His first kiss caused a sharp, deep pleasure to shriek through her. What he did after that left her grasping the headboard for support. The intensity of the sensations caused her mind to spin. She was sure it could not get more astonishing but it did, again and again, until she lost all sense. She heard herself begging for him to stop but also for more, in the same breath. Finally a release split through her violently.
Somehow she moved again. No, he moved her. She found herself bound to him, connected and deeply joined. He filled her like never before, stretching her so she felt his power inside her. She hovered over him while he thrust hard and long and even so she would have wanted more if he could give it. His finish came so forcefully that it took her breath away.
She collapsed on him, utterly spent. She lacked the strength to move. He wrapped her in an embrace and held her tightly while their deep breaths met in the night. “You are perfect, Minerva. Magnificent and beautiful.”
She believed him. She felt magnificent and beautiful. With him. Because of him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“I expect there was a good reason you told me to meet you here.” Beth spoke before he even greeted her. She did not look at him, but at some tiny shoots of growth under a tree, heralding the coming spring. “Was a long ways for me to come just to chat.”
Meet me at the same place, when you go out to shop. That was the note he had slipped her after breakfast. Her empty basket rested on the grass at her feet. Her face, round and wrinkled, appeared very sober.
“I didn’t tell her you wanted to speak with me,” she said. “No reason to.”
“Just as well.”
“She told me you’ve a man who has told you she killed that husband of hers. I suppose that means there is still some danger for her about that.”
“Some. Not too much, I think.”
He could barely see her face with the way she looked down and with her cap’s long ruffle obscuring her profile.
“There was a decision about all of that. One that excused her of any blame,” he added.
“I never trusted that. More a matter of maybe putting the pot to the back of the hearth, away from the flames, but close enough to grab if one had a need for it. Could that happen? If they decide this duke was killed, could they look back to that and not only think she might have done it, but even start digging into that worthless brute’s death again?”
“They could. It wasn’t like being found innocent in a trial. The matter can be reopened.”
“I’ll be counting on you to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“I can make no promises, I’m afraid. She knew the risks, but decided to brave it out.”
Beth did not move or look at him. She just stared at the ground, her thick body bent a little from her heavy thoughts.
He picked up the basket. “Walk with me.”
They ambled along the perimeter of trees that surrounded Portman Square, both of them silent.
“I saw the marks on Jeremy’s shoulders,” he said. “He must have been very young when someone laid those down.”
She walked a little taller at that, and gazed straight ahead. “Thirteen years. The first time.”
“Finley?”
She nodded. “I should have known it would happen. Such a stupid, little man. He took pleasure in cruelty. His horse, his wife—I should have known eventually he would go after my boy too.”
“If he tried again, after you left his house, if he came upon Jeremy anywhere, in the street or on his property—he wasn’t a boy anymore. A few years older and he might have refused to take it. No one could blame him if he decided to allow no one to do that again.”
A deep breath entered her, and a deep sigh left. “Is that what you think? That my son killed him? Are you thinking to swear that information in order to spare Minerva?”
“I don’t intend to swear anything. I have nothing to swear. I only have a sum I added up in my head, with no facts to back it up.”
She crossed her arms and looked him in the eyes. “You added wrong. Jeremy would never do that.”
“In the right circumstances, any man might do it. That is how wars get fought, after all.”
“I’m telling you he didn’t do it. I know he didn’t.”
He did not say that she couldn’t know. That even if we are sure of someone, we can’t be totally sure. He did not say that as a mother, she of course would believe her son incapable of such a thing, no matter how justified the act might have been.
“I know for certain he didn’t kill that poor excuse for a man,” she said firmly, as if she heard his thoughts. “I know because I shot Finley myself.”
* * *
“He took after him again. I never saw Jeremy so angry. There comes a time when a boy isn’t a boy anymore, and won’t stand for it. You had that right.” Beth told her story while they continued their stroll in the park. “I figured it was only a matter of time before Jeremy did something about it. Then he’d end up either hanged or transported, even though he was provoked to it.”
Chase knew better than to ask questions or demand information. He had considered Beth, but had rejected the idea. Beth was the person who healed and helped. Not a person who killed.
“Then there was that man poking around,” she added. “One like you. Mr. Finley had hired him to look for evidence about Minerva, that she had a lover or whatnot. I didn’t like that. I feared he would either find enough to convince a court, or he would make it up. If he didn’t, Mr. Finley was likely to just steal her. Who would care or know, except me? She weren’t really safe, even if she had left him, was she?”
“No.” With no family to rely on or run to, Minerva was vulnerable as long as she remained married to Finley.
“What did it, though, was seeing him again. He came right to our door on his horse. Minerva saw him and she looked like death itself. Jeremy went out there and told him to go, that he had no rights there. The man’s response was to use that crop on Jeremy again, slashing down from on high on that horse, again and again. Jeremy finally grabbed the crop and threw it aside, but his face was cut and his neck—it was like the old nightmare come alive again. So I took the pistol we kept in the house, and waited for him while he was on his ride in the forest. He liked going there, even if the land weren’t his. Liked pretending he was lord of some manor, when he was lord of none.”
“Did he think it not odd that you were there?”
“At first he thought I had brought a message from Minerva. He actually looked pleased. When I told him not to go near her or my son again, that I would not stand for it, he tried to use that crop on me. I will admit my mind turned black then. I had the pistol in my hand under my wrap, and I just—” She blinked hard. “I tried to feel bad about it, what with being a God-fearing woman, but I couldn’t believe any God would blame me too much. A mother doesn’t sit by while her child is hurt. He was only seventeen then. Still young. And Minerva—I couldn’t watch her go through that again. I don’t think she would have taken it either. She had grown a lot, in her mind and self. She would have fought him if he got her back. And he would have killed her for sure, eventually. He had it in him.”