Every Time I Love You (10 page)

“Damn you—”

“You're beautiful, you know,” he told her.

It seemed that her heart stopped, dead stopped, then thundered onward again. Why, she wondered, wasn't he Lord so-and-so or Lieutenant so-and-so or someone of whom her family might approve?

Why wasn't he somebody she could love?

“Let me go!” she demanded.

But he did not. His laughter left him, and his smile faded and he continued to stare at her. “You're very beautiful,” he repeated softly. “You should run away with me. The world is about to explode, you know. I would keep you safe. I would guard you with my life.”

It was her turn to erupt in laughter. “You, Mr. Ainsworth? You would protect me? You, sir, will most probably hang. That is the fate of traitors.”

“Trust me, milady, the Tories shall be evicted soon. Can't you feel it? There is rebellion in the air. People crave freedom. Soon no man shall claim the rights of another. No man shall claim superiority to another. It will come. It will come, a rising wind that cannot be stopped. Come with me. Feel that wind.”

“Come with you where?” she taunted him.

And he smiled again, slowly. “Wherever I go, milady. I promise you, I can make you die for my touch, for my soft whisper.”

She laughed again, but the sound was breathless and she had to jerk away from his hold. “You are mad! Even to speak to me so! You are rude and discourteous, and I can tell you, Mr. Ainsworth, that I shall never long for an unwashed, backwoods bumpkin—”

“Backwoods, yes. But I do beg to differ, milady. I wash most frequently. Bumpkin? Perhaps. But a man, milady. Not a silly fop like that aging crustacean they would wed you to.”

“What do you know of it?” Katrina demanded.

“Alas, only what a man hears in the taverns. But see, then? You should come with me now. You should know a man, before being sold to a crustacean.”

She struck out, slapping his cheek as fast as she could, her own growing crimson. He caught her wrist while the harsh sound of her slap seemed to resound in the air. He held her while he rubbed his cheek ruefully, and neither of them was aware of a thing that went on around them. Horses, carriages, and wagons continued to traverse the streets. Down along the green, someone was speaking and drawing an audience. The soldiers could be seen, and the men of the Commonwealth, barely civil now to one another as events tightened around them. Birds chirped; the sky remained a glorious blue.

And neither of them saw it, for they saw only each other.

“I am in love with you,” he told her.

“You are crude!” she cried.

“Only because I am in love with you,” he said very, very softly, “and because I cannot bear to hear the rumors. That you will soon be wed to one of these lobsterbacks two or three times your own age. Only because I cannot bear that he should touch you. Only because I must have you...”

She heard his words and his whisper seemed to fade. He shouldn't be talking to her so, as if she were a common...whore. It showed a horrendous lack of respect. Men did not marry women with whom they so teased and played...

She could never marry him. The whole idea was mad. If violence did indeed break out in earnest, she would most probably leave the country. She would never see him again.

She lowered her head and moistened her lips and nearly cried out and reached for him, so weakened was she by the sudden heat that shot through her. She wanted to touch him. To feel his cheek, fresh shaven now, to run her hands over his shoulders and feel the muscles beneath his coat.

She wanted things that she dared not speak of; she wanted to know what was forbidden, what she had only heard whispered about, what was hot and sweet and carnal...

“I cannot stand here!” she cried suddenly. “Henry, my brother, would kill one of us, were he to see us.”

Percy looked up and realized that there was a world around them. They were in the center of the green, near the blacksmith's. Williamsburg was not so large a place that they would not be noticed, and all that he had been saying was true. Tension was in the air. Fights and riots broke out constantly these days, and in Massachusetts many a man had been tarred and feathered for one belief or another. Percy was aware that Lord Henry Seymour would just as soon see his sister with a raw savage as he would see her with himself.

He did not hesitate though; he took her hand. “Come with me.”

“What? Are you mad!” Katrina stared at him, trying to wrench her hand from his. “Let me go this instant!”

He smiled, tightening his grip. She was flushed and her breasts were heaving, and she was determined to fight him. The challenge was clear, and through fair means or foul, Percy was determined that he would not lose.

“Let you go, love? Never!” He jerked her hard against him, staring down at her. Her eyes, afire, met his. She couldn't combat his strength.

“I'll scream!” she threatened.

“Will you?” He laughed. “Nay, lady, you will not!” With that, he clamped a hand down hard upon her mouth and swept her off her feet. Long strides brought them quickly across the road, behind a tavern, and into a barn.

He closed the door and set her down. Katrina swore and she kicked him and he laughed, but then he threaded his fingers through her hair and forced back her head. He stroked her throat with the pad of his thumb, and then he kissed her. She held her lips still to his assault, and then she tried to bite him. But he held firm. Eventually her struggles ceased. Her lips parted to the pressure of his, and he drank deeply of her sweetness, offering her no quarter. She fell limp against him.

“Bastard!” Shaking, she managed to push away from him at last. She threw open the door and entered into the light. He followed, catching up with her.

“You won't leave me! We need to talk.”

Katrina lifted her head, trembling. She could still feel the pressure of his lips against hers. She knew that he was right. No matter how much she desired to, she could not run away.

She walked down to the gate to the corral and turned around disdainfully to survey the tavern in front. This was not a place that Henry would frequent. He would not come where any of the wild Yankee ruffians might imbibe a pint. Henry did not often frequent taverns; he preferred to spend his leisure time in the Governor's mansion.

Beneath the shade of a giant elm, Katrina turned her back on Percy and stared out at the corral and at the group of horses that played all along the length of the white picket fencing. The horses were beautiful; they ran wild and free. Katrina noted that a sleek black stallion nipped the neck of a snow-white mare. The mare, in return, tossed her head and began to race the very wind again, leaving him to trail in her wake.

