Patricia Potter (36 page)

But there was little that was proper about Lauren, he was learning bit by bit. He’d seen a kindred soul the night they’d escaped the Union patrol boats, had watched her face flush with excitement rather than fear. That same excitement had been there at the prison, and again on the train. He suspected that passionate streak had been restrained until their meeting. When it had flared into life, he was drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

He could no longer imagine a life without Lauren. He didn’t want to. She’d colored all the gray parts of his life. But he also knew he couldn’t trust her. With an aching awareness, he knew she was still keeping much of herself from him. Despite their uninhibited lovemaking, she remained a mystery in so many other ways.

He found it hard to believe her duplicitous, and yet he had seen it time and time again—in the prison, on the train, on the road.

Like Sylvia.

But not like Sylvia. Whatever her reason for doing what she had, it was not simple greed. Still, he should hate her. He should despise her as he had Sylvia.

But he might as well try to despise the sun that gave warmth, because it seared at midday, or the moon that offered both light and danger, or the storm that alternated fury and glory …

CHAPTER 20

Lauren woke to the prodding of a bony paw and a feeling of dampness. Before opening her eyes, she stretched like a cat, satisfied and sated.

She still ached. She suspected she would ache for a long time to come, but other feelings overwhelmed the discomfort: a lovely warm, contented feeling deep in the nub of her that drifted through her whole being.

Lauren heard the pounding of rain against the roof. The fury was gone now. Instead, the rhythm was steady, comforting. The very sound was soporific. She looked up lazily. Socrates was scraping his paw across her, grinning at her quite happily. There was a sly look about him, as if he had arranged everything himself.

She was suddenly conscious of her nakedness. It was strange she felt so comfortable with it. There was a wonderful sensuousness about lying on a floor of old hay, the fresh scent of rain-washed air mixing with the musk of bodies. Her head was cradled in Adrian’s arms, and her hand moved to touch his slightly damp chest. She moved her head so she could watch him sleep. Pleasure surged through her at his nearness, and she wondered at the Tightness she always felt with him, a Tightness in her heart if not her mind.

Suddenly she felt him stir.

“Adrian?”

“Hummmmmm.” Contentment seemed to flow from the word.

He turned her over in his arms so he was facing her. “You’re beautiful when you sleep,” he observed.

“So are you.”

He chuckled, that deep, wonderful chuckle that went all the way from chest to throat to mouth. “I think I like that observation.”

“Good,” Lauren said with satisfaction.

He moved reluctantly. “We’re not being very cautious.”

Impulsively she nibbled at his shoulder.

He grimaced as his body once more started to react to her touch. “Socrates is teaching you some … interesting habits.”

“Socrates doesn’t have to teach me anything. It seems to come instinctively.”

“I like the things that come to you instinctively.”

Despite his words, he gently nudged her away from him and rose, giving his hand to her and bringing her up gracefully with him.

She couldn’t help but wince at the movement; the aches were coming back, and with a vengeance now that she didn’t have the narcotic of his body next to hers.

His arm went around her shoulder, and she looked around. With the exception of a small area where they had been lying, the barn floor was wet, puddles scattered throughout as rain continued to fall through holes and cracks in the roof.

“I think we can make it to the house now,” Adrian said. “I don’t think it will be quite as wet.”

Lauren felt a strange reluctance as Adrian went to where the saddles lay and took out the shirt she had worn the previous night and drew her arms into it. Then he put on his wet pants and gathered the other wet clothes: her dress and underclothing, the blue shirt he’d taken from the Yanks.

He also took the saddlebags with whatever food remained, and swung Socrates up on his shoulder. He then held out his hand to her, the large, powerful hand that could be so tender.

The rain was coming down steadily, and thunder still echoed from some faraway place. The sky was gray, sullen.

Lauren felt a strange hesitancy about the house. It somehow seemed a very sad, indeed tragic, place, but she scolded herself for being foolish. There was a fireplace; she had seen that, and perhaps they could use it. In this weather no one would be out to see smoke.

They reached the porch and found the door half-open. Adrian steered her to the left, where the roof still protected the interior, and she found herself once again reluctant to enter until Adrian pulled her inside.

The room was in shambles. There were torn cushions on the floor, the furniture they once graced now gone, probably consumed in a fireplace full of ashes. Gunfire, or perhaps bayonets, had ripped holes in the walls, and the floors were covered with dirt and trash. Several filthy blankets lay in one corner, playing cards scattered in front of them, as if some men had been interrupted, or frightened, in the middle of a game.

Lauren’s eyes traveled to the fireplace, where a coffeepot sat, its bottom and sides scorched black. There was a small frying pan lying on its side, its contents long ago consumed by animals. Rust-colored stains covered the wood flooring. She shivered. Blood. War. Death. All haunted this room, their presence chilling her.

Lauren stepped back. “I can’t stay here,” she whispered.

Adrian saw her white face, the way her body swayed back and forth. “The barn then,” he agreed.

He released her for a moment and went over to the comer, gathering up the blankets, pan, and the deck of cards in the manner of a born scavenger. Tucking them all under one arm, he guided her back out the room. Even he felt something disconcerting about the house.

The barn seemed a haven when they returned, even with the puddles of water and the wind pressing through the cracks. The temperature was still warm, but it would be hard to dry her clothes with this humidity, Lauren reflected.

Adrian disappeared again in the direction of the house and returned shortly with some boards. He set the saddles nearby and laid Lauren’s clothes on them, the undergarments on one and her dress on the other.

Next he dug in the stolen saddlebags and brought out more hardtack, some bacon, and a handful of coffee.

