Savage Deception (Liberty's Ladies) (11 page)

She didn’t look at the man who held the crop as she pulled off her dress, allowing it to fall in a dark puddle around her feet. Her white chemise hugged what little curves she possessed, the material so thin from constant wear that it was nearly transparent, but it was a buffer of security between herself and Tanner’s lecherous intentions. Until he ordered her to remove it …

She trembled like a frightened doe before Tanner. She, Diana Sheridan, the silly twit who bravely passed information to the Swamp Fox about the British, was letting this man rule her and force her to undress before him because she feared a riding crop. But she was afraid, more afraid than she’d ever been of being captured on her nightly sojourns into the swamps. She’d always been a bit scared of Tanner’s strength, the power over the slaves that forced them to obey him and not Kingsley. At that moment she was little better than a slave ordered by the master to strip for him. And she stripped down to nothing because he held the crop.

“Look at me, Diana!”

Hearing his raised voice, she jumped and did as she was bid, knowing the crop’s position every second.

“I assure you I won’t bite you, so stop being so nervous and skittish.”

“Can I dress?” she asked in a breathy voice, eager to cover herself now that she’d done what he wanted.

“I haven’t looked my full yet.”

Stifling a groan, Diana wasn’t able to halt the consuming blush that colored her body in rose- petal splotches when he gestured her to come closer. The crop dangled along the side of the chair. Tanner seemed to have forgotten it; she hoped he had, because his frank appraisal of her body was about all she could handle at that moment.           

“You’re much too thin,” he noted, “but with Cammie’s good cooking, you’ll soon fill out.” He leaned back in the chair, perusing her as thoroughly as an artist deciding on his subject, missing nothing.

Let him look, Diana decided. He couldn’t touch her intimately, he’d promised her that. That knowledge made her a bit smug. But seconds later she realized she’d underestimated Tanner — again. As the crop rose toward her fear paralyzed her to such a degree that she was unable to move or speak, certain he would beat her. The memory of her on her knees before Kingsley flashed through her mind, her own pitiful begging words resounded in her ears. She must fight this time, she must win, but she steeled herself for the assault.

Expecting wracking pain, Diana was more than startled to find the crop lazily slithering up her calf, past her thigh, stopping at her waist to hover in the slight indentation. She willed herself neither to look at Tanner or to move, even when the tip began a slow ascent to the rounded mounds of her breasts, circling them with a lover’s touch and gently lapping at the rosebud nipples like a velvet tongue.

Something deep, dark, and wicked stirred within her, and she helplessly lifted her eyes to find an equal amount of darkness and wickedness reflected on Tanner’s face.

“You promised … not to … touch me,” she whispered.

Tanner smiled, and a strange feeling clutched at her, bringing an ache to her lower body that she hadn’t felt since the night he tried to have his way with her. “I’m not touching you. The crop is,” he contended.

Still, it was as if he had touched her and filled her with this fire and wanton longing for something she’d never known. This was wrong,
wrong!
her mind screamed at her. Why wasn’t she frightened of the damned crop any longer? Why did she suddenly, almost pervertedly, crave the sensual movement of the blasted tip across her body? The very instrument of her torture was now causing a melting feeling in the center of her womanhood, and all because Tanner wielded it. She’d never experienced this sensation when Kingsley had touched her. Why with Tanner? Why did she suddenly wish he’d use his fingers? Why did she see Tanner as naked as she, the two of them falling to the rug before the fireplace, their bodies entwined?

“Stop it!” Diana demanded of him and of her own daydreams, fearing he’d hurt her again. “You’ve looked your fill for one night and I’ve done my duty by you. I’m getting ready for bed.”

How authoritative she sounded! How far from the way she felt! But she slipped hurriedly into the nightgown that Cammie must have left on the bed earlier that evening and dove beneath the bed covers to pull the quilts up to her neck.

“Madam, your modesty overwhelms me.”

He was making sport of her, but she didn’t care. Let him say whatever he chose. Words hurt far less than a physical beating or her own body’s betrayal by the very object she’d come to abhor.

“Thank you, sir,” she mocked his tone of voice. “At least I take no delight in perversion.”

She saw him lift an eyebrow before bending over her. His arms locked on either side of her. “Perverse, am I? Well, my darling wife, I’m not the one who turned to a mass of quivering flesh at the touch of a riding crop. In the future you’d do well to curb your perverse responses, otherwise a man might believe you’re used to such odd pleasuring.”

“I detest you! Get out of my room.”

“Our room, dearest,” he reminded her.

