Beloved Enemy (14 page)

Rob touched the brim of his hat to her. “You are an angel.”

She gave him an odd look. “Angels are white, or so I've been told.”

He called softly after her, “I believe the good Lord likes variety.”

Saying nothing in reply, Hettie disappeared through the back door.

Only then did Rob wonder what excuse for this rendezvous could he give to Julia when she came—if she came.

L
ying next to her sleeping sister, Julia wondered if this would be her last night as a true spinster. Payton could be here by suppertime tomorrow. They would be declared an engaged couple soon thereafter. And she would have to kiss him to seal the match. She wiped the back of her hand across her lips. Then she heard the door slowly open. Fearful that her mother had truly been taken ill in the middle of the night, Julia sat up and groped for her dressing gown that lay nearby. Hettie entered holding a small candle.

“Is someone sick?” Julia asked. She flung back the bedcovers and searched for her slippers with her toes.

Pointing to Carolyn and putting her finger to her lips, Hettie closed the door behind her. “The only sick person I know of is hiding out in the garden,” she whispered. “That man will catch a chill before morning, sure as you're born. He says he wants to see you.”

Hettie didn't need to identify “that man.” At the thought of Rob, a shiver of delicious expectation rippled through Julia. Part of her reveled in his return, while the other half bristled at the literally cold way he had left her that last time. She should tell Hettie to send him on his way. But she found that she could not say the words. To
morrow night, she would be engaged. There would be no more exciting meetings by moonlight for her, only years of boredom in a loveless marriage.

“Is it very cold out there?” Julia asked, buttoning up her quilted bedrobe. She opened the cedar chest and pulled out a spare woolen blanket.

“As cold as sin and then some,” Hettie replied. “I thought you had sworn off that Yankee after him leaving you alone like that.”

Julia giggled as she pulled on a pair of woolen stockings. “I thought so, too.”

Hettie watched her tie the blanket around her shoulders. “You put me in mind of a beggar woman at the back door.”

Julia brushed the nighttime tangles out of her hair. “Thank you kindly for the compliment, Hettie, but I am not planning to seduce him with my beauty. We are merely friends.” She wondered if she ought to pin up her hair but decided it would take too much time. “How long has the major been out there?” she asked, examining her face in the hand mirror.

“By the look of his blue lips, I would say over an hour. He
did
appear mighty pleased to see me with the supper scraps.” Hettie chuckled.

Julia gave herself one last appraisal in the mirror. Not her best by any means but what did that matter? She planned to stay only for a few minutes in the garden. Just long enough to tell Rob about her engagement and to say a final goodbye. She turned to Hettie.

“How do I look?”

“Hmm,” her confidante replied. “You sure seem to me like a girl in the clutches of love.”

Julia frowned. She wasn't in love with any man. “How you do run on. After all, Major Montgomery is a Yankee,
and he has never once indicated that he's in love with me. Quite the contrary.”

Muttering “mmm-hmm” in response, Hettie led her down the back stairs. At the kitchen door, she looked Julia straight in the eye. “You can hide a fire, lambkin, but what are you going to do with the smoke?”

Without allowing Julia time to think of a suitable rejoinder, Hettie opened the door and gave her a little push outside. A gust of wind caused the candle to flicker inside the lantern. The frigid air knifed through Julia's few layers of clothing. She gathered the blanket closer around her and hurried down the flagstone pathway toward the huge tree.

Julia didn't see Rob until he stepped out of the shadows right in front of her. Light from the distant streetlamp outlined his tall figure and broad shoulders. Caught by surprise at his sudden appearance, she literally plowed straight into him. “Oh!”

“Good evening, Miss Julia,” he said with a smile in his voice. Steadying her on her feet, his hand lingered on her shoulder for a moment longer than necessary. “Fancy meeting you on such a pleasant stroll. Do you always bowl over your admirers that way?”

Julia inhaled sharply at the contact. Cold, hot, flushed and flustered all at the same time, she found herself extremely conscious of his virile presence. Her heart pounded in erratic rhythms. She cleared her throat, pretending to herself that she was not affected by his proximity. “I only came out for a minute. I'm getting married in a week,” she blurted out. “So this is…I mean, it's…”

A hot ache rose in her throat. Her vision clouded. She gulped hard, trying to control herself. Her heart, acting on its own accord, pulled her toward him, instead of away, as she had intended. Looking up into his handsome, smiling face, something snapped deep inside her. Great sobs
racked her body. Scalding tears rolled down her cold cheeks.

