My Lady Vixen (35 page)

“Oh, Mac, you mean the war will be decided by this one battle?” Alexa sparkled.

“It’s very likely,” Adam forestalled Mac’s answer. “We’re bound to beat the English with so large a force. From there it’s on to New York where Cornwallis is holed up. The end is in sight, my love.”

“When must you leave?” Alexa asked shakily, unwilling to part with him so soon. She hadn’t even told him yet about the baby.

“In a day or two, as soon as the
Ghost
arrives.”

Alexa nodded solemnly, swallowing the lump forming in her throat. “I understand,” she said, blinking her eyes rapidly to dispel the tears gathering there.

Later they shared an excellent supper and then continued their visit over coffee and brandy. It was late when Drake and Mac returned to their ships and Adam and Alexa were allowed to escape to the privacy of their room.

Needing no words to express what they both felt,
Adam undressed her leisurely, her senses fully awakened by his touch. They made love slowly, reverently, almost as if it were their first time, or their last. Words of love flowed freely, unhampered by mistrust or deception. Alexa knew she had no experience for comparison; to her it was an instinctive knowledge that only in Adam’s arms could her body, her mind, her love, find such perfect joy.

No other lips had the ability to tease, caress, and titillate as did Adam’s. No other hands had the power to elicit so dramatic a response as they explored, parted, probed the secret places of her body. And when he finally pushed his way inside her, she welcomed him with a throaty purr, feeling his desire swelling within her.

Beneath his mouth the rosy tips of her breasts surged and stood erect as his forceful thrusts carried her from darkness into blinding light. When he grasped the rounded mounds of her buttocks to still her mindless writhing as he labored to bring them both to climax, Alexa cried out her joy into the stillness of the night. Only when her tremors ceased did Adam allow his own passion free rein and join her.

They lay closely entwined in the aftermath, basking in contentment and filled with awe at their total surrender to each other. It was a perfect time in which to tell Adam about the baby, Alexa smiled drowsily. But the words she formed in her mind were never uttered.

Both Adam and Alexa were startled from their euphoria by a loud banging on the door and angry voices calling out to them. Alexa froze, recalling that day so long ago when she had been disturbed in the same manner. The day she and Mac had been carted off to prison.

“Open up!” a loud voice demanded. “Open in the name of the king or we’ll break the door down!”

“Oh God, Adam! They know!” Alexa wailed, clinging to Adam. “You must get away.”

“We know you’re in there Fox! You too. Vixen! You won’t escape so easily this time!”

“They want us both,” Adam said grimly, pulling on his trousers. “I have to get you out of here, my love. Hurry, slip into your robe. I won’t allow them to take you again!”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to stall them while you go out through the study doors to the cove where the
Lady
A and
My Lady Vixen
are anchored.”

“Adam, no!” protested Alexa. “I won’t leave without you!”

The men outside began battering down the door and in desperation Adam grasped Alexa’s slim shoulders in an effort to shake some sense into her. “Use your head, Alexa! I’m better prepared to take care of myself than you are! There are ways and means to escape as long as I don’t have you to worry about. Go!” he ordered, shoving her roughly. “I want you out of here before they break down the door. Hurry,” he called, “tell Mac what happened. And Alexa, I love you!”

Then he was out the door and racing down the steps, sword raised high in a futile effort that did little more than allow Alexa sufficient time to run into the study and out the French doors—into the waiting arms of Charles Whitlaw!

Beneath the relentless barrage the door finally splintered and broke apart. Adam was momentarily stunned but not surprised to find nearly twenty men storming through the shattered opening. With sinking heart he realized there was no possible escape this time for the Fox. Maintaining his stance at the foot of the curving staircase. Adam fought bravely but from the onset he knew there could be but one outcome. His one burning desire was for Alexa’s escape and that once Mac and Drake learned of his plight they might join forces to rescue him much in the same way he had once spirited Mac and Alexa out from under the noses of the English.

It took a wound in the side and another in the shoulder to subdue Adam, and even then it required four men to pin him down. “Up the stairs!” ordered the lieutenant in charge. “Find the Vixen! I want them both!”

