The Patriot's Conquest (30 page)

“Aye, husband,” she told him.

Uttering a tormented groan, he took her mouth, his tongue tangling with hers as their mouths mated in heated urgency. Jeffrey broke the kiss and raised his head, his eyes glittering steel in the candlelight.

“No other man for you, Mandy. I want to hear it from your mouth.”

Drugging sensuality filled her as he kissed her again, her mouth softening beneath the firm pressure of his. Jeffrey ran a hand down her body, rubbing and caressing, then suddenly his weight lifted from her. Amanda felt him part her thighs and move between them. Convulsive shock rushed through her. He could not...

“Jeffrey!” The word came out in a strangled moan as he delivered a heated kiss at the center of her feminine core. Amanda tried pushing him away from his intimate invasion. But he would not be denied.

“Open your legs wider, Mandy,” he rasped, his fingers stroking and teasing the tangle of moist curls between them.

As she parted her legs, his head descended between her thighs. He stroked, tasted and caressed her with his mouth as she writhed from ecstatic pleasure. Painful tension rode her as he increased the pace, suckling at her hard. She strained and arched her hips upward as his tongue touched the heated part of her craving him most, then danced elusively away. Sobs of protest rose in her throat.

Jeffrey raised his head. “Do you want me to finish, Mandy? Tell me.”

“Yes,” she sobbed.

His head descended again, and his tongue flicked and stroked. A cry wrenched from her throat as she convulsed from the force of her climax.

Jeffrey stayed with her, his mouth slowing and soothing as she finally eased the violent tremors. Then he climbed over her and kissed her long and deep, letting her taste her own desire.

He nudged her thighs apart with one knee and drove into her. She gasped as his strokes became more demanding, more insistent. His fingers laced through hers. Amanda opened her eyes and stared at the hard desire carved on his face. Sweat dampened his ebony hair and his muscles were taut with strain.

“Again,” he said hoarsely, holding her gaze with his.

“No, I can’t,” she gasped, moaning as the heat in her loins built to an inferno once more.

“Yes, you can,” he countered softly.

Jeffrey angled his thrusts to rub against the center of her pleasure. His intent gaze locked to hers as she tightened her fingers about his. Sweet tension built higher and higher to a crescendo and she shattered, sobbing out his name. Jeffrey held her to him and gave one final, deep thrust, spilling himself inside her.

He kissed her and raised his head. “No other man, Mandy?”

“No other man,” she said in a quivering breath.

Her answer quieted the dark torment on his face.

No other man. She had uttered the words.

And still, he feared her leaving. Feared she’d use the secret he’d spilled to her against him, just as Caroline had.

A savage beast. He was nothing better than one, a murdering beast who’d slain Indians in brutal fury, his hands stained with their blood. A beast whose hands did not deserve to stroke her silky skin.

Amanda’s surrender as he coaxed a throaty cry from her rosebud mouth offered slight balm to his wounded spirits. Her insinuation that she’d had another lover had driven him to jealous fury. After his shocking realization that he loved his wife, her taunts stripped him bare. All he could think of was Caroline’s infidelities. What if Amanda used him as Caroline had and left? Jeffrey felt deeply troubled even after Amanda had admitted she’d fibbed. A raging, primitive need had surfaced to brand her as his.

He drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

Jeffrey dreamed. He felt the scratchy wool of his uniform, watched as those in the Indian camp danced and frolicked. As he waited, dread snaked down his spine. The Indians had massacred innocent whites. His orders were explicit. Cut their throats while they sleep. His own throat tightened.

His hatred blossomed, fed by the feverish excitement of the others. Jeffrey stood ready. The men snuck into the camp, toward the tepees where the Indians slumbered. Jeffrey lingered outside one tepee, feeding his rage until it became a writhing, living beast howling for revenge. Silently he pulled aside the flap and unsheathed his knife.

In the dark, the deed was brutally quick. He did it again and again until the slick, coppery scent of death tinged his nostrils. One victim fought back and gashed the back of his knee, but he died as the others did. As the first fingers of dawn spread on the sky, only then did Jeffrey glance down at the wetness upon his hands. They were covered in blood...

He woke with a strangled yell. Beside him, Amanda started and sat upright.

“Jeffrey, what is the matter?” she cried out.

