Night in Eden (30 page)

She reached up and ran a finger across his cheekbone. "I could see it in your face. No, it's true," she said with a laugh as he shook his head in disbelief. "You get this look in your eyes. Sort of heavy-lidded and sleepy, yet somehow intense at the same time. And the rest of your face looks sharper, harder. Except for your mouth..." Her finger trailed down his cheek. "Your mouth gets full. Soft." She rubbed her finger across his lower lip. "Kiss-able. Like it is now."

He ran his tongue around the tip of her finger. "Kiss me now," he whispered, his hands leaving her breasts to slide around her back and ease her into his arms.

She brought her other hand up to cradle his face between her two palms. Leaning forward, she tipped her head to one side and brushed his lips, ever so lightly, with hers.

He went utterly still, waiting.

She drew her head back, but only enough so she could look into his eyes. Her face was solemn, her dark eyes glistening with emotion.

"I love you, Hayden."

It was so unexpected, he jerked. He opened his mouth, but she slipped the fingers of one hand across his lips, stopping whatever he was about to say. Which was a good thing, because he didn't know what to say.

To his surprise, a wry smile twisted her lips. "Don't look so scared, Hayden. You don't need to say anything. It's only that I've loved you for so long, and it's been so difficult, holding it inside. Before it would have been wrong to say it. But now... It's good for a woman to love her husband, isn't it?"

The shadow of a worried frown hovered between her brows. He pressed a kiss there. "You did promise to love and cherish me, remember?" he said, striving for a light tone. But the words were unfortunate, because they reminded him that he had repeated the same vow. Only, when he'd said it, he'd thought of loving her the way he loved her in bed every night with his body.

What he saw shining in her face now was more than that.

Her hands moved behind his head, drawing him forward to her until her lips hovered just beside his. "Kiss me," she whispered.

Her voice was low and husky beckoning him, seducing him. His lips parted, closed over hers. She gave a little mew and pressed against him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her knees hugging his hips, her breasts flattening against his chest. He could feel her nipples through the fine linen of his shirt. He ran his hands down her sides, over her hips, up again, holding her to him as he slanted his mouth back and forth across hers.

The kiss grew more urgent. Roughened. His tongue slipped between her lips, took her mouth. He couldn't get enough of her. He was devouring her with his mouth, and still it wasn't enough.

He pulled away from her just long enough to snatch her chemise over her head so that he touched only bare skin as his hands coursed over her back, her shoulders,
her arms, her breasts. She was his now. Not just his convict mistress, but his wife. His.

She would bear this child of his that she carried in her womb. And in the years to come he would plant more children within her. Sons, who would grow up strong, strong enough to carve their homes out of this great wilderness. And daughters. Daughters who would grow up beautiful and strong, too. Like their mother.

He gripped her hips tightly, holding her snug against him as he turned with her, lifting her away from the chair, easing her down before the hearth.

The gentle light from the fire turned the smooth skin of her bare arms and breasts a warm gold. She lay sprawled on her back, looking up at him with that tender, passionate smile he knew so well. He leaned over her, and she reached up to tug at his shirt. "Take it off," she said, her voice raw with need.

He sat back on his haunches, pulled the shirt from his breeches, and yanked it over his head without bothering to undo more than the top few buttons. He lowered his hands to his breeches, conscious of her watching him as he opened the flap. Easing back, he pulled off his boots and stockings, then shoved the breeches down over his hips, peeling them off. She never stopped looking at him.

"You're beautiful," she whispered, splaying her hands against his naked chest when he leaned over her. "You're so beautiful that sometimes just looking at you takes my breath away."

He laughed. "Men aren't beautiful."

She stared up at him with wide, serious eyes. "You are."

He smoothed her wildly curling hair away from her high forehead, and kissed her there.
"You're
beautiful," he said, propping himself up on one elbow. He trailed the back of his hand down her cheek and the side of her neck, down between her breasts, to lay his palm on her belly.