Rob said nothing, nor did he look startled by her unexpected outburst. Instead, he opened his greatcoat, and with his good arm, he gathered her snugly against him. In blessed silence, he gently rocked her back and forth while she laid her head against his chest and wept as if her heart had split in half. She drank in the solace of his protection as if she were dying of thirst. He smelled faintly of cigar smoke, whiskey and bay rum cologne that hinted at sultry, exotic climes. She clung to the thick wool fabric of his uniform, her cheek pressed against his rounded brass buttons. He held her a little tighter until her sobs subsided. The warmth of his body heated her in an entirely different way. She inhaled deeply several times to subdue the hammering of her heart.

When Julia felt more in control of her emotions, she trusted herself to look up at his face. “I apologize for making a fool of myself.”

His smile echoed in his voice. “I see no fool here, Julia. Only you.”

His low tone soothed her. “I am engaged,” she began again. “That is, I will be by this time tomorrow night. My cousin Payton is due to arrive in the afternoon. My parents insist that we be…be wed immediately.”

She bit her lips to control her self-pity. “I was wrong to have encouraged our…our…friendship.” She looked down at her fingers that still clutched the folds of his coat. Under the fabric, she felt his heartbeat. The pit of her stomach churned. “You should not have come back. You must realize that. I can never see you again,” she whispered.

Without saying a word, Rob brushed back her windblown hair. Then his fingers trailed down her temple and across her wet cheek with a feather-light touch. His hand
was almost unbearable in its tenderness. No one had ever caressed Julia in such a loving way. The delicate thread of renewed trust formed between them in the silence. Julia lifted up her face to him. He traced his fingers across her forehead as if soothing away a headache. Her knees weakened.

“Fair saint, if I profane with my unworthy hand, this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this,” he whispered, his breath hot against her cheek. “My two lips, blushing pilgrims, stand ready to smooth my rough touch with a gentle kiss.”

The music of Shakespeare's words entranced her, and a delicious glow encompassed her. Rob had quoted from
Romeo and Juliet,
when the star-crossed lovers meet for the first time at a party. She looked up at his face. The smoldering flame in his dark eyes startled her with its intensity. People said that a person's eyes were the windows of their souls. Could it be that Shakespeare's poetry mirrored his inner feelings?

She moistened her lips, then replied with Juliet's words, making them her own. “Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hands too much, for saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch.” The frosty air around them seemed charged with energy.

Rob pressed a kiss in the palm of her bare hand. The impact of his gentleness shocked Julia. Her pulse skittered like a cat sliding down a tin washboard.

“Have not saints lips?” he asked, his voice husky.

Their intimacy acted like Mother's drops of opium, lulling Julia into a state of blissful euphoria. Her common sense spun out of her head, but she didn't care. It was sweet madness.

“Aye, pilgrim,” she responded. Rising on tiptoe, she touched his cheeks, his skin cold beneath her fingertips.

Rob outlined her quivering mouth with a fingertip. “Then, sweet saint, let my lips do what my hand does.”

With exquisite slowness, he lowered his mouth to meet hers. His last word was smothered as his lips touched hers like a whispered prayer. Her skin burned at the contact. He gently covered her mouth with his.

Julia's instinctive response shocked her. It was as if Rob had sundered a rusted padlock within her. Her knees suddenly gave way. With trembling arms, she clung to him. She ached for more—something she could not name but knew that she desired above all else. He supported her with his good arm. His uneven breath warmed her cheek as he drew her closer. With her blood singing through her veins, she welcomed his second kiss.

Rob lifted his head. “Thus my sin is purged from my lips by thine.” His voice simmered with barely-controlled passion.

She licked her love-swollen mouth with the tip of her tongue, as if tasting a new flavor of ice cream. “Then, do my lips now have your sin they took?” she murmured. She experienced a heady sensation, as if she had twirled round and round on a swing. It grew more difficult to remember Juliet's lines.

