Heartstrings (9 page)

“Imagined what?” Roman yelled, irritated that she’d stopped talking just short of the part about pleasure.

“Why are you shouting at me?” She closed the book and stood, her yellow skirts swishing across the orange flowers. “I was merely sitting here reading, and you have no cause whatsoever to bellow—”

“What the hell kind of book are you reading?”

“A sexual treatise entitled
The Sweet Art of Passion
.”

He stared at her. Hard, and without blinking. “Sex treats?”

“A
sexual treatise.
A written exposition concerning the sexual activities of human beings. It was created centuries ago by a Tibetan scholar who, at the time, was considered a leading authority on the subject. Nine years ago, it was unearthed and translated into English. It has not been revealed to the general public but has been relatively contained within the academic world.”

Roman moved his unblinking stare from her face to the cover of her book. There had been many times in his life when he wished he had the ability to see through solid objects, but never more so than now.

“I have no experience with such matters,” Theodosia explained nonchalantly, watching the horses amble away from the creek and begin grazing. “Therefore, I thought it judicious to educate myself.”

Roman began to feel warm, and not from the heat of the day. He glanced at the creamy flesh between her breasts, wishing she’d unfastened just one more button.

“Passion is said to be an art, Mr. Montana. From what I’ve read in this book, some men master it and others do not. The instructions in this treatise encompass everything from the first kiss to the gentlest way to deflower a virgin to several highly unusual forms of attaining sexual gratification.”

Roman wondered if dead Tibetan men knew something live American men didn’t. “Uh, about these highly unusual forms… What—”

“Of course, I will proceed with my plans in an objective manner,” she added. “The pleasure that may result from sexual relations is unimportant to me. But even so, I should familiarize myself with proven, effective maneuvers. Don’t you agree?”

“What? Uh…”

Theodosia caressed the book, pondering the child she would soon bear. “I would like to conceive a male baby for Upton and Lillian,” she murmured.

Roman felt as if his brains had been taken from his head, scrambled like an egg, then poured back inside. He held up his hand in an appeal for her to stop speaking. “Wait a minute. Upton—he’s your brother-in-law. And Lillian…she’s your sister?”

“Yes.”

“And the baby you make with Dr. Wallaby—you’re giving the kid to Upton and Lillian?”

“Yes.” Thinking of how much she loved Lillian and Upton, Theodosia smiled a faraway smile. “They are unable to have a child of their own, and Lillian refuses to adopt. As her sister, I am the only person in the world able to give her a child close to her own flesh and blood. She and I are practically mirror images of each other, and Upton and Dr. Wallaby appear as if they were closely related as well. Therefore, the child I conceive with Dr. Wallaby will look very much like a child Upton and Lillian created. Not to mention the fact that Upton and Dr. Wallaby are both brilliant. The child will most likely inherit a profound thirst for higher knowledge. That, of course, is another reason why Dr. Wallaby is the perfect candidate to sire the child.”

She hugged her book to her breast, excited over her own plans. “I am deeply indebted to Lillian and Upton, Mr. Montana. This is the sole opportunity I have ever had to repay their kindness and generosity in full measure. Of course, they know nothing whatsoever about my plans. If they did, they would never allow me to go through with them. Therefore, I shall give birth to their child here in Texas, deliver the infant to them in Boston, and then set forth for Brazil to join Dr. Wallaby. That is, if he accepts me as his assistant.”

She glanced at her watch. “We should depart. The fifteen-minute rest has come to an end. Actually, we have been resting for exactly seventeen minutes and thirty-two seconds.”

Roman didn’t speak for a very long while. He simply stared at her, trying to understand and accept her plans with the same casual attitude that she did.

He failed. Maybe it was the vast differences in their cultures, hers northern, his southern. Perhaps it was because he was a man and she was a woman. Or maybe it was because she was a genius and he was of ordinary intelligence.

Whatever it was, the thought of a woman deliberately sacrificing her virginity and nine months of her life to get a child she was going to give away was the damnedest thing he’d ever heard of.

And the fact that she was going to do all those highly unusual lovemaking maneuvers with Dr. Wallaby to
get
the baby was—

His lips quivered with the same wild laughter that had consumed him last night.

“What do you find so amusing, Mr. Montana?” Theodosia asked coolly.

He folded his arms across his chest. “I was picturing you and Dr. Wallaby making love. Or
having coitus,
as you so scientifically put it. You and the brilliant doctor will probably consult that sex-treat book before each and every move you make. ‘Page fifty-two says we aren’t doing this correctly,’ you’ll say. You’ll hold up the book, and Dr. Wallaby will read the page through the three-inch-thick lenses in his glasses. ‘How right you are,’ he’ll say. ‘We must follow the instructions precisely.’”

Roman’s smile grew. “You’ll stop to analyze each sentence in the book, so a single kiss will take you six weeks to accomplish. Other stuff, like learning to touch each other, will require three or four years to get right, and by the time you understand lovemaking perfectly, Dr. Wallaby will be too shriveled to perform!”

She sniffed in disdain. “And how long would
you
need to understand the contents of this book, Mr. Montana?”

“I wouldn’t bother with the book, Miss Worth.”

She refused to surrender to the warm flow of passion his announcement brought. For heaven’s sake, she was a highly educated woman! Surely with a bit more discipline, she could conquer the feelings Roman so effortlessly created. “Are you saying you know everything there is to know about coitus?”

He was tempted to say yes, but the gleam in her eyes gave him the vague feeling that she was preparing to use every smidgen of her intelligence to back him into a corner out of which there was no escape. Her weapon was her brain, and in this particular instance it was far more deadly than any firearm he could think of.

