Authors: Heather Graham
“Jamie …”
He came back to her, laughing. He took her into his arms and kissed her again, then his laughter faded and his lips found her shoulder blades and collarbone, and he very slowly lowered his length against her. Her fingers fell upon his well-clad shoulders and she could have pushed him away, but she did not. “I am cold—”
“Nay, lady you are hot as fire.”
And soon she was. The light of day was upon them, and it seemed dangerous and sinful and very exciting. She shivered still against the cold of the room, but where his lips touched her and where his hands fell upon her, she was aflame. He traveled the length of her, and she gasped and bit back a scream when he touched her searingly and intimately, and she cast back her head to the abandon of it, her fingers moving over his shoulders and then into his hair, her body alive with trembling.
She could not think, but only feel the sheer, sweet assault upon her senses.
She was not cold.…
No, not cold at all. The molten fire raged the whole of her, like sunlight streaking from the center of her being, wherever he touched and ravaged and laved. She gasped and cried out, incoherently mouthing his name, pleading that he stop. But he did not, and the sunfire did burst and explode and cascade throughout her, and then she heard his pleased, husky laughter, and flamed crimson as the nectar of her ecstasy escaped from her body.
She thought that she would fall, but he quickly swept her into his arms. He laid her upon the end of the bed, adjusted no more than his breeches, knelt down, and swept into her with the driving velocity of a sudden summer storm. He held tight to her shoulders and met her eyes, until she cried and twisted so that he could not stare at her eyes and see the betraying and forbidden things that were surely alive within them.
The storm spent, he lay against her, his dark head just below her breasts. She was tempted to run her fingers through his hair, but she bit into her lower lip and held back, suddenly afraid of the very depths of the thing that raged between them. She must not give
so
much,
so
freely. She could hold nothing back, nothing at all, and it was frightening, when he still held so very much of himself away from her.
He shifted slightly, and his hand moved over her abdomen. She stiffened; she could not resist, for no matter what his words, the thoughts of the child brought new horrors to her.
“What is the matter?”
“Nothing,” she lied quickly.
He swore slightly, turning away from her. “I wish I knew what it was that could unlock your mind!”
“Unlock my mind!” she cried. “You have everything! You have even that which I would hold away from you—”
“That’s it, my love. Exactly. You try to hold back.”
“But I am the daughter of a whore and unable to do so?” she whispered bitterly.
He caught her shoulders, pulling her up. “Jassy, you are my wife, and a beautiful and passionate woman, and nothing else beyond that matters.”
“Because we are in this wilderness.”
“Because I have said that it is so.”
She flushed and lowered her eyes, for she thought that he was in earnest, and that he did not mock her. He rose and adjusted and tied his breeches, and before she could curl away from him, he was beside her again, his hand lightly upon the swell of her abdomen. His fingers rose and encircled her breasts, and she bit her inner lip, staring toward the door.
“You frighten me,” he said softly.
She stared at him, amazed for one that anything could frighten Jamie Cameron. “Why?”
“Because you do not want the child and you are capable of impetuous and dangerous measures. Tell me, is it because it is my child?”
She didn’t understand his question at first, and therefore she hesitated, then hoped she had not hesitated too long. “No,” she said quickly. “I—”
“Never mind. I don’t want to hear it. But you will hear me out, and hear me out well. If you think to avoid this pregnancy, you could very seriously be risking your own life.”
She stared at him for a minute blankly before she realized what he meant. Then she tried to twist away from him, only to be dragged firmly back. “Jassy?”
“Had I thought to do something, milord, I would have done so long ere now!”
He stared down at her, apparently satisfied. “Joan Tannen might have died in her own bed,” Jamie said, “in England.”
“But she didn’t. She died on the ship, trying to reach this pagan land.” Her eyes came to his once again. “I must see the laborer John Tannen. I—”
“He has been told about his wife and child.”
She shook her head, and she was afraid that she was
going to cry. She had to see the man herself. No one else knew as she did how Joan had loved him, and he deserved to be told. “I must see him!”
“Jassy—”
“Please!”
Startled, he hesitated, watching her curiously. Then he shrugged. “After breakfast I intend to give you your first lesson with the musket. Supper is at four; you may find John Tannen between the two, if you are so determined.”
