Free Dream Time (historical): Book I by Parris Afton Bonds Page B

drew her against him. She liked the feeling of his solidity. Comfort. With Josiah, she felt comfort. With Tom, she had to be the stronger; with Miles, she had to be wary.
    Josiah drew her down onto the sawdust floor.
    “My dress,” she murmured. “We’re getting it dirty.”
    He kissed her neck just below her ear. “Forget the dress. I’ve brought one for you. Made by one of the best seamstresses in London.”
    She laughed against his beard. “You wouldn’t be bedding that lass under the same business terms and conditions, would you, Josiah?”
    With a chuckle, he loosed the strings of her bodice and palmed one small breast. “No complaining now, me lass. You were the one who specified this was to be a purely business relationship.”
    Her body responded to his rough touch with inner tremors. “Subtle whoring, you called it.”
    On his knees over her, he pushed up her skirts and parted her thighs. “With your mind and your passions, you would have made a marvelous and most successful madam.”
    “Alas, I want respectability more.” She arched when he plunged into her, then began moving in unison with the big man.
    Even though September’s spring weather was balmy and cool, inside the warehouse a stagnant heat lay over the two pumping bodies. Sweat rolled off Josiah onto her. Normally fastidious, she reveled in this. That restrained part of her was temporarily free.
    Tom would never have understood.
    Miles always had.
    Shafts of sunlight seeped between the warped door and its jamb. Gazing up at her business partner, she couldn’t help but think what a gentle soul he was despite his rough-hewn ways.
    When Josiah, at last, discharged his months of abstinence in a burst, he rolled from her. He stretched out on his side next to her.
    Eyes closed, she lay silent, enjoying one of those few moments when her high energy wasn’t in charge. She felt his broad palm splay over her stomach. Her lips curved in a faint smile. “Don’t tell me you are ready to begin again, my lusty whaler.”
    “How long has it been since last you had your monthly?”
    Her lids snapped open. She turned her head to stare at his ruddy face. “Whatever are you talking about?”
    “I know your body well. You’re with child, me lass, or me name isn’t Josiah Wellesley.”
    “Well, then, it isn’t!” She pushed up to a sitting position and began tucking in her wayward strands of hair and tugging down her skirts. “It’s probably Smith or Jones.”
    His knuckles grazed her cheek. “You didn’t answer me.”
    She stilled. After forcing herself to calculate, she replied, “Three months ago, I think.”
    He grunted. “Then the child isn’t mine.”
    She wasn’t sure if his expression was one of regret or relief. Without any inner searching, she knew exactly how she felt. Her future son was her ticket to the pinnacle of Sydney aristocracy.
     
     
    “You must do it for the sake of our child. You must resign your commission and devote your energy and time to New South Wales Traders, Limited.”
    “Nan, the little you have socked away in that warehouse won’t be enough to open our own business.”
    “Bah, leave that to me, Tom.”
    “Nothing daunts you, does it? You’re impervious to despair. You survived the Rum Corps coup and maintained your neutrality. Wise, Nan. Wise.”
    She paused, the spoonful of gruel halfway to her mouth. She’d never admit it, but one thought did daunt her spirit: that of imprisonment. Losing her freedom again petrified her.
    Yet she had risked her freedom to keep her enterprise solvent. Risked her marriage in her sexual business transactions with Josiah.
    Did she dread poverty and its stigma even more? She still found it difficult to believe that after five years she was pregnant again. She had even selected the name for her son. Randolph.
    And it would be a son.
    From bitter experience, she knew that it was the men who had the opportunities in the world. Through a son, she could manipulate those