She moved to spread her hands self-consciously over her gently rounded stomach. "I'm getting fat."

He grinned down at her and pushed her hands away so he could flick open the buttons at the waist of her petticoat. "You're going to get even fatter still."

She lifted her buttocks as he slid her petticoat down over her thighs, his hands gliding softly over her bare skin.

"You don't mind?" she asked. There was an anxious note in her voice that surprised him.

He looked up from easing her stockings and slippers off her feet. "I think you're beautiful, Bryony," he said again. "You'll always be beautiful to me."

"Even like this? Growing big with child?"

"Especially like this."

He knelt between her legs and lay forward, half on her, so that his head just hovered over her breast, his warm, moist breath washing over her nipple.

His tongue flicked out, wetting her flesh. She jerked and made a soft, sighing sound. He laughed with satisfaction and lowered his lips to her breast, drawing her nipple into his mouth, sucking long and deep. Her shoulders arched off the floor as he brought his hand up to knead her other breast.

He was swollen hard with his desire for her, but he forced himself to take it easy. He must have made love to this woman several hundred times in the months since she'd become his mistress. But this was different. This was the first time they would come together as man and wife.

So he made love to her slowly, exquisitely, touching her everywhere, luxuriating in the feel, the smell, the taste of her, discovering anew this woman who was now his wife. He nibbled on her earlobe. Nuzzled her neck. Pressed his lips to the pulse that beat beneath her strong wrist. And when she was ready, almost begging for it, he slipped his hands beneath her bottom so he could lift her
up to him as his tongue and lips did all the things he knew she loved best.

She plunged her fingers through his hair, holding him to her, her hips bucking up as she arched her back. He loved the noises she made. Breathy, erotic noises, her voice throbbing with pleasure and delight. Then his fingers replaced his tongue, parting her, plunging inside her, as he slid his body up to lay half on her, half beside her. He wanted to see her face as, her eyes closed, her head tipped back, he took her to that unfathomable point where tension and desire peak in an almost painful intensity, before exploding in waves of ecstasy and shattering fulfillment.

A knot of tenderness swelled within his chest as he watched her lips part, her body convulse with pleasure. Then she collapsed back, her eyes still closed, and he buried his face in her hair, breathed deeply of her sweet woman's scent.

"Hayden," she said as his mouth left hers to kiss her eyelids, her cheekbones, the tip of her nose. He eased himself inside her, holding himself up on his forearms so he could watch her expression as he filled her. Her face was suffused with tenderness. Passion. Love. The thought of it made him tremble, humbled him, made him want to give her something in return.

So he gave her his body. She wrapped her legs around his waist and dug her fingers into the muscles of his back and screamed as the deep, delicious tremors shuddered through her. It was all he could do to keep from exploding inside her, but somehow he controlled himself, giving her pleasure until finally, unable to hold back any longer, straining, desperate for release, he exploded inside her. He drove into her one last time, holding himself braced above her, his head thrown back, his eyes squeezed shut, his lips curled back over his teeth as his entire body convulsed.

He felt her hands on his sweat-slicked back. Opening
his eyes, he dropped his chin and looked at her. She was smiling, but her lips were trembling and her eyes were shining with what looked very much like tears.

He bent his head and brushed her mouth with his, lightly, tenderly. "What's wrong?" he asked, lifting his head so he could look at her again. "Why are you crying?"

She shook her head, smiling through her tears, and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him close. "I'm just happy, Hayden, that's all. I'm just so very happy."

He eased himself onto his side, his body still joined to hers, cradling her tightly against him. She turned into him, burying her face in his shoulder. With an oddly trembling hand, he reached up to run his fingers through her hair, smoothing the tangles, stroking her, comforting her.

He held her until their breathing eased and his heart stopped thundering. But a strange sense of awe lingered still, and he realized suddenly what it was.

Peace. And happiness.

"Bryony?" he said softly.

"Yes?" she murmured, her face still half buried in the curve of his neck.