Clutching the quilt tightly about her, Diana sensed he was leaving when he stood up and straightened the snow white cravat at his neck and dusted off a speck of dust on the black velvet jacket with a casual flick of his hand. He shot her a smile that might have melted her heart once long ago, if she’d been able to trust him.

“I’m going out for a while, but I’ll return later, never fear. Since you seem so fond of it, I’ll leave the riding crop with you. Perhaps you can put it to good use.” Tanner winked at her and laughed at the venomous look she threw his way when he placed the crop on the bed beside her.

Hot anger boiled through her, but she wasn’t allowed the chance to say anything, for at that moment he abruptly vacated the room. His deep, booming laugh echoed from downstairs, but the slamming of the front door sounded less than amusing.

~ ~ ~

“I tell you, lads, she couldn’t get enough of me. Every minute she had her hands on me and in a place I daren’t mention, either.”

“Aw, Captain Farnsworth,” the tavern keeper skeptically commented. “I remember the lady’s father and seeing the two of them on the street together, too. A more respectable girl I’d never seen.”

“I assure you she isn’t that way any longer, is she, Smythe?” Farnsworth nudged the man sitting next to him, causing ale to spill onto the sleeve of Smythe’s uniform. “Tell Mr. Dinwoody what I said is true.”

Smythe hid his scowl and wiped the stain away, but he lowered his head and mumbled into his cup. “What the captain says is true.”

Farnsworth grinned, his complacency all too apparent to Tanner, who sat across the taproom from him.

Motioning to the serving girl, Tanner had her refill his own cup. He’d arrived at the pink- colored tavern on Chalmers Street two hours ago. Smoke and the smell of spirits permeated the room, as did the loud guffaws coming from Farnsworth’s table. Whoever the woman was that Farnsworth bragged about must be a hot-blooded wench, and Tanner was envious. He’d had his share of women over the years, but the last few months he hadn’t touched one, somehow unable to imagine being with any woman other than Diana.

“What a simpleton I am,” he muttered and quaffed the ale in one gulp.

His attention was diverted once more to Farnsworth. The man stood up and suddenly spied Tanner sitting at a corner table. Drunkenly swaggering over to him, Farnsworth held out his hand, which Tanner summarily shook.

“Goodness, Mariah, it’s been ages since I last saw you. New York, wasn’t it? Two years ago?”

Tanner nodded and motioned for him to sit down. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t refer to me by that name,” Tanner informed him none too pleasantly. “I’m not Mariah any longer. I gave up my … work … a few months ago.”

“Certainly, man. I understand.” Farnsworth lowered his voice. “What shall I call you? I never did know your true name? In your sort of work, well, I can understand your reason for anonymity.”

What was it about Farnsworth’s impeccable manners and good breeding that constantly irritated him? Even in New York, where he’d report to Farnsworth if General Clinton wasn’t available, he found the man aggravating and false. Then again, perhaps he wasn’t the one to judge whether Farnsworth was false or not. Over the last seven years he’d played many people for fools and been less than honest. In fact, he’d been a traitor to his own people. A British spy — a man who willingly had turned in many a patriot for gold and now was reaping the rewards of that deviousness by buying the Sheridan townhouse, claiming Briarhaven, and forcing Diana to marry him. God, he was richer than he’d ever dreamed of being, but he felt poorer than the lowliest beggar.

Now he was retired from the spy game, and game it was, too. He had loved outmaneuvering his opponents in a match that was risky and deadly but always exciting. Rawdon knew about him and so did Farnsworth. Tanner could trust Rawdon to keep silent about his past. He wasn’t certain about Farnsworth.

“I hope you do and that you understand the implications,” Tanner stated in a doleful tone that caused Farnsworth’s ears to perk up and a serious look to shadow his face. “My name is Tanner Sheridan. As far as I’m concerned, Mariah is dead.”

Farnsworth nodded a bit too quickly, but he grew pensive. “You can’t be a relative of the Sheridans at Briarhaven plantation.”

“Not as far as I’m concerned.”

Farnsworth didn’t catch the hidden meaning in Tanner’s words but went heedlessly on. “I commandeered Briarhaven for my headquarters months ago. In fact I recently escorted Diana Sheridan to her sister’s home. Funny about that, however, because Mrs. Sheridan seems to have disappeared along with her sister.”

“Really?”

Farnsworth smirked and nudged Tanner with an elbow. “I’d like to find Mrs. Sheridan. Diana. I was telling the boys about her. A lusty widow, and a finer piece of womanhood you won’t find in all of South Carolina.”

