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Words were forming before Dermott thought them through. If the truth be told, he’d waited just as many years to speak them as he’d waited to have her beneath him in bed. “You’re not going to play with my emotions, Bridge. Not now. Not at this stage of the game.”
She looked crushed, her face falling. “Game?” she managed to say. “Its just sex….”
He couldn’t believe how hot she looked for it, either, as she offered the half lift of a bare shoulder that seemed so silky, smooth and delicious that his mouth watered. “Aren’t you even curious?” she asked.
That was the problem. He had been for years. He’d dropped plenty of hints about them winding up between the sheets. Now he tried to look unaffected, even though he was painfully aroused. “You’re the one who always said no.”
“That was then.”
He leaned closer. Her breath was on his cheek, his lips and in his hair. “And this is now?”
Nodding, she whispered, “Just sex.”
But they both knew it was more than that.
Dear Reader,
Manhattan aside, the American rural South is my favorite place to write about. No one can ignore the pull of the environment—the slow, sexy drawls of Southern men, the mysterious woods thick with ancient, moss-hung cypress trees, the ambling quality of life, not to mention the lure of so much living history.
So welcome to the second installment of BIG APPLE BRIDES! I hope you’ll have a blast with middle sister Bridget Benning as she joins her buddy Dermott and flies off to battle ghosts on a plantation, determined to end the wedding curse holding her back!
In May 2005 watch for I Thee Bed…, the last book in the BIG APPLE BRIDES miniseries.
Writing romance for the past decade has been a great delight of my life, as has reading so many upbeat love stories designed to lift our spirits, feed our souls, make us laugh and nurture our faith in the lighter side of life—love!
Happy reading!
Jule McBride
Nights in White Satin
Jule McBride
www.millsandboon.co.uk
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Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Prologue
Big Swamp, Florida,
a dark stormy February night in the late 1860s…
“HURRY, Miss Marissa! We must run!”
“Don’t you tell me what to do, Lavinia,” returned Miss Marissa Jennings in a hushed, terrified drawl as thick as cold molasses. She cast the Creole housekeeper a furious look, her green eyes glistening with tears, then she glanced around the parlor of her fiancé’s plantation, her pale fingers clutching the skirt of the wedding dress she’d waited so long to wear, her mind barely able to process that she might not marry Forrest tonight as planned. Surely, he and Reverend George were on their way, she thought, her fingers tightening around the gown’s white satin. Lifting the hem above her ankles, she exposed a pair of white slippers, preparing to do as Lavinia had said—run! The gorgeous cluster of diamonds Forrest had given her sparkled when she glanced down. It seemed centuries ago that she’d been given the ring, centuries since her slippers had been hand-beaded by her mama, long before the war drew near and they’d all blissfully envisioned the Jenningses and Hartleys gathering at Hartley House for the wedding.
“Hurry!” Lavinia urged as lightning flashed, her voice scarcely audible over cannonballs, rifle fire and the shouts of looting Yankees as they circled nearer, some on foot, some whipping neighing horses into a frenzy. “We’ve got to hide in the swamp!”
“We can’t go out there, Lavinia!” The gale-force wind would sweep them from their feet, killing them before any Yankees could. “What if Forrest comes?”
“He’ll find us.”
Another lie. A deafening boom sounded, and a flash of fire lit the sky in bright white light that threw the parlor into bas relief. For a second, Marissa could see Lavinia clearly—a small-boned woman who wore her hair plaited in tidy rows—before they were plunged into near-darkness again. Only a lit taper in the housekeeper’s hand illuminated the fear in her eyes, the flickering, wind-tossed flame tinting her skin with a red glow like that which burned beyond the windows.
Marissa’s eyes blurred with tears, her heart beating in terror for her groom. Surely he was on his way! She’d sooner die than leave this home they were to share! How could she abandon things her beloved Forrest had worked so hard to attain? How could she let all this beauty be pawed by crass, looting Yankees?
