The Men of Pride County: The Rebel (21 page)

“Then we’ll talk. I seem to be having no luck in getting you alone lately, so this will have to do. Let’s go outside.”

“I don’t want to talk now, Miles. This is a party, a celebration.”

“Then let’s give them something to really celebrate.” He leaned toward her, his features somber, his gaze compelling, his mouth set and unsmiling.

She took his meaning with a sudden shock of dread. He meant to ask her to marry him.

She’d never known just how opposed she was to the thought of that union until this instant. Everything inside her cried, “No!” and urged her to break away before he had the opportunity to speak, to hurt and embarrass them both.

“Miles, I need to get some air. I simply cannot think straight at the moment, and you deserve my full attention. We’ll speak later, I promise. Oh, look, Jane needs a partner for the next quadrille and that dreary Private Morris has cornered her. Be a dear brother and rescue her.”

Miles hesitated, sensing her evasion yet not clever enough to find a way to circumvent it. But his scowl told Juliet clearly that he was far from discouraged. He sketched a bow and uttered a prophetic, “Until later then,” which pealed like doom, before going to his sister’s aid.

Juliet slipped out into the deep-starred night and drew a reviving breath of air. Had Jane
known of her brother’s plan? Had she encouraged it well knowing how seriously Juliet’s affections were tied up in another? An unsuitable other. Was her friend trying to keep her from committing a grievous folly by throwing another option in her path?

She couldn’t avoid the issue forever. Miles would have to be answered, and that answer would hurt him and possibly destroy their friendship. There was no way to escape that other than to accept his proposal. And how could she do that when she knew well that she didn’t love him? She loved someone else—someone she recognized by the unbending silhouette he presented at the far end of the porch.

So he hadn’t left the festivities after all.

Juliet hesitated. Dare she approach him with so much uncertainty hanging between them? Would she just be setting herself up for rejection or another round of his kiss-and-don’t-tell games?

Fortune favors the bold, she’d always said.

“Makes you feel insignificant, doesn’t it?”

She saw him smile as she repeated his words of the other night.

“I find myself in sore need of humbling,” was his cryptic reply.

Juliet stood at his elbow as if it had been her intention all along to admire the heavens. “In many ways, this is preferable to the crush inside. One can’t own one’s own thoughts amid such revelry.”

He slid a curious glance her way. “And what’s on your mind this evening that requires open sky and quiet company?”

“The future.”

“Ahhh,” was his only comment.

“Don’t you wonder what will happen, what fate has in store? Or have you got your course sunk as deep as fence posts in your Kentucky soil?”

“I’d thought so,” he mused. Then he laughed at his own reflections. “I’ve always prided myself on my focus. I’ve known exactly what I wanted since I was a boy. It’s only lately that I’ve begun to question those goals.”

“And why is that?”

He was silent for a long moment, then answered with a disappointing evasion. “Many reasons.”

Now wasn’t the time for reluctance. Attacks that were swift and merciless were the ones that succeeded. Her father had taught her that.

“Am
I
one of those reasons, Noble?”

He could have devastated her with a word or a chastening look. Instead, he stared straight into her eyes and said the unexpected. “Yes.”

She didn’t know what to say once she had that truth.

When he looked back at the stars without offering further explanation, Juliet was forced into a reckless advance. “And is that good or bad?”

He chuckled at her directness. “Isn’t it
enough just knowing that you’ve managed to throw me off course?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think it would be.” He angled himself slightly so that he faced her. “Do you need it explained in words or would a display suffice?”

“Whichever you’d feel most comfort with.”

Her brash confidence faltered at the light brush of his fingertips along her cheek. She found her breath suspended as he leaned down. Closing her eyes, she lifted her face invitingly, then was chagrined when he didn’t kiss her. Instead, his mouth traced a warm line along the slope of her bared shoulder. She shivered all the way to her toes. Her hand rose of its own accord, coming to rest upon the back of his bowed head, trembling there in indecision. Should she pull him closer or push him away? Jane would advise her to be coy. But that wasn’t in her nature. She didn’t want to play games, she wanted … more.

