bed, sound asleep. Naked. Beautifully, blissfully, naked. Apparently she had been reading when she had fallen asleep. An open book lay beside her pillow. An oil lamp — the light he had seen from his room — flickered softly on the nightstand beside her. The soft glow warmed her skin, providing a dramatic contrast to the cool moonlight that otherwise filled the space.

Her sheets were pooled about her hips, draped in a pose of such artful perfection, one might suspect she had arranged to serve as inspiration for a Renaissance painter. An apt analogy, Morgan thought, for it would take a master like Botticelli to truly capture her. Venus in the flesh.

His gaze moved slowly over Julia’s body. Her rich copper hair tumbled over her shoulders in a luxuriant mass, spilling across the soft white sheets. Her face was relaxed, her lips slightly parted as she slept. The pale shadow of her dark russet lashes fell against her cheek. Her rib cage rose and fell in time to her breathing, creating a serene in-and-out pulse that was entirely mesmerizing. Her breasts were slightly flattened due to her position, but they looked full and incredibly soft. The deep rose of her nipples made his mouth water in anticipation of their taste. Her waist was tight and narrow, the lush curve of her hips suggested beneath the thin weight of her sheet.

She was his wife. His by all means legal, religious, and moral. He could take her any time he wanted her. He gave their ridiculous bargain cursory thought, and then abruptly dismissed it. He had promised her three months, but the fact that he had given his word did little to tame the desire that pulsed through him. Hunger overrode honor. Therein lay the trouble. Opportunity only knocks. Temptation breaks down doors.