“We should have gone weeks ago, Miss Marissa!” assured Lavinia, pushing Marissa toward a doorway. Tears splashed Marissa’s cheeks, falling as hard as the rain against the windowpanes as she cast a last glance around the parlor—taking in a chandelier Forrest had brought from Paris, then a pedestal table and a fireplace hewn from unpolished jagged pieces of local quarry rock. Forrest had been so precise when decorating the room, especially regarding how she should pose for her portrait and where it should hang, the key to their secret hiding place. The portrait had been removed now, but she could still see marks indicating its position.
“The chandelier!” she protested, her heart wrenching. Forrest had called it their mistletoe. Oh, how they’d kissed beneath it, holding each other and shuddering with need, wanting to consummate their passion, but reined in by the desperation of restraint, knowing it would be well worth the wait. She and Lavinia had tugged on the heavy light fixture, hoping to hide it, although it wouldn’t fit beneath the upstairs floorboards where they’d put the jewelry—all but the ring still on Marissa’s finger. The chandelier seemed to have grown a mind of its own, though, as if it had decided it wasn’t leaving Hartley House; it had taken root in a medallion of ceiling molding, as immobile as cypress trees and salt marshes.
Her heart aching, Marissa sucked in a sharp breath. She and Lavinia had been hiding here, cut off from civilization for what felt like eternity, the field hands long gone, and now Marissa realized she’d been a fool, waiting for Forrest to come back from the war. And yet he’d returned. Just a week ago, she’d seen him for the first time in two years. Appearing like a vision from one of Lavinia’s prophetic dreams, he’d been far off, coming down the shell-covered driveway in the heat of a Florida February afternoon. It was long after the morning dew had burned off and the sun had risen high in the sky, looking wavelike as it shimmered on the driveway. Forrest had appeared, without warning, wounded but still walking, using his rifle as a crutch.
Marissa had fainted dead away, but Lavinia had run for the salts, and Marissa had awakened to find her own true love peppering her cheeks with kisses. Of course, Forrest had wanted to turn around and head for the war again, but he’d suffered a gunshot wound and his leg needed tending. Even worse, he’d said the Yankees were coming.
Oh, she’d wanted nothing more than to nurse her well-loved warrior. As he’d rested this week, she’d sat beside him, staring at the man she intended to wake beside every day of her life and whose babies would soon be growing inside her. They’d decided to marry before his return to the front and spend at least one passionate night. And then she and Lavinia would travel to Marissa’s sister’s house two counties away. It never occurred to them that the Yankees would get this far, nearly to the front door of Hartley House. Come tomorrow, Forrest was to have joined the few men left in town to march north. But Forrest was dead. He had to be. No one could survive what was happening now.
“Follow me,” Lavinia commanded, turning on her heel and heading through the parlor, toward a back door.
Marissa had frozen in place. Forrest’s ring! She couldn’t wear it into the swamp. Now she wished she’d let Lavinia hide it under the floorboards with the rest of the jewelry. There wasn’t time to go back upstairs, though. Her eyes darted around the parlor—taking in the pedestal table, the space where her portrait had hung and the mantle. She’d hide the ring in her and Forrest’s special place, she thought, her heart pounding when she knelt, her heavy white skirts cushioning her knees as she twisted the ring from her finger. Oh, please, be safe here, she thought, slipping the ring into the hiding place. Then she wrenched as Lavinia’s voice sounded again. “Hurry!”
She ran then, nearly tripping on the hem of the dress, her heart lurching as she reached the back door. Howling wind caught the edge of the door, nearly tearing it from its hinges. Her finger felt bare now, bereft of the symbol of Forrest’s love, but there was no time to think about it because the door slammed against the house, and Lavinia’s taper flickered out.
Thunderclouds raced across the moon as Lavinia pocketed the candle and whispered, “This night’s the devil’s handiwork, missy.”
Shuddering, Marissa took in the shadowy shapes riding like phantom demons across the sky. There were skulls and crossbones. Angry steeds. Lavinia wasn’t lying. She dealt in herbs and voodoo and was known to have premonitions. Marissa grasped her hand and stepped onto the lawn, her head bent against the onslaught of wind and rain. The temperature had dropped, the heat of the day giving way to cooling northern winds blowing in from the sea. It was hard to run in the gown, but Marissa dodged trees in the yard, the soupy mud sucking at her slippers. Stumbling, she could barely make out the ancient moss-hung cypress trees at the edge of the swamp.
