Triumph (32 page)

“To Ian! I’ll tell him we’ve had a lover’s quarrel.”

“The hell you will!” he retorted.

He could feel the defiance in every inch of her body, but he had no intention of letting her go. He drew her tightly against himself, one arm pinning her against his length, the other catching her chin.

She meant to protest—wildly. But he didn’t allow her to. His mouth crushed down upon hers and he gave her no mercy. She tasted blood where their lips met. His fingers tangled into her hair, holding her, and his tongue pressed past her lips, deep into the crevices of her mouth. He felt her breasts against his chest with her every breath, felt the heat within, the pulsing of her heart, the shivering that had seized her. And he allowed no quarter, could give no quarter, for it was suddenly a battle he meant to win. She tasted sweetly of the evening’s wine, of warmth, of slow-building fire, and it seemed, in a matter of seconds, that her lips were molding to his, that they had parted of their accord, that he no longer battled the wall of her teeth for the depths of his kiss.

She was no longer straining against him. Her hands lay upon his chest, but not with struggle or resistance, and when he lifted his mouth from hers at last, her eyes were closed, dark lashes sweeping her cheeks.

“Tia.”

She didn’t open her eyes. She had decided to play the martyr, he realized, and he couldn’t help smiling, because he could see the erratic pulse point beating a mile a minute at her throat. “I have married you, Taylor, and therefore will pay my debts.”

His smile deepened. “That you will, Mrs. Douglas!”

He lifted her, swinging her into his arms. With a little gasp, she clasped him around the neck, afraid she would fall. He took the few steps that led to the camp bed and lay down with her, not about to give her another chance to rise. She let out an indignant and garbled protest when he rolled her over to find the buttons at the back of her blouse. “Want to destroy the garment?” he demanded. “I don’t know just how many outfits I’ll be able to find out here in the midst of nearly nowhere in the middle of the war!” he warned her.

She went still for a moment; he undid the last of the buttons. He could still taste her lips, feel her ...

He eased the blouse from her. Still at her back, he slipped his arms around her, his hands cupping her breasts. His palms slid over the hard peaks of her nipples, and he feathered the aureoles with the tip of his fingers, stroked them softly, cradled the fullness of her breasts. He pressed his lips to her throat, to the pulse there, and felt the thundering fever of his own arousal begin to pound within him. He stroked the length of her spine slowly with his tongue, and found the buttons to her skirt, opened them, rose enough to drag the garment away. He sat up, drawing his shirt over his head, and cradling her into his arms once again, turning her, so that the stream of her black hair fell away and her breasts teased the flesh of his chest. Her eyes were closed again. He allowed her that, kissing her eyelids, finding her mouth again. Her lips gave way easily to his; he felt her hand upon his shoulder, upon his cheek, touching him, and this time, he felt that her lips melded naturally to his, that she sought as much as she gave, quested, searched.

The length of her shaped itself naturally against him. Their flesh melted together in a sweet inferno. He slid down her body, bathing the tips of her breasts with his tongue, taking the nipples into his mouth, teasing, stroking, sucking, drawing from her lips an exhaled gasp. Her fingers dug into his shoulder. He continued to move against her, nuzzling the satin of her belly, drawing lower, feeling the shaking in the length of her, finding the center of her sex, touching it with his tongue, breathing in the musky scent of sex, tasting the woman, rising to an anguish of desire. His sex throbbed against his trousers. He jerked them open to free himself, shimmying from the length of them, kicking them to the floor. She barely moved, barely breathed, then he touched her, and touched her again, and suddenly she was shaking, and writhing against his wet caress, and murmuring, protesting ... arching against him. He rose, and hovered over her.

Her eyes were closed.

No mercy ... and yet, he would allow her that.

He sank slowly into her, and began shaking with the depths of desire she had awakened within him. She went rigid; her nails scraped his chest and she gasped, twisting her head. He saw that she bit into her lower lip to keep from crying out, and for a moment he was shamed, remembering. She had dared the world, risked life and limb—she knew so much about men and war, and yet she was so innocent. He closed his own eyes, feeling the force of his desire trembling like a drumbeat through him. He fought for control, moved slowly, slowly, sheathed in warmth and fever, wanting her ... every muscle in his body tortured and rigid. Slowly, slowly, deeper, withdrawing, deeper ...

