You Belong to My Heart (25 page)

His silver eyes as cold as ice, he said, “When will you learn that it is dangerous for you to be out alone at night?” He inclined his dark head toward the end of the block, where a gathering of Union soldiers was growing. “You’d do well to believe it. See all those soldiers? They are lonely men, far from home. You’re asking for trouble.”

Mary Ellen snapped, “The only danger I’m in is in my own home!” Her jaw rigid, she stepped around him and the big black stallion and again headed off at a fast, determined pace.

For long moment Captain Knight stood there in the deepening dusk, watching her. He shook his dark head and his eyes narrowed. What a haughty little hypocrite she was. Last night, when there had been no risk of being found out, she’d been his willing and eager lover. Now, it seemed, she preferred to forget that it had happened. Well, he wasn’t going to let her forget.

A faint smile again touching his lips, Clay Knight decided that for as long as he remained in Memphis, Tennessee, the mansion and its mistress were his. And he would continue to occupy both.

Leading his stallion and keeping his distance, the Captain followed Mary Ellen to make sure she got home safely. He stopped at Longwood’s front gate, watched in wry amusement as she lifted her long skirts and flew up the steps. She disappeared through the tall fan-lighted doors with flashing flounce of white petticoats.

Once inside the house, Mary Ellen stopped in the kitchen only long enough to prepare a quick, cold supper on a tray. She carried it upstairs, hurried into her room, and locked the bedroom door. She tensed every time she heard the smallest noise, afraid it was the Captain climbing the stairs.

An hour passed. Two.

Exhausted, Mary Ellen went to bed. But she didn’t go to sleep. Lying there alone in the hot darkness, she was tortured by the knowledge that Captain Knight either was—or would soon be—just across the hall. His close proximity presented both a nagging threat and a powerful temptation.

Much as she hated to admit it, last night’s love-making had been thrilling beyond belief. So incredibly exciting, it was impossible to forget. And equally impossible not to yearn for more of the same.

Impossible not to consider that all she would have to do to experience such glorious ecstasy again would be to get out of bed, cross the hall, and slip into his suite. She seriously doubted that he would turn her down. Was almost certain he would take her in his arms and make languid, lustful love to her.

Mary Ellen turned over impatiently, looked at the windows beside her bed to make sure they were open to catch any breeze off the river. They were. But it was close and hot in her room. Not a breath of air stirred the curtains, and she felt moisture collecting in the valley between her breasts and at the backs of her knees.

She kicked the top sheet to the foot of the bed, pulled the bodice of her nightgown away from her heated flesh, and blew down inside. It didn’t help.

She sighed.

And she pictured the Captain lying naked in the darkness just across the all. Pictured the thick raven black hair ruffling on the white pillow. The hard, handsome face with its cruel, sensual mouth. The corded artery that throbbed on the tanned column of his throat. The bare brown shoulders that were wide and well-muscled. The strong brown hands resting against the whiteness of the sheets. The chest with its mat of curling black hair. The drum-tight abdomen. The boyishly slim hips. The long, lean-muscled legs.

Her breath growing short, her top lip beaded with perspiration, Mary Ellen got out of bed. Irritably she unbuttoned her white nightgown. Blaming the hot gown for her discomfort, she drew it up over her head and off. She blotted the perspiration from her slender body with the garment, then dropped it to the rug.

Naked, she crawled back into bed.

But she was no cooler than before.

She tossed and turned, telling herself she did
not
want the Captain. She didn’t want to go to him. She didn’t want him to come to her. She wanted to forget last night had ever happened.

She
would
forget.

Punching her pillow, Mary Ellen murmured, “Damn you, Captain Knight! Damn you to hell! It’ll be a cold day in July before I let you touch me again.”

W
HILE THE BLOODY WAR
Between the States raged across the Southland, a different kind of war raged in the big white mansion on the bluffs of the Mississippi River.

Mary Ellen valiantly battled her involuntary attraction to Captain Knight and his overpowering male-ness. But with little success. In a totally different way he was every bit as captivating to her as when he was a young boy. There was now a cold dignity about him, an unshakable strength that was incredibly appealing.

