Time After Time (178 page)
Authors: Elizabeth Boyce
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Romance, #Historical
“Sons?” she inquired, after he’d returned from speaking to the driver, to settle on the seat beside her. “Just how long have you been planning this? Don’t tell me you’ve known about this all along, because if you have, I don’t know what I shall say!”
“I hope you’re not thinking of slapping me again,” he said, gathering her into his arms. “Not after all the trouble I went to, to make an honest woman out of you.”
Her gasp was lost in the loud rattle of carriage wheels as they rolled off down the lane. “I was an honest woman long before I met you, Nat Randall — Nathan Cavanaugh, whatever your name is.” She struggled to pull away. “How long have you known about this? Tell me?”
“Very well,” he conceded with a chuckle. “I started to put it together not long after I saw you with Burke.”
“The Pinkerton man? He accosted me on the boat, inquiring about your whereabouts. Of course at the time, I didn’t know you were there.”
“Burke has a habit of showing up at the wrong time.” Nat’s tone turned to annoyance. “I wouldn’t have missed that damn train if it hadn’t been for him.”
“You came to the station?” A lump formed in her throat. “You were there?”
“Of course I came.” He ran one long finger along the edge of her cheek. I said I would, didn’t I?”
Delicious rivers of heat rushed over her skin. “I waited as long as I could.” She groaned with remorse. “But … ”
He drew her into his arms and kissed her tenderly.
The feel and the taste of him made her go weak. To think that he was hers for the rest of her days, rushed joy straight through her to the tips of her toes, and something else — something untamed and fierce, like a great hunger after a hard day’s work.
“I know. The stationmaster told me,” he rasped against her ear. “If Burke hadn’t delayed me, I’d have been there.”
“What did he want?” Her voice rose, thinking of all the agonizing hours she’d spent, thinking Nat didn’t care.
“My father sent him to look for me.” He proceeded to place tiny kisses all over her neck. “But let’s talk about it later,” he said thickly, unhooking her gown, “When I can think.”
So that was the reason he’d come home — to make peace with his father. Uncertainty and disappointment pricked at the back of her mind. Did he actually love her, or was his proposal just a result of their fathers’ plot? Was this just another promise Nat had been forced into?
But when he pushed her back on the leather seat quivering and naked, she found she no longer cared. The hard heat of him pressed tight against her spoke of another promise — too urgent — too wild to compare.
“Christie,” he breathed. “Do you know what you do to me?”
“The same thing you do to me.”
His mouth crushed against hers and she could no longer think. The carriage filled with warmth as their bodies joined.
She went careening down that slippery slope of desire only to be lifted up and up and up, higher, and higher, until she flew and crashed in a splintering climax. Pulses of delicious pleasure squeezed her inside and out, making her cry out Nat’s name.
He plunged one more deep earth-shattering thrust then collapsed with his face in her hair. And still, she couldn’t get enough of touching him, running her hands down his back, feeling his heart beat fast and hard against hers. They lay entwined for the longest time, breathing hard.
“Good God, woman!” Nat rose up with his hands braced behind her head, panting for breath. “Never leave me again.”
She couldn’t stop smiling. “Are you saying that you missed me?”
He chuckled. “I’m saying if I have to wait that long again, it will take more than a trip around The Horn to satisfy my lust.”
“Oh! I see!” She attempted to push him off, giving a look of mock horror. “Is that all you’re marrying me for?”
“Of course not.” He placed both hands on her shoulders to hold her still. “You’re uncommonly beautiful besides being the lustiest woman I’ve ever met.” He chuckled. “But the main reason is, I love you and I can’t live without you.”
She swallowed hard, blinking back the tears brimming in her eyes. “You love me?”
“I wouldn’t marry you if I didn’t.” He smiled down at her. “I may be as loyal as an old hound, but I’m not stupid enough to ever do that again.”
“I thought cowboys were tougher than that.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him slowly and thoroughly. “But don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.”
About the Author
Rachel Donnelly lives in Canada with her husband, two children, and one crazy cat. She fell in love with historical romance as a teenager and, after reading everyone she could get her hands on, decided to write some of her own.
Sneak Peek at Crimson Romance
Charming the Chieftain
by Deanie Roman
Brave in Heart
Emma Barry
Avon, Massachusetts
This edition published by
Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
Copyright © 2013 by Emma Barry
ISBN 10: 1-4405-7022-1
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7022-3
eISBN 10: 1-4405-7023-X
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7023-0
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art © istockphoto.com/RapidEye, istockphoto.com/oliale72
To Tim, Henry, and Eleanor, you have my heart.
