Touch the Sun (42 page)

"But then, Mr. and Mrs. Sayers died last year, and Meagan took the punishment for their extravagance. Pecan Grove, their plantation, was going to be sold to pay the debts... every last rug and chair and slave. Meagan was supposed to go north to Boston to live with some old aunt, but she came running to West Hills—"

"Don't tell me the two of you
knew
each other!" Marcus ejaculated.

"Don't be silly! We were best friends." She continued to look out over the darkened rooftops. "Not really. We were more like sisters who didn't get along very well. I never understood Meagan; she was as outrageous and rebellious as an unbroken horse. Only
she
could have masqueraded as a maid to keep from going to live with that aunt..." Priscilla felt a strange lump form in her throat and it was necessary for her to swallow a few times before her voice returned. "It was all her idea. She nearly forced me to go along with it. I can't be responsible for the muddle she's in!"

She looked back to find Marcus watching her broodingly and attempted a lighthearted smile. "Well, perhaps she and Lion are right for each other, just as you are right for me. Thank the good Lord we all found out before it was too late!"

Priscilla clung to Marcus's shoulders again, searching out his lips, but his response was suddenly distant.

* * *

Lion spent his thirty-third birthday at Markwood Villa with Meagan. It had never crossed his mind to visit his fiancée; already he dreaded having to take her to Gray's Garden the next day to view Washington's arrival.

In the meantime, he and Meagan took a long walk through the budding woods around the villa and ate a picnic lunch on the garden lawn. Meagan wore a simple frock of clover-sprigged muslin, its wide leaf-green sash tied at one side. The neckline was cut deep to reveal ivory breasts occasionally obscured by glossy, unbound raven curls. Lion loved every moment spent in her company, as fascinated by her appearance and gestures as she was by his. He thought he had never known a high-born woman with an innate grace and alert, witty mind to match Meagan's. Every smile, blush, and toss of her curls seemed lovelier than the last. In her company under the dazzling April sun, Lion forgot the problems so clearly spelled out by Dr. Franklin.

At twilight, they prepared a light supper in the huge kitchen, bantering back and forth over the correct cooking procedures. Lion opened a bottle of champagne so that they might toast the day, and they ate and drank side by side in the new dining room.

Evening hung overhead, blue-gray and waiting. Meagan knew Lion would want to return to the house on Pine Street before total darkness set in, but she managed to put him off with one last glass of champagne. Slipping into the parlor after supper, she retrieved her reticule which bulged suspiciously. She had saved scrupulously for Lion's birthday gift, combing the shops every day since the storm to find the perfect token of her feelings.

Lion was stunned and deeply moved when she presented him with the package. It was a small lion, fashioned of Staffordshire pottery, with a body of ocher and a brown mane, standing on a pale green base. Its head was tilted in proud arrogance; even the muscles in the back and legs were carefully detailed.

"It seemed just the thing..." Meagan offered after a long minute of silence.

He looked up, clearly touched. "Only you—" he began, breaking off in what might have been a tide of emotion. One hand went out to pull her onto his lap and they kissed with bittersweet fervor, the pottery lion wedged between them.

* * *

A silvery slice of moon hung suspended in the ebony sky, shooting down sharp, diamond-bright rays that pierced muslin bed-hangings of the field bed in Meagan's own room. Only moments ago, the tall-case clock in the entry hall had struck midnight, ending Lion's birthday, but he and Meagan didn't notice. They lay naked between the cool linen sheets, making love with the same poignant intensity that had marked their first coupling and each interlude since.

When they lay still at last, hearts pounding in exhilarated unison, Meagan turned her face just enough to seek out Lion's eyes. The fierce emotion blazing from deep within them almost startled her.

Impulsively, she accused him in a hoarse whisper, "You love me!"

Lion turned his head and slowly moved away from her. The fireplace was dark, leaving only the blue-white moonbeams to illuminate his body as he stood up and walked over to the window. Meagan felt oddly detached observing him. The best sculptor could not chisel out a more splendid male form, she thought, or a more classic profile. The sweep of hair caught casually at his neck gleamed in the moonlight; his eyes were serious as they contemplated the wisteria-drenched trellis outside.

"You may be right," he said at length. After a moment, he returned to bed and gathered Meagan into his lean, dark arms. "I think it is time for me to tell you the truth about myself. I never see a birthday that doesn't remind me of my childhood, my origins. Perhaps, when you've heard my story, you will understand why I hesitate to believe in love. I never thought to experience it..."

"Are you certain that you want to tell me?"

"Don't interrupt. I might change my mind!"

After pulling her back with him into the pillows, the crisp hair on his chest tickling Meagan's soft back, he closed his eyes and began, "I was born thirty-three years ago tonight in the countryside of New York. My mother was not married to my father; people have called me a bastard, but I never felt like one... not until later. My mother was lovely, educated. It seemed that she met my father when she was too young not to trust a man who said he loved her. He was married, of course."

Meagan could hear the tension in his voice flare into hatred when he mentioned his father.

"I didn't know it then, but he was giving her money throughout my childhood, though I never met the man."

"What was your mother like?"

"She was clever, warm—but frequently ill. She was only sixteen when I was born and it seemed to break her health. She loved me, but I cost her a very different future that would have been hers if not for my father—and my birth. Her parents never forgave her and she had no true friends, so there was a sadness beneath every smile."

"Oh, Lion..." Meagan turned her face, nuzzling his hard upper arm. "Did you look like her?"

"No." He seemed to choke on the word. "I do have her eyes, but her hair was red. Her features were fine and she was delicately built."

"And she died?" Meagan supplied gently. She felt his heart beating against her back before he answered.

"Yes. When I was fourteen."

"And..."