So he wouldn’t do battle with her mind. He’d attack her emotions instead.

He joined her by the trees, and his eyes holding hers captive, he traced the curve of her cheekbone with his finger. “I’m saying I know how to
make love
to a woman, Miss Worth. I know when to touch a woman. Where. And how.”

He heard her breath quicken, and he moved in for the kill. Slowly, he drew his finger past her cheek. Over her lips. Down her throat, and finally into the valley of her breasts. She’d unfastened just enough buttons to make the task easy.

His thumb folded against his palm, he slid four fingers beneath the low-cut edge of her lacy chemise, allowing only their tips to touch the puckered velvet of her nipple. “This,” he whispered, “is one way to touch a woman.”

Theodosia swayed and would have fallen if Roman had not quickly captured her waist. She tried stepping away from him, but she discovered that it was not his arm that kept her to him, but her own reluctance to be parted from him. “What possesses you to think you may caress me in such a way, Mr. Montana?”

He kept his fingers exactly where they were. “What possesses you not to stop me?” He flashed her a lopsided grin and finally withdrew his hand. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover if we’re going to make Templeton by tomorrow. As much as I like touching you and as much as you like me touching you, we’ve run out of time. I guess you’ll have to learn about the—uh…the
sweet art of passion
on your own.”

For the next three hours, while she was driving the wagon, Theodosia tried to concentrate on the songs of the meadowlarks that frolicked in the branches of the oak and buckthorn trees. But the songbirds’ music could not hold her attention the way Roman did.

He liked touching her. He’d said so himself. She couldn’t help imagining what it would be like to touch him in a similar fashion.

She stared at Roman’s back. His massive shoulders. His long black hair and thick muscular legs. He sat tall and straight in the saddle. His hips moved. Forward. Backward. To the rhythm of his horse’s gait.

Hips may move in a circular or back and forth motion.

The words she’d read in the sexual treatise came back to her. Still watching the easy sway of Roman’s hips, she wondered if his movements were also those a man employed when engaging in sexual relations. Was that how Dr. Wallaby would move?

Somehow she didn’t think so.

S
tanding between his stallion and
Theodosia’s horse and holding the steeds’ bridles, Roman watched the choppy Colorado River slosh over the sides of the ferry. He realized the current flowed more swiftly now than it had when he’d crossed the river on his way to Oates’ Junction.

“This ride is precarious at best,” Theodosia stated, peering over the wooden side slats of the ferry.

When Roman turned to look at her, he noticed her face was as colorless as the brisk wind that sailed through her hair. Clutching the side of the buckboard with her right hand and holding her parrot’s cage in her left, she acted as though she were heading for a raging waterfall aboard nothing but a slim hope for survival.

“Ain’t nothin’ to be skeered of, ma’am,” one of the ferrymen told her. He slackened his grip on the rope pulley and smiled at her.

Theodosia saw he had no teeth. When he opened his mouth, it looked as if someone had painted a black hole on his face.

“Nothin’ a’tall to fear,” the other agreed. “My brother and me’ve been workin’ this here ferry fer many a year, and we’ve only lost three passengers and a mule. The men was fightin’, ya see, and fighted theirsefs right into the river. The mule, well, he staggered off on account o’ he was drunk as all git out.”

Roman noted the alarm in Theodosia’s eyes. “You aren’t fighting, Miss Worth, and you aren’t drunk, so stop being afraid.”

His command angered her, but his deep, rich voice aroused within her an emotion that had nothing to do with ire. “Fear stems from the feeling of having no control over a specific threat,” she responded, her irritation rising as she felt her cheeks warm and color with what she knew now to be desire. “Most fears are
acquired.
Indeed, it is my understanding that infants are born with only two fears, that of loud noises and loss of physical support. As they grow older, they are conditioned to feel other fears, such as fear of the dark. I have not acquired a fear of water because I learned to swim at a very early age. Therefore I do not fear water.”

Roman saw the ferrymen frown in confusion. “She’s from Boston,” he said, as if his statement explained everything.

“Oh,” they said in unison, as if his statement explained everything.

“Admit it, Miss Worth,” Roman said. “You’re scared as hell.”

“I am simply
anxious,”
she clarified, tightening her hold on the wagon.

“If you can swim, then you don’t have any reason to be anxious, either,” Roman fenced stubbornly. “The worst that can happen to you right now is falling in and getting wet. Then you can swim to shore while we watch.”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the ferry dipped sharply.

And the next thing he saw was a shiny brass birdcage flying through the misty air.

“Well, I reckon we can add a bird to the list o’ passengers we’ve lost,” the toothless ferryman said. “What kind o’ bird was that, ma’am?”

Theodosia didn’t utter a sound, but one glimpse of her face told Roman that her so-called
anxiety
had become true gut-wrenching terror. Sighing with profound aggravation, he tossed his hat to one of the ferrymen and kicked off his boots. His gunbelt hit the deck with a loud thud, right before he dove over the side of the ferry.

The cold water sucked him under. When he broke through the surface, the cage bobbed right before his face.

Crazed with fear, John the Baptist stuck his beak between the bars and bit his rescuer’s nose.

“Dammit!” Anger increasing his strength, Roman twisted toward shore, and holding the cage high and using his free arm to propel himself through the rushing water, he arrived at the bank only a few minutes after the ferry.

Theodosia met him as he staggered out of the river. Quickly, she retrieved the cage and held it level with her eyes. “John the Baptist,” she whispered. “John—”

“That bastard of a bird is fine!” With the back of his hand, Roman swiped dripping water off his forehead. “He bit me!”

“Bit you?”

“Two bits,” the toothless ferryman announced as he sauntered toward his passengers.