Angel's Flight (13 page)

“And then you sewed Miss Bankhead’s wedding finery until the sun went down.”

“I did. A proper mess they’d made of it.”

“How did they know you’d have exactly what was wanted in your pocket?”

“They expected it of a Dutch woman,” Angelica explained. She slipped her hand inside the pocket slit in her dress, between shift and outer garment, and again touched the consoling familiarity of scissors and pincushion. Suddenly needing to see them, she withdrew the patches and unfolded what she’d pieced together.

Jack came close. “You’ve still got your quilt top, I see.”

“Yes,” she said, smoothing her hand gently across the material. “I wonder if I will live to finish it.”

“Of course you will,” he said. Lifting her hand from the material, he kissed it with tender formality, as if it smelled of lavender and roses instead of onions.

Angelica lifted her eyes to his. They were so cool, so gray, so certain!

“I found an entire box of scraps in that corner. You might make some headway while we’re here.”

“You think I will pass time quilting? Here? In the middle of this?”

“Why not? We have candles, and you said it comforts you.” “It does. It just seems—futile.”

“Miss TenBroeck, where there’s life, there’s hope,” he said. “Come.” Taking her hands, he drew her to her feet and then, candle in hand, led her to an overflowing box. “Sit here for awhile,” he directed, “and look through these.”

***

“You were rewarded for your work, I see.”

“Yes,” said Angelica. “Ima really is a kind creature. She came up with these leather stays for me. More convenient for travel with the front laced. And look! They’re almost new.”

“Practical,” he said, studying the deer hide stays that now enclosed her slender waist.

“Did you hear anything of interest?” he asked after a pause. “About their plans, or about how many will arrive with the widow’s bridegroom?”

“Not much. The big animal that’s to marry Nancy kept coming in and staring. Then she’d snarl at me like I had been asking for his attention. In between their arguing and her saying catty things about me, I tried not to listen too much, just get on with what needed doing. Still,” she reflected, “sewing was easier than sitting around worrying about what they’re going to do to us.”

“Nothing—if I can help it,” Jack said. Then he went back to his original topic. “Did they not talk at all about Donnie Graham’s gang?”

“I don’t think there are too many of them. Whenever Ima was a little friendly, Nancy’d say Donnie just had his cousins and could hardly call it a gang. I thought the ladies were going to start pulling each other’s hair arguing over whose gang was bigger—M’Bain’s or Nancy’s father’s.”

“These gangs are something new to you?”

“Yes. I’ve never seen anything like it. I remember there were reivers when I was a child living on Schoharie Creek, but it usually was cleaned up quick enough. I remember my father and some of the neighbors hunting men who were stealing stock, but I’ve never seen doings like this.”

“Yes,” Jack agreed. “They’re sitting up here as if they’re in a castle. If I were M’Bain, I’d post a few more guards. While I was getting Hal settled and wandering around, I got a pretty good idea of where their sentries are.”

“You aren’t thinking of trying an escape, are you?” she asked, paling at the idea.

“Well,” he countered, “do you think your uncle could afford the ransom I’ve promised?”

“No.” Angelica looked glum.

“I was only buying us time, miss. You must be ready for anything.”

They were locked into the saddlebag house, or rather into the upstairs under-the-eaves sleeping part of one side. Some more civilized builder than the current occupants must have erected it. The second story ran all the way across.

The area was entered by a ladder through a trap door but, as soon as Jack and Angelica had gone up, the ladder had been removed. The building, once a handsome and solid refuge for two families who’d shared that central fireplace, now was in a sad state.

Below, one side was occupied by a random grouping of women and small children, the other by a crowd of men. For some reason or other, perhaps in order to use the attic space like a barn loft, a window had been smashed out and covered with a piece of sail.

It was the outlaw’s treasure room, one feature of which was a fine, surprisingly clean feather bed and a trunk full of linen. There were boxes overflowing with leather tack and kegs of nails, as well as a wardrobe of jackets and dresses.

There were barrels, too. The aromas surrounding them revealed what they contained. There were several of corn meal, one of salt fish and one of biscuit. Overhead dried apples hung in wizened strings along with sprigs of medicinal herbs, the usual catnip, mint and sassafras.

“And what about this—this—marriage?” Angelica finally gathered enough courage to bring it up.

“We’ll play their game,” Jack answered. “And wait for our chance to get out of here.”

“Mr. Church,” she began nervously. “Um—I don’t know what—I don’t think—”

“Don’t worry,” he repeated, giving her a look in which she thought she discerned a measure of unhappiness at her reluctance. “I give you my word that, unless you agree, I shall regard this as never having happened. Neither shall I speak of it to anyone, now or later.”

“Please don’t be offended, sir. I’m too tired for such serious subjects, too tired to think straight.”

“Certainly,” he said soothingly.

Then, after a moment’s silence in which she had removed her cap and loosened the braided coil of her thick hair, he changed the subject. “What do you think of how I’ve fixed up our prison?”

“Very comfortable,” she said smiling. “Dusty, but cleaner than downstairs, I believe.”

“We have water in the pitcher, a basin, and I even found a chamber pot in one of those trunks.” Jack smiled. “It is hiding its shameful but very necessary self behind those barrels of salt fish there.”

They washed their hands and faces. After they were done, Jack poured the used water through the roof hole. It landed with a splash at the side of the house.

Out of her pocket, Angelica fished the comb she’d been given
aboard Vanderzee’s ship. Slowly, she began to loose
n
her hair. “Allow me,” Jack said, coming to sit beside her on the bed.

Angelica was too tired to protest. And what was the sense of it anyway?

She’d already spent two nights in this man’s arms. She knew exactly how Uncle Jacob—or Cousin Arent—would make of the events of the last few days. She was entirely, completely, compromised.

