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  With his free hand, Aaron roved it over her belly to her throbbing center. He cupped her in his large palm. He took his mouth from her breast. “So wet and hot for me, sweet Cathlene. Do you remember how I used to make you cry for me?”

  She could only nod as he slid two fingers deep inside her channel. He touched that spot that always lit her body aflame like flint to a wick, breaking her apart as it caught fire.

  She fought to free her hand from his grip, but he held her fast. She gave a mewing sound in her throat, her lips parted in a silent cry of pleasure as he stroked her.

  “Aye,” he growled seductively. “Just so.”

  She writhed under his hand as his fingers stretched her. She lifted her legs to once again wrap them around his hips. The movement caused his fingers to slide even further inside her. Aaron used his thumb again on the sensitized nubbin at the top of her triangle. She struggled to maintain her control, but her body had other ideas. “Let me feel your passion all around me,” he coaxed.

  Without further encouragement, Cathlene crested the peak of passion, Aaron’s name on her lips. Her core clenched about his fingers. She clung tightly to him as her climax swept through her. Her body bowed back, her breaths coming in short quick pants.

  His heat seared her every pore. It branded her as she held him to her. She raised her free hand to stroke down his sweaty chest. She found his heart that beat frenetically under her palm. Aaron always had exhibited excellent control. Like a tethered tiger, his body quivered at the precipice of that restraint. Only she knew how to fray his bonds and free him.

  A secret part of her relished at making him want her so desperately. He loosed her hand and she reached between their bodies to find him again. She didn’t need to see his face to know he desired her as much as she him. Before she could take hold of him, he moved away.

  She once again opened her eyes. Aaron stood before her, his trousers dropping to his ankles. With his legs splayed, he leaned over her again, his hands going to her bottom. He slid her to the edge of the bed. Her core flooded with heat and want as she voluntarily parted her legs.

  Expectation coalesced low in her belly as she met his passion-filled eyes. Now had come the moment she’d been longing for since they were torn from each other a lifetime ago. She caressed him everywhere she could reach. Down his back and over his sides. Over his chest to his hips and beyond. She found scars that hadn’t been there before. She vowed to kiss them all in turn the next time they made love. When they did away with this need that was like a sharp-edged sword in their bellies, they would take the time to cherish one another.

  He lifted her slowly up to him, but instead of entering and filling her as she yearned, he brought her higher into his arms. With an awkward gait, he shuffled across the room to the tub.

  Her blood ran cold as she peered down into his triumphant gaze. “What the bloody hell?”

  His denial was like throwing ice over her hot skin. It left her empty and frigid.

  “You might be a good thief, but you aren’t much of a liar,” Aaron observed, halting beside the tub. Her legs slid down his hips and thighs. Losing the warmth of his body left her cold as he stepped away. “You aren’t one for the stage, my love, now or then.”

  Tears pricked against her eyelids. Bitter, angry tears. He’d thrown her passion for him right back in her face. He’d known all along he was going to snub her. And she’d been the foolish girl who’d again let her body take sway over her reason.

  She held on to the tub’s edge until she regained strength in her legs. “Don’t believe yourself any different from any of my previous lovers.” Her voice remained steady as she gave him her back. She unlaced her torn gown, her fingers trembling as she struggled to undo the ties. She shrugged out of it, letting it fall to the floor to pool at her feet. “Yes, I still have feelings for you,” she said coyly untying her chemise, “but it is merely lust, nothing more. I’ll act as your wife in public as you wish, but there won’t be anything between us in private, save for our…our bargain.”

  She could feel his gaze blazing into her back as she lowered herself into the tub. Acting brazen and untouchable would hopefully turn him from her, and make him tire of her and see that she was no longer the perfect society wife. She would take all she could from him until she gained enough in jewels and finery to have enough to survive. Because knowing Aaron, he would shower her with the most indulgent and expensive gifts he could find and afford.