Tanner saw red at that second, growing suddenly and sickeningly aware that the woman Farnsworth had bragged about to his men was Diana. His Diana had lain with this man, had allowed him to touch her, to make love to her. He couldn’t believe it, but then again what could Tanner expect? Diana had been widowed for nearly a year when Farnsworth arrived, just ripe for the plucking. But she hadn’t wanted Tanner Sheridan’s touch. In fact, she’d been revolted by him. He’d waited years to accumulate the money to impress her, to arrive in triumph, and God only knew the horrible deeds that soiled his hands. But he’d done it for her, no matter the lie she’d told his father. He still wanted her. And this mincing, prancing bastard who smiled like an imbecile and mouthed off about what an insatiable wanton was Diana Sheridan had had her.

Life wasn’t fair!

With powerful hands, Tanner clamped Farnsworth around the collar and lifted him bodily from the chair. The man’s feet dangled precariously above the floor and his face turned the same shade as his uniform from his wind being suddenly cut off.

“Nooooo,” was all Farnsworth could utter.

“Ever mention Diana Sheridan to any of your friends again and I’ll seek you out and kill you. Understand?” Tanner shook Farnsworth like a rag doll, so overcome with jealousy that his strength was far superior to the other man’s.

Farnsworth tried to nod but choked. Tanner dropped him into the chair, but Farnsworth tottered and fell onto the stone floor, gasping for breath.

The men who’d been with Farnsworth earlier crowded around at the commotion. All stood dumbly by as Tanner pushed his way to the door. Turning he issued a warning. “And none of you better bandy her name about again or you’ll deal with me. No man speaks about my wife in such a manner and lives.” Then, like a black wind, he disappeared.

~ ~ ~

Diana was asleep when Tanner returned to the townhouse. With her dark hair spilling across the snowy white pillow and the pristine gown with ruffles at her neck, he found it difficult to believe she’d slept with Farnsworth. She looked like an angel in his bed. Yet he knew better than anyone that looks could be deceiving. He’d played enough roles as spy to know that.

Tiredness assailed him, and he undressed by the candle’s glow. Just as he started to slip into bed beside her, he stiffened at the long black object he spotted beneath the chest of drawers. Peering at it, he discovered it was the riding crop, not the serpent he’d originally thought.

How had it gotten under the chest? It was almost as if it were deliberately hidden. His gaze riveted upon Diana, and he knew that she’d placed it there. But why?

He pushed it back where he’d found it, entirely out of sight and then climbed into bed. He settled beside her, aching to hold this wanton witch who’d filled his dreams the last seven years but resisting the urge. Instead he watched her while she slept, familiarizing himself with her profile, the rise and fall of her breathing, counting how many times she sighed or changed position.

He wanted to learn everything about her, his obsession.

7

Diana snuggled deeper into the warmth of Tanner’s body, totally unaware that sometime during the night she’d sought him. It wasn’t until her lips brushed against skin that she opened her eyes to find herself wantonly pressed against his naked chest.

“Oh!” she gave a startled moan, her horror at the situation deepening when she tried to sit up but found that her gown had risen nearly to her waist and that her bare legs were entwined with his. What was more humiliating was her discovery that Tanner was awake and smiling in amusement.

“Sleep well?” he asked.

“I should have known you wouldn’t keep your promise to me,” she accused. She pushed away to untangle her legs and pull down the nightrail in one motion. Then she leaped from the bed.

“And what promise might that be, Diana? I don’t recall breaking any promises.”

“You know very well that you said you wouldn’t touch me. You gave me your word like a gentleman, but I shouldn’t have believed you. You’ve never acted gentlemanly with me.”

Reclining on his elbow, Tanner wasn’t the least bit self-conscious that most of his torso was bared to her gaze, the blanket bunched into a ball beside him from Diana’s frantic scrambling. He didn’t mind at all if Diana saw him naked, but apparently it meant a great deal to her that she’d been in his arms with her legs wrapped intimately around him. Dammit! he cursed himself, the wench didn’t seem the least aroused by any of it, only angry. If anyone should be angry, it should be he. Because of Diana’s unexpected nearness he’d been unable to fall asleep. Though he hid his frustration behind a smile, he was grouchy as hell.

“I assure you that you found me. I never touched you, you wrapped yourself around me like a little monkey.”

“I would never … never think … never do anything like that,” she said, but then she remembered that one of her legs had been on top of his. Diana’s long hair spilled in dark waves around her shoulders and down her back. The sun streaming through the thin curtains on the french doors highlighted the deep auburn, creating an aureole effect. She had no inkling of how beautiful she appeared at that moment, nor did she have any idea that the sun shone through her gown, revealing her body’s outline to Tanner, and she certainly had no idea of the physical effect she had on him. “I was sleeping and can’t be held accountable,” she finished lamely.