She wanted Noble Banning.

Her fingers threaded through his black hair, clutching restlessly, answering the question of her willingness without words. The breath shuddered from her as his mouth swept up the arched column of her throat, pausing to taste her hurried pulse, then again to tug at her earlobe. Her fingers tightened in his hair as heat scalded through her body in a long, undulating wave. By the time he moved to her
mouth, she was as far past reason as the distant stars.

They feasted from each other’s lips with abandon, as if the sweetness found there was the cure for their every loneliness. Juliet was gasping by the time Noble lifted his head only far enough to breathe, then to say, “This is a mighty wide-open place for such a personal conversation.”

Giddy with anticipation, she whispered, “The infirmary is empty.”

He started toward it in an almost angry stride. Juliet had to run to catch up to him. He didn’t pause or slow, even when she took hold of his arm and trotted anxiously at his side toward whatever a fickle fate had in store.

The fort hospital was dark, empty, as Juliet had known it would be. They slipped in at the side door. Medicinal odors and the bite of pure alcohol were quickly replaced by the rugged scent of wool and clean-shaven man as Noble turned her into his arms and shut the door with his boot heel. Juliet began thinking nervously of the cots lining the opposite side of the room. Would Noble take her there upon one of them? Excitement battled with inexperience. Perhaps she should insist they return to the party …

Then he kissed her and she stopped thinking altogether.

If there was persuasion in the shifting pressure of his mouth, the movement of his palms upon her bare shoulders was wild encouragement.
His skin was rough and warm, the friction intentionally seducing. Her will pooled like hot wax. She savored his kisses and encouraged him with teasing nibbles and some very serious suction to his lower lip and tongue. His hands shifted lower, curving about the shape of her breasts while his thumbs rode the rapid rise and fall of creamy flesh swelling above the lacy neckline of her gown. When he lowered his head to trail damp kisses over that same soft territory, her bones seemed to go to liquid.

When his name moaned from her in helpless wonder, he paused, then straightened, his icy hot stare probing hers.

He’d never been so eager and anxious to have a woman. Staring down into her flushed face, into eyes so inviting and at the same time vulnerable, he knew it was more than just the wanting. The wanting was a powerful force in itself, a constant throbbing reminder of how she’d looked in damp lace and linen as she teased him into the water—of how she’d tasted during that initial exploration—of how the scent of lavender aroused him into a painful hurry. But it was more than the wanting. It was the having, the holding, the right to claim her as his own, to put her forever out of Miles Dougherty’s reach. It wasn’t competitive male drive goading him to stake that claim. It was an odd twist of possessive need that scared and surprised him, because he was powerless to resist.

But Juliet had rejected him bluntly, bruisingly. Dare he risk more than a moment of passion? Could he settle for that and no more? Staring down into her star-kissed eyes, the answer made him tremble.

“Juliet, are you sure this is how you want this to happen? Without commitment or ties of any kind?”

“Yes,” she told him fiercely, not wanting to be distracted from the raw pleasures, not wanting her practical sense to overcome her sensory self to begin asking those same questions.

Was
she ready to take this irreversible step with this man she couldn’t marry?

To drive away those doubts, she clasped his handsome face between the press of her palms, kissing him with open-mouthed fervor. It took him a moment to respond, almost as if her answer wasn’t what he wanted to hear. And then he swept her up and away with an aggressive assault on her senses.

He bent briefly to catch the bottom of her voluminous skirts, reaching up underneath them with a dexterity she didn’t possess to release the tapes holding her hoops in place. They collapsed as easily as her inhibitions. Without the steel circles to hold him at bay, Noble leaned into her, pushing her back against the wall, letting her feel his weight and strength and heat. And his urgency. His breathing sounded harsh and fast in the surrounding darkness, her own playing fast and
light against it. He kissed her hard, then deep, then with a searing sweetness that shook loose the last of her moral resistance. When he started to ruck up her skirt, she helped him, her own efforts much less efficient.