  He set his clothing to rights then leaned a hip against a bed post as he watched her take up a cloth and cake of soap. “I know you’ve been through a great deal while apart from me. You don’t trust me enough to tell me of your trials. I wish nothing but to give you a safe haven and someone to turn to.”

  Fury lanced her heart. The soap and cloth fell in to the water with a soft plunk. There he went again, speaking of bloody trust. She rose from the bath to face him. Heedless of her nakedness and the rivulets of water cascading down her body, she confronted him. “You wish to have my trust? You, who made me a widow days after our wedding by disappearing with my money and jewels, leaving me on my own just as land had been sighted? You, who couldn’t wait to dock before abandoning me, while I thought you dead all this time,” she said venomously. “You don’t know what hell I’ve had to endure these past years because of you.”

  Aaron couldn’t remain silent any longer. He had to explain. “I am sorry, Cathlene.” He went to reach for her. “I never meant to leave you. I swear, that is the Lord’s truth.”

  The all-too-familiar guilt sliced through him. From the rage in her eyes, it was clear Cathlene hated him.

  She clenched a fist and swiped the air before him. Beads of water dampened the front of his shirt. “You’re sorry,” she spat contemptuously, rage raising her voice. “You, now the rich man who’s made a name for himself, by stealing the fortune that I’d brought for us. You who claimed to have looked for me. I did not go far.”

  “When I had enough of my own money saved up, I hired someone to find you. They searched every inch of this city, but to no avail. Where have you been all this time?”

  “When you had enough money, you finally searched for me?” she retorted. “You sold off my jewels and possessions and squandered the money away that quickly? And you have the nerve to pretend yourself to once be a poor beggar?”

  “I was begging, for a time. As I’ve said, I’m not the one who robbed you. I hadn’t a penny to my name when I arrived in America.”

  “You poor soul.”

  Aaron recoiled at the bitter sarcasm in her words. With the accuracy of an archer’s arrow, they wounded him, just as she’d intended. “Where have you been hiding?”

  “The Five Points.”

  His blood went hot then cold at the mention of The Five Points, the most poverty-stricken and disreputable area of the city, where any manner of criminal could be bought with very little money. Drunkenness and prostitution, filth and illness, murder and mayhem abounded.

  She’d been so close yet so far. “I searched that area myself. I was afraid something horrible might’ve happened to you, that you might’ve succumbed to injury or…”

  He couldn’t finish the sentence, not when it conjured horrific visions in his mind of Cathlene lying naked and bloody in a narrow alley. “When you weren’t to be found, I assumed the worst.”

  She angled her chin at a stubborn tilt as she resumed bathing. Aaron fought to keep his gaze on her face and not on the cloth she swept over her glistening skin. “Oh no, I learned quickly how to survive on my own. Captain Morris came and informed me you’d fallen overboard and drowned. He felt I owed him the pleasure of my body for the generosity he’d shown us by lending us his cabin.”

  Chapter Four

  Rage vibrated through his bones. “Did that bastard put his hands on you?”

  The light from the fire cast a golden hue over the burnished tresses of her hair. Cathlene wetted the long strands and worked her soap-coated fingers through the curly mass. “He
tried. I was able to run away and hide until we docked. I never saw him again.”

  Aaron made a mental note to seek out the lecherous captain and give him a piece of his mind right after he deprived him a piece of his hide. “What did you do once you left the ship?”

  She coated the remaining strands of her thick hair with the soapy lather. “I begged for awhile. I didn’t have much success.”

  He imagined she wouldn’t. Even dressed in rags, she had the appearance of a refined, noble lady, not a poor, defeated beggar. He couldn’t see her asking for handouts from anyone. “What about looking for work?”

  Her tone turned hostile. “In this man’s world, besides stealing and begging, tell me, what skills remain for a penniless woman on her own that do not involve her lying on her back?”

  Her candor shocked him. She wasn’t raised a whore, but yet she spoke of whoring as her only means for survival. She’d been raised a lady, given all the skills a lady would need in life.

