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“Yes,” she said. “Do with me what you will.”
Angus groaned at her words. He’d never known that you could want a person as much as he wanted her. As her gown went up, she moved her body even closer to his.
“Make love to me,” she whispered. “Please. I’ve desired you for so very long.”
“As I have you,” he whispered, kissing her bare shoulder as the nightdress slipped to one side. One hand was buried in her soft, fragrant hair and the other was under her gown on her smooth, perfect skin.
She was kissing his face and he groaned with the joy of it. Her breath was so warm, so sweet.
He kissed her lips again, and as her hands wandered over his body, his voice caught in his throat.
“Make love to me tonight,” she said again. “And tomorrow we’ll be married and leave for Virginia.”
“Mmmm,” was all he could say as her lips moved down over his chest, and her soft hands made their way under his shirt. His head was back and he couldn’t think clearly, but somehow, a word made its way to his brain.
“Married?” he whispered.
“Yes, married.” She brought her mouth back up to his neck.
“No,” he said, and gave her a push. When he looked at her, he groaned again. Edilean in a parlor drinking tea was a beautiful sight, but this woman with her hair spread about her bare shoulders and her eyes half closed with desire and passion was more than he’d ever dreamed about.
But he could not let this go on. He couldn’t bear to see that love turn to hatred. He couldn’t bear to give her what she thought she wanted, then later see her look at him with contempt and disgust. No, he’d rather go away with this image of her in his mind and live with it for the rest of his life than to ever see her look at him with hatred.
“I canna,” he said. “You’re not for me and I’ll not defile you.”
In just a few seconds, he’d pushed away from her and then he was gone, out the second-story window, and down the way he’d come in.
It to
ok Edilean minutes to come out of the pool of ecstasy she’d been in to realize that the man she loved was gone. She’d offered him not only her body, but her love and her life as well. And he had left her! He’d refused all that she’d offered him.
Before she could fully realize what had happened, the door to her bedroom opened and there was Harriet, her hair covered in a nightcap, a dressing gown over her white cotton nightdress, and she was holding a candle.
“He’s gone,” Harriet said, looking at Edilean lying on the bed, her eyes still showing her desire, but there was something else coming into them as she was fully realizing that Angus had again left her.
“He’s gone,” Harriet repeated as she put the candle down, sat on the bed beside Edilean, and pulled her nightgown down over her hip.
“He left me,” Edilean whispered, her eyes wide in disbelief. “I told him I loved him and he ran away.”
“I know,” Harriet said.
“You don’t know; you can’t know.”
“I do,” Harriet said. “When I was your age I was in love with a young man, but after he talked to my father and found out I had no fortune, he left me too. I know what it is to love and lose.”
“But I have money,” Edilean said in wonder. “He left me because...” She looked up at Harriet. “I don’t know why he left me. I don’t know why he doesn’t love me as I do him.” As she said these words, the tears began to come.
Harriet opened her arms, Edilean went to her, and she began to cry in earnest.
“I love him,” she said. “I love him but he didn’t believe me. He thinks I don’t know him but I do. I know him well.”
Harriet would never tell Edilean, but she’d heard every word of what had happened. She hadn’t been able to sleep, and from her room on the second floor of the house, she’d heard someone outside. She got up to go to Edilean and warn her, but then she’d heard their first words, and she knew who it was. It was the man from the ship. She’d asked Edilean about him, but she’d just waved her hand and said he was someone she’d met. He wasn’t important. Harriet hadn’t been fooled. She knew Edilean was in love with the young man. And as the days passed and Edilean found all the men she met to be “boring,” Harriet knew for sure that Edilean was in love with someone else—and she guessed it was the man from the ship.
Tonight, Harriet had unabashedly stayed outside Edilean’s bedroom and listened. It all took her back to the one time in her life when she’d been in love like that. The difference was that her beau had tried time and again to make love to her, but Harriet had told him they must wait until the wedding night. After her father’s talk sent the young man packing, Harriet wished she’d spent nights of passion with him. She wished she’d conceived a child and been sent to Devon or even Cornwall to raise the child on her own. But back then she didn’t realize she’d not get a second chance at love.
When Edilean and her young man seemed to be on the verge of making love, Harriet had walked away, smiling, happy to see the young woman she’d come to care about find happiness.
But just minutes later Harriet heard a noise on the roof. When she looked out her window, she saw a shadowy figure disappearing down the street and she realized that Edilean’s young man hadn’t stayed with her. It had taken Harriet minutes to recover enough from her shock before she could go to Edilean and comfort her.
