Devil's Mistress (22 page)

She twisted her head upward once again and saw that he was staring out the window, watching as the pink light of the sun suddenly flared with a stroke of gold and crimson. There was something tense about his face, which was not unusual, except that last night … last night he had seemed to lose the hardness of his countenance; he had seemed younger, lighter of heart and spirit than she could remember. He was not a solemn man, but he was stubborn and determined, and ever sure of his course of action. Last night she had seen the lines ease, and laughter come to him again.

“You truly hate King James with all your heart, don’t you?” she asked now.

His gaze came quickly from the window to her. “I don’t know anymore,” he said, watching her with a small smile. “He executed a man who was committing treason in his eyes; what I cannot bear is that Jemmie was his own blood, and that he pleaded for his life and lost it anyway.” He paused, noticing how she watched him, aware that in the blue depths of her eyes there was a longing to understand everything about him. He stroked her cheek. “I cannot tell you what it was to have grown up with Jemmie Scott, Brianna. When I was a lad, he was everything. At times, my only friend. So like Charles. Willful—but generous of himself in every way. He knew he was his father’s son, and he knew the English people did not want a Catholic succession. He was young and very brave and, with the right guidance, would have made a very fine king. The only thing that stood between him and the crown was his bastardy. When I heard of the execution, I despised James. I longed to kill him with my bare hands. Yet now—I think I pity him. I’ve searched my soul over this, and I can now say that I join William and Mary because I believe they will be best for England.”

Brianna raised herself up, planting a light kiss softly against his lips. “You are truly,” she told him, “a knight in the most shining armor!”

He burst out laughing, rolling over to pin her beneath him. “A knight, eh? Nay, love, a salt-ridden man born to a title, nothing more. But I am deeply gratified to hear you call me so, for it is far kinder than anything you had to say when first we met!”

She laughed, too, delighted that life could remain ever more sweetly beautiful with the coming of day. And then she was laughing no more, for the tenderness in his eyes did take flame and she felt her flesh heat with his desire. He brought his lips to hers, kissing her slowly, and soon their arms and limbs were entwined with the eager passion of their love.

Later, feeling wholly languorous and as satisfied as a sleek black cat, Sloan sighed and dragged his legs over the bed, stretching before he stood. Brianna watched the muscle play of his back and quivered a bit, wondering that she should be loved by such a man. But she did not doubt that she was, and that, too, touched her with wonder.

He pulled on his breeches and reached for his shirt, wishing fervently that the ship did not need repairs so he could order Paddy to take command for a day of leisure.

“ ’Tis very hard to leave you,” he told her.

“Is it?” she asked him.

He dropped his shirt and knelt down beside her, curling a lock of her hair about his finger with abject fascination. “Aye. ’Tis so hard that I can barely do it. So easily could I climb beneath the sheets again, between the silken embrace of your bewitching thighs! Forgetting all, lamenting not. Forgetting that we are outlaws and prime picking for a navy of hangmen.”

Alarm jumped to her eyes. She shoved at his chest. “Go! Get about your business—lecherous swain that you are!” She was teasing him, but she was not. He shrugged and rose, still regretfully. “The situation is not that bad,” he admitted. “We’ll make port for our repairs, and I believe we’ll find cordial welcome. I’ve come often to Upsinwich,” he assured her. “We will make out well, I’m sure.”

She stretched out lazily again, closing her eyes with a smile.

“Eh, girl! None of that!” Sloan admonished her with a firm swat upon the derriere that rose temptingly beneath the sheet. “If you would set your feet on land with me, you will get yourself ready now!”

“You’ll take me ashore? Is it safe? Not for anything, Sloan, would I cause bloodshed again!”

“You didn’t cause bloodshed—and aye, I’m quite certain it is safe. The town would warn us long before a battle could arise. And I’ve anchored here these several days to give belief to any enemies that we are halfway to the Orangeman’s household.”

She was out of the bed before he finished speaking, excitement giving a high flush and beauty to her cheeks and lighting up her eyes like the summer sky beneath a dazzling sun.

“Wear something demure, my love. You’re likely to dazzle the steadfast morals of these pious folks as it is!”

She tossed her head back imperiously. “I’ll have you know, Lord Treveryan, that I’m well acquainted with the Puritan faith! I was raised in it for many years.” She noticed the smile that twitched about his lips and queried him sharply.

“What, my lord, is that smirk for?”

“I am not smirking. I merely find it difficult to think of you as an innocent Puritan maiden, that is all.”

“Hmmph!” she sniffed, and turned her back on him once again.

She slipped her gown over her head, yet before she could secure it she was struck with a sudden thought, and even as she fumbled with the gown, she was crossing the few steps to him, clasping his arms in high excitement to gain his attention.

“Oh, Sloan, I was thinking! I know that we’re entering a Puritan town, but surely, we could find a minister of the Church of England—and we could be married today!”

The smile faded from his features so suddenly and completely that she was stunned, and felt as if she had been covered in ice. His eyes clouded, and she saw the hard jade once again, rather than the verdant warm green of a forest.

“I told you once, Brianna,” he said, his voice suddenly harsh and raggedly pained, “I cannot marry you.”

Had he viciously slapped her, he could not have given her a crueler blow. Her hands fell from his arms; she backed away from him and stared at him, seeing the implacable set of his face. All thought of laughter departed; it seemed that perhaps a storm cloud had passed over the sun, for neither did the day remain brilliant, but appeared to grow as gray as the pall that had come between them.

Brianna moistened her lips to speak. She did not recognize her own voice, it was so cool and distant. “I do not understand. Last night you promised that you loved me. That you would do so for life. Is your word so light, then, so completely without honor?”

