Ashes in the Wind (42 page)

Thoughtfully, she pulled the encompassing net from her hair and shook out the luxurious russet mane. She reached behind her and tugged at the ties of her corset, but to her dismay the ancient lacings parted, and the stricture of the garment loosened itself, giving her a more rapid freedom than she had planned. In exasperation she threw the stays onto the low chest and, gazing down at them ruefully, began to free the waistband of her petticoat. She would have to borrow the lacings from the corset Cole had purchased for her, or go without. Sometimes this refusal to wear his gifts weighed more heavily on her than on him.

Much to her amazement, she heard a key rattle in the lock once more. Unable to fathom why Cole should return so quickly, she was somewhat fearful, knowing that the costly jewelry had been left in her care.

Snatching her woolen cloak about her shoulders for modesty, she stepped to the bedroom door and waited there to see the identity of the intruder. Instant relief swept her as Cole came through the portal. Scowling darkly, he tossed aside the coat he had flung over his arm, and when he turned to close the door behind him, Alaina saw that his trouser seam had separated down the whole length of his leg, leaving in view the white legging of his undergarment.

“Whatever happened?” she asked worriedly.

“I caught it on a damned nail,” he growled.

Alaina restrained the urge to giggle and, as she turned back into the bedroom, suggested over her shoulder with riant undertones. “If you will take your pants off and hand them in here, I’ll mend them for you.”

She took out her sewing kit and opened it on the bed in preparation, but Cole’s angry bark came from the other room. “Dammit, woman! Do you think I’m going to stand out here in my skivvies? I’ll just change, and the hotel can have these repaired.”

Alaina cautiously eased the door shut to deny his entry into the bedroom, but found to her dismay that the key was gone. A dull glimmer near the wall rewarded her hopeful glance about the floor, and she was just bending over to retrieve the wayward latchkey when the door swung open, rudely striking her broadside. She straightened abruptly, as if she were the stiffest of springs, and, feeling completely ridiculous, faced Cole’s harsh perusal.

“I find your penchant for privacy wears thin, madam. I have no intention of hopping about the parlor like a naked crow while I change my pants. I will do it here, in my bedroom, where it is fitting and proper.”

She gave him an impatient toss of her head. “Then, sir, I will wait without.”

As she stepped toward the door, Cole’s eyes swept her, and with sudden decision, he reached out a long arm and slammed the portal closed in front of her. She halted in startled surprise and looked up at him, meeting his suspicious glare.

“With the key in your hand ready to lock me in? And your cloak on ready to fly?” he demanded. He snatched the key from her grasp. “I think not, madam. You will wait with me until I am at least garbed to pursue.”

He took the thing and sealed the portal quickly, then withdrawing it, tossed the key over his shoulder with careless finality. His blind accuracy was amazing, for after rebounding off the wall, an almost musical chord rang in the room as the key rattled into the large, brass spittoon.

Alaina’s eyes had followed its arching flight, then after a brief pause, she raised a noncommittal brow to her self-sure husband. “I think you may have difficulty retrieving your key, sir.”

Cole glanced at the spittoon and shrugged indolently. “It belongs to the hotel. Let them retrieve it.”

Alaina matched his shrug with one of her own. She turned away from him, the cloak spreading wide and displaying to his gaze her well-mended petticoat.

“What on earth!” He reached out and pulled the cloak from her shoulders, casting it behind him into a chair. She faced him again with a mild question in her gaze as he stared in reproof at her hooped undergarment.

“Great Caesar’s ghost, madam! I have seen better on a ragpicker’s wife.”

“Your attention to the detail of woman’s garments is truly-amazing, sir. Indeed, you seem quite knowledgeable about feminine underthings and such,” she replied spritely, then half apologized as she smoothed the offending garment. “But this has served me well, and I keep it in a good state of repair.”

“A labor of lengthy diligence, madam, to be sure,” Cole snorted, and, with a quick movement, reached behind her narrow waist and tugged the bow free.

“Sir!” Alaina gasped as the petticoats fell to the floor.

His eyes took in the simple cotton pantaloons which, though of an inexpensive cut, snugly fit her slim though well-rounded hips. He could admire what they contained far more without their blighting presence.

“I have a wife who garbs herself like a farmer’s wench,” he growled half to himself, “though I’ve provided her with far better things.”

