The Barefoot Bride (32 page)

"Disobey me, will you, mountain girl?" Saxon charged. "Venture out where danger awaits?"

He watched her fingers slither over the buttons of her shirt, the fabric falling away as if by magic. She had beautiful breasts. Full, ripe, and his for the touching, the tasting.

"The breeches too," he ordered when her hands fell to the hay. "Everything."

Her palms met the waistband, rolling the garment slowly, so very slowly, down over her hips.

Saxon stared at the silken nest of hair that was soon revealed to him. Beneath it, he knew, blazed a fire: a deep, smoldering fire he would soon fan to flaming heights and then quench.

Her firmly muscled legs, smooth as polished marble, squirmed out of the breeches. A goddess. She was a goddess from the hills. His own clothing seemed to drop from his body of its own volition. He never remembered removing it. But there it lay at his feet, with hers.

Kneeling, he began at her ankles and kissed the satiny expanse of her skin all the way up to her mouth. His tongue wet her lips, and he saw how they glistened in the moonlight. He saw her skin, as pure as fresh cream, and then watched how even her freckles began to gleam beneath the moisture that suddenly bedewed her face. Her eyes glittered as if with fever.

Wanting to see as much of her as possible while he made love to her, he sat, pulled her into his lap, and watched her eyes widen when he slid into her. Saw how her head fell back as he plunged and filled her.

"Who are you, Keely?" he moaned as he guided her hips. "What is it you have that no other girl I've ever known has had?" His eyes traveled from her face to her breasts, and down to her belly. Her legs were around him. How good they felt there.

And the feelings he was experiencing this time were more than physical. Yes, he felt the familiar pleasure, but he felt as if he was using a part of himself he'd never used before.

How it drove him to please her. He held her close, all the while moving her, circling his hips next to hers so she could feel more of him. He gave her more than his body, but he had no idea what it was he gave. His arms closed around her, felt her tense, and supported her as she shuddered with her release.

She slid from his lap and reached for him, smiling at the confusion in his azure eyes. Lying back, she pulled him down, wanting to feel both his familiar weight upon her and the bite of the hay on her back. And though he'd only just slipped from inside her, she gasped when he entered her again.

Tightly, as if he might move off her, she squeezed the skin of his back. She thought she heard a moan, but dismissed the sound promptly, her mind turning to the tender feelings she'd perceived in him only moments ago.

She wondered if he knew she'd sensed them.

His own release came violently. His groans and soft yells were so like music, she mused while holding his still-quaking form.

How she loved this man.

"Keely," he began, slipping from her, "I've told you before you're special to me. I haven't changed my mind about that. But Keely," he said, his voice wavering slightly, "you are to take my feelings for you for exactly what they are. Do you understand?"

A tiny needle of anxiety pricked her. "What are they?" She nestled against his chest.

Knowing she could hear how wildly his heart was thrashing, he willed the organ to slow. "Even before we left the Appalachia, I told you I enjoy being with you. I'm
used
to you, Keely."

She smiled. Saxon was going to resist until the very end. "You beat all. You wanted to know how I feel about you, and then you got all franzied over my answer. I love you, Saxon. I mighta started lovin' you the minute I first seed you. Don't matter no how. I love you now, and—"

"Keely, you're only
grateful
to me."

"Grateful? What fer am I grateful to you?"

"I've given you many things. I'm taking care of your neighbors back in North Carolina, I saw to Khan—"

"Saxon, I'm jist one fraction from a-workin' mysef into a snit. Afore that happens, git it inter yore fool head I'd love you iffen you was as poverty-poor as all git out. Yore money don't mean nothin to me. I like all them clothes and jewries, and I
am
obliged to you fer a-gittin' that doctor man fer Khan. But them thangs ain't why I love you. I love you on account o' what's inside you. Shore, yore the fancy Saxon Blackwell on the outside, but
inside?
Well, I love that little young-un in thar. I love—"

"Stop saying that!" Saxon jumped to his feet. "I don't want to hear you say that ever again!"

"Then why'd you want to know about my feelin's?"

