Tender savage (44 page)

Mark watched Erica attempt to eat with her left hand and could not help but notice what a difficult time she was having. "I should have had the cook put your soup in a cup.

"No, this is fine," Erica insisted, even though most of the clear broth sloshed over the edge of her spoon each i time she raised it to her lips. Mark had buttered her bread for her, and setting her spoon aside, she took a few bites of it. "Maybe I was just hungry. I'm beginning to feel better."

"Well, that's certainly good news," Mark replied with a ready grin.

Erica looked away quickly, not up to replying with teasing banter, but the cause for the delight m his expression had been unmistakable. "Mark," she began hesitantly, reluctant to bring up the subject of their sleeping arrangements, and yet too nervous about them to let the matter slide. "Where are you going to sleep?" she finally gathered the courage to ask.

"Are you serious?" he responded with a puzzled frown.

"Yes, I am. This cabin is very small, and this bunk awfully narrow."

Upon awakening the pretty blonde had looked quite pale, but her cheeks suddenly held not even a slight trace of

colcM-. Not understanding her comment, or the fact that she seemed to be growing more frail rather than stronger, Mark was offended, but for the wrong reason. "This is a cargo ship, not a luxury vessel," he pointed out crossly. "I'm sorry if the accommodations don't please you, but you'll have to remember I'm not the one who booked our passage. Besides, this cabin is no smaller than the tent we've been sharing."

To cover her embarrassment, Erica managed to take a sip of tea without dribbling too much down her chin, but she then gave up the effort to eat and pushed her tray away. "I was thinking only of your comfort. I wasn't being critical."

Having finished his supper, Mark set his plate at his feet. "Married couples frequently share the same bed. Erica. I can't believe you didn't know that. It's unfortunate that we have just the one bunk, since you're not well, but it will have to do. I've no intention of asking the captain if he has other quarters available so I can spend our wedding night alone."

When Erica's expression mirrored her hurt and dismay, Mark grabbed her tray and his plate and returned them to the galley. He stood on deck to watch the sunset, then tarried there, lost in his own thoughts, until it grew dark. When he returned to their cabin, he felt like a fool for not realizing Erica would not have been able to light the lamp on her own. She was sitting in the dark, exactly where he had left her, but her eyes were filled with such incredible sorrow he was ashamed he had been so sarcastic and impatient with her.

"I'm sorry. I thought perhaps you'd like to be alone for a while, but I didn't mean to leave you sitting in the dark like this. That was very thoughtless of me."

"It didn't matter," Erica lied through trembling lips, for while he had been gone her misgivings about the wisdom of their marriage had increased to nearly intolerable proportions. Her fears had finally reached the point where she was certain Mark would demand she make love to him the instant he returned. She was also positive she would go into hysterics the moment he touched her. Making things all the worse, she feared once she began to scream, the heartrending pain of leaving Viper would overwhelm

her and she would never be able to stop. She would undoubtedly end up chained to a wall in an insane asylum where not even her father would come to see her. Her grip upon reality tenuous at best, she looked down at her injured hand as Mark lit the lamp.

Having no idea of his wife's secret terrors, Mark thought the light miparted a warm glow to the small cabin that was quite romantic. He then turned the wick low to enhance the intimate mood he hop>ed to create.

"Do you want some laudanum?" he remembered to offer. "It would help you sleep."

"What about your face? Doesn't that cut hurt?" Erica asked as she forced herself to look up him.

Mark shook his head as he began to unbutton his shirt. "It's just a scratch."

To her absolute horror. Erica found herself unable to look away as Mark proceeded to undress with what she considered a casual disregard for her feelings. He had a handsome body, one she would have admired had she not known another man's first. He sat down on the edge of bunk to pull off his boots, but as he reached for his belt buckle, she made a valiant attempt to begin a conversation she hoped would last several hours. "You didn't tell me how you happened to meet Song of the Wren."

Since that was the last subject he wished to discuss, Mark dismissed it with a convenient lie. "She overheard me saying I was looking for you, and we exchanged a few words about Viper. Obviously she blames me for his death sentence. I told you I didn't want to talk about him ever again, though, so let's just drop the subject."

