Kary, Elizabeth (15 page)

"It
is nice to get a few hours of uninterrupted rest," Leigh admitted, knowing
it was too late to retreat into the cabin unseen. "What time is it?"

"Almost
four o'clock," he calculated, squinting up at the sun. "It will be
time for dinner soon."

Since
he had already seen her in her wrapper, and the months of nursing had left her
with no patience for false modesty, Leigh stepped out onto the deck and leaned
against the rail watching him. "You look better than you did the last time
I saw you," she observed, taking in his clean-shaven face, crisp white
shirt, and clinging fawn-colored trousers.

"I
suppose so, since I've shaved and had a bath since then. Though I admit I did
have to sneak into my cabin for some fresh clothes while you were asleep."

"While
I was asleep?" Leigh echoed, irrationally irritated by the invasion of
privacy.

"You
never even fluttered an eyelash." Somehow it seemed only right to tell her
that he'd gone back to his stateroom, but Hayes did not say that he had stood
for a long while watching her sleep. Her weariness had seemed so much more
obvious to him then without her natural animation to hide it, and he had been
able to see the lines of care and exhaustion in her face. He had noticed how
much thinner she was too, how fragile and delicate her features seemed. The
toll her nursing had taken in these few months was suddenly so evident, and
again he had felt an overwhelming need to protect and keep her safe. Leigh did
have a calling for medicine; that had been evident from the first day he'd
known her, but now he wondered at the price she was paying to follow the
dictates of her conscience. Yet with the sunlight warming the tone of her skin
and catching in her tumbled hair, with a smile on her lips and a glow in her
eyes, she looked strong and sure and capable again.

Leigh
turned her attention once more to the river, thinking it wiser to ignore his
admission no matter how unsettling she found it. "A bath, now that does
sound heavenly," she drawled, "and the thought of supper seems
welcome, too. Just what is it you're planning to feed me?"

Hayes
smiled, watching her profile appreciatively. "I heard a chicken squawking
somewhere an hour or so ago, so I imagine by now she's found her way to the
stewpot."

"M-m-m-m,
chicken," Leigh murmured, closing her eyes, "and perhaps a bit of
gravy and some biscuits."

"I
think our cook can manage that if it's what you want," he said, grinning.

"And
a bath with water I don't have to heat myself," Leigh went on dreamily,
"enough to wash my hair, too."

"There's
always lots of hot water on a steamboat. Shall I bring you the tub?"

"Oh,
yes, would you? And if only I had some scented soap..."

"I'll
see what I can do," Hayes promised and rose to go into the crew's
quarters. When he returned to the deck a few moments later to give Leigh the
lilac soap one of the men had been taking his wife, he found she had returned
to the stateroom. He stepped into the open doorway and halted on the threshold,
transfixed.

While
he was gone, Leigh had taken a brush from her things and was running it through
her tangled tresses in slow, rhythmic motions. Relaxed and totally absorbed in
what she was doing, her eyes were closed and her lips were slightly parted as
she worked. It was such a mundane, yet such an intimate act that Hayes felt
like an intruder, but he could neither bring himself to turn away nor make his
presence known. As if he had come on a doe feeding deep in the forest, he stood
silent, caught by the sheer beauty of the scene, afraid that if he moved or
spoke, the innate serenity of the moment would be lost.

Leigh's
motions as she smoothed the russet masses first one way and then the other were
graceful and abandoned, leisurely and sensual. In his mind, they became the
even, measured movements of some exotic dance, and he stood mesmerized. Her body
flowed in counterpoint to the long strokes, bending slightly sideways to let
the hair tumble like a torrent of deep red across her shoulder and arm. Her
profile, half-hidden by the liquid curl of hair, the grace of her sculptured
features, and the gentle turning of her throat enticed him, as did the feathery
wisps that clung to the hand that held the brush. He could almost feel the
tickle of her hair on his skin, the coolness of the strands between his
fingers, the sweet-scented silkiness against his wrists. His heartbeat went
thick and labored as he watched her.

