Elizabeth Lane (12 page)

“You said you wanted to talk.” Her voice was guardedly expressionless. “Frankly, Donovan, I don’t think we’ve much left to say to each other. By now, the whole town knows my secret. Your threats won’t work—not that they ever did.”

“I didn’t come to make threats.” He glared at her across the graduated rows of log benches. “I want you to tell me about you and Virgil. What you did together. How much he told you. The best and the worst. I want to know it all.”

“Why?” She spoke defiantly, her upthrust features gleaming in the dim glow of the lamp.

“Because you killed him, Sarah. You killed my brother as surely as if you’d fired the mortar shell that blew his guts out.”

He glimpsed the pain that flashed across her face before she turned away. “Say what you like,” she whispered. “Say whatever you believe. That doesn’t mean I have to accept it, or that I have to tell you anything at all.” She shuddered with visible anguish, her back ramrod straight as she stared out the window, then spun abruptly to face him.

“Virgil was under orders not to reveal Lee’s plans. No one forced him to disobey those orders, Donovan. Your brother betrayed the Confederacy of his own free will!”

“The young fool was smitten out of his mind!” Donovan snarled, slamming his shin on a bench in his blind anger. “Damn it—how was he to know the woman he loved would turn the information over to the Yankees?”

“I didn’t force him to tell me. I never forced a man to tell me anything.”

“No?” Donovan reeled under a rising tide of white-hot fury. “Then how did you get what you wanted? Did you sleep with them? Did you sleep with my innocent, young brother, Sarah Parker?”

“I did not!” The words exploded out of her. “I didn’t sleep with any of them—not even Virgil! Would to God I had! At least things might have been more honest that way! At least I might have sent them off with something to remember!”

She stood quivering in the darkness, bursting with her own bitter memories. “Virgil was only one of them! I never kept a count, but there were many, Donovan—so many that it would shock you if you knew! Earnest, eager young men, ready to tell me anything for a kiss and a promise! None of them came back…not one!”

She stood a half-dozen paces from him, framed by the blackness of the window. Donovan moved toward her like a sleepwalker, not knowing in his own befuddled mind whether he wanted to strike her or seize her in his arms. But it made no difference. Another step, and her tormented eyes stopped him like a bullet.

“I see their faces in my dreams,” she whispered. “Their fair, young faces. I see them dying. I see their hands. Their torn bodies…”

She turned, drifting away from him, into the shadowed corner of the room. “I think of their families, people who loved and needed them. And I know it’s too late—that’s the worst hell of all, Donovan. Nothing I do can bring them back. Ever.”

Donovan refused to be moved. “A pretty speech, coming from you,” he commented sarcastically.

Abruptly she spun back to face him. The bitter smile that teased her lips was Lydia’s. Completely Lydia’s.

“Of all the dashing, young officers I knew in Richmond, only one came home alive,” she said. “Strangely enough, he was the one I couldn’t seem to fool, the one who was never quite taken in by Lydia Taggart.”

Donovan stared at her as the realization dawned that she was talking about him. The irony of her words was an awl between his ribs.
Never quite taken in—
Lord, if only the woman had known about his tortured nights, imagining her
in Virgil’s embrace as he ached to have her in his own. And the fantasies—fantasies to make a libertine blush! Her lovely, naked body, liquid satin in his arms, his to explore, to tease, to possess-Damn! Damn! Damn!

Donovan cursed the involuntary surge of heat to his loins. Lydia Taggart had been the devil’s own daughter even then, he reminded himself. But even if he’d had the chance to make love to her, he would never have betrayed Robert E. Lee and the Army of the Confederacy. Such a lapse would have been unthinkable.

“Your charms would never have worked on me,” he declared gruffly, grateful that the boast was at least partly true.

“I know.” Her voice was like the whisper of raw silk in the darkness. “I stayed away from you, Donovan—as far away as I was able—because I couldn’t trust myself with you. I could never be certain that I wouldn’t let my guard down, that you wouldn’t see right through me.”

Sarah’s face was moon pale, reflecting the dim glow of lamplight from the bedroom. Tendrils of hair had escaped her bun to hang in wet strings around her face. She looked damp and exhausted, he thought. All the same, her eyes and voice were Lydia’s, as were her words—drawing him closer to the precipice.

