Page 53 of A Good Prospect

Chapter Twenty

February 1851

“I will meet you upstairs.”

Those had been Tamasin’s final thrilling words to Salvador Palomares before slipping out of the reception party and leaping upstairs. It was so indelicate to actually leap, and she could have sworn Doña Carmen glared at her. After all, what else was a new wife leaping upstairs for on her wedding night, other than something a mother-in-law didn’t wish to think about? Doña Carmen had even nudged Knut Frostad who sat beside her. His face drained of all color, and in his horror he even put down his cup of champagne before grabbing Ophir’s fiddle from where it lay next to him.

But it was raining heavy and steady, and they’d had no choice other than to bring the main party inside the house, while keeping a fandango going in the barn. The fandango was a raucous joyous affair, with every good prospector within a hundred miles skipping, clapping, and stamping his staccato boot heels. It was a strain on Tamasin to refrain from whisking away serving plates and refilling them with food. How many times had she picked up a platter and started to walk to the kitchen before someone stayed her and took it from her? She was not used to this! She’d better start getting used to this, as Sal had been constantly telling her lately. He had forced her to hire a cook for the house, although Tamasin thought of her more as a “chef’s assistant.” Sal wanted her to paint landscapes all day, as her paintings had recently been exhibited in both San José as well as San Francisco, selling well to collectors from The States who were hungry for views of the Far West. But she was still the cook for Hell Hollow!

They had recently knocked out the connecting door between their former bedrooms, and converted her old one into a dressing room. Tamasin swiftly changed into items from her trousseau. With regret she divested herself of the white satin bridal dress with the very low bodice. The skirt, trimmed with flounces of blonde lace and small floral wreaths, was a marvel. She felt like a princess in it, but she must change into her traveling costume so her bridal party could make their exit.

However, when she came to taking off the headpiece of willowy blue and gold branches decorated with diamonds and feathers, she resisted. Doña Carmen had fashioned her hair in the Anne Boleyn style, large ringlets cascading from a center part where Carmen had affixed a diamond and pearl brooch. Tamasin felt so exotic and devilish this way. When she wagged her head, the branch swayed so that the diamonds danced and twinkled. Anyway, she did not need to put on her traveling costume. Not just yet.

For now, she sipped her champagne that had been poured into a glass flute, sat at her dressing table wearing only her chemise, stockings, and heeled slippers, and admired her headpiece. With sheets of rain splashing against the windows, she didn’t hear the bedroom door open, only that the sounds of chiming glassware, barking laughter, and the shuffling of feet from downstairs became suddenly louder. Then quieter again, when Sal shut the door.

Sal appeared in the mirror, leaning against the doorjamb. He was still enveloped in the rich serape his father had worn to his own wedding. His beautiful almond-shaped eyes were more than a match for the wonderment that was the rest of his attire—a silk blouse under an embroidered velvet bolero jacket, soft deerskin leggings tied with silk cord wound around the leg, its gold and silver tassels hanging below the knee. Tamasin liked how richly Californio men attired themselves, unafraid of being termed effeminate in the attention they paid to their dress. With his thumbs hooked in the waist of his leggings, the smoldering look he cast her—his bride!—was too much to bear, and Tamasin got to her feet.

She unwound the serape from his shoulders and tossed it to her dressing stool. Standing on tiptoes, she lightly kissed his full lips. “Mm. Mi esposo.”

She had just barely taken his full lower lip between her teeth—he lovingly fingered the opal that lay between her breasts—when he bent at the knees and lifted her into his arms. This always made her giggle, his grandiose Spanish gestures that made her feel part of a glamorous, romantic world. Now he carried her through the doorway they had eliminated between their former bedrooms, and placed her gently on his—on their—coverlet.

He loomed bold and tall above her, the ideal picture of the perfect Californio gentleman. “Carrying you into the bedroom makes you seem less enthusiastic about losing your virginity.” He grinned.

They both knew, and didn’t want to discuss, that Tamasin was not a virgin technically. But having performed every variation upon the exquisite dance of love Tamasin had never thought imaginable, every act up until now had been a waste of seed. They had not yet fucked, as Tamasin enjoyed the tease, the tension, the suspense, the boundless possibilities of their couplings—and, oh yes, there was something about setting this special event aside for her wedding night. It was part of her entire ingenious plan, to wed the man she loved and have it last forever.

Tamasin lay against the pillows with one arm over her head in the position she knew Salvador admired. Her hair wasn’t in his favorite flowing arrangement, but she had not wanted to ruin this coiffure that had taken Doña Carmen so long to create. “Yes, I certainly wouldn’t want to appear enthusiastic. You might think I was promiscuous.”

