Grace Goodwin - The Virgins - Complete Boxed Set

And now I knew his face.

“Does he—” I licked my dry lips, tried to keep the curiosity from my voice, “—have a name, our newcomer?”

Mr. Anderson placed the readied pie plates on a tray. “Mr. Maddox.”

He lifted the tray and walked to the door, nudged it open with his hip and entered the dining room.

Mr. Maddox.

I put my hand on my stomach. It felt like butterflies, bees—no, hornets were swarming inside. I’d only caught a glimpse of him for a few seconds and was able to absorb so many details of him. My hand went to the back of a chair, tucked neatly beneath the table, as I tried to imagine what he’d thought of me. He’d taken in the room at large, the boarders, then me. He’d focused on me, pale eyes assessing and observant. Oh, dear Lord.

My hair was a mess and I’d been working in the kitchens all day. My brow was covered with beads of moisture as my body tried to survive the heat of the burning wood stove in July. Worst of all, Mr. Maddox hadn’t really been looking at me. He’d been observing Mr. Bernot’s hand on my bottom.

The man must think me a harlot, allowing one of the boarders to touch me, let alone put their hand on me in such an inappropriate way. The very idea that he would think thusly of me brought instant tears to my eyes. Devastation coursed through me. Why? I had no idea. I’d only been in the man’s presence for less than a minute, seconds really. I should be embarrassed at being caught in such a way, but it was an inappropriate act of Mr. Bernot’s, not mine. Shame still filled me, for the same reason I had not told Mr. Anderson of the man’s advances.

While Mr. Anderson would believe me, he couldn’t confront Mr. Bernot, for it was a woman’s word against a man’s. Mr. Bernot would likely say I had been trying to entice him, a widow seeking temporary comfort from a man passing through. What could Mr. Anderson do then? Lose the man’s business? These things had happened before and I’d just smiled and pushed through, accepting my plight as a woman in the West. But this time, Mr. Maddox had witnessed the intrusion and for some reason what he thought of me was extremely important.

Mr. Anderson returned to the kitchen, mumbling quietly as he set the empty tray on the table, then stopped and looked at me. “What’s wrong?” he asked, concern making him frown.

I sniffed, not prepared to tell him the truth, for I did not understand it myself. Besides, he was a man and would not understand feminine whims and romantic fantasies. I couldn’t tell him that Mr. Maddox made me feel things, want things I’d never imagined before. I would never be able to explain the strangeness of the scar on my palm tingling with heat, or the unfamiliar desire making the place between my thighs wet. He wouldn’t understand that.

I was an emotional mess. Exhaustion, perhaps? I’d been awoken by the dreams these four nights past. There was no tangible explanation for my tears, but I knew, deep down, that my upset centered around Mr. Maddox.

“I… I burned my hand.” I waved it in the air, but quickly so he wouldn’t see the lack of redness. It was as close to the truth as I could muster, for that wretched birthmark did practically burn.

Arching one brow, he eyed me, then tilted his head to the back door. “Go outside and cool off. It’ll be time to do the dishes soon enough.”

I didn’t reply, just nodded my head and fled. While the evening chore would not complete itself, the dishes could wait.

I walked around behind the chicken coop and used the small pile of cut wood to climb up onto the roof. There I sat, my head forward on my bent knees. It was the only solitary spot on the boarding house property. I looked out over the miles and miles of prairie, the grass blowing in the summer breeze, rippling like gold in the sunshine.

I often thought of myself as a girl in one of Grimm’s fairytales, especially the one about the poor girl forced to work and work, sleeping near the fireplace and waking covered in ash. Aschenputtel, she was called. She lived a wretched life, much worse than mine. I had a decent job and a good employer, a God-fearing man who offered me a fair wage and a roof over my head for an honest day’s work. He was, upon occasion, very kind. I was no slave with evil stepsisters or a vile stepmother who would be happy to see me dead. There was no magical tree, birds for friends, magical golden slipper, and no prince in a faraway castle chasing me home from the ball, begging me to be his bride.

There was simply me, the orphan girl turned widow who was settled into a life of serving others, people who lived out far-reaching adventures.

Now, here I was, dreaming these stupid, ridiculous, obscene dreams every night about a man I did not know and could never have. But, God help me, I wanted him. I wanted to feel the way I did when he touched me as I dreamed. When I was in his arms I felt important, cherished. I felt loved, and that was something I had never known, for even with Charles I had been convenient but never desired.

Crying would do no good, would offer me no solace, no reprieve from my lonely life. But I thought of the stranger in the dining room and did it anyway.

Maddox

I chose a seat opposite the idiot who had dared touch my mate and ate the simple fare without tasting it. My mate had fled; I’d heard the older gentleman, Mr. Anderson, tell her to go outside for a rest. Which, in my current state of mind, had probably saved Mr. Bernot’s life. If I’d been forced to witness his unwanted advances on my mate again, I wasn’t sure I would be able to control the animal instinct streaking through my body like a comet of ice and fury.

The ass actually attempted to make conversation.

“So, Mr. Maddox, where did you say you’re from?”

“I didn’t.”

“Ah… one of those types, eh?” He wiped cream from the ridiculously curled facial hair above his lip and nodded as if he were a learned sage and me his current course of study. “Not to worry, you don’t need to share if you don’t feel up to it.”

“I don’t.”

Mr. Bernot lifted his coffee cup, waving it at our host. “Is Miss Cassie around? Tell that girl I need more coffee.”

Rising to my feet, I wrapped my hand around the much smaller man’s wrist, forcing him to lower the cup back to its saucer, the dark liquid spilling onto the linen cloth. Leaning close, I whispered, “If you ever touch Cassie again, I’ll remove the offending hand from your body. Do you understand?”

He stared, the lump in his throat bobbing up and down as if he couldn’t stop swallowing his own spit. When he didn’t answer, I simply let go, nodded to Mr. Anderson, who was grinning, and walked out through the front door into the quiet of the wind rattling the trees, the buzz of bees and chirping birds.

Cassie . The name rolled through me and I repeated it, pleased with the sound. It suited her, feminine and sensual.

Mine.

My mark blazed with renewed fire. Cassie was close, very close, and I longed to touch her skin, to discover if she was as soft as she’d been in my dreams. Would her scent be the same? Would she make the same sweet sounds in reality as I pleasured her?

My cock rock hard, I ignored it and walked around the periphery of the large home, my senses on high alert. When I reached the back of the house, I grinned at the strange creatures I discovered walking about the yard, fat waddling birds that approached me like pets eager for a treat. The apparent leader, a speckled white-and-brown creature with big brown eyes and a yellow beak, actually nipped at my pants.