“How she teases him!” Percy observed.

Katrina lowered her head quickly, flushing. Then she looked up and she caught Percy's dark eyes upon her. She wondered if he was speaking about the horses, or perhaps his words were a taunt, more personal. She had already gravely compromised her position. A young lady simply did not even see a man in private. She did not follow where he led her so easily. She did not shiver at his touch, then tremble in heat.

“I have to go. I don't know why I am here—” She began.

“You are a liar. You came out to find me. And you have found me, love!” He caught her hand again.

“Percy!” She cried out in dismay, for he pulled her back to the barn. “Stop!” She pleaded.

He was determined. He swung her around as they reentered the cool darkness, fragrant with the scent of fresh hay.

“Percy!” She backed against the paneling of the tack room and his hands fell upon her cheeks, either side. She felt the spellbinding dark heat of his eyes and she tried to speak again. “I should not have come. I'm sorry. I do not know why—”

“I think that you do know why,” he whispered to her softly and stepped against her. His arms swept around her, and his body came flush with hers, their hips pressed together, her breasts forced high and taut and firm against the breadth of his chest. His fingers massaged and cradled her nape, drawing her closer, and his lips came down upon hers once again, forceful still, but tender.

She had been kissed once before today. A silly, awkward kiss from a silly, fat man, that boor whom Henry so admired. She had demurred; she had escaped; she had felt nothing.

Nothing...

And now she felt everything. She felt the warmth of the day, the blaze of the springtime sun. She felt the wet fire of the sure, insinuating sweep of his tongue; and she felt the scent of him entering her body and her memory; and she felt the sheer masculine force of him, of his lips and his form and his dark and forbidden and very bold desire. She knew that she had to pull away from him again. She knew that what she did—this kiss—was wanton and decadent and that her sheer enjoyment of it labeled her less than a lady. But she could not deny it. She clung to him while he kissed her, on and on. She dug her fingers into his shoulders to hold him, to stay straight.

She felt his tongue against her teeth, then deep inside her mouth. She felt the savage desire and she felt the tenderness and she shivered and trembled, feeling the raw, desperate excitement.

It was madness. Some logic remained with her in a distant but demanding section of her mind. It was sheer lunacy. Not only would Henry kill her but wasn't she loyal to the Crown herself? She was English, not American. She had grown up in London, and she had come here only because Henry was her guardian and because he had been given vast stretches of land in the colonies. Because of the townhouse here and the acreage in the Carolinas and the beautiful white-pillared mansion in Philadelphia. She herself was English, and here she stood, locked in this debasing embrace with one of the greatest blackguards of the time. A man who brazenly and crudely stated that he wanted her. He loved her...ah, yes, love! she told herself bitterly. He did not court her; he whisked her away. He did not mention the honorable state of marriage; he just promised to sweep her away. Men did not take as wives the women with whom they so rakishly played...

Surely, he laughed at her. He made a fool, a trollop, of her, and he would laugh tonight in the tavern and tell his revolutionary friends of how he petted and mauled Lord Seymour's haughty sister, and left her languishing for more.

“No!”

She wrenched her lips from his and beat her fists against his coat, pushing away from him in horror. She brought her fingers to her swollen lips and stared at him, furious, dismayed.

“No!” she cried again.

“Katrina?”

He set his hands upon her shoulders to pull her close once again. She shoved against him. “Fool, oaf, traitor! You'll leave me be!”

She turned blindly to run. He reached out for her, catching her hair, entwining his fingers there. “Katrina!”

She tried to turn on him with a vengeance and she cried out instead, tripping over her skirts. Her heart thundered furiously as she fell, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She heard his laughter; then he fell down beside her. He straddled her, pinning her down.

“Get off me!” she cried.

“Katrina, listen to me—”

“No! I hate you. I don't want you touching me. I want them to hang you—”

He flushed darkly and his eyes glittered with fury. “Don't be a fool, Katrina.”

“Let me up—”

“You are like the mare, my love. A tease until the very end.”

“You are a traitor!”

“And you, love, must realize that you are a woman before you are a Tory.” He caught her hands; his fingers entwined with hers and he pulled them high over her head, then he lowered himself over her. She continued to gasp for breath, but she did not cry out. She stared at him with hatred.

And with fascination.

“You quiver!” he whispered to her. “And your lips are parted. Is that anticipation?”

“That is my desperation to breathe!” she spat out. “You are a heavy traitor.”

Percy laughed with pure pleasure. She trembled anew, for his lashes swept over the shadows of his cheeks and he kissed her forehead. She twisted and he caught her lips.

She felt it again, the sweetness, the rising passion, the magic. She breathed in the sweet fresh hay and the man and, hysterically, she thought that she could so easily yield all. He touched her. He caressed her face. His hands swept over her breasts, along her waist...

With deep chagrin she realized that he was no longer holding her down. She was yielding far more than she had ever imagined.

She twisted from his lips at last. “Percy!” There was a note of anguish in her cry.

“What?” he demanded angrily. “Do I hurt you, lady? Or are you so determined to ignore what wages here between us?”

“Yes, yes! Let me up!”

“Let you run!” he corrected her with quiet derision. “Yes, run, Katrina. You will come back.”

“Percy!”

“There! There!” Swift, agile, he rose, reaching for her hand and wrenching her to her feet. “Go!”

She stared at him, her breasts rising and falling with each of her desperate breaths. She inched away, backward, wary lest he should move again.

He opened the barn door himself. He followed her out into the sunlight. She walked by him, absently touching her moist and swollen lips, warily keeping an eye upon him.