Sal stripped off his various layers of Spanish nobility. First he flung the bolero jacket into a chair, and the scalloped leather vest adorned with gold buttons followed it. “I’m very sorry we couldn’t visit the waterfalls in the Ahwahnee,” he said lightly. When he lifted his arms to remove the silk blouse, Tamasin curled up cat-like on her side to treasure the view. She would never tire of this beautiful play of textures, the softness of the tufts of hair in the hollows of his underarms, the erect beads of his browned nipples, the abdomen ribbed with muscles from his endless riding.

“I understand,” she said simply. “It’s for the best we couldn’t honeymoon there, as it would be exceedingly cold. But in San Francisco, I should like to take that steamboat up the river to Sacramento.”

Sal stood shirtless at the side of the bed, and Tamasin well-nigh forgot about the steamer. She adored rubbing her face against his well-developed pectorals, the way the sprinkling of hair there made her face tingle, and she now got to her knees. It was one of her favorite things to fling her arms about him and press her cheek to his hot skin, to flick her tongue-tip out and tantalize a tight nipple. Sal wove his fingers into her hair as best he could with the peacock’s comb of diamonds foiling him, and he said, “Those steamers are dangerous, mi esposa. They race each other and overheat the boilers so they explode. I read an article that said the steamboat captains would rather see the passengers blown into eternity than to leave their boats behind. Then people lie in wait on the shore ready to rob and plunder the bodies.”

“Oh, Salvador,” Tamasin sighed, diddling his nipple between her fingers. “I think Ophir’s children would like the adventure. And since when does my dashing, bold vaquero shake in his boots so?” His long, thick sluggish erection expanded between her breasts, and she squished both upper arms together to capture it. “You are the man who rid this country of Tyke McCarthy, and everyone loves you for it.”

“Ophir helped,” Sal said modestly.

“Well, yes,” Tamasin admitted. Holding the crown of his cock firmly in her palm, she jiggled her torso back and forth to stimulate it with her breasts. “His heroic ride to Coulterville saved the town as well.”

Ophir had returned to Hell Hollow two days after the fire had been extinguished. He had found the friendly mining camp, where five men joined him in galloping to Coulterville. Their fine, rowdy two hundred man Home Guard was instantly raised, and with them Ophir marched back on the stage road. Such celebration and whooping and hollering had never been heard in Hell Hollow, when the Home Guard and miners went foraging the countryside for any sign of a League man. They garrisoned at the mill for several months, staying in the big barn, with sacks and tins heaped upon planks laid across barrels. They bivouacked in haystacks until everything was back in good working order, even the ruined mine.

There were still small uprisings, fake tax agents roaming the land demanding payment from hapless miners, but not one League man had apparently dared venture beyond the boundaries of Hornitos, and eventually the Home Guard left. After ten League men were arrested and held, the trouble seemed to have organized the sterling element of Hornitos society against the evil, and now Sal was finally confident enough in the mill’s security to take a honeymoon to San Francisco.

“Saved the town?” Sal slipped the sleeves of Tamasin’s chemise down over her arms. “If Ophir didn’t bring back the Home Guard, why, everyone’s last name would be McCarthy.”

Tamasin laughed. “Don’t scare me, Sal. The governor promised he’d be returned to Botany Bay.” In what shape or form, Tamasin didn’t mention. Tyke had had two broken legs, among other mangled bones, when the next day they’d pulled him out of the rock breaking machine.

“Ah!” Apparently unable to withstand her teasing with her breasts, Sal slid his hands under Tamasin’s arms and lifted her to her feet. “Botany Bay, sí, until he escapes again.”

Her chemise crumpled to her feet. When she hooked a toe around the back of Sal’s boot top, her quim was plastered firmly over his bulging cock. The walls of her inner quim shuddered, and she knew she was ready. “Hey.” Her breath feathered against his lips. “Nobody would be named McCarthy ever again, if you had turned on that rock breaking machine.”

Sal chuckled. “You admire me for having such self-restraint?”

Tamasin rotated her pelvic bone against his erection. “Right now, I will admire you for having a lack of self-restraint.”

Salvador’s breath came ragged as he touched the tip of his nose to hers. One palm slid down her abdomen and his long middle finger glided over her clitoris. This sensitive button was the core of all ecstatic sensation and now Sal knew how to manipulate her to greater heights than she had ever accomplished herself. Tamasin liked him to diddle her much the same way she tickled his nipple, and soon he had her uttering tiny ladylike gasps as she clung to his shoulders. Fine tremors ran up her thighs and she knew she couldn’t stand up much longer, but she didn’t want to orgasm until she had his sublime, thick cock inside of her. That would be something they had never experienced.

Twisting to release herself from his heavenly torture, she was going to dive onto the bed, begging Sal to fuck her, when a manly form moved into the room. Of course it was Ophir, setting a bowl of something down on the night table.