His eyes closed briefly as he struggled with himself. He stepped toward her, reaching out a hand. “No!” she cried, and she feared that she would burst into tears if he touched her. “No! Explain yourself to me!”

“I said nothing that was not true. I love you. I love you with all my being, as I had never thought to know love. From now until my dying day, I swear that I will love you. But I never promised to wed you, Brianna. I told you long ago; I cannot marry you.”

“Why?” she shrieked, furiously battling her tears. “Dear God, sir! I cannot understand! Aye, you’ve risked your life for me, yet still it seems I am lady enough for the sport of your bed but not to bear your name under God.”

“Brianna.” He came to her then, grasping her arms. She twisted her head from him and tried to fight his grip, but he was firm and would not release her. “Brianna—I am married.”

“What?”
The word was both cry and whisper. She no longer fought him, but stood dead still, staring at and refusing to accept the finality of what he was saying.

“I am married, Brianna,” he said quietly, trying to soothe her, to hold her.

She did not want to be held, or touched, or soothed. She pulled away from him, shaking her head furiously and fighting tears. “Don’t, oh, don’t! Sloan—”

“Brianna!” He tried to interrupt: she would not allow him.

“How could you, Sloan? You have a wife, yet you determined to keep me too? You had no right—”

“You do not understand!”

“I could never have been anything to you but a mistress!” She was dangerously close to tears. “Never—there was never any chance! Oh, all my dreams! I believed that, yes, you did love me! That there could be a future—”

“I never lied to you!” Sloan charged, clenching his hands into fists at his side, fighting the urge to reach for her, grab her, force her to listen. “If you’d hear me out—”

“And what of your wife? Oh, poor wretched lady! She sits at home, always alone! Wondering, waiting, anxious—while you! A whore in every port!”

“Brianna!” His voice had taken on an edge of warning. She could not take heed; she could not care. Oh! It should have been so obvious! She should have realized. But she had not, and the fantasy had so recently soared. She did not know if she wanted to scream and shout, or dissolve onto the floor in tears.

“How could you?” she repeated. “How could you have done this to me? Surely you knew, you knew that I was falling in love with you, and you did not care! You knew that nothing could ever exist between us, and still you led me on—”

“Brianna!” He was aching so desperately for what was slipping between his fingers that he could barely think. He came to her again, catching her shoulders, holding her fiercely against all her struggles, even when she pounded his chest with futile vengeance. At last he shook her, firmly, and her head rolled back, her eyes met his—stark with hopelessness and bitter resentment. “Let me go, Sloan. Fool that I am, I really did not know.”

“I cannot let you go—now or ever!” he thundered to her, shaking her once again. “For the love of God, will you listen to me?”

“To what end?” she demanded heatedly.

“It is not what you believe.”

“What I believe? You have just told me that you are married.”

“I am married, Brianna. But—”

“Let me go, Sloan!”

“Nay, because I cannot!” Despite her protests he swept her into his arms and pinned her to the bed. He had to make her understand.

“No, Sloan!” she shrieked, her voice breaking.

“Brianna—there is a future. I love you.”

“What of your wife?”
she demanded, ceasing her struggles, to stare at him with blunt accusation.

“If you would but give me leave, I would explain.”

Bitterly, she answered him. “I’ve no choice, it seems.”

His hold on her eased. She plummeted to the depths of despair, and he knew well that her fury came from the misery he hadn’t the power to erase. He could only try desperately to make her see, to hold on to what they had.

“Her name is Alwyn,” Sloan said, and then he swallowed. To say her name, the woman he had only alluded to, was perhaps one of the most difficult things he’d ever done. “Alwyn does not care—”

“Does not care!”

“Cannot care,” Sloan said, ignoring her interruption. He did not know how to plead; he had never pleaded before. But God help him, he had to make her understand. “Brianna, we were wed fifteen years ago. Our estates adjoin. The match was arranged when we were both just infants and we were wed before my twentieth birthday. I was not against the marriage, because I had known Alwyn all my life. As a girl she was very lovely, and very gentle.” I am not saying the right words, Sloan thought in anguish. She was so stiff in his arms. Already, he thought, I have lost her. “Brianna! You have to understand!”

“Understand, My Lord Treveryan?” she asked coldly. “I understand quite well. You are married. You wish me to remain with you—as your mistress—while you leave a gentle wife behind.”

“Nay! Your tongue is ever sharp!”

“Show me where I am in error!”

“She is mad!”

Brianna held very still for a moment, aware that his voice and the tension in his body, in his very hold about her, betrayed a misery deeply akin to her own.

“Mad?” she whispered.

“Quite,” he said bitterly. “Alwyn was always frail. She trembled at the sight of me once we were wed. I was ever gentle with her. I let her be, and I wooed her as graciously as any man ever wooed his wife. There was a time, when we were very young, when I came to have great faith in a fruitful and happy life reaching out before us. But then—we had a child. A son. He did not survive three months in this world. And when he died, all that had been happiness for Alwyn died also. Slowly she began a retreat from this world. And now …”

“Now what?” Brianna asked him, aware that his eyes stared unseeingly across the cabin, that he was watching something a long way off. He shrugged.

“She barely knows me. She lives in my home, but all she knows is the forest and the pond of the estate where she finds peace. She is cared for by her old nurse, and she keeps cages of exotic birds. She loves to hear them sing, and to watch them fly. When I am at home, I allow her the fantasy that we are children again, and she believes that our fathers are visiting, and that we are together to play—as children.”

He stopped speaking, his eyes returned to Brianna’s. He wanted her to speak as she longed to do so. Yet it all swirled within her mind and wrought painful constriction in her heart and throat, and she could find no words.

He released her and stood, pacing the cabin. Finally he paused again, leaning against the doors.

“I have not touched her in a decade, Brianna.”