Nobody's Angel (32 page)

"What we did was a sin, and I knew it was a sin . . ."

"Susannah . . ."

But she rushed on, disregarding the interruption. ". . . and—and still I did it anyway!"

His fingers stopped moving, and for a moment he went very still behind her. His hands left her hair to close over her shoulders. Gently he turned her about.

"Sin, like beauty, is very much in the eye of the beholder," he said. Looking up into his face, her eyes flickering over the stark masculine beauty of it, Susannah shook her head.

"Sin is—sin," she said in a strangled voice,

Ian's eyes darkened. "Making love to you is the closest I've come to heaven in a very long time. I don't want to hear any more talk of sin."

"Whether we talk of it or not doesn't change the truth."

"You're a very stubborn woman, did you know that? And a very beautiful one."

"Oh, Ian!" Her laugh trembled 011 the verge of tears. "I'm not! Be honest for once, and admit that I'm nothing at all above the ordinary. In fact, I'm rather plain."

"You're beautiful, and I'm always honest. You just don't know the truth when you hear it."

"You lie as easily as you breathe." Her accusation was both humorous and despairing.

"I breathe a sight more easily, believe me. Do you know your hair makes me think of a wild palomino filly I once saw galloping free on a mountain in Spain? That horse was a deep, burnished gold, and your hair is just that color."

"My hair is plain brown." It was a struggle to keep a grip on reality while he beguiled her, but Susannah tried her best. It would not do to let herself believe the preposterous things he said.

"And your eyes remind me of a sunlit pool hidden deep in a forest glade."

"They're hazel."

"Your mouth is as soft and generous as your nature, and the color of squashed raspberries."

"Squashed raspberries?" That sounded so very unro- mantic in comparison with his other poetic images that she couldn't help repeating it in a quizzical tone.

His mouth lifted up at one corner, and humor twinkled to life in his eyes. He looked so very dear, smiling down at her in that familiar teasing way, that she had to smile back at him almost mistily.

"Crushed rose petals, then. Something very lush and pink."

"I see."

"And your figure puts Venus to shame. How can you say you're not beautiful?"

"Who," Susannah asked, frowning, after the briefest pause, "is this Venus?"

For a moment he stared down at her, incredulous. He started to laugh and hugged her close against him. Susannah rested her forehead against his shaking chest, slightly miffed at being the source of his amusement.

"Venus, my darling," he said in her ear, "is one of the most famous classical figures in the world. But I can un- derstand why your father, when he was educating you, might have kept you from all knowledge of it."

"Why? What's wrong with it?" Suspiciously she lifted her head to look up at him.

"Nothing is wrong with her. She's very beautiful. She's also very, uh, voluptuous, and almost completely nude. To the ancient Romans, she was the goddess of beauty and love."

"Oh." At the implications, Susannah felt her cheeks pinken.

"So when I tell you you're beautiful, you're to believe me. Is that clear?"

"But . . ."

"Say yes, Ian," he ordered.

Susannah surrendered. "Yes, Ian," she murmured obediently. As a reward he kissed her.

When he lifted his head, her arms were looped around his neck and her eyes were dreamy.

"And you taste good, too." He was pressing soft kisses all over her face. Susannah closed her eyes and leaned closer against him. "And you smell good—so fresh and clean, and always with the faintest hint of lemon. Why lemon?"

At that she opened her eyes. "I rinse my hair with it." She sluiced the juice over her head nearly every time she washed it, in a secret, silly hope it might lend a vestige of color to the thick mass of her hair. Though her hair could not be as nondescript as she had supposed if he could describe it as palomino gold—but of course his was the kind of tongue that had ended up ousting Adam and Eve from Eden.

"Miss Susannah actually has a hidden vanity! I don't believe it! There's hope for you yet."

He kissed her mouth again, more lingeringly, and her eyes fluttered shut. Susannah felt her reason slipping away again. She wanted nothing more from life than to be allowed to stay where she was forever, in his arms.

"Susannah! Susannah, are you there?"

Susannah jumped away from Ian like a scalded cat.

"Mandy!" she whispered frantically, her hands flying to her hair.

"Susannah!" The crunch of shells told Susannah that Mandy was entering the rose garden. Susannah hugged the shadowy center of the pavilion, glad that it was raised some few feet from the ground, not daring to look around lest Mandy should perceive her movement and catch her in such a state. Fortunately, trelliswork rose halfway up the structure on three sides, providing some cover.

