Beloved Enemy (68 page)

"Chicken,
in the name of the good God, will you stop running!" That resoundingly
familiar voice, carrying the most extraordinarily familiar note of
exasperation,  came softly from behind her. With a little moan, Ginny stopped
dead, her heart battering against her rib cage. "What is the matter with
you? I could not call out for fear someone on the bridle path would hear."
Alex came up with her, and she turned slowly to face him.

"I
thought you were a wild boar," she said. "Or some mad ravisher."

"I
am deeply flattered." Alex grinned at her. "I was riding with
Harrington earlier, when we saw you leave the bridle path. He had to get out to
the far fields, and I said I would be happy to ride through the woods alone.
Then I followed you to that village. What do you do among the Indians?"

They
had not seen each other, apart from a few minutes on the landing stage
yesterday, for fourteen months, and Alex was talking to her exactly as he used
to, demanding an explanation for an activity of which he did not approve.

"Their
medicine woman is very skilled," Ginny explained, "and can tell me
much of what grows around here. Their simples are rather different, you
understand?"

"I
cannot imagine why I bothered to ask the question," Alex said, sighing,
although his eyes glowed and he took her hand. "Let us go deeper into the
woods. We are too close to the bridle path." Drawing her beside him, he
turned back the way them had come. "It will not matter if we fall foul of
Indian notions of morality, and I suspect they are the only folk, apart from
you, my intrepid little gypsy, who stray from the beaten track."

Ginny
said nothing because she could not. Her hand seemed to be cemented to his, the
light, teasing voice washing over her like moonlight. Were there to be no
questions, no explanations? No fumbling, doubtful, guilty wonderings and
excuses? It would seem so, and it was only right that it should be so. This
wild, magical madness that gripped them was as inevitable as it had ever been.

In a
small clearing, Alex stopped, placing his hands on her shoulders, looking deep
into her eyes as if he would find all answers therein. "Sweet
heaven," he said softly. "I do not know how I have lived without you,
my own." His lips took hers, gently at first, almost hesitantly as if the
reexploration of familiar territory might bring some surprises. Ginny responded
in the same way, her lips soft, parting for him in breathless wonder as she too
rediscovered and re-created. When she closed her eyes, the scent of his skin
filled the air around her, and she inhaled greedily. Her hands ran over his
back, remembering every curve, knob, and muscular ripple, up to his neck where
the hair curled in wisps, then to palm his scalp, her fingers twisting in the
luxuriant, crisp auburn thatch.

Alex
felt the soft press of her breasts against his chest as he tasted the sweetness
of her tongue. His hands cupped her buttocks, firm and round beneath the
cambric kirtle, and his need rose hard and urgent eclipsing the gentle wonder
of this reexploration. Ginny felt it, too, and pressed herself against him, sucking
on his lower lip, nipping with her teeth in a manner that bespoke imperative
demand rather than play. He drew back, his breathing ragged as he loosed her
hooded cloak and tossed it on the carpet of leaves at their feet. She went down
under the peremptory pressure of his hand on her shoulder, sinking onto the
cloak, her hands reaching up for him as he yanked off his boots, pushed off his
britches, and dropped down beside her.

"I
am sorry," he whispered with an almost defeated moan, drawing her skirt and
petticoat up to her waist. But Ginny could wait no more than he could. Her legs
parted for him, her hips lifted as he lowered himself upon her. Then he
penetrated her very self, driving deep to become that indissoluble part of her
as her loins filled, contracted around him, and the sunburst shattered the
serenity of the forest.

A blue
jay cackled at the two spent figures lying like Hansel and Gretel on the russet
bed of leaves. The sound brought them both back to awareness, and Alex kissed
her with a rueful little smile. "I am sorry, sweeting, but I do not
remember ever having such a powerful and invincible need."

"It
was the same for me," she said, brushing back his forelock that clung
damply to his brow. "What shall we do?"

Alex
moved out of her slowly, then caressed the length of her exposed thighs, a
thoughtful little frown knitting his brow. "I do not yet know, my own. But
I do know that you belong to me, that the bargain made at Grantley Manor still
holds good."

She
shook her head in sudden bewildered wretchedness. "How can that be? I
belong to my husband."

"In
law, yes," he agreed, still calmly, his fingers playing in the curly
tangle at the base of her belly, moving over the mound beneath, taking his
time, now that the desperate urgency of lust had been slaked. "But by
every rule of love and nature you are my own." He placed his hand over the
moist, pulsing warmth of her core, holding her as he kissed her belly, tickling
her navel with his tongue. "Is it not so?" His breath rustled over
her abdomen, and his hand seared her.

"It
is so," she groaned, her body lifting and twisting on the cloak, and when
his mouth replaced the hand her little sobbing cries filled the peaceful glade
as the rapturous tide swept over her, carrying her beyond memory. Then Alex
found that he must draw again from the well and entered her, this time with the
utmost delicacy, poised on the very edge of her body before sheathing himself
slowly within the silken, velvety chamber. breathing deeply and slowly, he
stroked with firm rhythm, kneeling upright between her wide-spread thighs, his
hands on his hips, watching the mobile face beneath, watching for the moment
when the gray eyes would cloud with that surprised wonder that always made him
want to laugh with joy. Her tongue ran over her lips, and she smiled up at him,
quite at peace with this wonderfully familiar fit of bodily contour and rhythm.

Slowly,
he withdrew, holding them both on the very edge of delight. The gray eyes
widened in expectation. "My gypsy wanton," Alex said and took her
with him into the inferno.