"How do you know that I did?"

"Jist knowed. So why'd you want to know?"

"Because... because... How the hell should I know? It was just one of those stupid things people do sometimes. But the fact of the matter remains that you don't love me, and that's that!"

Chickadee pulled a piece of hay from her hair and casually tickled her nose with it. "I do love you, and that's that."

"No you don't!"

"Yes I do."

"I don't want to hear it anymore!"

"Too bad. I love, love, love, love—"

"Dammit, Keely!"

"Dang it, Saxon."

"You're mistaken! You only
think
you love... There's no such thing as... I don't believe in... You're breaking the agreement!"

"It warn't writ in blood, was it?"

"The bargain... You—I... You're supposed to leave here when I destroy your father!" He walked across the floor of the loft and stared out the window.

Chickadee joined him. "New York. You... you found him, didn't you, Saxon?"

His gaze swept over her face, searching in vain for whatever it was that made his heart shrivel at the thought of her leaving him.

No, he couldn't let her go. Not until he was tired of her. That would soon happen. It always did. Dammit, it
would
happen!

"Keely, I'm sorry. I haven't found him."

*

Chickadee kept telling Saxon how much she loved him. Every day she found new ways to say it and to show him. Her supply of the tender emotion seemed bottomless to him, and, despite his efforts to the contrary, she soon occupied his every waking and sleeping moment.

His mind strayed from his work to her. His dreams were never of anything but her. There was nothing beautiful in the world that didn't, in some way, remind him of her.

And he began to wonder if he really did have a heart after all. For didn't you have to possess a heart to be so dangerously close to losing it?

His feelings were so foreign to him, and his inability to understand them tortured him. He spoke of them to no one, not even Max, for to give them voice would be akin to admitting they existed for real. And he was too careful a man to trust something—most especially emotions—he didn't comprehend fully.

To gain the distance and time he needed to sort through his confusion, he threw himself back into the life he'd led before ever meeting the girl who'd caused the total uproar of his senses.

He accepted every invitation that came his way and saw his old friends so frequently that Chickadee found she had no time to show him the devotion from which she knew he was running.

Frustration plagued her as she looked for a surefire way to make him understand her deep love for him. When she could find no solution to her dilemma, her frustration became fear. For the first time in her life, she was at a complete loss about what to do.

Araminta, however, was delightfully aware that something wasn't right between them. She had high hopes the mountain girl would soon leave, but when Saxon began to insist she escort Chickadee to various assemblies, her hopes plunged. She adamantly refused his demands until his demands suddenly gave birth to a new scheme.

She resolved to put her strategy into action immediately. "You haven't been anywhere at all since the sewing circle," she told Chickadee one afternoon when they met on the staircase. "I was just coming up to invite you to a tea that will be held at the Quinten estate in one hour. Ashley Quinten is about your age, and I thought you might like to meet her."

Chickadee immediately became wary. This was the first time Spider Woman had deigned to speak to her since the sewing meeting. And now Araminta was actually inviting her to a tea! "Yore a-bein' mighty nice terday, Araminty. Yore usually about as refined as a cabbage." Her brow arched.

"You needn't look at me that way," Araminta snapped. "I am not inviting you because I enjoy your company, of that you may be sure. I am only offering to take you because Saxon insists I assist you back into society. He has become increasingly irritating about it lately, and I am inviting you to go with me to stop his badgering."

She looked away lest Chickadee see through her lies. She had every reason to believe her scheme would work wonderfully. The mountain girl would undoubtedly cause an uproar at each assembly she attended, the gossip would be horrendous, and Saxon would eventually be humiliated over his wife's neverending, ill-mannered antics. He'd ignored gossip before, but if it were to go on and on, becoming worse and worse... well, not even Saxon could bear that. He would send the girl back to where he'd found her. It made perfect sense. After all, Chickadee hadn't really had the opportunity to cause the kind of chaos that would mortify him. It was up to Araminta to see that she had as many of those opportunities as possible.

Yes, her own good name would also be sullied, she realized, but only for a short while. And after the yokel was gone, things would return to normal quickly. Araminta was sure of it.