Tanner’s jaw tensed. He remembered how seven years ago she’d lied to his father and brother that he’d tried to rape her. She was still the same lying creature she was then, not able to take the responsibility for her own actions. “No, you’ve never wanted to be held accountable for anything.”

“Just what does that mean?”

“Nothing, Diana, nothing at all.” Tanner slid out of bed, magnificent in his nudity and not the least bit embarrassed by it or by the erection caused from Diana’s closeness of minutes ago.

Diana stared at him in spite of herself, unable to believe that any man could resemble a statue of Adonis she’d seen in a museum when she was a child. But Tanner was more ruggedly handsome and thus more appealing to her than the smoothly muscled and perfectly chiseled stone features. In fact, she found Tanner’s nose to be slightly crooked and one eye a tad smaller than the other. She thought it was absurd to be thinking about Tanner’s facial features when so much more of him was clearly exposed. So much more that wasn’t made of stone.

Gulping, her gaze settled on the part of him that sprang hard and erect from the dark bush on his lower torso. She’d thought Kingsley was well endowed, having never known any men with whom she could compare, but now she knew that Kingsley was far from Tanner’s equal. She couldn’t stop staring at him, and she wondered what it would be like if Tanner did what Kingsley had done to her.

“Diana, stop taking inventory!”

“What?” Tanner’s voice startled her and she jumped. She realized then how intently she’d been looking at him and flushed with the knowledge.

“If you wish a sample, I’ll be happy to oblige.” Tanner went to the wardrobe and waited. “Just say the word, my love, and I’m yours.”

“Doesn’t your conceit have any bounds? I have no such inclination as far as you’re concerned.”

“Liar!”

Diana flushed. “I’m not lying.” At that moment, she was telling the truth. Tanner’s physical endowments frightened her, bringing back all the pain of her marriage to Kingsley. If Kingsley had hurt her each time he claimed her body, then Tanner could very well kill her.

Something dark settled around his face. “Perhaps you find other men to your liking. But I remind you that I’m your husband, and I won’t tolerate a wanton wife.”

Diana had no idea what this veiled comment had to do with her. She only knew that Tanner had a way of pricking at her calm and composed surface and exposing emotions she didn’t want to deal with. In fact, she didn’t know how to deal with emotions any longer. Since she’d married Kingsley she had closed herself off from happiness and pleasure, having no idea that marriage could offer her both. In her mind she associated marriage with pain, and a husband with the source of the pain.

“I don’t care what you do at all,” was the shrewish retort she hurled at him. Bending down, she scooped up her black gown from the floor and started to walk to the bathing room.

Tanner stood before her and grabbed her wrist. “What are you doing?”

“Getting dressed, do you mind?”

“Not in that rag, you’re not.”

Silver and gold sparkles crystalized and flared within the depths of her sapphire eyes. “I shall wear whatever I choose, Tanner. I’m in mourning for my dead husband.”

“I’m your husband now!”

Before Diana could utter another sound, Tanner wrenched the gown from her grasp and before her startled eyes rent it in two.

“You’ve ruined my dress,” she stormed at him. “I haven’t anything to wear now.”

Flinging open the wardrobe doors, Tanner pointed to the row of gowns, more dazzling in their varied colors than gemstones. “Wear one of these.”

“I’d rather wear a sack than something you’ve provided for me.”

Diana flinched when he moved dangerously close to her, like a panther who has sought his prey and is now ready for the kill. “Wear the damned bedsheet for all I care.” His voice sounded like a tiger’s low growl. “But you’re never going to wear black again to honor my brother, because if you do I’ll tear the dress from your very back.”

Tanner stalked away from her and in one movement he lunged for a pair of breeches, a shirt, and his boots before leaving her alone. The slamming of the bedroom door only increased her ire at him, and though she knew she should be frightened by his display of temper and displeasure, she wasn’t. With Kingsley, in a like situation, she’d have buckled at the knees. However this was Tanner, and by all accounts she should be trembling and quaking with fear. She knew he was quite capable of tearing the gown from her body, and would probably do it, too, if he had the mind.

Yet suddenly Tanner didn’t scare her. She remembered his gentleness with Briarhaven’s slaves and achingly recalled how he’d tenderly held her in his arms when he’d claimed her for a dance on the bluff all those years ago. The same ebony pair of eyes that had gleamed with tenderness then had also glinted with black anger. Diana felt he mistrusted her, disliked her, and didn’t desire her at all. How wrong she had been! Maybe he did marry her to seek his revenge upon the Sheridans by claiming Briarhaven, but no matter how he felt about her, a man’s body didn’t lie.