  Yet whoring herself to him was the only option other than jail he’d given her. Aaron quashed the displeasure of his actions. He needed an heir. And Cathlene was his wife. He wouldn’t hand his fortune over to any man, as his mentor and friend had. Being one of many illegitimate sons of an Irish nobleman, he was disregarded and ignored, his blood considered tainted. Family was family in his eyes, regardless of heritage. Though grateful for the opportunity given him, Aaron did not wish to find himself in the same position, a bachelor and childless. His blood would inherit his riches and no other.

  “There are plenty of jobs for women. You can sew. Factories and seamstresses are always looking for new girls. Surely with your skills and beauty, you had to have found something?”

  Her lovely face darkened into a sneer. “It isn’t always skill that is considered when hiring a new worker.”

  He didn’t understand her meaning, but from the thunder in her eyes, he’d best leave it be. She wasn’t comfortable sharing any more with him. It wouldn’t take Cathlene long to become reacquainted with her former way of life, and open up to him about her experiences during their separation. He’d see to it.

  “How did you come to your fancy life?” she asked, changing the subject as she reached for one of the two buckets of water beside the tub.

  From the shadows in her eyes, she had too many horrible memories accumulated these past two years. Memories that needed to be forgotten.

  Aaron strode forward and pried the handle from her fingers. He lifted the bucket and added some hotter water from the uwer a maid left outside the door, mixing it with the now tepid water. Cathlene sighed as he poured it over her head. She arched her neck, exposing the now clean creamy skin of her throat. Aaron kept his attention on his task, banishing all thoughts of a naked and willing Cathlene.

  “That night…when I…disappeared. I did not steal from you. I saw the blackguard of a Captain rummaging through your things. I confronted him. He and his mates tossed me overboard. I was rescued by a passing ship, which docked that following morning.”

  When he emptied the remaining bucket on her hair, and the droplets of water slid down her face, he observed the doubt that clouded her features. She stepped naked from the tub and shrouded herself in the towel he held out to her.

  Cathlene gathered up her long hair and wrapped it in a towel. “How convenient for you that you found yourself ashore when I did. I never noticed you gallivanting about the docks, but why would I? Lady Luck always seemed to smile upon you.”

  He didn’t miss the acerbity in her tone. “I fell ill with a fever. I was taken to a hospital, but I left as soon as I could stand. I knew if I remained there, I would die. The doctors were quacks, the conditions filthy. I roamed the streets as weak as a kitten. I had to beg and steal for bread and soup. It took weeks for me to regain my strength.”

  She lifted a brow. “I’d left the docks well before then. I was working at my first of many jobs as a seamstress.”

  She turned away to sit on the side of the bed.

  He wanted to ask more about her jobs, but knew she didn’t wish to speak of them. He continued with his own tale instead. “I begged on the corner of Canal Street. The same gentlemen would pass my way in their fine carriages. All would ignore my outstretched hand. All but one.”

  “So you had a savior, then? Or did you come by your fortune by robbing this kind man blind?”

  Aaron gave her his back. He went to the chest of drawers where Mrs. Billings had set out one of his shirts and pair of trousers. It was all he had, until he retrieved a suitable gown for her.

  “No, I didn’t rob him.”

  Recalling his days as a beggar brought back his own dark times. From the uncertainty in her eyes, Cathlene didn’t believe him.

  She was correct. They were not the same two who’d fallen in love in Ireland. She was not the delicate defenseless fairy, but he was not the rich upstart she thought him to be either. Deep down, in their hearts, beneath all the hellishness of their pasts, they still were the same good people who’d fallen in love.

  He needed to make Cathlene see that.

  “This gentleman was an immigrant himself. Hans was from Germany, and he’d done well for himself in banking. When he passed me, he’d always toss a coin or two out his carriage window. One morning, I’d saved up enough money to purchase a copy of The New York Evening Post. This city was my new home. I wanted to learn of the political climate. He stopped. I inquired of him if he knew of any open positions for a young man who could read, write and keep ledgers.”