“You told me you didn’t love Virgil.” The words rasped in his throat. “You said you couldn’t allow yourself to love anyone.”

Her eyes were luminous in the shadows. “Yes,” she said slowly. “So I did. But you weren’t like the others, Donovan. If I could have loved anyone at all…it would have been you.”

Something stirred and broke inside Donovan—something aching and lonely and too long held back. He took a step toward her, then hesitated, violently torn. This woman had betrayed all that he held dear, he reminded himself. She was his sworn enemy till the end of time.

He caught her in his arms.

Sarah’s resistance was no more than a cobweb. With a little sob of release, she crumpled against him. Her lips rose to meet the hard hunger of Donovan’s kiss. Her arms circled his neck, fingers raking his hair as he crushed her close. Her lips parted, tongue darting to meet his in wanton, searing abandon.

Donovan staggered under a rush of physical sensation. She was sweet as summertime in his arms, and more desirable than he had imagined in his wildest dreams. The warm, musky scent of her sang in his head until he was drunk with it—out of his mind and out of control.

Her uncorseted spine arched at the pressure of his hand. She was naked under the robe and gown, he realized, the awareness flaming his vitals. Where her hips pressed his, Donovan’s manhood rose hot and hard. She knew—hell, she had to know—the woman was no innocent virgin. She knew, and she did not pull away. Donovan reeled with the staggering awareness that she wanted him as much as he wanted her—that she had wanted him from the beginning.

The bedroom—it lay tantalizingly close, the glow of the lantern casting a golden path across the schoolroom floor. Seizing the moment, Donovan caught her up in his arms. A shudder went through her body, but she made no sound as he carried her toward the soft, warm light. Her arms clung to his neck; her hair curled damply in the hollow of his throat. He could feel her trembling against his heart.

Sarah’s simple bedroom was so small that there was scarcely room for the two of them to enter. Donovan kissed her again, deeply, dizzyingly, the fire in his blood burning away all reason. The room, the whole world, seemed to be spinning in his head until nothing made sense. Nothing mattered except possessing this woman who had haunted his dreams for years.

As he lowered her to the coverlet, his hands caught the tangled knot of her hair and pulled it loose from the pins. The glorious satin cascade tumbled loose on the pillow.
Donovan buried his face in its damp, fragrant waves. His mouth found the sweet, white curve of her neck, the moist hollow of her throat, the open neck of her nightgown…

“Donovan—” she gasped as his lips brushed the pulsing swell of her breast. “Donovan, we—”

“Hush!” he whispered, stopping her words with hard, urgent kisses. “This is what we both want…you know it…I know it. We were born for this, you and I….”

Lightning flashed blue through the thin lace curtains. A boom of thunder shook the room like cannon fire as Donovan’s fingers found the sash of her robe and jerked at the knot. The robe fell open to reveal a white nightdress, gossamer sheer to his senses.

The feel of her through the soft, light fabric was erotic beyond belief. Donovan’s palm brushed the tip of her breast through the gauzy cotton. Her nipple hardened at his touch, sending shudders of response through her body. Her hands clasped his head, drawing him down to the ripe satin globes. Half-delirious, he licked her nipples through the cloth, laving, nibbling, sucking. She writhed beneath his touch, her body pleading for fulfillment.

Remembering the desire of his old, forbidden fantasy, Donovan allowed his mouth to graze downward along the long, flat curve of her belly. She was satin heat through the wispy gown, her muscles shimmering at his touch, her breath coming in helpless little gasps as he slid the hem up her legs, up her slim, taut thighs to expose the delicate nest of light brown curls at their joining. Her sweet, musky aroma swam like brandy in his senses. He was drunk with her nearness, mad beyond reason with his own aroused need.

Senses reeling, Donovan bent to the heart of that wild, womanly aroma and flicked a tentative tongue along the moist, silken cleft.

“Donovan don’t—” she gasped, but her willing body, opening like a flower to his touch, made lies of her words.

“Lie still,” he whispered, the delicious curls brushing his lips. “Lie still and let me love you, Lydia….”

She went rigid as ice beneath him.

“What the—?” Donovan drew back, bewildered, but only for an instant. Sarah’s eyes and the cold fury in her voice told him exactly what he had done.

