Triumph (36 page)

Stupid! she charged herself. He had goaded her into this. She was encumbered by her skirts, growing heavier in the water.

But she couldn’t stop now. He was behind her.

Oh, this was insane. Madness.

And yet she ran. She was swift and fleet, and she knew it, but she had chosen the wrong path, and she was quickly bogged down.

She heard him behind her and sped forward then suddenly spun back on him. He was there, just feet away, but he stopped as well, calculating the distance—planning his pounce.

She wondered if she could outswim him.

Not with a heavy, soaking skirt ...

But she was wearing her pantalettes.

She slipped out of her shoes then reached behind her, keeping her eyes on him. She found the buttons on the skirt—and shed it. His brow shot up with amazement.

“Ah, my love. When in danger—strip?”

“When cornered, use whatever means are available to elude the
enemy
!”

The skirt gone, she plunged into the water.

And she was very, very good. She’d spent a lifetime in the water, in the rivers, in the bay, in fresh springs, in salt water.

But so had he.

The far side of the pond stretched before her. She realized, far too late, that he probably let her reach the shoreline first.

When she rose, she saw that he had stripped off his frockcoat, shirt, and boots, and was coming behind her. He didn’t even seem hurried. Bronzed shoulders were knotted and tight fingers remained clenched into fists at his side. He didn’t run; he walked with steady purpose and menace.

She swore and turned to run again. Then she felt him. A touch of energy and heat in the air at her back, a sound like the wind ...

And he caught her by the flying length of her hair ...

S
HE CRIED OUT. HE
released the tangle of her hair caught in her hands, but his iron grip wound around her upper arm.

He swung her around and she briefly felt the barely suppressed force of his anger. She cried out again to no avail; they crashed down into the shallows together. The pond erupted. The water cascaded around them. He lay atop her, half in the water, half out, and she shivered. She was soaked, and suddenly cold, as she hadn’t been before, as she hadn’t been when moving.

He’s gone mad
, she thought,
totally insane
, and she might die right there and then at his mercy. He seemed a misplaced Othello, his length atop her in the ever-darkening chill of the night. The sun hovered barely upon the horizon; the moon was rising. The glitter of his eyes seemed terrifying in the lengthening shadows.

She closed her eyes, gritting her teeth, rigid, yet shaking, waiting. His voice was as tense as the whipcord length of his sinewed body, deep, harsh.

“You can never run so far or so fast that I will not find you,” he warned her. “You should know that now. Wherever you go, I will know. Wherever you might be, I will come for you. You have cast us upon this trail; this is your lie come true. So this is your game, but now, there are new rules in the game, and you’ll abide by the rules, my love. Do you understand?”

“Whose rules?”

“My rules!”

“And therein lies all my argument!”

“You must understand—”

“I understand that you will not be here, that you are going on a quest for the enemy—your enemy, not mine—and I am suddenly expected to live among the enemy—my enemy, not yours! The Rebel camp is very close. I can find it. I am almost as good as my brothers in the woods.”

“You’ll go to St. Augustine!”

She shook her head, feeling tears form in her eyes. “Why can’t you understand?” she asked him.

“Why can’t you understand? You brought this about, but I have married you, Tia.”

“A paper commitment which means nothing to you!” she reminded him.

Something passed within his eyes; she didn’t know what. “My wife doesn’t spy on Union soldiers, strip naked, and lead them astray.”

“But it’s all right for you to trap or kill Rebel soldiers. To spy on them, scout them out—”

“I’m not off to murder any soldiers!” he interrupted harshly.

“Oh? Are you planning on taking your wife with you?” she inquired.

Again, a shadow over the angry gold of his eyes. And his face was suddenly nearer hers; his thumbs moved over her cheeks. “My love, I dare not!”

“Then understand that I must return to Julian—”

“No.”

“I’m not asking your permission! I’m telling you what I must do.”

“There are some cells available at Fort Marion,” he told her.

“What?”

“The castillo. That beautiful old Spanish fort in St. Augustine, now housing Union men! There are cells in it, I’m sure you know. James McKenzie was imprisoned there once with other savages—or
half
-savages.”