Already his strong hands were in her thick hair. “I’ve been wanting this pleasure,” he said softly.

She could hear the smile in his voice.

“Isn’t it rather a task, sir?”

“To comb a beautiful woman’s beautiful hair?” He lowered his head and dropped a kiss on her shoulder.

Angelica quivered at his touch.

From impropriety to impropriety! Still, at the moment, she was too tired, too in need of comfort to care.

With all the discretion anyone could require, after that first tender salute, Jack sat back and began to comb. He did it carefully, beginning with the ends and working slowly upwards.

The light of their one small candle flickered. Although there was no fire, the afternoon heat had collected in the narrow space and the attic was still warm.

“Now, this is treasure,” said Jack softly. He was moving the comb freely, sweeping through the whole length, following each stroke of the comb with a stroke of his own. “Is the color from your Mama?”

“No,” Angelica replied, leaning back. “‘Tis from my Papa, who was pure Dutch. I have a lock of his hair and a lock of Mama’s, too. Hers was chestnut.”

From her mother, née Margaret Livingston, came Scots, English and German blood, as well as Dutch.

“Your father must’ve been a handsome man.”

“Oh, he was,” Angelica said. “Far more handsome than Uncle Jacob or Cousin Arent. He was not so broad or square, but a fine figure of a man. Even if he’d lived, I don’t think he’d have got plump like them.”

The amusement over her shoulder was almost palpable.

“Pure gold,” he said. “The proverbial Dutch gold.”

“Thank you for the compliment, sir.” The reply held a formality it was hard to feel. She didn’t want to be rude, but his touch was relaxing her toward badly needed sleep.

Capable hands gently and firmly turned her around to face him. His gray eyes were full of tenderness and something that looked— alarmingly—like desire.

“Prepare yourself, Miss Angel TenBroeck. I am going to ask your uncle for your hand.”

Jack smiled at her as if he could, at a time of his choosing, grow wings and simply fly away from the Clove, free as a bird. Speechless, a thousand desires clamoring, she studied the man before her.

“Don’t play shy maiden. You gave away the game on the Judik.”

His speech came from the vain, fan-fluttering world of the ballroom. Here, now, alone in this attic cage, with danger multiplied a thousand times...

“Say yes.” In the next instant he’d caught her close, begun to hungrily kiss her.

There was loss of will inside the circle of his arms. Crushed against his chest, she felt his urgency. As her lips helplessly parted, his tongue came, bringing something sweet and tender. She quivered and let him, for it was like it had been at the inn, where the taste and smell of him had roused an identical hunger.

After a long, deep drink at her lips, his attention shifted. Earlier,
she’d removed the new leather stays and the shawl to wash, and now her neck, throat, and high bosom were exposed. He lowered his blonde head to salute her breasts, lips tenderly grazing the white swell above the dress.

“Stop!” She knew what would happen if she let this go on. Her voice was faint and she was blushing mightily, the blush that follows a deep penetration of pleasure.

Hands on his broad shoulders, she tried to push him away. “No more,” she whispered. “We mustn’t.”

“Where is my yes?” he murmured. Then, lowering his fair head again, he went back to her breasts.

Strong arms held her close while his lips began a game, softly touching the muslin below, then the bare flesh above, a kind of blind man’s bluff that unerringly discovered her nipples. He lingered, lips gently tracing, teasing the answering hardness.

He was the one who ended it. Suddenly, he was gazing into her eyes, expelling a sigh whose playfulness imperfectly disguised a genuine frustration.

“That, I think,” he said, “was a fine yes.”

He placed one last worshipful kiss upon the bare flesh of her neck, while Angelica shifted and sighed.

“And I also think it clear,” he continued, “that you and I run a terrible risk if we are not married as soon as possible.”

The unearthly gray eyes lifted and met hers. Angelica had never experienced anything like the desire she saw there.

“Yes,” she heard herself whisper. “Yes, Jack.” The sound of her heart knocking against her ribs had drummed out all will, all reason.

“Mmm,” he murmured, pulling her against him to take another deep draught of her mouth.

When the kiss came to a breathless end, Jack caressed her cheek and murmured close against her lips, “I am greatly, greatly honored, Miss Angel TenBroeck.”

Joy illuminated his ghostly eyes. If he’d laid her down now, swept up her skirts and slipped one of his strong hands between her legs, she knew she would not have been able to muster the faintest protest.

Instead, Jack set a chaste kiss upon her forehead. “There,” he murmured. “I shall braid your hair and we shall sleep together just as we did at Tarrytown, somewhere very close to bliss, but innocent all the same.”

“I don’t think being close is a good idea.” Although weary almost to dumbness, Angelica heard herself rally, try to push away some of
what he had made happen, try to regain her distance.

The gray eyes flashed merriment. “I can control myself, miss,” he teased. “It is you, I think, who needs to cool.”

With that, Jack took her shoulders in those strong hands and turned her around again. Although his breathing was quicker than usual, he seemed determined to go on with his braiding.

“Jack, this is madness,” she said after a dizzy moment in which she felt his fingers deftly at work in her heavy hair. “You are crazy. And I am crazy for—for what I just said, what I just did. I cannot marry with a Tory.”

“Of course you can,” he replied. “We shall have splendid political arguments which you will nearly always win. Then I shall resort to the only pitiful tactic of which I am capable. I shall stop your mouth with kisses and carry you to bed where I shall convince you of nothing, except that you enjoy what I do between your pretty legs.”

“Hush!” she exclaimed. “Don’t say such things. We can’t be married. I beg you to stop talking of it!”

“Angel, it’s only your reason that’s debating.”

“Shouldn’t I listen to my reason?”