"I'm glad you love me."

They lingered in Sydney for several weeks. Hayden had a number of business interests that he'd had to neglect during the long, busy days of autumn and early winter at Jindabyne. He was out every day, talking to other settlers about bloodlines and wool prices, and to other ship owners about tariffs and import restrictions. Bryony visited the Government Store and ordered supplies for the homestead. And, at Hayden's insistence, she had some more new dresses made.

"But I have my wedding dress," she'd told him when he brought the subject up. "I don't need any new dresses."

At the time he'd been sitting on a low stool before the fire in their bedchamber at the inn while she moved quietly about the room, setting it to rights. Reaching out, he grabbed her hand and pulled her toward him until she was nestled between his spread thighs. "You will," he said with a grin, running his hand over her growing belly.

So she asked the seamstress who had made her wedding gown to visit her at the Three Jolly Fisherman once more. She visited the store again to inspect bolts of muslin and serge. And she suffered through the endless measurements, fittings, and comments about her
interesting situation.

"I'm making the hem extra deep here in front," said the thin, gray-haired seamstress, kneeling at Bryony's feet with a mouthful of pins. "You'll probably need to let it down a bit when the babe starts showin'." She thrust
another pin through the material. "And I've put some extra tucks in up at the top. Like as not, you'll need to let it out some there, too."

Bryony ran her hand down over her hip, smoothing the simple muslin she had chosen. In the past she had always felt uneasy, almost shamed every time Hayden bought her clothes. She'd expected it to be different now. Now that she was no longer his mistress, but his wife.

Yet the uneasiness remained, and she suspected it was more than a simple lingering of old, outdated attitudes. She was Hayden's wife. He had stood before God and the Reverend Richards and married her. She took his body into hers every night, and every day she grew bigger with his child. And yet...

And yet, in some elusive way, he was not hers. She hadn't even managed to talk to him about arranging to have Madeline brought out from Cornwall. Every time she thought about trying to bring the subject up, she found herself shying away from it, unwilling to be seen as making demands on him. Seeing herself as not in any position to make demands on him.

A shout from the street in front of the inn interrupted her thoughts. "Bryony!" Gideon's excited voice drifted up from somewhere out of sight below the window. "Bryony, come quick. It's here. It's here!"

Heedless of the scattering pins and the clucking seamstress, Bryony crossed to the front of the bedroom and threw open the casement window. "Gideon?" She leaned out to find the Irishman hopping impatiently from one foot to the other in the street below. He had one elbow cocked skyward, his hand clapping his cabbage-palm hat to his head to keep it from falling as he craned his neck to look up at her. The winter sunlight shone on a face so flooded with joy that Bryony laughed at the sight of him.

"What are you talking about?" she called. "What's here?"

"The
Lady Laura.
She's back! The Cap'n sent me to get you. He's down by the waterfront already."

"The
Laura!"
Bryony leaned out farther, straining to see the distant, sunstruck bay, where some half-dozen ships bobbed at anchor. She could just make out the wind-filled white sails of a merchantman, lifting and falling with the swell of the waves as it headed toward the cove. "Are you certain that's her?"

"Aye. She was seen sailin' through the Heads. She musta made grand time to get here so soon."

Bryony's gaze dropped to the Irishman's excited face. "And Mary and the boys? Are they on it?"

"I don't know yet. But my Mary, she'll be the first one off that ship, if she can be. Do come quick, Bryony. They'll be anchorin' in the cove any minute now."

"You go ahead," said Bryony, reaching for the tapes that held her new gown in the back. "I need to get out of this dress first. Tell the Captain I'll be down as soon as I can."

"I will," called Gideon over his shoulder.

Some twenty minutes later Bryony joined the laughing, shouting crowds hurrying down to the sun-soaked docks. Gulls wheeled, screeching, overhead. A tow-headed, barefoot boy wearing nothing but a pair of cut-down overalls dashed past her, shouting, "Ship's in! It's the
Laura."