Her fingers tightened upon him. Breath escaped her lips. His rhythm increased, and the fierce anguish in his limbs burned with a greater fever as he sank again, and again, and felt the subtle change in the woman beneath him, the hunger awakened in her, the way she began to move, arching to his stroke, accepting, taking ...

Wanting.

He cradled her hand against him, and the fever that swept him seemed to take them like the power of the wind. Guns might have thundered, swords might have clashed, the world and war might have exploded around him, and he would have given them not a care. Compulsion ruled him, the searing need, the desperate desire to reach the pinnacle. He had seen her, yes, he had known her, tasted her kiss, tasted her flesh. He hadn’t imagined that she could drive him so far, reach so deeply into him, bring him to a fulfillment of something more than he had expected or known. Sleek, damp, twisting, moving ... she suddenly strained against him, and he shuddered into her, and into her, and into her again, flooding her with his seed, with the force of his climax. He fell to her side, pulling her into his arms again, and lay there panting, wondering what she had done to him, what spell she had cast upon him, why there was something so unique about her that ...

That he could forget.

Not just feel hunger, want sex. But forget ...

The sound of gunfire. The war all around him. Abby ... running.

Abby ...

The blood on his hands.

He lay in silence. So did she. Soft tangled webs of ebony hair lay upon his chest. The top of her head was beneath him. He couldn’t see her face. Although he’d been almost violently certain he hadn’t wanted a wife, he couldn’t regret the events of the night. He had wanted Tia McKenzie. She wasn’t a lonely widow, divorcee, or prostitute. She was Jarrett McKenzie’s daughter, Ian’s sister. There was only one way to have such a woman. Marry her.

She was also Godiva, he reminded himself, and he suddenly felt a greater anger at that fact. She still didn’t realize what she had risked, even after tonight.

“Do you think you’re going to survive marriage?” he queried.

“Don’t!” she whispered.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t—talk. Don’t, I beg you, add insult to injury!”

Insult to injury? She had taken a heady slug at his masculine dignity and pride, and he wasn’t going to ignore it. He turned to her, finding her face hidden in a web of her hair. He delved through it, smoothing it to the side, capturing her hands when she tried to twist away. Being Tia, she put up a fight. He straddled her, leaning low, pinning her wrists down, meeting her eyes. “You were injured?” he demanded.

“This was your idea!” she accused him.

“Marriage was your idea.”

“But this—”

“This goes with marriage!”

He saw that her thick dark lashes were spiked with unshed tears. Compassion and anger stirred within him simultaneously. “You were wishing for a gallant Southern gentleman, I take it?”

“You were thinking of your wife!” she accused him in a pained whisper.

Something seemed to thud against the wall of his chest.

“You are my wife now,” he told her quietly.

“I have married the enemy.”

“So have many women. You will survive it.”

“Will I? Will we survive the war?” she asked, and her voice sounded desperate, pained, frightened. He suddenly knew her vulnerability, and the courage it had taken to do the things she’d done. And prickly little enemy that she was, he wanted to protect her.

Enemy ... wife.
His
wife.

“Yes! We will survive! I will see to it!” he promised her. Her eyes were beautiful. Shimmering mahogany. And for once, she looked up at him as if she trusted him. He leaned down to kiss her again, and her lips were salty with the taste of tears. But she made no protest to his kiss; indeed, she kissed him in return with a sweet, hungry yearning. Kissed him, and kissed him ...

It was he who raised his lips. “Insult to injury?” he queried huskily.

“Must you always talk?”

He smiled. “Certain talk has its place ...” he murmured. “Such as ... madam, I love the way you move. I love the way you look, the scent of you, and though other wives might be cold and dutiful, making love swathed in voluminous nightgowns, I would not dream of enduring such a situation, since you are quite stunningly beautiful, and you seduce by your very existence.”

Her ebony dark eyes were upon him, still glittering with a certain moisture, but his words brought a rueful smile to her lips.

“I don’t
dislike
you, Taylor.”