Afterward,
he dressed himself, then helped her up, straightened her skirts, shook out her
cloak, and fastened it about her shoulders again. Ginny seemed numb and
incapable of doing any of these things for herself, until Alex took her by the
shoulders and shook her gently. "Ginny, love, pull yourself together
now." He flicked the tip of her nose teasingly. "This is not my
intrepid soldier girl. You have fought worse battles than this one,
chicken."

In
spite of the teasing smile, the light tone, she heard the seriousness of the
message beneath. This was a battle they had to fight, a battle against
discovery. She had to go back to her husband and behave like a virtuous,
attentive wife. When she met her lover again, it would be in company, and she
must behave toward him as she would to any slight acquaintance, however much
her skin danced in expectation of his touch, her arms ached to reach out for
him, her lips parted in readiness. She must keep her eyes downcast, her voice even
and polite, her hands busy with some comforting task, her attention elsewhere.

And
now, she must go back to Giles, knowing that she must be there in docile
submission if he demanded it of her, racked with the fear that petrified her,
the fear that this time he might be sober enough to move beyond the first
fumblings. But she could not tell Alex that. That was her own personal hell,
not to be shared by one whom she sensed could not live with the torment of that
knowledge.

So she
smiled, shook her head in mock bemusement as if to clear away the cobwebs,
stood on tiptoe to kiss him. "Better now, love. You had rendered me
senseless for a few moments."

His
relief showed clear in his eyes. He glanced swiftly around the clearing.
"Do you go first, then, sweetheart. I will wait for fifteen minutes before
I fetch my horse."

Ginny
left without further speech, back to the bridle path and the walk home. The
noon sun was already high and she had been away from the house since eight
o'clock, but Giles had managed to rise early enough to accompany Tom Brigham
into the newly cleared fields to discuss the site for the house that they would
eventually build. with luck, he would not return until dinnertime, and maybe
Tom could be persuaded to stay and eat with them. . . . And tomorrow, she would
to go Harrington Hundred to help Susannah with the preparations for the party.
She would sleep there for two' nights, bundling with the older Harrington girls
in the big bed in the square parlor. Alex would sleep beneath the same roof, in
the boys' room, although, as Susannah had informed her, such an important guest
was in sole possession of the bed, the boys sleeping on pallets on the floor.

These
thoughts rattled through her mind in an almost irrelevant stream, except, of
course, that it was not remotely irrelevant to reawakened passion, and it was
all tied up with the fact that her husband would be sleeping a safe canoe ride
away, and he would not be there to watch her at dinner, when they dined in the
company of Alexander Marshall, to listen to the talk and castigate her later
for what she had said and whom she had looked at and how she had looked at
them. Generally the castigations and accusations ran from her like water from
an oiled back. Armed with innocence, she could ignore the drunken tirade, and
she knew that by ignoring it, she reassured her husband. But in the knowledge
of her guilt, how would she react if Alex Marshall became the focus of her
husband's jealousy? In the large gathering of the party, she could take refuge
in helping Susannah with the domestic arrangements for the guests'
entertainment. She need do little more than greet Alex briefly and politely. If
Giles did not see them together, there was no reason why Alex should figure in
his ramblings later, and if he did not, then could she react with customary
innocence.

So
Ginny thought and planned as she hurried home. It was all perfectly possible to
arrange, so long as one kept a clear head.

"It
is to be hoped we have sufficient beds for our women guests, husband,"
Susannah said worriedly to her husband, passing him with an armful of lavender
she was intending to strew upon the sheets. "The boys must sleep in the
barn, but General Marshall — "

"Will
also sleep in the barn, Mistress Harrington," Alex said, coming into the
square hallway. He smiled at his hostess and when she made to demur told her
firmly that as a soldier he was accustomed to far worse billets than a dry barn
and fresh straw.

"You
may be sure the general speaks only the truth, Susannah." Ginny, laughing,
came out of a bedchamber, a bolster in her arms. "If you cosset him. then
he will grow soft, is it not so, General?"

"Indubitably,
Mistress Courtney," Alex agreed solemnly. 'And I very much fear that with
the hospitality I have received so far, the process is already well
begun."

Susannah
flushed with pleasure at the compliment. Her guest in the last two days was
become most approachable, with no shortage of pretty words and compliments, the
previously stern countenance generally smiling, the green-brown eyes carrying a
sparkle that had hitherto been absent. Flustered, she turned her attention to
her husband. "You have given orders for the slaughtering of the sheep and
the seer, husband?"

"Yesterday,"
he reassured her. "And the pit is being dug below the orchard for the
roasting."

"And
the wine?"

"Ten
gallons, my love, and another ten of brandy."

Susannah,
looking round at the three faces, realized that her anxieties were causing some
amusement. The pink of her cheeks deepened, and she muttered something and
hurried off with her lavender.

"It
is quite an undertaking," Ginny said. "Providing hospitality for over
a hundred guests. There are many details to be considered."

"Quite
so," Robert agreed. "And we stand in your debt, Cousin, for your
assistance."

"No,
Robert, you do not," Ginny replied firmly, hitching the bolster higher
into her arms. "Excuse me, gentlemen, I must take this outside for
airing."

"Allow
me, mistress. It is a somewhat cumbersome burden." Alex removed the
bolster from her arms, his hand brushing against her breast. Ginny felt the
nipple harden instantly and could only be thankful that her face where the
involuntary shock at the deliberate touch would be clearly revealed was turned
away from Robert. She managed to murmur her thanks adequately, however,
hurrying outside with Alex, carrying the bolster, striding along behind her.