After several long minutes, minutes in which Adam hoped Alexa would make good her escape, the men surged down the stairs to report no one but servants on
the upper floors. “Where is she?” asked the lieutenant, prodding Adam with the tip of his boot. “We know the Vixen is here and we know who she is, so don’t try to lie.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Adam retorted, feigning ignorance. “There was no one here but my mistress and she returned to Charleston earlier today.”

“We know better,” snarled the lieutenant. “Lady Gwen told the General everything. By now it is common knowledge that Lord Penwell is the Fox and his wife the Vixen.”

“Gwen,” spat Adam contemptuously. “I might have known. It’s too late, gentlemen, there is no one here but myself.”

The entire house was searched thoroughly, and when the study doors were discovered open the grounds were searched as well as the slave quarters. Next the fields, outbuildings and surrounding woods were scoured while Adam lay in a ever widening pool of congealing blood, praying that Alexa would not be found and that the secret cove where the
Lady
A and
My Lady Vixen
lay at anchor would remain undiscovered.

With the advent of dawn the search intensified and the path through the woods leading to the secret cove was indeed discovered. But when the troops stood at the edge of the water not a ship was in sight, and Adam rejoiced when he heard the news, too sorely wounded to realize that had his friends known he was in trouble they would have come to his aid. Only then did he allow weakness and loss of blood to overcome him as he slid gratefully into darkness.

Alexa squirmed and struggled but the arms holding her were too strong. Panic seized her as she realized she
was caught as well as Adam and she could do nothing to help him. Now Mac and Drake would have no way of knowing what had happened tonight until they returned to the house and questioned the servants. By then it might be too late.

“Don’t struggle so, Alexa. I won’t hurt you,” said a voice she had thought never to hear again.

“Charles!” Alexa gasped. “How could it be?”

Immediately a large hand was clamped over her mouth. “Quiet, damn you! Do you want that stupid lieutenant to take you back to hang?”

His words confused her. Why would Charles want to save her after what she did to him? Hadn’t he heard she was the Vixen? And how had he escaped from a northern prison?

Alexa ceased her struggling as Charles drew her deeper into the woods where he had two horses tethered and waiting. “Up you go,” he boosted her. Then he surprised her further by tying her hands to the pommel with his scarf. His eyes raked her thinly clad body insolently one long moment before he sprang on his own horse and grasped the reins of Alexa’s mount, urging them both through the dark woods. They were miles down the road by the time the English soldiers took their search outside the house and into the surrounding area.

Alexa jogged behind Charles for over an hour until finally they came to a small house located on a deserted street on the outskirts of Savannah. He halted before the gate, untied Alexa’s hands, helped her dismount and pulled her inside the darkened interior. He left her for a moment or two while he lit a lamp, then turned back to study her features.

“So it is true,” he muttered, eyeing her blond hair with barely concealed lust. “I could hardly credit it when
Lady Gwen announced to one and all that the Vixen was alive and none other than Lady Alexa Foxworth.”

“Why is it so difficult to believe?” asked Alexa curiously.

“It seemed impossible that the bewitching lady who bested me in a duel could be the same woman I was once engaged to. I had no idea your body was so lovely until I saw you aboard your ship in that revealing costume. Even as I cursed you I wanted you. You were magnificent standing proud and defiant on the quarterdeck.”

“The last I saw of you you were on your way north to prison,” Alexa said. “What happened to bring you back here? Did you escape?”

Charles snorted. “I spent six miserable months incarcerated in New York before I was exchanged and returned to Savannah. During those bleak months I was unable to cast the Vixen from my mind. I vowed one day we would meet again and when we did I’d have her—in my bed, writhing beneath me.”

Have her? Alexa asked herself fuming. My God, what did he intend? “I thought you hated me, Charles. You said as much when you visited me in my prison cell.”

“That was before I knew you were the Vixen. I was devastated to learn Vixen was dead, but when Lady Gwen informed us otherwise! knew I could not let you hang. When I knew you as Alexa you were nothing to me but a contemptible traitor, unworthy of my pity. But then I met the Vixen, and though she defeated me I could not rest until I had conquered her just as she did me.”