Erica understood the reasons for that request well enough, but that did not relieve her terrible anxiety about how Mairk might wish to spend the evening. When he rose to remove his pants, she hurriedly spoke up in another attempt to distract him. "Yes, I do want some laudanum. I'm sure I will never be able to rest without it. You said the doctor told you I needed my sleep to get well."

While surprised by her sudden enthusiastic request for the solution of opium in alcohol, Mark poured a small amount into a glass and held it out to her. "Is this enough?"

"No, I'm sure I need at least twice that much," Erica

insisted with what she hoped would sound Hke an authoritative tone, but she was now shaking so badly she doubted she would be able to hold the glass no matter how much or little it contained.

Mark shrugged. "I'm sure you know more about medicines than I do." He added more of the deep brownish-red liquid to the glass and handed it to her. When Erica grabbed it in a frantic clutch 2ind gulped it down in one reckless swallow, he couldn't help butlau^h. "Hey, I don't think you're supposed to toss that down like whiskey."

Erica handed him the empty ^lass, then moved over as far as she could, but there was still only a narrow strip of the bunk left for him. "I didn't think I'd be able to swallow it if I sipped it. You needn't leave the lamp on, I'm not afraid oithe dark." Only of your desires, she added silently in her mind.

Mark had his own reasons for wanting the cabin lit. "Neither am I, but it's always a good idea to have a light when sleeping in strange surroundings. I don't want you to wake up in the middle of the night and become frightened."

Erica suspected she had taken so much laudanum she might not awaken for several days, so she didn't argue. "Yes, I suppose it's always wise to be cautious." She snuggled down into the pillow and closed her eyes tightly rather than watch him strip off the last of his clothes, but she held her breath as she felt the mattress sag as he climbed into the bunk beside her.

A slow smile played across Mark's lips as he looked down at Erica. She had never been so shy or nervous with him as she was acting tonight, and he found it strangely amusing. After all, he knew for a fact she was no longer a virgin, so why was she behaving more like one now than she ever had in the past? He called her name as he placed his fingers beneath her chin, "Erica, look at me."

Her heart was pounding so wildly in her chest that Erica was afraid the sound would drown out her voice as she whispered a plaintive, "Yes?" Her lon^ lashes nearly swept her brows as she looked up at him with a glance that more closely bordered stark terror than polite interest.

"If we are lucky, we'll be married for fifty or sixty years,"

Mark confided with a smile. "I want the first time we make love to be perfect. I'd certainly not force myself upon you when you're in so much pain you need a drug to sleep. What kind of a monster do you think I am?"

"I'm sorry," Erica mumbled softly, ashamed her fears had overpowered her reason to the point where she had forgotten how sweetly he had always treated her. "I'm sorry," she repeated in a voice choked with the torrent of tears she dared not release.

Settling down beside her, Mark eased Erica into his arms. "Please don't cry. This is nice just like this. Now stop worrying and go to sleep. I'll be here if you need me."

The bunk was so narrow that Erica had no choice but to lay her head upon Mark's shoulder and her bandaged hand upon his heavily furred chest, but it was a long while before she grew calm enough to actually rest. While his embrace was pleasant, he was not Viper, and had she not taken so much laudanum, she would never have fallen asleep. As it was, her opium-induced dreams were vivid, forming a kaleidoscope of haunting images. Memories of her dashing Sioux husband flooded her mind with equal parts of joy and pain. She saw Viper riding the black stallion, his ebony hair blowing in the wind, his face streaked with the bright red war paint he had worn the day the Sioux had attacked New Ulm. The claws he had worn around his neck became those of the cougar she had shot, then ripped across the canvas of her dreams leaving the same bloody trails her nails had left upon his shoulders.

She felt his warm breath as his lips again caressed her breasts, and she pressed against him, eagerly enfolding him in her arms as she whispered the words of love she thought she would never again have a chance to speak. She wound her fingers in his hair, forcing his mouth to hers where the hunger in her kiss inflamed his own until his need for her b^ame too fierce to contain. His sleek body covered hers then, and with one swift thrust he plunged to the white-hot core of her being and lay still, his breathing a wild roar in her ears as he allowed the passion that had driven him to the limits of sanity to subside to where he could a^ain control it.

