Midnight Star (Star Quartet 2)

“And what’s more,” she continued, frowning at him, “what is all this about men not wanting to . . . plow a field where other men have been. What about women? I don’t want a man who’s been plowing in other fields.”

“Destroyed by my own metaphor.”

“Isn’t it the same thing?”

“No, it isn’t, and it’s tough to explain why. Had you not come to me a virgin, I would have been driven wild to know what other man had known you. I would have thought less of you, as unfair as that may sound.”

“But I didn’t think less of you, and I know you weren’t a virgin! You knew too much about things.”

“I doubt we would have accomplished much on our wedding night had I been as ignorant as you. It all has to do with you as a lady, Chauncey, that paragon of womanhood whose thoughts and actions must be inviolate. Such a seamy thing as her actually wanting sex is unthinkable. Once she is married, then magically she should be willing to give herself to her husband. She must be pure and utterly innocent, else she’s not truly a lady. Does that make sense?”

“I suppose men have ensured that it makes sense. Yet I consider you a gentleman.”

“Not the same thing, love. There is a point to it all, you know. You, sweetheart, will carry my children. And as a man whose property and money will go to his children, I want to be certain that they are mine, and not another’s.”

“Then if I had been raped and become pregnant, you would have hated me because you couldn’t be certain it was your child I was carrying.”

He stared at her a moment, examining himself, for he’d never considered such a thing. “I would be a true bastard if that were true,” he said finally, “and I don’t believe I am. No, I wouldn’t hate you, nor would I hate the child, for, you see, the child would be half you. Now, have I given a good enough account of myself?”

“It is all rather difficult, isn’t it?” She raised her hand and lightly touched her fingertips to his lips. “I suppose I do understand, yet it seems that women can do naught but slip off the path of righteousness.” She smiled crookedly.

“Just so long as when you slip, it is into my arms.”

“Ah, and there’s another thing, Del.”

He groaned. “I make love to you, and in the aftermath I must indulge in philosophical discussions.”

She slightly tugged at a tuft of hair on his chest. “No, I am just a simple woman who needs a man to explain things to her. For instance, do you know that at twenty-one I was considered practically a spinster in England? Twenty-one years old! And here you are, a man and twenty-eight. You were a bachelor and that was marvelous! Goodness, even if you were in your thirties, you still could have wed me and no one would have thought it inappropriate that so many years separated us.”

“I know what’s coming next,” he said on a deep, long-suffering sigh. “Chauncey, at twenty you were so much more intelligent, mature, winsome, and marvelous than I was at your age. It takes a man time and years to gain enough experience to make him acceptable. And you know something? I was disturbed that you were so old. All of twenty-one. A man wants an obedient, malleable wife. I should have found you when you were eighteen.”

“You sound like you’re jesting, but I know you’re serious.”

“You’re wrong,” he said, leaning down to kiss her pursed lips. “I am rarely serious. It’s bad for the digestion. Now, watching your eyes glow with pleasure is quite good for the digestion. Hush now, I want to quiet down the rustic dinner in my belly.”

His hand slid down to cup her breast, kneading it gently.

“What about my digestion?” she whispered into his mouth.

“It’s up to me, my love, to ensure that in a very, very short time, all you’ll be thinking about is me in your belly.”

Why, Chauncey wondered drowsily sometime later, did he persist in being right?

She slept deeply, her body satiated, the pain in her shoulder so negligible that it didn’t pierce the warmth of her rest. It grew chilly during the night, and she went naturally to him, curving herself against his back, her arm around his waist. Her dreams were soft and rambling, filled with light and laughter. The past and the present interwove easily, and she smiled gently, even deep in sleep.

When the door to the shack burst open just after dawn, the shock of it brought her upright, a scream on her lips.

For an instant she was too disoriented to react. There were two men, both holding guns, standing in the doorway.

The taller man she recognized as Baron Jones, the man who had been on the wharf that day in San Francisco, the man Del had fought a duel with. A slender man, black-haired, his features somehow too well-defined for handsomeness, his complexion ruddy. His eyes were cold as the North Sea, a fathomless gray. The other man was mean-looking, almost skinny, and bandy-legged. He was staring at her, his mouth agape, revealing darkly stained teeth.

“Lordy, Baron,” the man gasped, “would you look at those tits.”

Chauncey’s examination of them had taken only a brief moment. She grasped the blanket and pulled it to her neck.

“Del always provides himself with the most prime piece of ass available. Even hitched himself to this one. Isn’t that right, Saxton?”

Chauncey felt Delaney’s arm go around her back. She turned to look at him and felt her blood run cold.