“He behaved hideously toward us. Toward my half-brothers, Caleb and Blake, and their mother too. Can that sort of immoral character be inherited?”
“No. We make our own choices. You can be whoever you wish to be.”
“I’ll keep telling myself that.”
She reached a hand over her shoulder, and he clasped hold and kissed the center of her palm. She pulled it away, and he draped an arm across her waist and nestled her even closer.
With their ardor partially spent, the room was cooling. He tugged a blanket over them, sealing them in a cozy cocoon. He couldn’t predict how many more times he’d be with her like this, and he was cataloguing every aspect of the precious moment so he’d never forget a single detail.
Yet he was exhausted, and if he wasn’t careful, he’d doze off.
She was so still that he was sure she’d fallen asleep, but she drowsily asked, “Must you go home?”
“No, I don’t have to.”
“Would you stay the night? I’d like you to. It can be so lonely here by myself.”
“I can stay,” he murmured in reply. “I can stay as long as you want.”
Joanna stood by the window in her bedchamber, studying the sky outside. Dawn was just beginning to break.
Jacob was asleep in her bed, and she wasn’t aghast to find him there. Her request that he tarry hadn’t been a reckless impulse. She’d known he’d return to her cottage—sooner rather than later—so when he’d knocked on her door, she hadn’t been surprised.
When he’d fled two weeks earlier, she’d been so hurt that she’d finally read her cards, which she tried to never do. For once, they’d actually supplied her with some clear answers. She and Jacob had a destiny, and until it was realized, he wouldn’t leave her alone.
Before they’d dozed off, he’d asked her if she thought a man could inherit his father’s low character. She’d placated him, claiming people had free will, but she didn’t believe that at all. She believed a person’s path was written down at birth in a grand book arranged by Fate. Everyone walked around as if they were tiny pieces on a chessboard.
Jacob Ralston was bound to her through their connection to his father. Joanna had begged the man to watch over her, and with that powerful entreaty hanging over their heads, how could she hope to keep herself separated from his son?
She’d spent hours studying him and figuring out what she was supposed to do for him—and for herself. She wasn’t an innocent Miss, and she didn’t view her body as shameful. She didn’t view sexual play as wicked or wrong. No, she simply considered it to be normal human conduct that created babies.
Her female ancestors had rarely married, but they often had children. They fell in love and behaved as they shouldn’t, so they moved frequently to hide their sins from fussy preachers and Puritanical neighbors.
She’d wondered what it would be like to engage in the marital act, and she wasn’t worried about a child catching in her womb. There were secret herbs that could prevent it from occurring. They weren’t always successful, but they usually were.
As he’d slumbered so deeply, he hadn’t noticed when she’d climbed out of bed, when she’d tiptoed around and had taken off her clothes. She was dressed only in her robe, with nothing on underneath. She waited until the sun crested the eastern horizon, then she nodded out to the day.
This was what she wanted to have happen. This was what she picked for herself.
She shook the robe off her shoulders, hurried over, and slid under the blanket. Her hasty arrival roused him, and apparently, he’d forgotten where he was because he glanced about frantically. Then comprehension settled in, and he relaxed down.
He laid an arm across her waist and pulled her to him, and of course, she was naked.
“Joanna James!” There was a teasing gleam in his eye. “It appears to me that your clothes have vanished. What are you thinking?”
She leaned in and kissed him before she lost her nerve. He kissed her back with an incredible amount of enthusiasm, and his obvious eagerness quelled her doubts. It would be all right. She wouldn’t contemplate a bad ending.
“I want to do this with you,” she told him as their lips parted.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“You might have given me some warning. You’ve shocked me so completely; we’re lucky I didn’t suffer an apoplexy.”
“Heaven forbid.”
“Why me though? You’re offering a precious gift you should save for your husband.”
“I don’t intend to ever have a husband, remember?”
“You constantly tell me that, but I’m not convinced you really mean it.”
“And I’m not a debutante. I’m not protecting my virtue so my father can sell me to the highest aristocratic bidder. I’m an adult woman who can make her own choices. I choose you to be the one.”
He gazed at her fondly, but with enormous consternation too. She could practically see the wheels turning in his mind as he debated whether to oblige her. He was a lusty man who fervidly desired her, yet he was a gentleman too. According to the rules of his world, he wasn’t allowed to ruin a young lady.
There were laws against it. The Church declared it a sin. Society deemed it a great moral outrage.
“Don’t fret about it, Jacob,” she murmured.
“How can I not?” he absurdly replied. “Once we’re finished, I won’t drop to my knee and beseech you to marry me.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not expecting that.”
“Yes, but what else can I bestow that you might consider valuable?”
“This isn’t a situation where we must barter over terms. I merely want to learn what it’s like. I’ve always been curious.”
“Do you know what happens? Have you ever been apprised?”
“I’ve delivered many babies, so yes, I have a good picture of how they’re created.”
“Well, it’s two very different things to be told verbally and to actually experience it.”
“I understand that it is, and I’d like you to show me how it can be. Please?”
It was horrid
