Authors: Christine Young
"Slade? What did she want you to do for her? Kill someone?"
He smiled tightly. "You could say that."
"Who?" she asked.
"Me."
"What?" Lainie asked with disbelief. "You're not making any sense."
He swore beneath his breath and looked over his shoulder at the woman whose sky blue eyes, soft breasts, and rose scent haunted him night and day.
"The woman in question wanted me to stay in the service while she danced away the nights at parties in London," Slade said, clipping each word. "But I'd had my fill of playing the soldier. I didn't like the lies the men in charge used to confiscate property, kill and brutalize the peasants. I wanted a life filled with peace and children. I knew I could never join her in London."
Motionless, Lainie watched Slade as he spoke, wondering at the emotion that made his voice both resonant and husky when he talked about his feelings.
"The first time I left for duty, I damn near killed myself getting back to her, only to find her in the arms of another man."
He said no more.
"Did you forgive her then?" Lainie asked.
"Damn fool that I was
,
I did. Never again."
"She hurt you?" Lainie guessed.
"Oh, she'd hurt me," he said, but there was only a frigid tenseness to his voice. "At the time, I was still the best catch around. She came running up to me with her golden eyes all sparkling with tears of joy."
"What happened next?"
He shrugged. "The usual. We went back to my family's estate. They threw parties for us, and she gave me just enough to make me hot and wild for her."
Lainie's fingers tightened on the reins. The contempt in Slade's voice was like a blizzard.
"Then she asked if I was ready to go back to London with her so she could go to the parties and pretend she was looking for a husband. I pleaded with her to marry me and return to the land I loved with all my heart.
"And she refused," Lainie whispered.
"Not right away. She was looking for a way to convince me to move back to London. In tender moments, she’d whisper about all the fun we’d have if I would see things her way. All I had to do was say yes, and she’d do anything I wanted her to do."
Slade inhaled deeply, closing his eyes as he spoke. "Hell, someone should keep little boys from falling in love. But no matter how much she teased and flirted, blinking her lashes at me and smiling," he went on, "I was smart enough to keep from making promises it would kill me to keep. I’d go on a mission for the King, and when I’d come back hoping she had changed her mind, and each time I was gone a little longer, and each time she would be waiting."
Slade took off his hat, raked long fingers through his hair, and resettled his hat with a swift tug.
"Until I came back and found her married and pregnant by a rich old earl, a man twice her age and eager to please."
At Lainie's startled sound, Slade turned and slanted
her an
odd smile.
"Surprised me, too," he spoke slowly. "I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t understand how the old man had gotten under her skirts in a matter of months when I had been trying her for years. So I asked her."
"Did she tell you anything?"
"Yeah, she said a woman wants comfort and security from a
man,
and a man wants sex and children from a woman. Pretty jaded but I think it summed up her feelings for me," Slade said succinctly. "The old earl was well fixed. When she got him hot enough to take her virginity, he agreed to marry her, because a decent man marries the girls he ruins."
"Sounds like she had all the passion of an ice covered loch."
"She got everything she ever dreamed of," Slade said dryly. "And I’m sure I’m better off without her."
"All women aren’t like that."
"I’ve known only one woman in my entire life who gave herself for love rather than a wedding ring," Slade said flatly.
Lainie didn’t speak. She stared at the meadow instead.
Frustration swept through Slade at Lainie's persistence. He’d barred his soul to her and he didn’t understand why. He didn’t like remembering the past or talking about it either. He’d put the memories in their place and tried not to recall them. Happiness seemed elusive--happiness with a woman anyway. Yet he couldn’t keep himself from wondering if he wasn’t missing something. Sometimes he wondered if he should find a woman and
take
a chance on getting burned twice by the same fire.
Once burned twice shy, he told himself.
And eternally frozen.
Yet there was something about Lainie MacPherson that compelled him to break all his own rules. He inhaled a deep breath, his gut clenching, his fists tightening.
Unable to control his raw emotions, Slade reined his horse around so that Baby stood head to tail with Lainie’s horse. They were so close together that his leg fleetingly touched Lainie’s. Before she could shy away, his hand shot out, pushing her hat aside until it fluttered to the ground. His gloved hand slid behind her hair and wrapped around her nape.
"Little fox," he began softly. "I’ve always understood and acknowledged that women have to make up in slyness what they lack in strength. But accepting isn’t the same as liking."
His glance strayed to Lainie’s clear blue eyes to her trembling lower lip.
"However," he said huskily, "there are many satisfying ways to enjoy women. I'd love to find a way to find pleasure with a cunning little fox with blue eyes and a mouth that trembles with unrequited passion."
"That’s not me," she countered with a shaking voice.
"I’ve tasted you. You burned me and the sweetness will last in my mind forever. And you tasted me. I won't let you tell me you didn't like it, or that you can dismiss those feelings."
Lainie held her breath while she watched Slade, her eyes never wavering from his.
He grinned, satisfied the passion he remembered was still simmering out of control.
"Remember what happened between us little fox. Don’t ever forget. I sure as hell won’t."
Slade released Lainie as abruptly as he had reached out to touch her and nudged the stallion with his heels.
"Get going, Baby. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover before we reach our destination.
~ * ~
A full moon rose. Mists of rolling fog danced with the light before Slade called and end to the day. The fire Slade built was small, but the flickering light intrigued Lainie.
Slade’s accusations about her sensuality had struck her to the core. She didn’t want to think about what he’d said let alone remember how he’d made her feel when he held her in his arms. But she had remembered, and she remembered the way he tasted too. The danger in remembering and thinking were all too real.
A frog croaked somewhere nearby and an owl hooted. The night sounds comforted yet she knew with the night, danger could sneak into their midst. And the danger might be in the form of a dark-haired stranger who had taught her that men weren’t all bad.
Lainie looked up with a start when she heard the snap of a twig.
"Nothing to fear," Slade said from behind her. "It's only me."
Lainie turned around to face him. Lainie didn't fear Slade. She was afraid of her feelings toward Slade.
"Anyone who loses herself in the dancing flames of a tiny fire deserves to be startled from time to time. I could have been Jericho or one of his men."
"I wasn’t lost," she said defensively, reminding herself Slade held far too much control over her mind and body.
Slade bent over the campfire, picked up a piece of dry wood and added it to the flames. When the branch caught fire, he sat on his heels beside Lainie, and watched her. She squirmed a little at his scrutiny.
"What are you thinking?" Slade asked, poking the fire with another stick and watching her with a hungry gleam in his eyes.
Heat brushed Lainie’s cheeks. She’d been thinking of the time when Slade kissed her lips, her neck, her breasts…
She was too honest to deny she was attracted to him. If she weren’t fascinated with him, she would never have made the unholy bargain. He stirred something inside her she thought long dead. Her curiosity had gotten the better of her. She wanted to know what Callie found so attractive about Hawke.
She understood that she couldn’t trust herself. She’d already given too much of herself to this English soldier. The man who might still hand her over to Bertram she reminded herself. Something in the back of her mind told her he would never go through with it. But all this left her feeling anxious and lost. All her life she had trusted her instincts when it came to dealing with other people. She had come to trust those instincts.
Moreover, at the same time her brothers had warned her about men and all they might want from her, what they might take if she wasn’t careful. She understood all too well the power a man possessed. She knew what she had already lost.