Patricia Rice (50 page)

Dora glanced anxiously at him, but he seemed content and satisfied even though she could never be the elegant, beautiful hostess he once expected for wife. He was eight years older than she, a man of the world, but the lines of worry and pain around his eyes had miraculously disappeared while they talked. He looked a twenty-year-old boy again, ready to take on the world.

She sighed in contentment and caught him observing her breasts with interest. She tingled all over at the look, and heat flooded her cheeks. Pace gave her added color a knowing look.

"It's a mite warm out here. Why don't you unfasten some of those fancy buttons? No one will see you."

Momentarily shocked at the suggestion, Dora covered the row of jet buttons with her hand. Then when she saw the glitter of desire in his eyes, she felt the same rush of physical longing that he displayed. Slowly, holding his gaze, she unbuttoned her gown.

No one but the birds in the trees could see them. The musty scent of sun-warmed cedars surrounded them as she fingered open one button after another, then daringly untied her chemisette so the sun could find the flesh rising above her corset. She felt filled to bursting, but it wasn't her need to feed Frances that she noticed.

"I'll not make it all the way back to the house," Pace warned in a husky voice.

Dora glanced at his lap and saw the evidence of his desire surging against the thin nankeen of his trousers. Shocking even herself, she reached over to unfasten his shirt studs.

The heat of his skin beneath the linen and the pounding of his heart beneath her hand held her in such fascination that she scarcely noticed when Pace wheeled the carriage off the road and into a stand of trees. A breeze off the river lifted curls from her face, but she used his momentary distraction to work on his trouser buttons, not caring where the carriage stopped.

When Pace grabbed the carriage blanket and swung her into his arms, Dora flung her arms around his neck and felt her breasts swell high above her corset. From Pace's glazed expression, she gathered he had noticed too. She wiggled in delight that she could make him forget everything and look at her. Every doubt as to her visibility faded.

She was even more visible minutes later after he stripped her clothing off and kneeled over her, filling his palms with her breasts. Pace wore only his unbuttoned trousers, and Dora could scarcely tear her gaze from the overwhelming expanse of his chest. When he bent to twine his tongue with hers, she lost herself in the sensations of heated flesh and raging desire. Nothing else mattered but this man who held her, pressing his solid body into hers.

He made no excuses or apologies as he stripped off his trousers and parted her knees so he could kneel between them. Like some warrior god, he hovered over her, his dark hair glistening with red in the dappled sunlight, his bronzed chest gleaming golden. He radiated male satisfaction and triumph. She was his, and she wrapped her arms around his neck to prove it.

She was more than ready when he entered her. She gasped as his hard thrust reached deep inside her. Dora arched to hold him, and Pace groaned with pleasure, then repeated the motion faster and harder until she bucked mindlessly to his rhythm, surrendering to his needs. She cried out as the explosions overtook her, then wept in happiness as he gave himself up to her, filling her with the heated liquid of his loins.

She welcomed the knowledge that from this, a child could grow. She wanted to bear him a son to keep their daughter company.

"I love you," she whispered, threading her fingers through the thickness of his hair as he lay on top of her, their perspiring skin sticking and sliding together.

Pace kissed her cheek, then the corner of her eye. "I've said those words to other women, Dora," he murmured regretfully, "but I never knew what they meant until now. Are you sure you can love a cold, jaded bastard like me?"

Dora smiled and ran her fingers over the muscles guarding his rib cage. He stiffened in more places than one, and she circled her hips suggestively near his. "Cold? That isn't a word I'd use to describe you. Passionate, maybe, in anger as well as love, but never cold." She swept her hand down his side to his hips and confirmed her words when his male hardness pushed against her again.

Pace brushed her face with kisses and fingered the outline of her jaw. "If I am passionate, it is because you have taught me to use my passions wisely. I don't know how you learned such goodness, but I love you for it. Will you ever forgive my stupidity in not seeing it sooner?"

She rubbed her fingers over his sandpaper jaw and smiled at the familiar texture. "We will be here forever if we list our various stupidities. I should return to Frances."

He glanced down at the fullness of her breasts, then kissed them lightly. "Thank you for giving me my daughter. I would never have known how wonderful it is to be a father if you hadn't shown me."

Dora laughed and struggled to sit up when he rolled off her. Pulling on her chemisette, she kept an interested gaze on her husband's blatant male nudity. She had never known how beautiful a body could be until she'd seen Pace's.

"You can experience the wonder of fatherhood by changing her diaper when we return home. And when she is old enough to defy you, you may experience the wonder of learning how to discipline her. If she grows up anything like you, it should be an edifying experience."

Pace made a wry face. "I think I'll open an office in town and leave you to deal with the little witch then. The wonders of fatherhood should extend only to hugs and kisses."

Dora's laughter rivaled the songs of the birds in the trees overhead.

Epilogue

Stone walls do not a prison make

Nor iron bars a cage;

Minds innocent and quiet take

That for an hermitage;

If I have freedom in my love,

And in my soul am free;

Angels alone, that soar above,

Enjoy such liberty.

Richard Lovelace (1618-1658)

"To Althea, from Prison"

"You know damn well you'll make a better mayor than that greedy bastard, Mitchell," Billy John declared loyally, pounding Pace on the back as they stood on the veranda steps in the warm November sunshine. The weather promised good voter turnout.

"I haven't won yet," Pace answered dryly, staring out over the emerald expanse of lawn that he was just realizing truly belonged to him. The election seemed less real than the rich Kentucky soil beneath that expanse of lawn.