In
that moment Leigh was not even conscious of his existence, yet Hayes had never
in his life been more aware of any woman. He took in the sinuous curve of her
body; the soft, pale luster of her skin; the tumbled masses of her cinnamon
hair waving in profusion all about her. And the slumbering need that had been
with him since the first moment he saw her stirred to rampant life. Without
volition or conscious thought, Hayes crossed the cabin to claim the brush she
wielded with such practiced care.

A
soft gasp of surprise rose in her throat as his fingers closed over hers, and
her eyes opened to stare into his, hot and bright with telling emotion. She
moved as if to pull away, but he held her fast with one hand beneath her ribs
as the other took up the motions of the brush again. He stroked at a measured
pace, slow, repetitious, soothing, drawing the bristles through the russet
length with infinite care. As he worked with tenderness and precision, Leigh
too was caught up in the same spell that had drawn him to her. From that first
day at Camp Jackson, Leigh had felt a compelling trust for Hayes, a sense of
security whenever they were together, and she succumbed to that feeling of
sanctuary now, gathered close beside him. A whisper of a sigh escaped her as
she gave herself over to his ministrations. There was the gentle tug against
her scalp, the insidious relaxation that the rhythmic strokes engendered. Her
eyes slipped closed, and she drifted against him, totally lost to his tender
care. His touch was gentle and undemanding, meant only to soothe and comfort
her, his nearness was somehow natural and so right that she could not turn
away. She sensed a reverence in the way he touched her, a glorious, masterful
control that made her feel totally possessed, yet totally at ease with his
possession. As he worked, Leigh gave herself over to sensation: the smooth
constancy of his strokes, the slight rush and crackle as the brush moved
through her hair, the penetrating warmth of his hand along her ribs. She was
aware of the quiet strength in him, of her long dormant desire to be held and
touched like this.

The
second stretched to minutes and the minutes to time incalculable as they stood
together, her body conforming to the contours of his in total relaxation, his
responding to hers in age-old ways she was far too innocent to notice. Then,
succumbing to temptation, Hayes raised the hand that had lain impassively along
her ribs to cup her breast, balancing the weight of it in his palm, as his long
fingers measured its fullness. She started against him at the touch but could
not muster strength enough to twist away.

"Oh,
Leigh," he murmured, as the need inside him grew, consuming all this
morning's fine intentions in a burst of desperate yearning. "Oh, my sweet
Leigh."

His
grainy whisper sent a strange debilitating weakness creeping along her limbs,
and as he lowered his head to nuzzle the sweep of her throat, languor billowed
through her. Leigh caught a deep breath as she melted more intimately against
him, the boundaries of their two bodies merging as they curved more and more
closely together. The brush slipped from his hand to the floor, leaving his
fingers free to trace the firm, curving line of her hip and belly. Then with a
shudder of delight, his big body enfolded her in a cherishing caress. His lips
moved softly against her ear as he murmured words of provocation, offering her
a haven in his arms and a passion that was hers to accept or deny. But though
Leigh knew she should, she could muster no power to refuse him as the delicious
lassitude grew.

Leigh
was stunned by her uninhibited answer to his touch and intrigued by the promise
of untold delight. And when Hayes turned her to him at last, she saw he was as
shaken by the wondrous intimacy as she. His eyes were clouded with the
intensity of the moment, heavy-lidded and strangely glazed. When his mouth came
down to claim hers, the response that flowed between them was involuntary,
unthinking, and almost preordained. Leigh rose up eagerly to meet his kiss:
welcoming, tender, newly aware. Her mouth sought and questioned, Hayes's
answered and slowly savored, until they were lost in a depth of communion that
neither had ever experienced. The world could have spun to oblivion around
them, and they would not have known or cared. They were totally immersed in the
merging of their wills and bodies, caught in a delicate, silken snare that
trapped and held them both.

Murmuring
mindless endearments, Hayes slipped open the ties of her wrapper to caress the
soft expanse of creamy skin, with nothing but the tissue-thin chemise to hinder
him. The pressure of his hands along her ribs, moving slowly upward, kindled a
glowing rush within her veins that warmed her like a long, deep swallow of the
finest brandy. Sensation seared along her nerves, erotic lightning licking
through her, and Leigh felt she might be cindered by all his touch evoked. His
thumbs found the budding roundness of her nipples and traced slowly expanding
circles that encompassed and aroused. At his touch her breasts tingled and
tightened, her limbs went weak and waxen, until Leigh was hopelessly,
helplessly at his command.