He took her face between his hands. And he lowered his head even closer to hers. She felt the water wash up on the shore around her, shivered, and was then warmed. His lips came down upon hers, passionate and hard. Her face lay imprisoned within the walls of her hands. His very passion forced her lips to give way to his; the hot sweetness of his assault seemed to permeate swiftly within her. The depth of his tongue seemed to reach to unexplored places, newly discovered. The deep searing stroke of his kiss elicited fire; she had wanted to touch him—now she yearned, itched, ached to feel more.

Pinned to the embankment, she felt a rush of cold, a rush of hot. The pond against the lightning texture of his body, the air against the inferno of his kiss. She briefly recalled that the blouse she wore was borrowed; then it didn’t matter because he was so determined to free her from it, and quickly. The thought touched her mind as well that this did not seem real, possible, to want someone so much, to feel such raging hunger, when she had so recently learned what such a hunger could be like to be appeased. She murmured just one protest. A sound in her throat against the force of his kiss. But he didn’t seem to hear. His mouth remained upon hers, lifted, returned, touched, drank, penetrated ... all while his fingers found buttons, ties, and ribbons. She shivered in the air, against the water, writhed when his fingers covered her breasts, when his mouth opened wetly over her nipple, that dampness so hot, so wickedly hot, where the other had been so cold ...

His hand slid between her legs, pressing them apart. She felt his fingers there, probing. Felt a burst of sweetness erupt, a fire between her legs. Still he kissed her lips, then her breasts. His thumb moved deeply within her. She writhed, arched, longed to escape, longed for more. Even where the air touched her now, the sensation seemed erotic. He stroked mercilessly within her. Touched, stroked, excited. She had longed so for his touch. Her hands moved wildly over his shoulders. Down along his spine.

He shifted, tore at his trousers. Pressed her deeper and deeper into the embankment, then he was within her, hot, slick, vital, moving like a thunder in the earth, drawing her into the fever of his tempest. They seemed to burn at a million degrees, move more swiftly than the winds of a storm, fly higher than the sky. It was a fever seized and ignited, then burned with an energy of passion born of fury. She lost all thought of past and future, even of the present, for the damp ground did not matter, the pond did not matter, nor the onslaught of night, the concept of intrusion. She simply wanted him, wanted to feel every sensation of him within her, every pulse, every thrust, and each escalating her higher, steering her toward the ecstasy that, once tasted, became ever sweeter. Elusive, so barely known, yet awakened with the scent of his flesh, the feel of his kiss, a brush of her fingertips against the sleek bronze texture of his skin. And culminated with this so very intimate feel of him inside her, the length of him flush against her, lips, hands, sex ...

She felt the jack-knifing of his body as he climaxed. The warmth filled her, permeating her, erotic and sweet, creating the same sweet lightning within her. Bursting sweet, erasing the world, the war, the embankment, the night ...

So wonderful, so good. Almost a taste of death, and surely, almost a glimpse of heaven. With her eyes closed, she could see the velvet of the night, the bursting of the stars. There was a plain upon which she drifted, and she stayed there ... stayed, not wanting to come down. And yet, at first, when she did, she did not mind so much, for she still felt him with her, in her, reposed, not yet withdrawing. She loved the feel of his body still pressed to hers, the intimacy of his arms around her, the scent of him, the way his arms remained around her ...

Then she felt the water. Cold now. Each little lap of it against her seemed to chill her more. A night wind was coming indeed; the breeze picked up with every passing second. He seemed not to notice the cold until she began to shiver. He withdrew at last, rising, while she drew into herself. He adjusted his trousers and collected the damp clothing he had strewn about, then he came to her, reaching down a hand to her. She didn’t accept it at first, but she took her wet pantalettes from him. Shivering violently now, she stepped into them, then he helped her into the corset, his fingers working the ties where hers most certainly could not, and then buttons of her blouse as she donned that wet piece of attire as well. Yet, when she was dressed in her sodden clothing, she found out that she could soon get wetter.