  He turned back to her. Cathlene lifted her head, interest and yes, pride shining in her eyes. “You were one of my best pupils. Though arithmetic wasn’t your strongest subject.”

  He nodded, handing her the clothes. “If I hadn’t set myself to learning my letters and numbers, I wouldn’t be where I am now. Hans just happened to need a secretary. I quickly learned the banking business. He taught me all he knew. He was more than generous. He provided me with a room in this fine house for my use, and nine months ago, when he decided to head west to California, he left his house and business to me. He’d never married or had children to leave it all to. So you see, Cathlene, these riches did not just fall in my lap.”

  Cathlene stood and went to the chair before the blazing fire. She sat and let down her hair. Golden strands tumbled down her back. He handed her his comb. “Has New York society accepted you?”

  “Hans’ influence has smoothed my way, to be sure. But he was never one for mingling with old money. Those in the top echelons tolerated him, as they do me. Our relationship is one of begrudging respect.”

  She ran the comb through her long tangled tresses as she regarded him thoughtfully. “Why then, if you do not socialize with the society here, do you need me? You seem to be doing well without my presence.”

  “You are, at your core, a lady of refinement. No matter all my training by you, and by Hans, they still see me as the poor Irishman, a second-class citizen, unworthy of their respect and acceptance. In order for me to grow my business, I need to show them I am more like them than they believe. With your Protestant background and noble lineage, you would help me obtain the support of the most influential and wealthy citizens of the city.”

  Astonished and a little more than impressed, Cathlene studied this stranger, this man who was her husband. “When shall we make our grand entrance as husband and wife?”

  Aaron raised a brow. “There is a performance at The Castle gardens of the well-acclaimed Jenny Lind day after tomorrow. I’ve procured two tickets.”

  “Two tickets? Just who did you intend on accompanying you for this performance?”

  “Before you arrived, I had several options. Now the second ticket is yours.”

  Cathlene threw aside the barb of jealousy of Aaron escorting another woman in her place. Aaron was a man after all, and she’d be a fool to believe he remained faithful to her during their separation. She wouldn’t allow herself to be jealous if he took a mistress. She just didn’t wish to hear o
f it.

  She didn’t consider herself possessive. After all, once she gave him a son and left him, Aaron could take all the mistresses he wanted. She tried closing her mind to one or more of those women serving as mother to her child, so she latched her gaze on the flickering flames.

  “We’ll be joined by a group of my associates.”

  “I gather this is a business engagement?”

  “It is. They shall be bringing their wives.”

  “How fortunate for me. I’m to play the doting wife and befriend them, while singing your praises so they’ll do the same to their husbands.”

  “Aye, that is the idea.”

  She set his comb aside. “I’ll try to show you in a positive light. After all, I wouldn’t wish them to think me an ungrateful wife who doesn’t want the best for her husband, especially when he’s been so concerned for my care.”

  Aaron glanced away, but not before she noticed the furrow in his brow. “With your help, you’ll improve both our situations.”

  “I’ll do my best to thrust you in their inner circle.”

  “No, Cathlene, I despise myself for asking you for this much.”

  She began plaiting her hair into a long braid. “I have nothing to wear for such a grand event,” she said, dropping the biting sarcasm from her tone.

  “I’ll send for a seamstress this afternoon to fit you for a new wardrobe. Or I can have Mrs. Billings fetch a gown and we’ll head over to the Lady’s Mile and the shops there, where you might browse at your leisure.”

  Bear him a son and gain your freedom. And lose your child.

  Give into this unfulfilled yearning that ate at her heart and soul. Slake this wild hunger that threatened to eat her alive if she didn’t lie with him.

  Lie with this man she still wanted with a desperate unfulfilled hunger that grew wilder with every passing moment.