"And my father arrived, terribly uncomfortable about having to relocate me. To his amazement, I turned out to be nearly his double. God, I could have died the first time we came face to face! He was disgustingly elated and decided to take me home and raise me as his son. What a joke! His son! Totally ignored for fourteen years—with no excuse whatever. He couldn't have lived more than a dozen miles away."

"You went to live with him?"

"I had to. I went from poor fatherless boy to favorite son of a wealthy estate-owner. I arrived to find a dark, temperamental stepmother and a half-brother whose hair was black. The only physical trait he inherited from our father was the one I did not possess. They both had piercing gold eyes."

He paused while realization dawned on Meagan.

"Gold eyes? Do you mean... is
Marcus Reems
your half-brother?" She twisted in his arms, scrambling onto her knees.

Lion leisurely cupped her breasts, kissing them, before responding, "Yes."

He went on to describe the following years in the Reems's household while gathering her near again and holding her fast.

It seemed that Marcus had been ill-fated from birth. Nothing he ever tried was executed well enough to earn his father's approval. Thomas Reems was constantly frustrated by this son who resembled only his disagreeable wife.

Then he found Lion. Without even trying, the illegitimate youth outshone his half-brother in every way, from schoolwork to his effortlessly magnetic personality. The elder Reems warmed enthusiastically to him and to the challenge of winning his love.

He never did.

"I have never been a hater by nature," Lion told Meagan, "but I could not find any seeds of affection within me for my father. He was calculating, like Marcus, and they both possessed ambition flawed by selfishness. My father's feelings for me were rooted in his own ego, not in honest love for
me
."

"How awful. How did you manage?"

"I persuaded him to send me away to school almost immediately. I attended the Academy of Philadelphia, then began at Harvard until the war demanded my attention. I hated being dependent on my father, but at that age it seemed I had no choice. At least, there was no other way to get the education I craved."

"And Marcus?"

"Oh, he was right there beside me all along, despising me more with each year. One can hardly blame him—for me to have suddenly appeared on the scene, almost a physical duplicate of our father, and winning the approval Marcus never could." Lion laughed bitterly. "Good God, what ludicrous irony. The last thing I desired was that man's approval."

They were silent for a few minutes, Lion lost in memories and Meagan watching the shadowy lines of his face, grieving for the young boy who had been embittered by those around him.

"At any rate," he continued softly, "I fought in the war, which seemed to be a good release for much of my anger, and after Yorktown, I went 'home' to straighten out some matters with my father. I wanted to finish at Harvard, but not with his money, so I decided to claim my mother's possessions—her furniture, jewelry, and the small amount of money she had put aside.

"But... when I arrived, I found Marcus waiting for me with the news of our father's death. He and my stepmother seemed to be certain that I would be falling down in my haste to claim my share of the estate. She informed me that my father had written a new will before he died, leaving me more than half of his property... then they began laughing like maniacs and said they had witnessed it for him—and burned it later.

"I don't think Marcus ever hated me more than at that moment when I said that I wouldn't have soiled my hands with that money... That, if they hadn't burned the will, I would have. For years, he had lived to hurt me the way I had, by my very presence, hurt him. But it was the crowning blow to have his plan for revenge turned to dust."

"Lion! You feel sorry for him!" Meagan turned to face him again. "The man has hounded you for over half your life—"

"Oh, don't imagine that I harbor some secret fondness for Marcus!" he replied dryly. "Undoubtedly, he was shallow and flawed long before my arrival on his doorstep, and I certainly dislike him nearly as much as he dislikes me. Let us just say that I can see his point of view. And, yes, I pity him in some ways."

"I always wondered why you never got mad at him—especially that night he and Clarissa were ready to kidnap me! Everyone talks of you being enemies—"

"I simply hope that one day he will get over this and leave me alone." A muscle moved in his jaw. "Each time I see Marcus, I am reminded of my origins... of the father who branded me forever as his bastard son with his face and his body. Even my smile is his—"

"No! Perhaps on the surface, it seems similar, but yours is an expression of your inner self! As for the rest, you may look like him, but his touch, his scent, his movements could never have compared—" She broke off, blushing, under his keen scrutiny. "Well, now I understand why you don't use the name Thomas."

"How did you know that was my true name?" Lion asked sharply.

"Well—I saw your mother's Bible the night I did the accounts in your library."

"And you never asked about it?"

"It was not my affair. Your past is your own, to share as you wish." Her eyes began to twinkle then. "But I will admit to curiosity!"

The hard lines softened in Lion's face and he lifted her up, slipping his arms around her slender back. He began kissing her with deliberate slowness until her fingers twisted in his hair. Meagan could barely hear the husky words spoken against her throat, "My love, you are delicious..."

Chapter 36

Meagan dozed fitfully through the night but came fully awake before the dawn broke. There was no avoiding it; the time had come to reach a decision. The new day would bring General Washington to Philadelphia and that was the beginning of the end. Lion was taking Priscilla to the festivities at Gray's Ferry, followed by the dinner at City Tavern given in Washington's honor by Philadelphia's elite. Then, in days to come, the exodus to New York would begin, and Meagan knew that the dreaded wedding must be sandwiched in somewhere.

It was impossible to think clearly with Lion's warm body against her own. The scent of him clung to the sheets and pillows, intensifying the tight knot of melancholy in her chest.

Carefully she slipped out of her bed, deciding that the only way to think clearly would be to separate herself from Lion's presence. Drawing on a silk wrapper, Meagan padded through the house to the cozy library. She sat down behind Lion's desk and surveyed the room, letting the memories of other days return. The first meeting with Clarissa... the night Lion brought her here after her arm was cut... the time she had fallen asleep on the sofa and woke to find Lion kneeling on the floor, his cheek against her hand. So many kisses, so much laughter—even the memories of their fiery arguments made her nostalgic.