Something snagged her dress and a cry tore from her throat as satin ripped away. Her sisters—all accomplished seamstresses—had insisted on making the gown, and now it was going to be ruined. They’d made so many plans that seemed silly now, never imagining war could touch their lives.
A jagged finger of lightning illuminated the swamp, and Marissa saw Lavinia once more, a tiny firecracker of a woman with skin the shiny red color of glazed clay pottery. Beyond was the Benchley plantation, not that the Benchleys had offered assistance, even though their land was on higher, dryer ground. Men were on the shell road now, and soon they’d be in the house. Once there, they’d see remnants of dinner, and know people were hiding somewhere. Armoires would disclose the inhabitants had been women and, soon, hungry men would be in the yard, hunting for her and Lavinia.
“Get in the water, Miss Marissa!”
“Grab these roots, Lavinia,” Marissa returned as a torch flared, the fingers of pale, delicate hands gripping the mangled claws of cypress roots, just as a gust lifted her skirt and her feet, which almost left the ground. Lavinia snatch the skirt, to steady them both, right before Marissa plunged into the pulsing swirl of black waters. Madness, she thought as Lavinia followed into the icy water. Another torch flared, then Marissa heard a male voice from far off, the words unclear, but gruff, making her swoon because she’d heard what vagabond soldiers did to women. Downwind, the waters fed salt marshes, then tidewaters that met the Atlantic, and now, as she sank into the pull of currents, spiders seemed to climb the ladder of her spine; her body shook as she imagined gators circling beneath her, and she wished her gown wasn’t ballooning and deflating as the white skirts became soaked.
“Who’s out there?” came a Yankee shout, traveling on the wind. “I saw you run! Show yourselves!”
Lavinia grasped Marissa’s shoulder in assurance, but when the sky lit up again, men on horses fanned across the yard…men whose faces were no longer shadows, but rather, clearly defined, made hard by a war in which they’d seen too much killing.
The heavy winds whipped up, lifting twigs and sending them spinning, and suddenly, the hand on her shoulder was gone—simply gone! Marissa’s own hand was almost ripped from the cypress root. She gasped, and when lightning cracked again, she realized the other woman really was gone! Lavinia! Had she really lost her hold, been swept away? Was that her head bobbing in the water? A hand waving? Or just tricks of Marissa’s imagination? Marissa wrenched once more, and in another lightning flash saw…Forrest?
She felt faint. Her wet corset clung to her ribs, stealing her breath. Surely, it was her imagination, but now she saw Forrest running along the shell drive, coming toward the Yankees in the yard. Had he lost his mind? No…like her, he was in love. He was searching for her, but if she called out, they’d both be killed.
Yankees were in the house now. A taper flared in a window. Oh, how she hated those men who were defiling the home of her beloved, where she was meant to experience the passion that women only spoke about in hushed tones, behind closed doors, and usually only long after they were married. Her body ached to experience sensual pleasure with Forrest, her eyes hungered to see his body, to drink in his maleness. In this very yard, she was to have raised beautiful babies from their union.
She gritted her teeth against the chill of the water and the rawness of her hands, chapped by wind. Gasping, crying in the rain, Marissa’s heart lurched when the sky lit up once more. He was still on the road! He was alive! Gallant, wearing the uniform she’d mended. Suddenly, a fireball whistled through the storm. Something splashed. A bullet? A cannonball?
She had to tell him she was safe. Their love was strong enough to conquer everything, even this war, but she watched in horror as the Yankee reined in his horse and turned, trotting the way he’d come, his eyes scanning the trees as if he’d heard Forrest in the brush. It was the wrong moment for her beloved to emerge in plain sight. The enemy leaned down, the night air rent by the sound of a sword drawn from his sheath. It rose high, glinting under the moon, arching as it bore down.
“Forrest!” she shrieked as the blade swung, the soldier bending. And then silence. Lightning and bullets ceased fire, plunging everything into darkness. He was dead. She knew that much. I curse this ground, she thought, rage swelling like the tides. Damn women who’ve lived and loved on this bloodstained ground without paying this price. I hope they never find you, love. Never! Never!