The excited shiver slipping up her spine at the memory of that was nearly her undoing.
Tanner wanted her.

“I won’t think about him at all,” she decided and set her mouth in a thin little line. Tanner’s physical attributes or sexual prowess weren’t her concern. She married him to save David and to help Anne and the children, that was all. Nothing intimate would ever happen between her and Tanner.

Men were animals anyway, eager for any available woman. Something told Diana that many women had probably availed themselves of her new husband over the years, but that wasn’t her concern. The small jab of jealousy she felt meant absolutely nothing. She’d never be Tanner’s wife in the truest sense of the word, not that part of her didn’t find him attractive. She did, and she might as well admit it to herself. Kingsley had been attractive too, but what he’d done to her had sickened her. She had had enough of the pain and the disgust to last her a lifetime. No, Tanner would never have her, and he’d do well to convince his body of that fact.

Glancing down at the black dress still on the floor, Diana felt a perverted sense of relief gush through her. She wouldn’t have to pretend to mourn Kingsley any longer. For the first time in a year, Kingsley was truly dead to her and Tanner’s very destruction of the gown had done it. She didn’t have to play the proper widow for him or anyone else.

The opened wardrobe beckoned to her with its finery. Deciding that she couldn’t wear a bed- sheet, Diana availed herself of the clothes Tanner had provided for her.

 
~ ~ ~

Diana ate a hearty breakfast for the first time since the British occupation, having cream and sugar for her tea, and bacon with a delicious omelet prepared by Cammie. Tanner was already gone, and Diana squelched the bit of disappointment she felt. His very presence overpowered the rooms of the house, and she missed his hugeness, the baritone voice that seemed to fill every niche. But there was no need to care whether Tanner was home or not, she convinced herself, and allowed her tongue to linger on the sweet taste of her tea. Their marriage was a simple arrangement.

“You look very pretty,” Cammie said, complimenting Diana’s choice of an emerald green gown. A red bow pulled up Diana’s dark tresses, which fell in curly ringlets past her shoulders. “Mr. Tanner has excellent taste in clothes.”

“Did he really choose these gowns for me or were they for other women?” Diana didn’t know why she asked this question. Cammie stopped clearing the table and looked puzzled.

“What do you mean, Mrs. Sheridan?”

“I mean Tanner — Mr. Sheridan — must surely have many lady friends, women he has brought here, and the gowns may have been used by them.” There, she’d said it! Now she’d learn the truth and shout triumphantly at Tanner that she knew he hadn’t bought any of the clothes expressly for her. She needn’t feel this urge to be beholden to him or to soften her feelings for him or even miss him when he wasn’t there.

“Oh, no, ma’am. Mr. Tanner made a list of colors and fabrics that would suit your complexion and hair. He even had a gown made to match your eyes. Didn’t you see it?”

“Yes, I saw it.” Diana recalled the sapphire blue gown in the wardrobe. It was velvet with small slivers of crystals entwined with gold braid.

Cammie smiled and picked up Diana’s plate. “I remember he said that your eyes had more gold than silver speckles in them, but when you laughed the silver ones up and multiplied, causing your whole face to glow like the sun on a warm afternoon or the moon on a cloudless night. That Mr. Tanner can be real poetic when he takes a mind to it.”

Diana couldn’t think of anything else to say at that point. Cammie’s comment had put her in her place. She felt utterly wretched for misjudging him, for believing that he was foisting off another woman’s clothes upon her. But what else could she believe? All men had other women besides their wives. Kingsley had had Jarla, throwing up the slave girl’s fertility in her face so often that she’d come to believe she was less than a woman. And he’d gone into Charlestown on numerous occasions, always letting her know that he’d spent the night at some sort of a brothel, going so far as to taunt her with what the whores had done to him, then forcing her to do the same to him.

Just thinking about some of the horrible things she’d been forced to do to Kingsley caused her stomach to feel queasy. “Act like my whore, Diana.” She could hear his voice in her ear still, almost imagine she felt his breath upon her neck, his fingers on her shoulder.

“Diana?”

“Oh!” She twisted around in shock to realize that someone was whispering in her ear and fingers were on her bare shoulder. Expecting to see a ghostly apparition of Kingsley, she saw a very healthy looking Tanner. “You startled me!” she accused.

“It seems I’m always frightening you. I’ve never seen anyone jump the way you do.” Tanner sat in the chair nearest to her. “What are you thinking about so hard?”