She could see it now, already riding at anchor. Not a fat, old-fashioned Indiaman, but a sleek, well-built craft designed as much for speed as for carrying capacity. Its copper-clad hull rocked gently in the dancing, azure-blue waters of the cove, setting the three towering masts above to swinging lazily back and forth against the cloudless sky.

Bryony's gaze scanned the crowd, taking only an instant to search out the tall, lean figure of her husband. He stood some distance away, near the edge of the cobbled quay. He was talking to a man with a salt-stiffened gray beard and the spraddle-legged stance of a
seaman. But at the sight of her, he nodded to the man beside him and came toward her.

A warm smile curled the edges of his lips and brought a gleam to his eyes as he wove his way through the knots of gawkers that clustered near the shoreline. "Have you seen her?" he asked as he came up beside her.

"The
Laura?"
Bryony returned his smile, her heart filling with love for him, as it always did, each time she saw him. "Yes, she's lovely."

He laughed. "No, I didn't mean the ship." He took Bryony's hand and drew her to where Gideon stood at the water's edge. "Come see."

Gideon had his hand up, shading his eyes from the glare off the water as he watched the
Laura's
long boat being loaded. He suddenly let out a joyful whoop and tore off his cabbage palm hat to toss it high in the air. "They're here!" He flung both his arms around Bryony and whirled her around in a circle until she felt giddy. "They're here."

He released her to leap onto the dock and do a little jig that brought him so close to the edge, Bryony was afraid for a minute he was going to tumble into the bay. "There's my Mary. And the two boys, both of them." His voice broke with emotion, and he went still again, staring off across the water. "Ah, Bryony. Will you just look at the size of them?"

The salty sea breeze tugged at Bryony's hair, sending a loose strand flying across her face. She reached up to tuck it behind her ear and sucked in a quick, deep breath as her gaze riveted on the boat being slowly rowed toward the dock.

The laughter and shouting of the crowd seemed to retreat into the distance, along with the cries of the gulls and the splash of the oars from the boat.

A stout, pleasant-looking woman with plaits wrapped around her plump, smiling face sat in the center of the boat. She was flanked by two boys with freckles and ears that stuck out from their heads like flags from a flagpole
on a windy day. Both boys were smiling and waving like their mother. But on her lap, Mary Shanaghan held a little girl. A little girl with guinea-gold hair who wasn't waving at all.

"Madeline," Bryony whispered. She reached out almost blindly, and found herself clutching the lapels of Hayden's coat. Her startled gaze flew to his warm, smiling eyes. "God, Hayden," she said, her voice little more than a husky whisper. "You sent for Madeline."

"Yes," he said simply, sliding his hands around her waist to steady her.

She pressed her cheek against his broad chest and hugged him to her. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Hayden laughed. "I had the devil of a time keeping it to myself. But I couldn't be sure your uncle would let her come, and I didn't want to get your hopes up only to have you disappointed if the
Laura
came back without her."

Her face still buried against his chest, Bryony shook her head back and forth. "Uncle Edward never really wanted to take Madeline. He only did it out of a sense of duty, because there was no other option. I'm sure he jumped at the chance to rid himself of my daughter. But..." She tilted back her head and searched his face. "You must have sent for her last spring, before I—before we—" She swallowed hard. "Why did you do it?"

He cupped her cheek with his lean, strong hand. 'To make you happy, Bryony. I've always wanted to make you happy."

Her love for him was so great, it seemed to choke her. "You have made me happy."

He didn't say anything. But she saw something leap in his eyes, something warm and tender. Then he looked away and nodded toward the approaching boat. "They're almost ready to land."

Bryony whirled around, picked up the long skirt of her dress with both hands, and ran.
"Madeline,"
she called, over and over again as she flew down the dock. She stumbled over an uneven plank on the rough decking, but
her gaze never wavered from that stiff little figure in the boat. "Madeline!" she cried. "Oh, dear Lord, Madeline."