Rob chuckled low in the back of his throat. “Sin from my lips? Oh, never, sweet saint! Give me my sin again!”

His grip on her tightened as his attitude became more serious. This time he demanded more. The sheer hunger of his desire took away Julia's breath. She returned his kiss with wanton abandon. His tongue traced along the line of her mouth, then parted her lips with a tender entreaty. Rumbling in the back of his throat, he drank deeply from her.

Hot flames rose up within Julia's breast. Her nipples tingled, then hardened. She melted into his embrace and
surrendered to the sweet ravishment of his lips. Emotions she had never suspected she possessed surged through her. A passion, hitherto unknown, radiated from the deepest core of her body. Tremors heated her thighs and the secret place between them. She suckled the sweetness of his tongue like candied ginger, and yearned for more. His was the kiss that her wounded soul had long sought. His were the lips she had dreamt of in years of cold nights.

Julia moaned. Rob withdrew, leaving her with a flurry of soft kisses like snowflakes on her lips, her cheeks, her eyes. He ended with a gentle kiss brushed across her forehead. They stepped apart. Julia placed her hand over her heart as if to keep it from flying out of her rib cage. Her breathing slowed, though her skin sizzled where he had touched her.

“I am truly ruined now,” she murmured, drunk with pleasure.

Rob coughed, inhaled deeply then laughed. “I am afraid that I have completely used up my Shakespeare—at least for tonight.” He cupped her quivering chin in his hand. “Forgive me for that. I plead temporary madness.”

Irked by his apology, Julia turned away from him and tossed her hair. “You are
sorry
for kissing me? Was I that bad? I admit that I have had no previous experience, but still, I thought I was rather good.”

He gaped at her, then burst into loud laughter.

Julia sent a quick glance at the darkened window of her parents' bedroom. “Quiet! Do you want to be blasted into kingdom come tonight?”

Covering his mouth, Rob shook his head. “No, Miss Julia, I am not ready for the next world. I did not laugh at your kiss,” he explained, drawing her back into the circle of his arm. “On the contrary, your kisses would have sent Shakespeare into rapturous sonnets, if he had
been fortunate enough to have met you before I did. No, sweet saint, I was apologizing for my coarse behavior. You should be treated like a lady, not like…um…” He coughed.

Julia couldn't help but smile. She knew exactly what he meant. “Like a soiled dove?”

“Something like that. Please forgive me.”

Exulting in her newly discovered power, Julia cocked her head. “No, Major Montgomery, I will never forgive you for your kiss—your many kisses.”

He looked stricken. “Miss Julia, truly I meant no disrespect but…”

She hid her smile. “But you were seized with Shakespeare at the time and lost your wits?”

He cleared his throat. “This is no laughing matter. I meant you no harm. In fact, I find you most…um…”

Julia took a certain satisfaction with his discomfiture. After all, hadn't he left once before with no explanation, and wasn't he truly her enemy? “Cat got your tongue, Rob?”

He snorted. “No, I believe that you had it last.”

“Oh,” Julia gasped. Her cheeks flushed.

Rob stroked her forehead. “In all seriousness, Julia. I found you most sweet to kiss.” He frowned. “Your husband-to-be should count himself very fortunate. I envy the man,” he muttered under his breath.

Julia shuddered as if she had been doused with a pail of water. She became aware of the biting cold in the garden. She pulled her blanket closer around her body. “Please don't spoil these last few moments we have together, Rob,” she whispered. “I don't want to marry Payton Norwood. But there is not a thing I can do about it.”

A cloud of contempt settled on his features. “You
should not be forced into this match, if you don't want him.”

Julia sighed. Being a Northerner, how could Rob possibly understand her obligations of duty and honor to her family? “I cannot disobey my parents. My mother suffers from a nervous condition. It could kill her if I defied her wishes.”

Even as she spoke these words, Julia wondered whether they were really true. Just how sick was her mother? For years the family and servants had whirled around Mrs. Chandler's whims and commands for fear of “setting her off,” as Hettie said. Not once, in Julia's memory, had anyone really stood up to Mother's hysterics and vapors. Carolyn's escapades and her own spurt of independence counted for nothing in the long run. Mother always won in the end. Julia sighed. Tomorrow would be no exception.