He was so very handsome, and he had the look and manner of a man who was used to getting his way. He was all potent virility, all hard muscle and masculine planes and angles. His presence was so strong, so compelling, Mary Ellen could sense his closeness before she saw him. She could feel with a kind of electrifying thrill the pressure of his silver-gray eyes upon her.

Still, she reminded herself often that this tall, commanding Union officer was—and always had been—a ruthless man who had no aversion to breaking promises and hearts for his own personal gain.

For his part, Captain Knight made no attempt to temper his appetite for the beautiful blond aristocrat who had jilted him to run off to London with the wealthy, worthless Daniel Lawton.

Captain Knight wanted her and made no bones about it. He was a man of strong animal hungers, but he didn’t regard his passion as having anything to do with love. He was impatient to have Mary back in his arms, back in his bed, but never back in his heart.

A capable officer at ease in a position of authority, Knight was confident he could conquer the beautiful Mary Preble. Her unconditional surrender was imminent; he would see to it. In pursuit of that goal, he altered his schedule, his regular routine. He managed frequently to get in Mary’s way. And under her skin. And when he caught her alone, the determined Captain turned up the heat.

There was no safe place for her to hide.

One Sunday afternoon Mary Ellen, bored and restless, weary of being shut up in her bedroom, ventured downstairs. She glanced cautiously into the spacious dining room that Captain Knight had set up as his main command post. She’d come to think of it as the War Room, and she knew that when the Yankee Captain was there with his men, discussing strategy and going over the battlefield maps spread out on the long dining table, he was completely engrossed.

The Captain now stood on the far side of the long table. He was leaning over, tapping a spot on a spread map with one long forefinger while speaking in a low, deep voice to the uniformed men gathered around the dining table.

He didn’t look up.

Comfortable that neither the Captain nor any of his men had seen her, Mary Ellen tiptoed away. She hurried into her father’s study, chose a leather-bound book from the shelves, and started to go back upstairs. But she stopped and considered the fact that Captain Knight was totally absorbed in the business of war, was unlikely to leave the dining room for several hours.

Mary Ellen hurried out the back door, skipped down the steps, crossed the north lawn, and moved past the marble-faced sundial to the vine-covered summerhouse on the lower terrace.

She sat down on one of the long white matching settees that faced each other, sighed with the simple joy of being outdoors on a beautiful summer day, opened her book, and began to read
Pride and Prejudice.

But before she had finished a full page she felt the hot, muggy air come alive with that unmistakable electricity. She knew, before she looked up, that Captain Knight was somewhere close.

A shadow fell across the entrance of the latticed gazebo. Mary Ellen felt a tremor of excitement, felt her pulse quicken. She slowly raised her head. The tall dark Captain stood there looking down at her, unsmiling.

He ducked his head, stepped inside, dropped down onto the settee opposite her. He took the book from her hands and laid it aside.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” she asked irritably, commanding her heartbeat to slow, her hands not to shake.

“Just this,” he said. With a swiftness that caught her off guard, he reached out, wrapped his long fingers around the backs of her knees through her full skirts, and drew her forward to the edge of the settee.

“Will you please—” Her breath caught when he bent his dark head and placed a warm, open-lipped kiss to the pale flesh exposed in the unbuttoned lace-trimmed collar of her summer dress. Mary Ellen winced and forcefully pushed him away. She leapt up, but he caught her skirt, trapped her.

Her dark eyes flashing black fire, she slapped at his hand and said, “Either you let me go this minute or I’ll scream.”

“No, you won’t,” he said with that cool, infuriating confidence, and drew her down onto his right knee, wrapping a long arm around her waist.

“I will, so help me,” she threatened, pushing on his broad chest, struggling to free herself.

“Go ahead,” he challenged, took her chin in his hand, turned her face toward his, and kissed the sensitive side of her throat.

“Please. Don’t,” she said, some of the venom going out of her tone. “I mean it. Stop it.”

The Captain didn’t stop.

His lips continued to kiss a hot path up to her ear, and his hand released her chin, moved down, settled gently, caressingly, on her breast.

His even white teeth worrying her dainty earlobe, he whispered, “I want to undress you and make love to here in the summerhouse, Mary.”