“I am. Please.”
He nodded, and still he watched her, holding her still. She felt a flush rising to her face again, and she lowered her lashes over her eyes. “What is it? We will be very late if you do not let me rise and dress. You are ready rather easily,” she said with a certain resentment edging her tone.
He laughed again, and she liked the sound of it; she even liked the look of him when she dared meet his eyes again. His hat had fallen, and rich tendrils of dark hair fell in disarray over his forehead, and his eyes blazed their deep, rich blue from the bronze hues of his well-structured face. He was startlingly appealing then, ever more so with his laughter.
“You used my Christian name,” he said.
“What?”
He leaned down very close to her and whispered above her lips. “When we made love, my dear. You called out to me and used my name. You have never done so before.” He kissed her lips lightly, her forehead, her left breast, and her belly, then rose quickly. “Come on! We are frightfully late.”
“Late!”
“Aye!”
He pulled her to her feet. She ran, freezing and naked once more, behind the screen to the washstand. There was a discreet knock upon the door, Jassy heard footsteps behind the screen, and then Jamie cast the door open. She heard his deep, well-modulated words to the
caller who had come for them. “Good morning, Molly, did you sleep well enough in your new bed?”
“Aye, my Lord Cameron, that I did!”
“Are we so late, then?”
“Well, milord, Amy is fretting—”
“There is no need. I shall talk to her right now. And, Molly, your timing is wonderful, for your mistress is just this moment in need of your services.”
The door shut, and Jassy heard a rustle of skirts as she doused her face and hands with water from the pitcher on the washstand. “Jassy!” Molly called.
“Aye!”
“What’ll you be needing?”
“Everything!” Jassy said, and in a moment a shift appeared over the screen and she slipped it on and came around. Molly, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed, awaited her in high good humor. “Late night, love?”
“Molly!” Jassy said, stepping into her petticoats.
Molly laughed delightedly, then hugged her. “I’m just so very happy for you, love. I always did think that he was the one for you. There’s a grain of strength in him, not like the blond—”
“Robert Maxwell?”
“Aye, that one.” Molly came around with her corset and tied up the ribbons as Jassy adjusted the stays.
“Robert is a wonderful man.”
“And you, no doubt, were in love with him when you snared this one, eh? Well, mark my words, love, and I know men, that I do. You acquired the better of the two.”
Jassy’s head popped out of the plain blue wool she had chosen from her trunk. “You’re mad, Molly. Robert is very gentle and caring, a fine man.”
Molly narrowed her eyes. “So that’s the way it is!”
“It is no special way,” Jassy retorted. And it was true, she thought. She liked Robert more and more, like a brother. She was not in love with him. She could not be in love with him, for she could never forget her husband’s hands upon her, nor the power of his being, the possession in his eyes. Whether she hated him or nay, he had encompassed something of her, and she no longer
envied her sister Lenore her husband. She was too busy grappling with her own, in her dreams and in her flesh.
“Take care, love—”
“I am late, Molly. Thank you for your concern.”
Jassy was angry, and so she quickly departed the room, leaving Molly and the mess within it behind.
Everyone else was already downstairs at the table: Lenore and Elizabeth and Robert and Jamie. The men rose when she approached the table, and Lenore offered her a wistful smile. Jassy apologized for being late. Robert Maxwell looked at her with knowing eyes, and she flushed. Jamie noted her reaction to his friend. She saw his jaw harden and his eyes grow dark. She tossed back her head. She was innocent of any wrongdoing, and she would be damned before she spent her life tiptoeing about his suspicions.
She sat and complimented Amy Lawton on the good breakfast of fish and bread and fresh milk and cheese. When the meal was finished, Jamie was the first to rise, pulling back his wife’s chair. “I shall start with Jassy on musketry. Tomorrow, if you are so inclined, Elizabeth, I will bring you too.”
“I—I don’t think that I could fire a gun,” Elizabeth said.
“It is your choice.”