"Hold still. I'll do it." He stepped behind her, caught her hair in both hands and twisted it deftly into a long rope. Then he coiled the rope in a neat figure eight on the back of her head and secured it with precisely four pins. It usually took her at least three times that number.

"How did you do that?"

"Practice." He handed her the rest of the pins.

"I'll just bet!" She stowed them in her pocket.

"Mandy . . . Miss Mandy, please let me explain! I love you. . . ." The voice belonged to Hiram Greer, and it was clear from the sounds of his footsteps that he was following Mandy.

"Go away! Don't you dare say such things to me! Susannah!"

"What on earth . . . ?" Susannah glanced quickly down at herself. "Am I presentable? I must go to Mandy."

"Miss Mandy, I meant no disrespect. Please believe that. . . ."

"If you don't quit following me I shall scream! Susannah!" Mandy was getting shrill.

"You look fine. Every bit the minister's prim daughter again." Something in Ian's voice made Susannah frown. Her eyes lifted to his.

"Ian . . ."

"Susannah!" It was a wail. "Oh! How dare you! Take your hands off me!"

Then came brief sounds of a scuffle, a sharp rip that could only be tearing cloth, and a slap. Susannah and Ian exchanged brief, startled glances.

"Mandy!" Susannah cried, breaking away and moving out into the bright moonlight. "Mandy, I'm right here!"

Standing at the top of the shallow steps that led from the pavilion, she could see Mandy about twenty feet away on the sparkling path. She was struggling in Hiram Greer's arms.

"Mandy! Mr. Greer, unhand her at once!"

"Susannah! Oh, thank goodness!" Mandy glanced around, then tore herself out of Greer's surprise-slackened grasp.

"Miss Susannah! Uh . . ." Greer stuttered to a halt as Susannah hurried toward her sister. "It's not what it looks like. Uh . . ."

"They told me you'd gone to the rose garden, and when I came out to find you he insisted on coming with me, again. He's been following me about all night, though I didn't want him to, and—and he said I was a tease, and he —grabbed me!" Mandy broke off with a sob and ran to Susannah, who was approaching along the path toward her. To Susannah's dismay, real tears poured down Mandy's cheeks. Susannah saw that the bodice of Mandy's gown was torn, revealing the white lawn of her chemise.

"Mr. Greer," she said in an awful voice, wrapping her sobbing sister in her arms and speaking past her bent head. "What have you done?"

Greer looked shamefaced. To his credit, he did not try to run away but rather walked sheepishly toward the entwined pair. "She was being too free with some of those boys. I tried to tell her, but she walked away from me. I couldn't just let her go outside by herself, could I? Anything could have happened to her."

"Keep him away from me!" Mandy sobbed.

"I meant no disrespect," he said, and Susannah realized that his voice was faintly slurred. As he drew closer, it was clear from the general look of him and the smell of alcoholic spirits that hung about him that he'd imbibed rather freely. Suddenly Susannah realized why the party had grown so boisterous just before she had left it: the Haskinses had been serving strong drink to their guests. "I guess I—got carried away."

"I guess you did!" Susannah said coldly, while Mandy turned around to glare at Greer.

"He—he kissed me and—and pawed me and—and ripped my beautiful dress. Oh, Susannah, can we please go home?"

"Indeed we can. Mr. Greer . . ."

"I'll take care of this, Susannah." A quiet voice said behind her. Only then did Susannah realize that Ian had walked up behind her and now stood at her back.

"Oh, Ian, what must you think of me!" Mandy burst into fresh tears and hid her face in Susannah's shoulder.

"As I told you before, Mandy, when you kissed me, I think you're very young and very unaware of the dangers that men pose to innocent girls." Ian spoke quietly. Susannah was sure that his words did not carry even as far as Hiram Greer. "I still think that."

"I'm so ashamed," Mandy whispered.

"You've no reason to be ashamed, baby." Susannah— stunned at the revelation of the truth behind that kiss she had so reviled Ian for and overcome with her own guilt at her activities of the night—patted Mandy's back. If anyone had done something to be ashamed of, it was she, not Mandy. As Ian had said, Mandy was guilty of nothing worse than being very young and innocent.

"He didn't—hurt you?" Ian's question was very gentle.

"Not—really. But . . ." Mandy sobbed again.