“If you have any feeling at all for me, Charles, let me go so I can help Adam. They’ll hang him for sure and I can’t let that happen. I love him.”

“Of course they’ll hang him,” allowed Charles dryly. “I’m counting on it.”

“What do you intend for me?”

“My ship is being sent back to English waters and you’ll be on it. By the time we reach our destination the Fox, or Adam Foxworth, if you will, will already be dead. We’ll marry as we were meant to years ago.”

“You’re crazy, Charles, I’ll never agree to marry you! Besides, you already have a wife.”

“My wife died in childbirth recently,” Charles announced without remorse. “I am free to marry again.”

“I won’t do it!”

“Would you rather die beside your husband?”

“Aye! There’s no shame in dying for something you believe in.” But then Alexa thought of the child she carried, Adam’s child. Could she condemn an innocent baby to death? Perplexed, she bit her lip, struggling for an answer.

Charles must have gleaned something of her thoughts, for he asked, “What is it. Alexa? What is bothering you? Are you afraid to face death?”

“N-no, it’s not that,” hesitated Alexa.

“Then what? What is worrying you?”

“Charles, I’m pregnant. I’m expecting Adam’s baby. I don’t mind dying for myself but to condemn an innocent baby …”

Charles’s eyes gleamed as he silently appraised Alexa’s slim form barely concealed beneath the folds of the thin nightgown and robe. “Then it’s settled, we’ll marry after you’ve given birth. We’ll farm it out and one day have children of our own.”

“No Charles,” Alexa resisted firmly. “I’ll not give my child up nor will I marry you, even if it costs me my life.”

“And the life of your baby as well?”

“Not even then. The Vixen has taught me a lot of things, one of which is to fight for the right to live as I see fit. Never again will I become a victim. If I must die for my convictions then so be it.”

“Those are rather lofty words. Alexa,” Charles declared.

“I mean them, Charles, so you may as well turn me in now if you intend to force me to marry you and give up my child.”

Alexa has indeed changed. Charles mused silently when the stubborn tilt of her chin told him she was fully prepared to thwart his desires by going to the gallows. But there were more ways than one to change her way of thinking, he thought deviously. “What would you do to save Adam from the hangman? How far would you go?” he asked slyly.

“Charles! My God, can you do that?”

“For you I would do it, Alexa. The thought of possessing the Vixen excites me beyond bearing. My dreams are filled with the sight of long blond hair and a body more enticing than any I have ever known.”

Alexa was stunned by the depth of Charles’s desire for the Vixen. In fact, it went beyond desire, into the realm of enchantment. But there was no doubt in Alexa’s mind. She would risk anything, sacrifice all for Adam. Even her own happiness meant nothing in comparison to the life of the man she loved beyond all reason. “How do I know you’re telling the truth, Charles?”

“To prove my words I’d bring your husband aboard my ship so you might see him before we sail. With your own eyes you can watch him leave so you’d know and be satisfied that he is free to go where he will.”

“It’s a big risk, Charles,” Alexa said doubtfully. “What makes you think you could free Adam so easily?”

“I have my ways,” Charles hinted mysteriously, but did not elaborate.

“If you could truly free Adam, Charles, I would go with you, willingly. But first you must agree to two stipulations.”

Charles’ shaggy brows lifted suspiciously. “What stipulations, Alexa?”

“First, I absolutely refuse to give up my baby, and … and second, you must agree not to touch me in … in that way until after my child is born.”

“You’re in no position to dicker, my dear,” Charles hissed angrily.

“It’s the only way I’ll agree,” declared Alexa belligerently. “If you want me badly enough you’ll wait.” To Alexa’s way of thinking, once she got Charles to agree to her demands any number of things could happen between now and the actual time she must capitulate. Besides, there was no way they could marry as long as she had a living husband. She told him as much.

“I’ll admit that having your husband alive does complicate matters, but nothing is insurmountable when my uncle is a member of parliament and can easily obtain your divorce from a man who is a known traitor.”

How easily he made things sound, Alexa thought, still unwilling to trust him. “Then you agree to my terms?”