“Not here?” Her gaze went past his arm to the pair of empty chairs where the ladies usually sat, then lifted to search his smiling face. “Where…?”
“She and Aunt Jenny were invited to a neighbor’s house for dinner.” He shrugged casually. “The invitation was extended to us as well, but I made our excuses.”
“Then…” She cast a worried glance about the room, and a blinding flash of lightning seemed to bring the truth home. “We’re here alone?”
“Except for the servants.” He raised a dubious brow. “Does that distress you, my love?”
Lierin answered with a slow and hesitant nod. “You’ve been very devious, Mr. Wingate.”
Ashton laughed as he drew her to the sideboard where the crystal decanters sparkled beneath the gleaming tapers. He splashed a small draft of sherry in a glass, added a dash of water, and handed it to her. “What do you expect me to do?”
She sipped from the goblet and released a long, wavering sigh before she made her reply. “I think you intend to seduce me.”
His white teeth flashed in a wicked grin. “The difference between seduction and rape, my love, is the simple word no. All you have to do is say it.”
Lierin could find no adequate response. That particular word was much like caution, which was slowly losing its flavor and hardening into a dry, tasteless crust that gave her no pleasure. Though indeed simple, it was a word that was becoming increasingly difficult to use with him.
Ashton’s gaze lowered to the swelling fullness above her gown, making her breath halt. His head came down, and her heart trembled as he dropped a kiss on her bare shoulder.
“You’re very appetizing this evening, madam…quite a delectable morsel to savor….” His tongue briefly touched her skin, drawing a shocked gasp from her and sending the pulse leaping through her veins again. He smiled into her astonished, sidelong regard and watched the flush of color spread downward into her pale breasts. “One taste is hardly enough,” he murmured and bent lower to stroke his tongue lightly against the higher curve of that tempting roundness.
“Ashton!” She jumped as the wind scraped a branch against the window, and pressed a restraining hand upon his chest, whispering in shaky, urgent appeal, “The servants!”
Ashton chuckled as he straightened and bestowed a more proper kiss to her temple, greatly heartened by the fact that she had not denied him. “Ah, love, I’m so famished for the full feast, it’s hard to restrain myself even with so many people in this house. I yearn to take you back to New Orleans, to that same room where we once made love, where we can be alone together.”
A door slammed in the back of the house, and they moved apart as Willabelle came puffing into the dining room. “Lawsy, dat wind gonna blow dis house away if’n it gets any stronger.” She cackled as she shook her head. “Why, it jes’ mighta blown Mr. Titch clear into Natchez. Bet he ain’t had such a bath in a month o’ Sundays. Course, he be in need of it if he climbed into dat wagon. Ah jes’ wish Ah could see him right now. Humph, he musta been a li’l tetched to think we gonna hand over de missus like she was some poor white trash or somepin. Yo sho’ showed him, massa. Yassuh! Yassuh!”
The housekeeper chortled again before she turned to contemplate the table setting. She busied herself moving one place setting from the end to a position close to the head; then with a satisfied nod she bustled from the room. In a moment Willis appeared and decorously announced that dinner was about to be served. As the servant returned to the kitchen, Ashton presented his arm to his young wife and led her to the place Willabelle had rearranged, which, when they were seated, would bring her under his close scrutiny. His hand lightly stroked along her ribs as she stepped forward to take the chair, and when she glanced back inquiringly, their eyes held for a long, eternal moment.
Ashton was not a man to ignore an opportunity, and once more his lips found hers. When he raised his head again it was to probe the translucent green depths. Lierin felt as if she were being mesmerized by the hypnotic strength of his stare, and she was only distantly aware of his fingers gliding from her throat over her collarbone and then tracing downward. Her lips were parted with her rapid breathing as his mouth began a similar descent, and her senses swirled in a wild and giddy torrent. With casual ease his hand slipped down to cup her breast, but the scalding caress was enough to startle Lierin into full consciousness. Trembling, she moved away from his touch and settled into the chair, and when he had also taken his place, her eyes lifted to search his in worried appeal. She could not utter the words she wanted to say, the pleas that would caution him to take care with her emotions. She wanted love, but it was all going too swiftly. How could she clearly discern right from wrong when she had no sure knowledge of who she was?
During the meal Ashton’s gaze never wandered far from the one who whetted his appetite, and it was not for that which was placed before them. As for Lierin, the sherry had been effective in subduing her qualms, and she began to enjoy the intimate dinner and the soft touch of his hand as it came to rest now and then upon her arm.
When they ventured back to the parlor, Ashton closed the french doors behind them, shutting off the dining room and securing their privacy. Lierin wandered back to the harpsichord and sought to plumb the depths of her memory as her fingers moved over the keyboard. Ashton stood close beside her, sometimes supplying the missing notes when she paused in confusion, but mostly admiring the delectable view of bare shoulders and soft bosom. She smiled up at him with glowing eyes as he brushed his knuckles along her nape and lost herself in the pleasure of his nearness. Her contentment diminished slightly as he moved away, but when he reached for the poker iron, a sudden horror seized her and her hands froze on the keys. A brief flash of an iron being brought down on a man’s head rudely snatched her mind from the tranquillity of the moment.
Ashton glanced around in surprise as the melody halted on a discordant note, and when he saw the expression of frantic fright on her face and the slender, shaking fingers pressed tightly against her temples, he dropped the iron into the stand and ran back to her. Knowing full well what was tormenting her, he pulled her to her feet and held her close against him as he murmured against her hair. “It’s all right, my love. It’s all right. Try not to think of it.”
“The poker iron…” Lierin shivered against him. “It’s the same! Over and over! A man being hit by an iron. Oh, Ashton, when will it ever stop?”
Ashton held her from him as he questioned, “Do you know who the man is or what he looks like? Have you ever seen him before?”
“It’s all a blur.” Tears began to spill down her cheeks. “Oh, Ashton, I’m so afraid. I don’t know why I keep seeing such a thing…unless…unless I’m being tormented by a memory of something I’ve done. Are you sure Mr. Logan…?”
“You had nothing to do with that, Lierin,” Ashton insisted. “The man was stabbed with a knife, and he was large, fully twice your weight and more. Even with the poker iron, your best effort would not have been good enough. He’d have turned on you before you could have done him serious harm.”
“But the place on my back…you said it looked as if someone had hit me. Perhaps…”
Ashton stressed his words as he stared intently into the troubled green eyes. “Peter Logan said you were not the woman from the madhouse, Lierin. Accept that as fact. You’re not the one! You’re Lierin Wingate, my wife!”
His authoritative tone seemed to put matters in the proper perspective, and she took hold of her fears with a growing determination. If she was to survive this portion of her life with her sanity intact, she had to act with firm deliberation, refusing to be cindered beneath the weight of her trepidations. Calming herself by dint of will, she brushed the wetness from her cheek as Ashton stepped away to the sideboard and poured a glass of brandy.