Fighang wildly against his cool restraint, she wrapped her legs around his waist, her nails leaving long trails across his back as she clung to him. Inspired by her

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unbridled desire, he began to move with a forceful rhythm that soon reached a fevered staccato pitch. He felt her muscles contract in glorious spasms of delight and flung himself upon those v^ild waves of rapture, riding them until their passion for each other reached a shattering peak and engulfed them in a shimmering ecstasy as blinding in its beauty as their love.

The fiery impact of that erotic dream haunted Erica all day, for it had seemed far too vivid to have been triggered merely by memory. It was not until Mark again undressed for bed and she saw that the smooth skin of his back was unmarred that she finally drew a sigh of relief. It had been a dream, after all, she told herself. Then, looking down at her injured hand, she realized she should have known she could not have scratched him with her nails, even if she had tried. She looked up at Mark, her eyes mirroring the sorrow she feared would have no end. He was a kind man and a good one, but how could he ever hope to break the bonds of love she and Viper had forged? No, their brief marriage could not simply be put aside, for the memory of Viper's love permeated not only each of her waking hours, but flooded her dreams with rapture, as well.

"Mark," Erica called softly, her anguish clear in her breathless tone.

Mistakenly believing her pain was physical rather than emotional, Mark poured a generous amount of laudanum into a glass and saw she drank it all. He then joined her in the narrow bunk and held her until she fell asleep, content merely to enfold her in his arms for the time being.

Just as Mark had expected, he had been given orders in St. Paul to return to his former unit immediately. When he and Erica arrived in Wilmington she begged to go to her own home rather than the one he had shared with his sister, and since she had not fully recovered from the stab wounds, he granted her request without argument. He was disapp>ointed that they had been unable to begin their honeymoon. They had yet to share the delicious nights he had hoped to fill with romance, but he took comfort in the fact that Erica had willingly become his wife and had not once complained about that situation. He hoped by the time he could arrange a leave that she would be

completely well and he could then make all his dreams for a happy marriage come true. He left her at her father's house in Mrs. Ferguson's capable hands, then stopped for a brief visit with his sister on his way out of town.

Sarah Randall was remarkably pretty. She shared Mark's unusual coloring, although she used liberal amounts of lemon juice to enhance the blond highlights in her honey-brown hair. Her brown eyes were usually alert with mischief, for she was a flirtatious young woman who loved fun. At twenty-five, she was a year younger than her brother, but unconcerned by the fact that she was still single. She had always had many beaux, and the fact that most had drifted away to wed her friends did not depress her. She had always had a way with men and been so popular that she was certain when the war was over she would be deluged v/ith impassioned proposals.

"Mark! Why didn't you send word you were coming home? What if I'd missed you?" Sarah exclaimed excitedly as she threw herself into his airms with an ecstatic squeal of delighted surprise.

Mark readily returned her enthusiastic hu^, for they had always been close. Their parents had died within a year of each other while Sarah was in her late teens, and he had kept a watchful eye on her ever since. "Aren't you going to ask me about Erica?" he teased. The two were acquainted, but were not good friends, which he thought was his sister's fault, since she was the elder of the two and should have made the first effort to be friendly.

A twinge of jealousy tugged at her emotions, but for her brother's sake, Sarah forced it aside. "I wanted to say hello to you first, but of course I want to hear about everything that happened. I can tell from the width of your smile that you found your precious Erica. Did you marry her as planned?"

"Yes, I did," Mark admitted proudly, although nothing had gone as he had planned. "I have to report for duty this very day, so I've no time to relate the whole tale, but I do want you to know the most important part." Mark had given considerable thought to how much of Erica's recent past he wished to share. "You must keep what I am about to tell you to yourself, Sarah, but when you go to visit Erica, which I want you to do often, I know you'll notice a difference in her manner, and I want you to understand