Jassy added to her sister’s sentiment. “Jamie, I don’t know if I will be at all capable myself—”
“Jassy, come on. Now.” He had picked up his musket, resting on the wall by the hearth. He procured a length of match from a roll beside it and lit it from the fire at the hearth. Then he came back for her. He led her out by the hand, and they left the others sitting at the table. At the front door Amy met them, handing Jamie a leather bag of powder, a small satchel of balls, and a long stick with a forked end, a “rest,” as Jamie murmured to Jassy. He thanked Amy. Jassy forced out a smile and told the housekeeper good morning, that she would be back soon.
As they walked through the buildings in the palisade, the housewives about their business and the occasional
workman they encountered all greeted Jamie with respect and pleasure, and bobbed prettily to Jamie’s wife.
“The lord and master, eh?” Jassy breathed sweetly.
“Aye, my love. Remember that.”
“Did you think I might forget?”
“I think that I like not the sparkle in your eyes—that I see for other men.”
“You are imagining things.”
“I am not.”
“But you know that I would not tarry with Robert Maxwell, for you would slay him, and then me, too, surely. I have not forgotten.”
“Oh, I would not slay you, love. I would allow my son to be born, then I should lay your tender flesh black and blue and lock you away in a high tower where you could repent at leisure.”
He mocked her, she thought, casting him a covert cast. Or did he? She knew him so intimately, and she didn’t know the deep corners of his heart or mind at all.
They walked through the gates of the palisade, and he kept her hand held tightly in his own. They kept walking. The morning, Jassy decided, was beautiful. The sun was rising full and bright against the coolness of autumn, and already more of the leaves on the trees in the forests were changing colors. A few crimsons splashed against the golds and yellows and greens, and even the river seemed exceptionally blue and calm. In the distance Jassy could see the fields where the men were working, harvesting their spring crops. “Tobacco, our cash crop,” Jamie told her, seeing the direction of her gaze.
She smiled, ignoring his words. “You would not dare beat me,” she told him.
He laughed pleasantly. “Don’t try me, love,” he warned her.
“I cannot help that you see what is not there.”
He stopped suddenly, and the humor was not about him, but something serious and tense. “What do I see? And what
is
really there, milady?”
“I—I don’t know what you mean,” she murmured, moving back, and wishing she had not spoken so cockily.
He advanced on her, not touching her, but towering dark and powerful over her. “Yes, you do, madame. You do not love me. That is established. Am I to believe that you have fallen
out
of love with our dashing and illustrious friend?”
Her heart leapt and careened, and she stared with a dangerous fascination at the pulse that leapt with a furious beat at the base of his throat. “
You
do not love me,” she reminded him. “So what may I take that to mean?”
“Ah, madame, but I desire no other woman as I desire you. Answer me.”
She lowered her head, suddenly very afraid of him, afraid also of the powerful range of his temper. “I—I love no man,” she said, and lifted her eyes to his again. “It is money I cherish, remember, milord?”
His jaw tightened, but he said nothing more. He caught her hand and jerked her along again until they came to a cleared place with a single line of wooden fencing.
He took the long stick. “This is the rest,” he said matter-of-factly. “The musket is heavy and difficult to aim. The rest will hold the weight and help to keep your hand steady. Do you understand?”
Icily she repeated his words. He slammed the rest into the ground. “That,” she said, indicating the firearm, “is the musket. Black powder and balls. And you’ve an incredible amount of match.” The match hung from the musket, one end burning.
“Milady, if the match is not long enough, a hunter finds his prey and discovers he has no firepower, or worse. A scout meets up with a feisty Indian and discovers that he is weaponless. Never leave without a good length of match. You do not know when you will need your weapon.”
“Never leave without a good length of match,” she repeated between clenched teeth. “Even though you have repeatedly assured me that the Indians are peaceful these days.”
“I have never assured you so.”
“You like the Indians.”
“I respect their right to their own way of life,” he said, drawing up the gun. “I have never suggested that a man need not take grave care around them. There are many tribes and many rulers, and a man may never know whose temper has been sparked when. Now take heed. This compartment is for the powder.” He sprinkled from the bag into the powder dish, showing her how much. “Take care that the burning end of your match is away, lest you blow your fingers to ribbons,” he warned her. “Close the compartment. Drop your ball and your packing, and then ram both down the barrel. Now you are ready to aim.”