Adrian took the pan outside and let the rain wash it out. He cooked the bacon silently, all the time keeping his gaze on Lauren’s white face. He grew even more worried when she merely picked at her food.

Her lack of appetite ruined his own. Only Socrates seemed pleased with the meal.

Adrian finally took her in his arms. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish I had more for you, but we’d better save the coffee until morning.”

Lauren tried to shrug off her sudden desperation. She didn’t understand it; she had felt a terrible premonition ever since she saw the house, and it had grown stronger when they had gone inside. There had been terrible loss in that house. It made her think of her own losses, past and future, and in those few minutes they had become so strong she felt as if someone had thrust a sword deep inside.

Adrian moved closer to her, his breath a whisper against her hair. She felt his hands tighten around her waist, but she couldn’t accept his comfort right now. She moved away from him, keeping her eyes away from the brilliance of his, which always made her forget everything else.

She sat in the dry corner. She could see the sky from there, both through a hole in the roof and out the broken door. The day was gray, dismal, the rain falling in a steady stream that seemed to indicate it would continue that way for a long time.

“Is it safe to stay?” she finally asked Adrian, who was. now leaning against a wall, watching her carefully.

“I think everyone who was caught in that storm has probably found shelter by now,” he replied. “I suspect they’ll stay put.”

“How far is the Potomac?”

He shrugged. “No more than a few miles, but now it will be rain-swollen.”

“Adrian?” Her voice was almost a whisper.

“Yes?”

“I’m not usually so fainthearted.”

He smiled ruefully. “I discovered that the first night we met … when you kicked that poor, unsuspecting villain. If there’s one thing I know about you, love, it’s that you don’t lack courage.”

“My father was a doctor,” she said, ignoring his words, trying to understand her own reactions. “I used to help him … I … blood never … bothered me …”

Adrian straightened, his body tensing. This was one of the few times she had volunteered information, although she had said her brother and father were doctors. She’d mentioned nothing about helping them. Perhaps that explained some of her independence, that competence that had surprised him in the beginning, but no longer.

“I don’t know why that room … bothered me,” she continued.

But he didn’t want to let go of those scraps of information she just dropped. “And Larry … your brother … you said he was a doctor too.”

If it were possible, her face went even whiter.

“How did he die, Lauren?”

The question was asked in a soft, compelling voice.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But you have nightmares about it,” Adrian pressed. “Perhaps … if you talked about it?”

But her face had shuttered, and he felt a sudden coldness inside. She’d done this before, allowed him to get close and then moved out of reach. He knew he should be wary. But all he wanted was to hold her and chase away whatever devils were plaguing her. No one had ever struck such notes of tenderness in him before, and he was amazed at how powerful they were.

He knew, though, that she wasn’t going to say any more, now, about her brother … or her past.

And they weren’t going anyplace, not for a while. He leaned down and picked up the cards he had found inside the house. “What about a game of chance, Miss Bradley?” he said, and her face lit with relieved interest.

“I would be delighted, Captain Cabot.”

She was an apt pupil, Adrian thought dryly as he lost another ten pounds.

Her mind was like quicksilver, quickly absorbing the rules and intricacies of the game. And she had a real knack for remembering which cards had been played and computing the odds. She could be dangerous in a London gambling hell, he thought, if indeed women were permitted to play.

But as it was, he had to keep his attention on the game as her eyes sparkled at learning something new and mastering it.

Her one disadvantage, Adrian thought, was her display of delight when the cards were good. Although he had observed the way her face, and eyes, often hid her emotions, she did not hide them in the game of cards, perhaps because it was not that important to her. But to him it signified that deception did not come naturally to her.

They whiled away a good part of the day at the game, Socrates watching intently, occasionally grabbing a card in a bid for attention and then running away with it, teasing Adrian to run after him. Lauren would giggle as the tall, sophisticated English lord reached for, and missed, the small furry ball of energy. He would finally surrender and return to Lauren, while Socrates, grinning happily, would give back the card with a small bow.

As the rainy afternoon wore on, their glances fell more to each other than to the cards. Lauren felt wondrously free with only Adrian’s shirt covering her, free and wanton and wickedly sensuous, particularly as his gaze touched her as intimately as any hand could. She found her own gaze fixing on his chest, the dark blond hairs that pointed like an arrow down to the waist of his trousers, the corded muscles that moved each time he leaned over to pick up a card, or to deal, or gather up the deck.

The movements of their hands grew lazier, each wanting to do something other than hold cards. Their gazes met and held, and yet neither of them made the first move, Adrian remembering her withdrawal earlier, and Lauren afraid of how much she wanted him, how much he meant to her. She felt she was flinging herself off a cliff into an abyss below, and was as helpless to prevent it as a lemming drowning itself at sea.

And then her eyes found his, and she lost herself in their brilliant blue fire. Her hand went out across the cards. He took it, and suddenly they were lying together, their bodies fitting like pieces of a puzzle. Through a soft mist, she watched every nuance in his face as his fingers teased and loved. He moved into her then, his manhood probing gently at first and then filling her completely as her body reacted with shuddering movements, grasping him, loving him …

Adrian moved his mount carefully among the trees. He had to force himself to pay attention.

It was dusk, and he’d stirred himself from Lauren’s side just moments ago. He still felt the lassitude, the well-being, of the aftermath of love.

He hadn’t wanted to leave her, but something nagged at the back of his mind. They had been careless, and bloody lucky so far. He had been so lost in her, in the cocoon they had woven around themselves, that he’d neglected even the basics of caution.