"You'll win." Robert McCoy leaned against a column and blew a smoke ring. "You got Mitchell out of office, won a lot of people some decent money, and you haven't ticked anybody off lately. Joe's daddy bootlicked the federals too long for him to come back and make himself mayor again. He should have stayed in Frankfort."

"Maybe you ought to run for his congressional seat next election," Billy John suggested as he went down the stairs to his horse.

"And get myself hung by all the rebs in this county? Not a chance. I don't have the ambition to fight those battles anymore. I've got enough to do right here at home." Pace threw a quick look down the hall behind him. The day was unseasonably warm, and Dora had opened all the doors and windows to air the house out. He hoped to catch a glimpse of her as she efficiently went from task to task, but she hid somewhere in the depths of the interior, out of sight.

"You'll get a good price for that tobacco," McCoy reassured him. "I don't know how you kept the danged grasshoppers out of your patch. They ate mine plumb to the ground. That hailstorm damaged so many fields east of here that good tobacco will bring a pretty price. You must have a guardian angel looking out for you."

Pace grinned as his own personal guardian angel darted across the hallway in a swirl of heavenly blue. She was learning to dress for unexpected visitors. She didn't even notice him as she hurried up the stairs carrying—Pace squinted to make sure he was seeing correctly—a crimping iron?

Billy John caught his horse's reins and called up to the other two men, "Polls will be closing. You goin' in to keep an eye on the count?"

Distracted by the sight of Dora with a totally unnecessary piece of feminine equipment, Pace didn't even turn around to reply. "I'll be down later. Keep an eye on things for me."

Noticing Pace's distraction, Robert grinned, hitched his jeans up, and started down the stairs, too. "We'll go in and keep them in line for you. Want us to crack a few heads if there's any sign Mitchell is cheating?"

"Whatever." Pace already moved toward the open doorway.

* * *

Later that evening, Dora glanced out the bedroom window at the sight of flickering light. Her heart nearly stopped in her chest as she recognized the flare of torches against the night sky and saw the mob surging up the drive. She glanced worriedly in the direction of Jackson's farmhouse, but no lights glimmered there. That meant the mob had left Jackson alone and had come directly up the drive after Pace.

Stifling the scream welling inside her so as not to terrify her sleeping daughter, she ran for the stairs. Screeching "Pace!" she raced down the steps, holding her skirts high to keep from tripping.

He emerged from the study in his shirtsleeves with a law book in his hand. At sight of Dora's panicked expression, he dashed down the hall to grab her.

"A mob!" she gasped. "With torches! Oh, Pace, what can we do?"

He blinked in disbelief, then smiled. "A mob?" His grin grew a little wider. "We'll go meet them."

It was Dora's turn to stare in disbelief. Looking at him as if he'd finally taken leave of his senses, she tried tugging away from his encompassing arm, but he was too strong. He hauled her toward the door, grabbing up a lantern left burning in the foyer for visitors.

The front lawn filled with horses and wagons and people. When Pace threw open the door, a ragged cheer resounded, followed by a louder, more boisterous one. Pandemonium ensued as men stomped and whistled as Dora peered hesitantly around Pace to glimpse the cause of their excitement.

"Speech! Speech!" A voice sounding suspiciously like Robert McCoy's yelled from the crowd's center.

Pace stepped out on the veranda, pulling Dora with him. Relaxing, Dora glanced expectantly over her shoulder. Mother Nicholls had warned her they would have company if Pace won. She hadn't warned her the company would be half the town.

Pace was wielding his compelling rhetoric well by the time Dora saw the person she waited for. Slipping from Pace's arm, she stepped backward and gestured for the hesitant figure inside to come forward.

Pace turned to see where Dora had gone. His eyes widened in disbelief as his mother leaned on a cane and hobbled toward him. She had her hair crimped in curls around her face and wore a gown long out of style, but she was walking out of the house for the first time in decades. Proudly, Dora stood to one side so Harriet could approach her son.

The crowd grew quiet as she stood in front of the town's newly elected mayor. Every person there knew Harriet Nicholls came from one of the community's oldest and most respected families. They also knew her as an invalid too ill to appear in public. Gossip had given her illness many names, but none seemed applicable now as she reached to hug her much taller son.

"I'm proud of you, Payson," she whispered brokenly as he kissed her cheek. "I couldn't ask for a finer son. You favor my daddy more every day. He was a fine, upstanding man. Just ask anybody."

Dora blinked back tears as Pace hugged his mother in full view of half the town. The election hadn't mattered to Dora one way or the other, until now. If it took an election to bring mother and son together, then she was thankful for it, no matter what followed. When Pace held out his hand to her, she grabbed it and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. His face was as wet as hers as he hugged them both.

The crowd cheered some more, then whistled and stomped as Jackson came around the corner of the house rolling a keg of beer. Behind him, Ernestine and Annie carried trays of mugs. They hadn't held an old-fashioned barbecue on these lawns for years, but nobody had forgotten the basics. Yelling in triumph and merriment, the crowd turned from the touching display on the veranda to the more important business of partying.

In all the commotion, the arrival of a new carriage went unnoticed. As Amy came running down the stairs in her night dress crying "An' Dora, An' Dora" to see what the excitement was about, Dora scooped her up to carry her back in the house. Only Pace's low whistle of surprise halted her.

Pace had kept Dora informed when her half brother and the solicitor left town. As long as they left her alone, she hadn't much concerned herself with their whereabouts. Josie had sulked for a while, but once she started receiving thick vellum letters with wax seals on them, she returned to smiling. After Dora ascertained the letters had nothing to do with Gareth, she lost interest. If Josie wanted to correspond with a gray-haired old man who called himself Sir Something-or-Other, that was her concern. The solicitor had seemed relatively harmless, particularly half a world away.