Contents
A Sneak Peek from Crimson Romance
Acknowledgments
It would be impossible to sufficiently thank everyone who assisted the creation of
Brave in Heart.
If we’ve met and talked about books — which is another way of saying if we’ve met — you’ve helped form my taste and hone my mind and I am in your debt.
To be a more specific: to my teachers for making me love the written word, the United States of America, and its complicated, painful history. To the men and women whose remembrances of and fiction about the American Civil War haunt me. To the authors, living and dead, whose books made me want to write down the stories I imagine.
To everyone involved with the Novellas Need Love Too contest for feedback and encouragement, particularly RL Syme. To my critique partner, Genevieve Turner, without whom this book would have been incomparably weaker. To my beta readers — Larissa, Jean, Tim, Brooke, and, most of all, Kimberly Truesdale — for insight and generosity.
Most of all, to my family for being understanding of all the time I was lost in a novel, thought, or Word document and for always believing in me. Je t’aime.
Prologue
Middletown, Connecticut
November 19, 1859
“I wish to release you from our engagement.”
A gasp followed Margaret Hampton’s declaration. At first, she wasn’t sure if it came from her or Theo. But the night air, cold, damp, and unforgiving, burned her throat. Her. She couldn’t believe what she had done.
Another rasping breath trailed the first — her lungs simply would not stay full. Perhaps the intensity of Theo’s glare expelled it from her body. The steely shine in his eyes could halt a rushing spring thaw. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? The passion that lined his face now was a mirage. It would not power his life.
Theo’s hands clenched. “Will you at least tell me why?” His voice was hard like flint, but quiet.
Silently, Margaret thanked the slivered moon in whose dim light she could scarcely make out his features. Aloud, she repeated the words she had practiced in the mirror earlier that evening, projecting a confidence she did not feel. “I think it’s for the best.”
“For who? For you?” His tone rose, but a sparkling piano chord and a shadow of someone’s laugh from within reminded them they were not entirely alone.
Inside the Smith’s house, a merry little party was playing Squeak Piggy Squeak. By the sound of it, the game had grown heated. Mark’s cry of objection and Susanna’s laughter floated distinctively to her ears, distracting Margaret from the far more momentous scene she was playing in the garden.
“For us both, Mr. Ward. This is over.”
The words were bald. Heavy, without euphemism. And followed by an expectant pause.
Theo turned and leaned against the balustrade, seeming to examine her for weakness.
She shifted her weight and looked down away from him. Her poise was crumbling, and thus she filled the silence. “We don’t suit.” The lie tasted of ash and dried her tongue. “I’ll go in now so as not to fuel any rumors. We can break the news to our friends tomorrow.”
“And that’s it? There’s nothing I can say to change your mind?” She looked up at this and a flicker of light caught his eyes. They flashed like twin sapphires, potent and intoxicating.
“Don’t you love me?” His voice shook, thin and a little desperate.
The breeze in the trees stopped. The happy rattle inside stilled. Margaret’s heart snagged on its next beat. For an instant, all motion and noise paused. The past two months — joyful, wild, intemperate months — spread before her, poured out from a jug between them. Both had thought themselves past all chance at love. Until … until.
In this immobile moment, Margaret could look at Theo and see the contradictions within him. He’d taken
The Liberator
for years, but wouldn’t write for the local paper on the slavery question. He railed about education reform, but would not run for office. He hated Middletown, but would not leave.
Even the narrowly leashed emotion radiating from him now would be buried before this conversation had ceased. The denial and repression he had spent three and a half decades perfecting was an inability to act on the ardor in his heart. This she knew beyond all else, and thus there was no place for her. She wasn’t sure she could deceive him, but no more could she marry him.
She looked down and shook her head. “No, I don’t … love you. It’s done.
She was certain he wouldn’t believe her. Some part of her wished he wouldn’t. In jilting him, she was ensuring a hard, lonely future for herself. Teaching the same books until the covers fell off. Emphasizing the same rules for young women until her voice was strained. Scrimping for new gowns and darning stockings past serviceability. Dying at the Middletown Female Seminary. Was a hypocritical husband really so distasteful as to warrant all this?
Yes.
Yes, if it were Theo. He had long ago dedicated himself to a half-life. She wouldn’t join him there.
His voice interrupted her reverie. “I know you’re an impatient woman … ” Ah, here it was: his criticism of her, that she nagged and behaved impulsively. This conversation was almost amusingly familiar. Except for how it would end.