“Leave me alone!” she rasped, scrambling away from him to crouch at the far corner of the bed. “I’m not Lydia! I was
never
Lydia! You fell in love with a stage role, Donovan, a phantom! Lydia Taggart doesn’t exist!”

Dazed, Donovan stumbled backward against the wall. Even now, she was beautiful, with her nightgown fallen off one creamy shoulder, her glorious hair tumbled in her face, her eyes blazing defiant fury. But she had spoken the truth, he realized as his reason returned. She wasn’t Lydia. She was Sarah Parker, a woman he barely knew. And they had both come close to making a calamitous mistake.

“Get out of here, Donovan Cole!” She hurled the words like acid in his face. “Never come near me again! You do, and so help me…I’ll get a gun and I’ll shoot you!”

“Sarah, I never—” Donovan struggled to form the right words, then realized there was nothing he could say to justify himself—and nothing he could do except leave.

Burning with humiliation, he backed toward the door. Sarah had shrunk against the wall, one hand groping toward the dresser for something—a hairbrush, a drinking cup, anything she could throw in his direction. She was as wild as a cornered lynx, and as dangerous.

Donovan flung her a final, regretful glance, then wheeled and strode across the schoolroom to the outside door. She would not call him back, he knew. And even if she did, he would not come. The woman could go or stay, he told himself as he stepped out into the rain. She could hang herself, for all he cared.

Reaching back, he closed the door firmly behind him. The wind was icy through his wet clothes, the rain halfturned to driving sleet. In the heat of his shame, Donovan
scarcely felt the cold. He only knew that he could never face Sarah Parker again. Whatever happened next, he was through with her. For good.

Sarah heard the shutting of the door. He had not exactly slammed it, but the sound carried a note of absolute finality. She knew that she would not see Donovan again-not if either of them could avoid it.

For the space of several long breaths, she sat huddled forlornly on the bed, her knees clutched to her chest, her body burning with rage and shame.

Why had she done it? Dear heaven, what had possessed her to tell Donovan how she felt about him? How could she have let him get so close, when she knew his first kiss would shatter her resistance like fine crystal?

Lydia.

Sarah closed her eyes as Lydia’s mocking laughter echoed in her head. Lying, wanton Lydia. Even Donovan had been taken in by her false charm. Even Donovan had wanted her.

Sarah’s fist slammed into the pillow, scattering feathers through the loose seams. She had spent the past three years running away from Lydia Taggart. Here in Miner’s Gulch, she had almost succeeded, or so she thought. But no, even here, the past had caught up with her. The past in the person of Donovan Cole.

Taking a deep breath, she uncurled her legs and willed herself to slide off the bed and stand up. Her knees were jelly. Her body quivered with the fading tingle of Donovan’s passionate mouth. Her face, as confirmed by an accidental glance in the mirror, was still flushed with a warm radiance, the eyes luminous and strangely alive.

We were born for this, you and I….

Sarah pressed her hands to her hot cheeks as Donovan’s words, mocking now, rang in her memory.
No, Donovan,
she thought bitterly,
you and I were not born to be lovers. We were born to be mortal enemies all of our lives. Why else
would fate have
placed us on earth in such terrible times-
I in
the North, and you in the South?

But this would not do, Sarah brought herself up sharply. Any more of such thoughts, and she would be wallowing in self-pity, the last thing she needed at a time like this. The past was Lydia Taggart. The past was Donovan Cole. But she was through looking back. From now on, she would live in the present. She would look only toward the future.

She would survive.

In a furious burst of energy Sarah flung on her robe, jerked the sash tight, and began frantically straightening the room, as if to remove any sign that Donovan had been there. She fluffed the pillow, jerked the coverlet tight on the bed, then seized the schoolroom mop and wiped away every one of his big, muddy boot prints.

She flung herself into the work with the vigor of desperation and the frenzied strength of fear. The whole town would hate her now. Except for the girls above Smitty’s, no one, not Donovan, not even Varina, would be her friend. The days ahead would be fraught with loneliness and terror. She would need to be stronger than she had ever been in her life.

Only as she was hanging up her cloak did Sarah remember the paper that had fallen out of the bundle. It had blown under the bed, she recalled now. She had been about to reach for it when Donovan came pounding on her door.