"Well?" she prompted Chickadee. "Do you wish to come, or not? It seems to me you would be anxious to do the things Saxon wants you to do. You did say you loved him. Doesn't that make you want to please him?"

Chickadee's narrowed eyes suddenly widened. Araminta, witch though she was, had a valid point, she realized. If she were to throw herself into the social whirl, heart and soul, wouldn't that prove to Saxon how much she loved him? He was well aware of her loathing for society. Surely if he saw how hard she was trying to adapt to his way of life, he would understand how much he meant to her! After all, he was the only one in the world for whom she would do something so disagreeable.

And the Quinten tea was indeed disagreeable. It started out well, but when Chickadee saw two beautiful, exotic birds imprisoned in a gilded cage, the trouble began. She'd had no idea Ashley Quinten's father had paid a small fortune to have them shipped from South America as a birthday gift for Ashley. Her only thought as she released them was that birds as pretty as those should be free.

And at Jacqueline Richard's luncheon—well, how was she to know Jacqueline was an accomplished wax sculptress? The bowl of fruit looked real enough to her. The apple she took a huge bite out of was the prettiest apple she'd ever seen, and it was only when it stuck to her teeth and Jacqueline began the most God-awful shrieking known to man that she realized she'd done something wrong. Well, whoever heard of wax fruit anyway? And if Jacqueline didn't want her art eaten, she never should have placed it in the middle of the dining room table.

And that huge guard dog she met at Dee Gentry's didn't make any sense either. All of Boston was fascinated by the vicious beast. Chickadee heard Mr. Gentry say the dog was surely the meanest in the land. But why would anyone be so proud of such a terrible animal? True, Khan was dangerous too, but only when he was forced to defend his loved ones. But that Gentry monster wouldn't even let the
Gentrys
near him! They kept him in a pen and had to
throw
his food to him from a distance! And all they fed him were raw cow livers. Anyone would have a vile temper with a diet like that, she thought. And what if the thing got loose and killed the Gentrys? Having such a bloodthirsty animal around was definitely not a good idea, and she set about correcting the matter when the Gentrys and the guests had tired of taunting the beast and returned to the mansion. It didn't take long to do. She discovered all the dog needed to calm down were some softly spoken words and a hambone she filched from the kitchen. Now he was as gentle as a kitten. It was beyond her comprehension why the Gentrys had gotten riled instead of thanking her for taming him.

Her confusion with these Bostonians mounted when Araminta took her to an English fox hunt. She'd never seen anything so cruel in her whole life. All those howling hounds, that loud bugle, that cracking whip, those galloping horses... all that fancified fuss for the slaughter of one poor, defenseless fox. There was no way on earth she could have sat there and remained a spectator to it all. Relying on her hunter's instincts, she'd trailed the fox and found him trapped in a dense thicket. Cooing to him, she'd caught him, tucked him inside her coat, and then beat off the hounds when they arrived. No one could induce her to free the shivering animal, and the hunt ended on a very sour note.

Now she was the talk of Boston, the subject of every gossip session. Her name and the descriptions of her antics were bandied about from one end of the city to the other.

*

The outlandish tales finally reached Saxon through Max. "She fed him a hambone?" he demanded, tears of laughter streaming down his face.

"You're not worried?" Max asked and smiled.

"What about? Keely seems to be enjoying her time with society. She doesn't complain about it anymore as she once did. And Grandmother is taking her everywhere. You know how Grandmother is, Max. She's fanatical about her reputation and would never risk her own name if it were really all true. Besides that, even if the gossip
is
based on truth, it'll die away. It always does."

Max agreed. "Yes, we've both been the victims of outrageous chatter. You're right, Sax. It'll die away."

They laughed together awhile longer, and later that night, while Chickadee lay sleeping in his arms, Saxon chuckled again when he remembered Max's words. "Outrageous chatter," he whispered too softly for her to hear. He pulled the sheet over her bare shoulder and smiled in the darkness when he thought of Jacqueline Richard's wax apple.