“It’s shortest and safest to return the way we came.”

“Safest?”

“There may be pickets around the opposite shore, but your skirt and my frockcoat are there. We need to swim back.”

She nodded, starting out. She was still shivering. She felt him at her side and she knew that she would never escape him on land—or water.

He didn’t know that she really had no desire to escape him, but it was best that he not learn such details.

She reached the shore from where she had begun her reckless plunge, yet as she hovered in the water, too cold now to exit, she wondered if he had not purposely baited her. Perhaps neither of them had known it; they had achieved the outcome they’d desired.

“You’re not going to get any warmer remaining in the water,” he told her, taking her hand, helping her to her feet. She stumbled, having to cling to him as she rose.

He had her skirt. It was thoroughly soaked, yet she put it back on—the easiest way to return to camp. Which was what she wanted to do quickly now. She was numb with cold, her borrowed clothing as drenched and heavy as the midnight mass of hair spilling down the length of her back.

His frockcoat was dry; he slipped it over her shoulders, then collected her shoes and his boots and shirt. With an arm around her, he started leading her through the trees.

“There is a faster way,” she told him.

“Oh?”

“The way I came yesterday.”

“Lead on.”

“You know where it is—you followed me last night.”

“Um, I had forgotten.” He turned, leading her along the twisting, slender trail through the pines that was to scarcely a trail at all. They emerged from the trees at the rear of his tent, hurried across the few feet from the edge of the pines to the tent, and crawled beneath the canvas. A kerosene lamp had been set on his desk and lit, filling the tent with a shadowy yellow light.

He dropped their footwear and his shirt by the trunk, then turned to her.

She was still shaking. He took his frockcoat from her shoulders and ordered, “Get out of those things now.”

She felt too cold to move. She wanted to protest, just for the sake of argument. She didn’t. She just stood there, and he returned to her, spinning her around to work at the tiny wet buttons and ties. When her clothing fell to her feet, he cast a blanket around her, collected the wet things, and started out of the tent.

“Taylor!” she murmured, pulling the blanket tightly around her.

“What?”

“What—what will you say?”

“That your clothing is wet.”

Her cheeks burned. “But—”

“No one will ask questions,” he said, then left the tent.

She hugged the blanket tighter, sitting on the cot, trying to get warm. He returned within minutes, bringing with him a small soldier’s-issue pot filled with something that smelled delicious and steamed invitingly. “Henson’s famous chicken soup,” he said, offering her the pot.

She accepted it, glad of the warmth that thawed her fingers first, then filled her inside as she swallowed down some of the contents. It was freshly made.

“Henson’s been stealing Southern chickens again, so it seems!” he said with mock concern.

She ignored the bait of his comment and asked, “What about you?”

“I ate earlier with the men.”

She didn’t argue. She was starving, and Henson’s stew—be it made with stolen chickens or not—was delicious.

He watched her for a moment, then turned away, left the tent, and returned with two cups of coffee. She had finished the soup; he took the pot from her, exchanged it for the coffee.

She drank the coffee as well. She almost felt warm.

He took the cup from her, but she stood, holding the blanket around her, moving away from the bed. She heard him peel away his damp trousers, then lift the glass and blow out the lamp.

She kept her distance from him, standing in the darkness.

She heard him crawl into the camp bed, and then a moment later, sigh.

“Come to bed; Tia.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Soon.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Then come for the warmth.”

“I’m no longer cold.”

“Get in here then, to be eased.”

“I’m not in any pain.”

“You will be—damn it! I don’t have much time; I refuse to spend it alone. Come to bed.”

She walked slowly toward the camp bed. With his hawklike vision, he saw clearly while she was blinded by the darkness. He was up when she came, drawing her down beside him, keeping the blanket around her, drawing her close to warm her. She felt his hands, his touch, the length of him, something wonderful about being with him. She wanted to sleep beside him, awake beside him.

But he did not intend to be there long.

Yet she was surprised to hear him whisper, “Tia, do you think I
want
to go?”