In exasperation he stepped to the bootjack and applied its ministration to his footwear. Glancing back over his shoulder, he found her regarding him with a tolerantly amused smile as one would a child in a tantrum. It outraged his sense of righteousness. In the face of her blatant patronage, he ignored good
sense and deemed it timely to exercise his authority. He restated his earlier words, but this time with a firm directive. “Henceforth, madam, you will garb yourself as befits the position of Mrs. Latimer.”

She calmly replied. “When you are gone, sir.”

“Now!”

She met his gaze squarely. “I will not!”

Almost incredulously he asked, “What did you say, madam?”

Something prickled at Alaina’s consciousness, but she did not take heed of his oftentimes coolly controlled temper. “I said, I will
not
!”

The little ragged wench! She all but dared him! Cole sailed his shirt and vest into a chair, stepped to her open trunk, and removed the leather case he had sent to her. Unhooking the fasteners, he flung open the top and rummaged through the contents, carelessly spilling them over the bed.

“Here!” He flung a delicately made, gossamer thin chemise to her feet. “You will wear this! And these!” He tossed lace-bedecked pantaloons, sheer silk stockings, frilly petticoats, and a satin and lace corset in rapid succession. The last garment he withdrew was a deep green velvet traveling dress, richly trimmed with leather piping and tiny buttons of a dark tan hue. This last he laid on the bed with more care and jabbed a commanding finger at it. “And this! I want to see you in this!”

Alaina had regained her composure and struck a motherlode of stubbornness at least as rich as his. She left the garments at her feet, and though no word passed her lips, the look in her eyes as she silently met his gaze was pure mutiny. Deliberately
presenting her back to him, she folded her arms and stood with one slippered toe beating a rapid tattoo on the floor.

An almost lecherous smile tempted Cole’s lips as his eyes swept the bed. He would not have her see it and replaced it with his best ominous frown. He limped forward, moving close behind her, as his hand dipped low to lift the scissors from the sewing kit. His quick fingers pulled out the waistband of her pantaloons, and after a deft snip, they sagged loosely downward. With a startled gasp, Alaina snatched for them and retrieved her modesty, but, with a surgeon’s sure hand, Cole reached out to her shoulders and cut through the straps. Unhampered, the shift plunged and was barely caught at the brink. She whirled, an expression of indignation frozen on her face.

“Ahhh,” Cole smiled condescendingly. “I have your attention now.” He made a leg and bowed his half naked torso in a courtly gesture. “At your leisure, madam. The day is still young.”

Alaina clutched the freed garment higher over her heaving bosom, aware of the presumptuously possessive gaze that swept her. Leisurely he turned and, selecting a pair of trousers from his case, laid them on the bed. Unbuttoning his fly, he peeled his trousers down and seated himself on the edge of the bed to remove them. But his curiosity plagued him, and he could not resist a glance over his shoulder. His wife had moved, leaving the fine garments where they had fallen, and now stood facing the corner of the room, resolutely refusing to watch him. His eyes coursed down the fine curves of her stiff
back, from the slim erect column of her neck, to the beckoning fullness of her hips. The all too apparent womanliness of her evoked a strong stirring of desire, and he felt a familiar hardening beneath the snug fit of his undergarment.

He rose and moved to stand behind her, not touching, but near enough that she was trapped and could not move without coming into contact with him. He braced his forearm against the wall and gazed down upon the tantalizing curve of her breasts that swelled almost free of the damaged chemise and the hand that held the garment in place. He ached to caress the womanly softness of her, to hold her close, and ease the lusting ache that gnawed at the pit of his belly.

“You are woman, Alaina,” he murmured huskily.

“Indeed?” she sniffed and clutched her precarious modesty all the closer, pressing the fullness of her bosom upward until it fair besotted his senses. He lusted. He craved. He burned with desire. And all for her.

“Enough to drive a man insane,” he breathed. Strange lights danced in her shining hair, and her slender shoulders gleamed with a soft, creamy luster.

“I had no idea,” she apologized brightly though his presence nearly overawed her spirit. “But perhaps you wish to prove your words.”

“Prove?”

“Your insanity! Your madness!” She struggled to sound flippant and casual. “But you need not burden me. A few flecks of foam upon your lips would serve as well to prove the claim.”

The heady scent of her perfume mingled with the essence of pure woman, filling his head and
warming his blood. The heat of his hunger spread with eager bounds through his loins. “ ‘Tis well you are married, Alaina, for if not so bonded, you would have ended as the paramour of some European prince. You were made for love.”