“With endearments like that, it is amazing that I can control my ardor at all!”

Her smile deepened. “Taylor?”

“Yes?”

Her cheeks were flushed. She wet her lips. “You ... are ... it’s not so awful to be with you. You’re right ... you’ve somewhat seduced me before. I don’t think that I could have been with anyone else ... as I am with you.”

“Thank God!” he said.

She was dreaming again. She saw the big white house with the grand entry. Then the toddler, the boy, the beautiful child, was on the balcony ...

Falling, falling, falling ...

She awoke screaming. Once again, her mother-in-law was there, waking her, holding her, arms around her, assurances coming softly from her lips. “It’s all right, it’s a dream, and we’ll take care, we know it’s a warning. We’ll warn everyone we know with a little boy, Rhiannon. It will be all right, really.”

Her mother-in law wasn’t the only one with her. Alaina was there as well, holding little Conar, who screamed in resentment at being awakened again.

“I’m so sorry!” Rhiannon said, “I keep waking you ... causing so much trouble.”

“Waking isn’t trouble, Rhiannon,” her mother-in-law assured her.

“I just wish that we could help you somehow. Tell us about it,” Alaina said. “Perhaps if you talk it out, detail by detail ...”

And so, Rhiannon talked. Detail by detail. She described all that she had seen in her dream, all that recurred, all that was new.

And when she had finished. Alaina was as pale as the sheets. Her eyes were immense, their deep blue in stark contrast to the ashen shade of her cheeks.

“Alaina, what is it?” her mother-in-law asked with alarm.

“I know the house!” Alaina said. “I know the house she is describing.”

When Tia awoke, she was alone, and she lay pensive on the cot for a long time.

The events of the evening seemed overwhelming and unbelievable to her at first. But with the increasing daylight, they became very real.

She didn’t dislike Taylor. She was often furious with him, very often wished she could just slap him once really good and force him to listen to her point of view. But he had always intrigued her. And it was true that she had been strangely drawn to him from the beginning, true that she had been fascinated by him, that she had wanted to touch the bronze texture of his flesh. True, she had never imagined that anyone could awaken in her the sensations she had learned in her first night at his side. True, she was even anxious to see him again, feel his gold eyes upon her again, and feel again that sense that she was his, somehow protected, even cherished ...

Even if he hadn’t wanted another wife.

Remembering where she was, she rose quickly then, anxious to wash and dress. A bucket of fresh water and a towel had been left by the camp desk; she assumed they were for her. She also found Taylor’s brush in the first compartment of his trunk, and she struggled to brush the mass of tangles out of her hair and wind it into the semblance of a neat chignon.

After making herself presentable, she stepped outside the tent. Sergeant Henson sat on a makeshift chair constructed out of a fallen log, and he whittled a little wooden figure as he tended a fire with a coffeepot. He looked up as she exited the tent, greeting her cheerfully.

“Good morning, Mrs. Douglas.” He knew a great deal about her, she mused. What had he thought of her last night, having suddenly arrived in Taylor’s tent—and becoming a wife in a large white uniform shirt?

Whatever he thought, he could not have been more cheerful or polite.

“Good morning.”

“There’s a meeting this morning, occurring in the doctor’s tent since your husband wanted to let you sleep.”

Because Taylor wanted to let her sleep? She doubted it.
Because no one wanted her around while they discussed Yankee strategy!

“Thank you, Sergeant.”

“Coffee?”

“I would love some.”

He poured her a cup, and she sipped it. It was the best coffee she had tasted in a very long time. “Sergeant, is my brother involved in the meeting, too?”

“Why, of course. Your brother arrived with despatches and information, Mrs. Douglas.”

“I see.” Information they would assuredly not share with her.

Of course, they were both the enemy—her brother, her husband. It didn’t seem real.

She looked across the camp of army-issue tents, hitching lines for the healthy horses still held by the Union, fires, and men. From a large, extended bleached canvas tent, she suddenly saw a woman hurrying across the grounds. She was young, thin, attractive, and seemed to be coming straight toward them.

“Sergeant,” she said softly. “Who is that?”

“Cecilia Bryer, the doc’s daughter. A fine young lady, at his side throughout this fight!”