“You are insane,” she managed, a little breathlessly, brushing his hand from her breast. “If you think for one minute that I—”

The sentence was never finished. He silenced her with his lips, and as much as Mary Ellen tried not to respond to his passion, she didn’t quite succeed. His devastating kiss disarmed her, and the first thing she knew, the Captain had lifted her feet up into the settee, settled her more comfortably in his arms, and flipped her skirts and petticoats up over her stockinged legs. And his hand was stroking her thigh directly above her blue satin garter.

When he began deftly to unbutton her bodice, Mary Ellen finally came to her senses.

Blinking and shaking her blond head, she said, “No…we can’t…I won’t…I have to get back to the house!”

“Then be still,” the Captain ordered, and looking directly into her dark, flashing eyes, he leisurely rebuttoned her bodice and lowered her raised skirts. “Now you may go, Mary.”

She jumped up off his knee and glared at him when he caught her wrist. “I want you, Mary,” he said, the deep timbre of his voice sending tingling chills up her spine. “And I will have you. I’ll make love to you in ways you can’t even imagine.”

“You filthy, depraved beast, I will not listen to—”

“You want it as well, Mary. I know you do. Come to me tonight. Come and I’ll be waiting.”

She clawed at the firm fingers imprisoning her wrist and told him adamantly, “You’ll have a long wait, Captain!”

“Maybe.” He shrugged negligently. “Maybe not nearly as long as you think.”

“Oh!” She wrenched free of his grasp and whirled away. She could hear his easy laughter as she ran across the lawn to the house. It was the first time she had heard the stony-faced Captain Knight laugh, and he was laughing at her! Well, let him laugh. She’d be the one laughing when he waited in vain for her tonight!

Mary Ellen kept to her room for the rest of the day. When night came she listened, straining, tensed. Finally, shortly after nine o’clock, she heard the door across the hall open, then close. And she smiled wickedly to herself. The restless Yankee Captain had
never
retired this early before. She knew the reason he did so tonight. He actually had the unmitigated gall to expect her to come across the hall and submissively climb into bed with him. The arrogant bastard.

Mary Ellen felt almost light-hearted as she undressed for bed. The egotistical Captain Knight was waiting for her, and he could go right on waiting till hell froze over!

He had laughed derisively when she’d run from the summerhouse, but he wasn’t laughing now.

She was.

Mary Ellen felt as if she had won a very important battle of wills. The insolent Captain Knight supposed that she was so foolish and so weak and so helplessly attracted to him that he need do nothing more than snap his long brown fingers and she would come running. What a laugh! She could go for the rest of her life without his ever touching her again, and she fully intended to do just that.

Mary Ellen smiled as she blew out the lamp and got into the bed. It was great fun knowing that she was the one who had had the last laugh.

Her triumph didn’t last long.

Mary Ellen stepped out into the corridor early the next morning and came face-to-face with the handsome, immaculate, uniformed Captain Knight. He was leaning against the wall just outside her door, long arms crossed over his broad chest, one black-booted foot raised and crossed over the other.

“Mornin’, Mary,” he said as casually as if it were an everyday occurrence. Thunderstruck, she stared openmouthed as he uncrossed his arms and pushed away from the wall. With the speed of a striking serpent, he swept her up into his arms.

His dark face descending to hers, he said, “Perhaps you’re one of those women who prefers making love in the morning.”

Before she could answer, his lips captured hers in an overpowering kiss of such fierce heat and passion, her knees buckled. Her whimpering protests were barely audible beneath his covering, conquering mouth. Quick as a wink he maneuvered her back inside her bedroom and closed the door behind them.

The determined Captain Knight kept kissing Mary Ellen, and he held her so close to his tall, hard frame that she felt the shiny brass buttons of his uniform blouse digging into her tender breasts. A trousered knee was wedged between her legs, leaving Mary Ellen achingly aware of the hard muscle and bone pressing the folds of her full skirts against her groin.

The mouth covering hers was too capable, too captivating; the body crushed against hers was too virile, too blatantly male. Mary Ellen stopped struggling in his arms and clung to him. His lips finally released hers, he raised his head and looked into her dark eyes.