Lightning flashed. Thunder cracked.
And vaguely, Marissa realized she’d uttered the wrong curse—that the Yankees were to blame, and greedy people who would rather work the land with slaves than make do with less, but months of mere survival and feeling her heart shatter was too much! No one should enjoy Hartley House, or love, or the life Marissa was to have lived here, not until she and Forrest were reunited.
Envy—a kind of hate she’d never known—bubbled inside, so she barely noticed the next burst of fire. She felt as if she was floating above the water, no longer in her own body. She was aware of smoke, but she was numb, her skin frigid, then she realized warmth gushed from somewhere. From her shoulder, maybe? Was it blood? She wasn’t sure. All she knew for certain was that Lavinia was gone. Her mama and papa, the sisters she loved. And now Forrest.
Her mind stuttered with grief. Her fingers slipped, but she kept hold of the root. If she let go, she’d never make it, and she was going to stand and fight. Oh, damn it, she would stand! For Forrest! Her hand weakened. Wind whipped her hair, and she realized a bullet had found her. She was losing blood to a salty swamp where gators circled, drawn by the scissoring movements of her legs. Suddenly, she was pummeled by wind.
And then the swirling dark waters took her.
1
New York City,
a dark, stormy February night in the present…
“DON’T RUN OFF and get yourself into trouble, Mug,” Bridget Benning said, releasing her tawny, miniature pug to run on the floor of the hallway before using the point of a blue-painted fingernail to stab the doorbell of her best friend Dermott’s high-rise apartment in Battery Park City. “C’mon, Dermott,” she muttered, wondering why he’d been unavailable for weeks, and at a time when so much was happening!
Bridget wanted his input on family matters, as well as on which futon to buy, and she was hoping he’d take walks with her, since March was around the corner and without losing ten pounds, she’d never fit into spring clothes. Now she needed him to take a trip South with her to do some ghost-busting, something she hoped he’d take seriously, since she couldn’t go on this trip without his support. Her parents had been living in Hartley House when she was born, but since she’d been a baby, Bridget had never been south of Newark, and besides, only Dermott truly understood what Miss Marissa’s curse had done to Bridget’s love life.
When Mug yipped, Bridget leaned and petted his head, cooing, “As soon as we’re inside, I’ll get you a doggie treat.” Dermott kept a box handy for Mug. Bridget suddenly muttered, “Or not.” Why wasn’t her best buddy answering? “Hurry up,” she whispered.
Just this week, Bridget’s Granny Ginny, who lived in Florida, in Hartley House, had come to visit, reminding Bridget of Marissa’s curse and how it affected women connected to Hartley House. Bridget and her sisters had never known Granny Ginny’s son, who’d died young, but he was their biological father, even if Joe Benning had raised them. Because they were Hartleys by blood, the Benning girls hadn’t escaped being victims of the curse. Just like her sisters, Bridget had placed the blame for her romantic failures squarely on Miss Marissa, but now, during Granny Ginny’s visit, matters had taken a startling new twist.
As it turned out, this past month, Bridget had agreed to help her older sister, Edie, who owned a wedding planning business, Big Apple Brides, and who had luckily landed a celebrity client, hotel heiress, Julia Darden. Bridget, an aspiring jewelry designer who worked by day as a clerk at Tiffany’s, had agreed to fashion an engagement ring, which she and Edie had hoped Julia and her fiancé would like. When Julia rejected Bridget’s first design, Bridget had placed the sample ring, made with cubic zirconias, on her own finger.
When Granny Ginny arrived from Florida and saw the ring, she’d nearly swooned. According to Granny, the ring Bridget had designed was an exact replica of the Hartley diamond, the ring Forrest Hartley had given to Miss Marissa Jennings during the Civil War, a ring supposedly still hidden in Granny’s plantation house, which Granny claimed was haunted. And maybe it was. After all, without cosmic intervention, how could Bridget have designed a ring that was an exact replica of an already existing ring she’d never seen before?