"You're very lucky," Ian said to Greer in a louder voice. "Because if you'd done more than just rip her dress, I'd have killed you. You're a grown man, and you know as well as I do that, for all her flirting, she's no more than a naive little girl."

Susannah, occupied with comforting her weeping sister, barely noticed when Ian stepped around her and Mandy, who still clung to her. What occurred after that happened so quickly that by the time she guessed what Ian was about, it was all over: with a sickening
thwackl
his fist connected with Greer's jaw. The other man reeled backward, to collapse on a hapless rose bush, crushing it.

"I hope you broke his jaw," Mandy said passionately, glancing around at the sound, but Ian shook his head and flexed his fingers at the same time.

"I didn't," he said regretfully. "I didn't hit him hard enough. He'll have a bruise, but that's about all."

The ride home was accomplished in comparative silence, though Mandy occasionally burst out with fierce animadversions on the character of men in general and Hiram Greer in particular. When they reached the house, Ian lifted both girls down. Mandy, her hand clutching her torn gown together at the neck, started up the steps toward the door as soon as her feet touched the ground.

"I'm sorry for what I thought about you and Mandy. I should have known better," Susannah murmured as Ian's hands lingered on her waist. Her eyes met his and clung; her fingers curled around his hard biceps. For a moment, there in the shadow of the buggy, he pulled her close.

"Yes, you should have," he whispered, dropping a lightning kiss on her mouth. "I told you that I wasn't interested in your sisters. Maybe, just once, you should try believing me."

"I . . ." Susannah began, when Mandy interrupted, calling to her from the porch.

"Susannah, are you coming? I think I'm going to be sick!"

"I have to go." She pulled free, though he caught her hands and held them in both of his.

"One of these days I'm going to get you alone, without your damned family anywhere around, and you won't have any excuse to be rid of me." His smile as he kept her hands a moment longer was wry, but it was still a smile, and the look in his eyes did strange things to her heart.

"Ian, I . . ." She almost did it. She almost confessed that she loved him there and then. But Mandy stomped her foot impatiently on the porch.

"Susannah!"

"I'm coming," she answered absently. Then, to Ian, she whispered almost shyly, "Tomorrow. We'll talk tomorrow."

"Yes," he said. "We'll talk."

His eyes never left her as she rounded the buggy. Susannah could feel them, warmly possessive, on her back. As she reached the porch and Mandy and slid a comforting arm around her sister's waist, there was the jingle of tack and the rumble of wheels, and the buggy moved off.

31

For the first time in his life, Ian thought he might be in love. The notion made him grimace with mingled humor and disgust. He was lying on the damned uncomfortable bed in the tiny cabin that was now, unbelievably, his home, his arms folded under his head, quite unable to sleep. Matchmaking mamas had been throwing their daughters at his head for years. He'd kept nearly a score of actresses and opera dancers under his protection, at separate times of course, in the decade since he'd come of age. His last mistress, Serena, had been as beautiful a woman as a man could hope to find anywhere, with glossy black hair, flashing dark eyes, skin the color of honey, and a figure that nearly rivaled Susannah's for ripeness. Serena had suited him perfectly, and he'd grown quite fond of her during the six months of their association. But never had she stirred anything in him that so much as approached what he felt for Miss Susannah Redmon.

It amused him to think of her that way, calling to mind as it did the image of her as he had first seen her. Prim, plain, and bossy of nature, a dowdy colonial spinster with an air of command, she'd been something quite beyond his ken. She was still something quite beyond his ken, though he had good reason to know that the prim spinster was only a facade that hid a vibrant, loving woman whose soul was as beautiful as Serena's face. And he had lived long enough, and hard enough, to realize that a soul, unlike a face, was beautiful forever. If one meant to keep her, her soul was the part of a woman that mattered.

Not that Susannah wasn't physically beautiful, too. She was, when he had her naked and hungry, with her skin flushed and her mouth soft and her eyes dreamy with passion, while her glorious hair cascaded down around her face and body like a curly lion's mane. Her body, with its full, ripe breasts and hips and tiny waist, was enough to stop his breath. Strip her of her dull clothes and proper exterior, and she was a different being entirely. Taught properly—and he had every intention of being very thorough with her lessons—she would be the best bed partner he'd ever had. Even now she was wild and hot and, once he got her past her curious notions of morality and sin, as eager for their lovemaking as he.