Mindless with the need he’d created, Juliet made no protest as he bared her legs and scooped his palms beneath her naked bottom to lift her off the floor. Instinctively, she wound both arms and legs about him. His mouth slanted across hers, his tongue plunging so deep that she nearly swooned with untested desire. Then with one piercing move, he was hard and fast inside her.

Juliet gasped against his mouth as her mind registered the splintering pain, but almost as quickly her body realized a new, intensely private pleasure: the pleasure of having him a part of her, streaking her inner walls with fire and shivery delight, a sense of oneness that went beyond any simple words.

And just as he began to move, awakening her to sensations her female self was crafted to enjoy, a different sound intruded, one that gradually surpassed their labored breathing to become …

Footsteps.

The door to the main infirmary flew open, and the heavy steps of at least a half-dozen booted men pounded across the floorboards.

“Lay him down there,” came an anxious voice, drowning out Juliet’s soft cry in the adjoining room as Noble pulled himself from
her. Her feet hit the floor with a jarring thud of reality as he bent to yank up her hoops and reattached them without a word.

The commotion in the examination room increased.

“How the hell did this happen? Press that here. We’ve got to get this bleeding stopped. Hurry. Does anyone know where his daughter is?”

Juliet’s cry of realization was muffled by the clamp of Noble’s hand.
Her father
. It was her father they’d borne in senseless and bleeding.

Wide, frightened eyes glittered in the darkness as she looked up at Noble. He motioned for her to be silent and removed his hand.

“Shhh. Easy. We’ve got to get out of here,” he whispered close to her ear. She swallowed jerkily and nodded, blond hair brushing his lips. “Follow me out the side door, straighten yourself up, then come in the front. I’ll go to the mess hall to see if I can find out what happened. All right? Juliet, are you all right?”

She closed her eyes, trying to get a grip on the panic, the fear. The shame. Finally, she nodded. Noble stepped back, gripping her arm to guide her out the side door. Once in the deep night shadows, he pulled her tightly to him for a brief, bracing hug of support, then he was gone, leaving her on wobbly legs, her face tear-streaked, her gown hopelessly rumpled. Leaving her alone to discover what horrible thing had befallen her father while she indulged in a passionate frenzy.

How could she explain where she was when she should have been watching her father’s back for the attack she knew to be coming?

How could she ever begin to forgive herself for not being there when she was needed?

To John Crowley the evening was perfect. He hadn’t failed to notice that both his daughter and Noble Banning were missing from the festivities. The significance of those absences gratified him. He figured he’d have a son-in-law long before it came time to release the Confederates-cum-Federals at the war’s end. Losing his Juliet to Banning would be a small price to pay for her safety.

So he drank champagne and intercepted Dougherty with small talk to keep him from an inopportune search. And he frowned as he watched the Southerners grow more obnoxious in the absence of their leader. He didn’t trust Bartholomew for a minute. The man was as mutinous as he was proud. It took no great imagination to guess what the batch of them were discussing in the corner as they shot sullen looks his way. Banning was a man of his word. Bartholomew … He wasn’t sure, and when he wasn’t sure, he was cautious.

“Should I put a cork in the champagne, Colonel, before some of the men get out of line?” Miles glared across the room, his meaning clear.

“Subtly, Miles. Subtly. And keep the men separated. No sense in causing a commotion.
This is supposed to be a festive occasion, and I’d dislike seeing it turn into a brawl.”

“Perhaps you should have Juliet speak to the Reb captain’s wife, then. She seems to be causing the most trouble.”

It was true. Maisy had pulled her husband away from the others and was lashing him with her caustic tongue. Ordinarily, Crowley would have ignored it, with a gentleman’s disdain for getting involved in private matters, and let the captain handle it himself. But in his cups, in front of his grinning men, Donald Bartholomew forgot himself. He gripped Maisy by the arm, the cruelty of the gesture clear in her pained expression. With a few harsh words, he pushed her away from him, then turned his back, reaching for another drink from his companions.

Maisy stood, stunned then furious. Drawing back her shoulders in a posture of dignity, she left the gathering, head held high. After staying a few minutes to reestablish his superiority, Bartholomew excused himself from his drinking companions and slipped out after her—to make apologies or to seek retribution?