Under the Boardwalk: A Dazzling Collection of All New Summertime Love Stories (33 page)

Tears stung Sydney's eyes. She knelt, burying her face in Frankenstein's neck. She wasn't the weepy sort at all, but she felt a deep sense of relief and renewed faith.

Rylan knelt beside her and touched her cheek. "Can I take you home now?"

Rylan and Sydney were married three weeks later in the tiny chapel of St. Kilmerryn by the sea.

Church bells rangout across the misty cove, but not in warning this time. They pealed in celebration.

The villagers watched the newlywed couple in awe. By now word of the ghost-laying on the moor had reached as far as Penzance. If Rylan had stirred up a little gossip in the sleepy parish before, he was a full-fledged scandal now.

So was Sydney. The difference between her and her husband, though, was that everybody liked her. They respected Rylan—he had friends—but most people tended to keep a polite distance from the big man with his devil dog.

Sydney had a surprise for her husband on their wedding night. She wore the Celtic torque around her throat, and nothing else. Rylan nearly fell out of bed when she appeared before him. He had never seen such an enticing sight in his life. His dark gaze examined her with a thoroughness that made her turn pink. From her sweet face to the tips of her toes, he studied her in possessive appreciation.

He unfolded his big frame to close the window on the foggy November night. He kept one eye on his wife the whole time. Her long hair tumbled over her full breasts and back. She looked like a pagan Venus, washed up from the sea for his pleasure alone.

"Don't close the window all the way," Sydney said. "I like to hear the waves when I fall asleep."

Rylan grinned, pulling off his shirt. "Who said anything about sleeping?"

Sydney sighed in anticipation as his strong arms locked around her. She couldn't wait to make love with him again. She was really trying to control herself. Perhaps it was the torque she wore. It must be giving her pagan urgings. She had the most powerful desire to explore Rylan's body. A mischievous smile lit her face.

"That smile is going to get you into trouble, Lady DeWilde," Rylan said. "It's too alluring by half."

He pulled her into bed beside him. They cuddled for a few minutes. Then Rylan kissed her, and once that happened, Sydney no longer had any control of the situation.

She was his.

And he was hers.

Her fragrance was the strongest aphrodisiac Rylan had ever known. It drugged his senses. He ran his hands over her body, unable to believe she belonged to him. But she did. Her soft breasts overflowed his palms. The gold circlet at her throat made her look pagan and ripe with sexual power.

He couldn't wait to get her pregnant. A hot rush of blood surged through him at the thought of her slender belly swelling with his child.

"How sweet you are, Sydney." He nuzzled her shoulder. He slipped his fingers between her legs, probing gently. "How wet and warm in there. I want to be inside you."

Sydney closed her eyes, trying not to gasp. The sensations he aroused made her shudder. She twined her arms around his neck and bit his shoulder. The torque was making her wild. She bit him again.

"God," he said, laughing. "That hurt." He played with her in utter enjoyment, groaning as her excitement grew. He teased her until he was shaking as badly as Sydney. His jaw clenched, he straddled her and thrust inside, sheathing himself in the depths of her body.

Sydney's heart pounded in her chest. She grabbed his shoulders and held on for dear life, lifting herself to meet his erotic thrusts. He braced his hands under her hips as if he couldn't get deep enough inside her. She groaned in satisfaction as he penetrated her to the hilt, driving inside her until neither of them could repeat their own names if asked to do so.

He taught her so much that night. He taught her that love between a man and a woman was a more precious intimacy than she'd ever imagined possible. He was both tender and demanding in bed. She was so glad he'd ruined her.

"Rylan, hold still," she whispered, scooting back against the pillow later that night. "There's something in your hair."

"Lord," he said. "A bug. I'll bet I caught it from Peter."

"No. Not a bug. Snakes don't have bugs, do they? It's a silver hair."

"No wonder." He grunted. "I aged ten years when you vanished into that tomb. Why did you do that to me?"

"I had fun," Sydney said, yanking the shining hair out by the roots.

"
Ouch
." He sat up, rubbing his head.

"It was rather cruel of you to make Peter walk all the way across the moor to the next village, Rylan," she said, glancing at the window.

He grunted again. "It was kind of me not to kill him."

"I'm sending another letter off in the morning to my parents," she said thoughtfully.

"Do you think they'll like me?" he asked.

"I don't know." She paused. "I have to admit that Papa thinks the books you write are devoid of literary merit. I believe he said you were morally reprehensible."

Rylan scowled at that.

"But Mama thinks you're brilliant, and so do Aunt Agatha and her six children. Did I mention that I want to invite them all to come for Christmas? My grandparents will probably come, too." She ran her fingers through his hair. "No more strands of silver."

Rylan sighed. "Look again after I meet your father."