She ran out of dock. She stood on the end of the pier, trembling, anxious, watching as the child she'd feared she'd never see again was slowly rowed toward her. Tears of joy rolled down her cheeks unchecked as she waved her arms wildly back and forth above her head in greeting.

Then her arms fell slowly back to her sides, and her breath came whistling from between her lips as the joyous smile faded from her face. For Madeline sat unmoving on Mary Shanaghan's lap, staring at her without any emotion on her face. No emotion at all.

The boat knocked against the side of the dock and a seaman jumped out. Bryony stood where she was, a painful swirl of feelings raging within her as she watched a sailor lift the solemn-faced little girl from the boat and set her on the dock.

Bryony knelt down on the weathered planks, her heart in her throat, her hungry gaze roaming ravenously over the child who walked up and planted herself in front of her mother.

This was not, she realized with a swift pang, the Madeline she'd held, cherished, in her memory. Gone was the winsome, laughing toddler who had played in the foaming surf of Cadgwith Cove. Gone, too, was the thin, forlorn three-year-old who'd clung so desperately to her mother in the prison in Penzance.

The Madeline standing so rigid and wary on the Sydney docks was older, older by far more than the year and a half that had passed since Bryony had last seen her. Her face was painfully serious, not the face of a child at all. There was an air of cold aloofness about her that was terrible to see in one so young.

She cocked her head to one side and regarded Bryony appraisingly. "Mrs. Shanaghan tells me that you're my mother."

It was all Bryony could do to hold her hands clenched
into fists at her sides, when she wanted so desperately to clutch this unhappy, beloved child to her breast. But she knew from the stiff, unwelcoming slant of Madeline's shoulders that to give way to that impulse now would be a terrible mistake.

So she smiled a tremulous smile, which was all she could manage. "Yes, Madeline. I am your mother."

The fierce expression did not alter. "Mrs. Shanaghan says that some mean people took you away from me, and that you didn't want to leave me because you love me very much."

Bryony's face crumpled. Her trembling hands reached out for her little girl, stopping just short of touching her. "Oh, I do, Madeline. I love you so very much. And I've missed you! I can't tell you how much I've missed you."

The child's eyes narrowed with a suspicion and anger that deepened the anguish within Bryony in a way she hadn't thought possible. "Then, why didn't you come back for me? I waited and waited, but you never came."

How could she explain? Bryony thought desperately. How could she possibly explain to this determinedly tough little stranger, with her adult-size hurt and her child's naive vision of the world as someplace where things like ability didn't figure, only
want
and
will.

Bryony swallowed hard, and even then her voice cracked when she answered. "I wanted to come. Truly I did. But I couldn't, sweetheart. They wouldn't let me." Unable to hold herself back any longer, Bryony reached out and let her fingers gently stroke the fine, golden hair that tumbled over Madeline's shoulders.

The child jerked back, away from Bryony's touch. "I don't believe you," she shouted. She was shivering now with barely suppressed emotion, her hands curling into two fists at her sides. "If you had wanted to come, you would have."

"Madeline, no—"

Bryony would have reached for her again, but Hayden's hands closed in a gentle warning on her shoulders,
stopping her. She could feel him behind her, warm and comforting. But inside... Inside, some very important part of her felt as if it were dying.

Slowly, shakily, Bryony rose to her feet. Hayden's strong arm came around her waist, silently supporting her. She thought if it weren't for him, she might have collapsed.

"Mrs. Shanaghan says I have to go with you." Madeline's chin quivered, but her eyes were painfully dry as she stared up at Bryony. "Only, I don't want to. I want to go with her and Patrick and Sean."

A pain that was like nothing she'd ever known pierced Bryony, striking her to her core. She could not breathe. She had known pain before; the devastating, blinding, smashing pain of loss. But not this. Not this
hurt.
It was too much. Too much pain, coming on top of the rapturous, unexpected joy that had thrilled through her just a few minutes before.