Hayes
could feel the tempo of her desire grow in concert with his own, sense the
abandon in her movements as his hands caressed her silken flesh. This Leigh was
more uninhibited and responsive, more passionate and giving, than the woman who
had haunted his dreams, and he reveled in the bounteous reality. In response
his hands slipped lower and his kisses deepened, claiming her lips, her tongue,
her breath. Then, compelled by emotions he'd tried to deny, Hayes mouth slid
from her lips to the point of her chin, then down again to the hollow at the
base of her throat and the dusky valley beyond. Leigh arched and turned her
head in a gesture that might have been either protest or surrender, and as she
stirred against him, Hayes became unwillingly aware of what he was about to do.

He
was going to take all the sweetness Leigh had to give, going to make love to
her with no thought for tomorrow. He was about to make her his, though he told
himself he did not want her. He was about to claim her innocence without
offering anything in return. The realization stabilized his careening senses,
bringing unwelcome sobriety and incipient remorse. He knew what a woman's first
man meant to her. It meant an end to childhood, an end to innocent dreams. For
Hayes that realization brought home the terrible responsibility of what he was
about to do and a concern for the consequences of his desire. Even as his lips
sought the deep, warm cleft between her breasts, he knew he could not accept
her girlish passion without spoiling all that made Leigh so wondrously unique,
without tarnishing her ideals and shattering her illusions.

He
buried his face against her throat, and drew a ragged breath. In his own way he
did care about this woman, he grudgingly conceded. He admired her commitment
and compassion, her vulnerability and her strength, but if he felt those things
for her, he could not take advantage of her innocence to slake his transient
lust or imply a commitment to her he was not willing to make. They said that
conscience was a coward's curse, and perhaps in this he was a coward. For even
though he ached to make Leigh his, he lacked the courage to entrust her with
his tenderest emotions or risk again the terrible hurt that loving could bring.

And
if he could not give her the love that was the other half of passion, what
right did he have to accept all she had to give? Besides, the bitter thought
intruded, what kind of man would take such a precious gift with the knowledge
it was promised to another? Rationality returned to him and with it a
disappointment that slashed through him like the sharpest knife. He did not
want to deny himself the delight of teaching Leigh the meaning of passion, but
if he was to remain unscathed, he had no choice but to deny them both.

With
difficulty he met her eyes, still soft with trust and desire. Leigh was so much
less worldly than he, so unaware of her body's secrets, so totally at the mercy
of the sensations he had unscrupulously evoked in her that guilt began to stir
within him. Yet he had not set out to corrupt and seduce her; in truth, he had
been as lost and beguiled as she. But now that some measure of sense had
returned to him, it was his responsibility to guard her honor, his duty to help
her understand that what had passed between them was a mistake. With a vow to
treat her gently, he began a slow retreat. He raised his lips from her dewy flesh,
and bit by bit his hands withdrew to the safety of her forearms.

Hayes
took a long breath before he spoke. "I'm sorry, Leigh, this is not what I
meant to happen when I came to bring you soap. It's just that—well, it's just
that you looked so appealing, so lovely, and I—" He took another breath,
irritated at the way he was blundering through his explanation. "I guess
things just got out of hand," he finished lamely.

His
husky words were strange to Leigh, and she was not quite sure what they meant.
She only knew that something fundamental had changed between them, that in the
space of a few heartbeats Hayes had stopped wanting her. Slowly, her world was
opening up again, and Leigh became aware of where her body left off and his
began. Gone was the closeness that bound them, and she was staggered by the
loss. Confusion descended like the darkness before a storm as she realized the
impersonal hands against her arms and the candor in Hayes's tone were the
antithesis of all that had gone before. She had only vaguely understood where
the tempest of sensations had been leading them, but she was sure this cold
rationality was not the proper end to passion.