Sydney knew then why she'd fallen in love with Rylan. It didn't have as much to do with his sinful beauty (although that didn't hurt) or his fame as it did with the kind of man he was.

He was the kind of man who cared about her so much he'd grow a gray hair over worrying if her father would hate him. He was the kind of man who'd rescue and ruin her in the same night.

Dangerous
and
dependable. She couldn't ask for more.

Over the years, their romance became a legend. Mrs. Chynoweth never tired of retelling their tale, even when she reached her retirement, and she would sit at the coal fire with his lordship's children and the family's dogs, descended from Frankenstein. The four little DeWildes loved hearing about their beginnings, about how Mama had been shipwrecked, not once but twice, and how Papa had rescued her.

"Such a story could only have come true in Cornwall," Mrs. Chynoweth would always conclude, sitting back in her chair. " Tis the land of King Arthur and all manner of mystical things, and there's nowhere like it in the entire world."

Rylan never wrote about his strange experience with Sydney in the warlord's burial chamber. It was too personal to share with anyone else. As time passed, all he could remember of the Blue Knight was his advice.

"Cherish her."

Which Rylan did, with all his being, and the family of three sons and a daughter she gave him. He loved them more every day, and his life was full of simple pleasures and the usual little struggles.

They never saw the ghost again, although Sydney and her children remembered him every night in their prayers. There was never another shipwreck on St. Kilmerryn's shores, not even during the worst storms. Sailors marveled at how they were guided around the rocks to safety as if by an unseen hand. An aura of peace and protection encircled the brooding house on the cliffs.

The same people who once whispered that the cove was haunted now smiled and said it was enchanted.

Jillian Hunter is the author of eight critically acclaimed novels, including
Daring, Fairy Tale
, and
Delight
, all published by Pocket Books. She has received several awards, including the
Romantic Times
Career Achievement Award and the Romance Communications Readers' Choice Award. Her work has been nominated for the Holt Medallion, the National Readers' Choice Award, and the Prism Award. She grows miniature roses in the mountain foothills of Southern California with her husband and three daughters.

This one's for all the dedicated "skate moms" who spend
their
summers inside the IceLine Twin Rinks in West Chester, Pennsylvania, watching the next generation of world-champion figure skaters and hockey players

Westham, Colony of Massachusetts

July, 1722

"I am sorry if you're unhappy, Zach," said Miriam Rowe as she turned away from the window, "but I
am
going to marry Mr. Chuff, and there's nothing you can say or do to persuade me otherwise."

Miriam paused before the fireplace in her mother's upstairs parlor, smoothing the skirts of her rose-colored gown as she searched for the right words to make Zachariah understand. She had worn all her best clothes today, from the silk ribbons twined through her hair and the embroidered white flounces at her cuffs, down to her neat white stockings and the polished brass buckles on her shoes. It was almost as if she hoped that, through her dress, she could will this conversation with her favorite brother into being equally fine and gracious.

Which, alas, from the expression on Zach's face, she could already guess would not be the case.

The word
unhappy
didn't do justice to what Zach so clearly was feeling at her announcement.
Betrayed, furious, murderous
: any of those would more accurately describe the emotions that were twisting his handsome features.

Miriam sighed with resignation, and disappointment, too. Though there was scant resemblance between them—her half-brother, the only child of their mother's first marriage, was tall and dark and lean while Miriam herself was short and fair and inclined to plumpness—he was still the one member of her family she felt closest to, and the only one whose blessing would truly have mattered to her. She was sorry, very sorry, that Zach felt this way about Chilton Chuff, but not so sorry that she'd break off her betrothal. Zach would simply have to accept it and stop being the most protective older brother in all New England.

"This is generally where a gentleman would offer his best wishes," she said with wounded reproach. "Even a rascal like you, Zach."

"How in blazes am I supposed to offer you best wishes on such a damnable misfortune?" he demanded in return. Though only twenty-four, Zach was already an officer on board a Boston ship, a first mate in a beautifully cut gray coat with pewter buttons down the front. But with that authority he'd also fallen into the irritating habit of expecting obedience, even from his sister. "You scarcely know this fellow, Miriam!"

"That's not true." Miriam's chin rose in swift defense. "I have
known
Mr. Chuff since he came to Westham to visit Dr. Palmer at Whitsuntide, nearly three whole months ago. I
know
that he is a great learned scholar come clear to this colony from Oxford, and I
know
him to be a good, generous gentleman with an income sufficient to support a household and family. His company is most agreeable, and—"

"Oh, aye, most
agreeable
," said Zach with withering emphasis. "You forget that I've met your schoolmaster, Miriam, and he's about as agreeable as a sack of wet cornmeal."

"He is not! He is vastly clever, and—"

"He's not Jack," interrupted Zach. "That's what you're really saying, isn't it? He's not Jack."