Obviously, Bridget had some sort of deep psychic connection to Hartley House and the lost Hartley engagement diamond. That meant that maybe Bridget would have luck finding the original ring that was still hidden. She sucked in a sharp breath, barely able to believe any of this was happening. Just yesterday, she’d pulled Granny Ginny aside and questioned her at length. Oh, everybody in the family suspected Granny embellished the family legend; still, Bridget, Edie and Marley had suffered setbacks in love, and now Bridget wondered if something couldn’t be done to reverse the curse.
“I hadn’t thought so,” Granny had begun. “But now that you’ve produced the exact replica of the Hartley diamond, everything’s changed.” Granny conjectured that, once the original ring was found, the ghost of Forrest Hartley could slip it onto the finger of his ghost-bride, Marissa, and then Marissa’s curse on the Benning girls might be lifted. Bridget supposed that made sense, since Marissa’s dream to be reunited with her fiancé would be achieved. After all, how could a woman get married without a diamond? The way Granny figured it, Bridget would be the Benning most likely to find the ring, since she’d designed one like it, and thereby seemed to have a psychic connection to it.
“C’mon, Dermott,” Bridget whispered. Surely he’d help her. She didn’t want to go to her own grave without marrying at least once, and for the first time, it seemed as if it was in her power to do something to reverse her bad luck with men. While all the Benning sisters were no strangers to failed romance, Dermott understood that Bridget was the sister most affected. Edie ran a close second. Despite starting her own wedding planning business, Edie rarely dated. And Marley had gotten married, but then her husband had cleaned out their joint bank account, and she’d divorced him. Now, she was dating a man named Cash Champagne who’d previously been involved with Edie, but who knew how long that would last?
Bridget just hoped she could straighten out this mess and get her own love life on track. And who could be better than Dermott? Last year, he’d even helped her apply to the Guinness Book of World Records, since she was convinced she’d survived more bad dates than any other single woman in America; unfortunately, Guinness had no bad dates category and didn’t want to create one just for Bridget.
“Are you in the shower?” she whispered. From the street, she’d seen lights, and that meant Dermott was home. She sighed, thinking of the strange mojo in her life. This thing with the ring was odd. Bridget had shown no evidence of possessing paranormal talents before now. “Unless it counts that I knew my cabin share with the girls at the ski lodge this week was just too good to be true.” She was supposed to have been there tonight with some friends, sharing Valentine champagne with dreamy men at the bar. “Yeah, right.”
Stabbing the doorbell again, she tried to ignore her hurt feelings. Granted, she’d forgotten to send in her check for the share, but her girlfriends hadn’t reminded her, either, and the person who’d replaced Bridget hadn’t interested them before she’d gotten a part in a TV commercial. It wasn’t the first time Bridget had felt she was outgrowing more superficial friends who were left over from college. Silently, she kept thinking it was time to move on to something more significant. But usually, in a girl’s life, that meant marriage. And, well, Bridget, unlike most women, had a century-and-a-half-old curse in her way.
At least she could repair her self-esteem and repay her fair-weather friends by having an interesting vacation ghost-busting in Florida. Success was the best revenge, after all. Besides, she’d already arranged to take a week off from Tiffany’s and she wasn’t about to waste it. Probably, she wouldn’t have met a cute guy at the lodge, and even if she had, that only meant something awful was destined to happen. He’d turn out to have a girlfriend, or worse, a wife…
Abruptly shaking rain from her umbrella, Bridget leaned it against the wall in the hallway, then unbelted a bright yellow raincoat she wore over a miniskirt, fishnets and snow boots. She wished Dermott would hurry! She had so much to tell him! She’d talked to him on the phone a couple of weeks ago—around the time that her sister Marley had appeared on a reality show called Rate the Dates with Cash Champagne, impersonating her twin, Edie. Bridget had told him Granny Ginny was visiting, but he hadn’t called since then, and in twenty years she and Dermott had never gone this long without speaking. It felt like torture. Smoothing her straight, shoulder-length blond hair, Bridget wracked her brain. Was Dermott angry? She couldn’t think of a thing she’d done wrong. If she’d offended him, he’d have mentioned it. He wasn’t exactly Mr. Withholding. She inhaled sharply. Had he gotten hurt? Or into trouble?