His nearness threatened to destroy her composure. But alas, only threatened. “Married? An arrangement of temporary nature? Your proxy sent to a far-off place to exchange words with a woman who has no other choice? Marriage? Is that what you call it?”

“Yes.” His hand reached out to caress the silky smoothness of her bare shoulder. “Legal and binding in any court of law.”

She pulled away from his touch, unable to breathe. “It was more an agreement, I’d say.”

“Of course,” he chuckled. “An agreement to ease the qualms of your uncle so he would sign the papers. By any definition, you are my wife.”

“Of chastity and restraint,” she continued, struggling to steadfastly keep her thoughts on what she was trying to express, and in the course of such, missing the meaning of his words. Beneath her bosom her heart thumped far too wildly for her to claim a mere tolerance of him.

“We are man and wife,” he said huskily. “What chastity and restraint does that forebode?”

“We are Doctor Cole Latimer”—her voice came as a flat, toneless drone—“wounded hero of the Union, and Alaina MacGaren, wanted for murder, treason, thievery, spying, and other assorted crimes.”

“You are here because I married you.”

She laughed briefly. “I am here because I had no other choice.”

“Choice? Yes, indeed.” He turned her angry words aside. “Choice you are, my love.” He ran his fingers down the shining darkness of her hair, smoothing it as if in awe. “The very cream of the lot.”

His soft answer and soothing caress awoke tingling answers in places she tried to ignore. This betrayal by her own body aroused an impatient vexation. She had foolishly thought that all the quickening fires she had once felt in his presence would be cooled by now, and if not thoroughly squelched by the insult of his proposal, then surely slow to rekindle. But she was becoming increasingly aware of the folly of that conclusion. He touched; she burned. It was a hard fact for her pride to accept, especially when it was he who had demanded a chaste marriage. What did he expect her to be? Some limp-willed twit who catered to his mercurial moods?

“You treat the word love lightly, sir, when that same emotion should be a prior test of devotion and commitment before the vows.”

Cole lowered his face to stir her hair and breathe deeply of its fragrance. For Alaina, it was as if some discordant screech had sent a shudder through her. She pressed forward against the wall, trying to break the contact that so bestirred her.

“Cool your heels, sir,” she warned crisply. “This is not of our agreement.”

“To hell with agreements and prior things,” Cole muttered thickly. “Your need is that which only a man can fulfill, and I would have no other do it but myself.”

Pulling her away from the wall, he bent and lifted her in his arms as she struggled to keep herself covered.

“Major!” she panted breathlessly. “This game has gone far enough. Put me down!”

“Games are for children, my love. But this is something more between a man and his woman.” His eyes burned into hers as he strode purposefully to the bed with her. “There’ll be no more pretenses between us in our marital bed.”

Kneeling on the mattress, he lowered her to its softness and, before she could move, his arms came down like sinewed pillars on either side, trapping her between them. He lowered his weight until he half lay upon her, pinning her arm (and her hand that had held the pantaloons) beneath him. She dared not attempt to free it lest she touch some portion of his loins and needlessly confound what meager defense she could muster.

It was all too vivid in her memory that she had fought him on that first night long ago and that physical resistance had been useless against his unswerving seduction. His mood now seemed of the same bent; he had no apparent intentions of releasing her until their vows were tied securely in a most physical knot of passion.

His fingers slowly slid up her arm to the hand that grasped the top of her shift, his thumb brushing over the soft peak of her breast, quickening her breath and her heartbeat, before he gently caught her hand. Pressing a warm kiss upon her knuckles, he drew her arm around his neck, then his mouth dipped downward to hers. It was a teasing kiss, brief and light, his tongue leisurely tracing the contours of her trembling lips, while she tried o chide her wayward will into obedience. His warm breath
touched her ear, and his teeth nibbled at the base of her neck, sending delicious shivers through her. She closed her eyes, relaxing in his arms, growing warm and pliant. Then suddenly her eyes came open with a start, a gasp born on her lips. The loose shift had been easily brushed downward, and now his mouth was a hot, searing flame against her breast. She writhed beneath the slow, flicking tongue of fire, feeling consumed by its heat. She knew a growing tightness in the pale, roseate peak and an almost driving urge to
rise against him, to open her shaking limbs and let the boldness of his manhood fill the aching void.