He shook his head violently, trying to gather control. Couldn’t let her see him like this. He had to rein in his emotions. But the dream’s evil grip refused to let go. Jeffrey rubbed his face and felt wetness there. He jerked his hands back, certain they were still stained with blood. Splaying them, he held them out, unable to see in the dim light. He must find out!

Struggling to light a candle, his hands shook violently. Amanda did it for him. In the candlelight, he peered at his fingers. Relieved, he saw they were clammy from sweat, not blood.

“Jeffrey, please tell me what’s wrong. You are frightening me. What is it?” She placed a warm palm on his arm, concern etching her expression. So lovely. So innocent.

He drew in a deep breath. She deserved nothing less than the truth. The moment had come. He dreaded it. Time to tell her the truth. Tell her the evil he’d done. If she walked away like Caroline, so be it. But he couldn’t hide this any longer.

Grasping her delicate hands, he looked at her. “Mandy, ’tis time I tell you about the war and what I did...”

His eyes, still wild, whipping back and forth like a terrified horse, scared her more than anything else. Jeffrey seemed caught in a violent dream’s turbulent grip. What he seemed driven to confess must be dreadful to provoke such a reaction.

She grasped his hand tighter. Whatever he had to tell her, she would not release his hand and would listen until the end. He was her husband and the tight line of his jaw revealed his strain in sharing the tale. His gaze grew distant as if seeing his past. In a strangled voice, he talked.

Restless and jealous of those who’d already left for the war, Jeffrey had run away from home and joined Robert Rogers’ Rangers. At first they’d laughed and wanted to send him home straight away. But he spoke French. And even then, he had a prodigious height and a stealthy walk. His great knowledge of deer trails, and ability to shoot with deadly aim made him too valuable to pass up. Rogers signed him on. When another soldier mocked him because of his youth, Jeffrey proved he could fight.

“I beat him senseless. The others left me alone. They almost court-martialed me, but Rogers told me that I needed to leash my temper. Said to leave it for the enemy. ‘Memorize my rules and when you feel your temper coming on, recite them until you calm down.’ That’s what I did.”

He’d memorized Rogers’ Ranging Rules, a set of instructions on warfare. In September 1759, he’d set out with great excitement for his first taste of battle.

“About 150 miles north into Canada, the Abenaki Indian village we called St. Francis. Got to the St. Francis River north of the village. Forded the river. Five feet deep, cold as, well, ’twas cold. Set to do reconnaissance on the village.”

“What’s reconnaissance?”

He glanced at her. “Spying to see the lay of the land. Indians were dancing about. No idea we were there. We waited. Dead of night, they went to bed. That was our time to strike.”

She watched with dawning horror as his gaze became empty.

“We had been told to avenge ourselves, for the savages had taken many white settlers’ lives. I was so tense. Excited. And scared. Didn’t know how I could kill a man. I told my commanding officer I simply couldn’t do it. Then he spoke of all the women and children slaughtered in cold blood by these savages. Told me ’twas like killing a hog. ‘Let that temper of yours loose, Private Clayton. Avenge them.’ That’s when I took out my knife.”

“You—”

“’Twas brutal, Mandy. Brutal. We descended on them in a swarm. Crept into their homes and killed them. I was so angry. After my first one, I became numb and just kept doing it again and again. One fought back, got me with his knife.” He twisted and lifted his leg so she could see the small scar on the back of his calf.

“After, the men congratulated me on getting the most. Some Indians tried escaping. We shot them.”

“Oh Jeffrey.” Her heart twisted at his flat tone.

“Dawn came. The place was a slaughterhouse, the stink of death everywhere. We saw the scalps of white settlers then, 600 on poles around the camp, waving in the breeze like damned flags. Should have made me feel better.” He paused. “It didn’t.”

Jeffrey stared at his hand held tightly in her trembling grip. “That’s when I looked down. My hands were covered in blood.”

He tried twisting his hand away. Amanda stubbornly refused. She clung to his hand with all her might. If she let go, she’d lose him.

“What happened next?” she asked in a steady voice.

“They pursued us. We headed back through the woods over mountains and slogging through swamps. More than one hundred miles.”

Jeffrey took a deep breath and continued.

“Robert divided us into squads. I went with him. Got to Coos Meadow. Cold, tired, hungry. All our provisions were gone. Damned Brit stationed there heard the guns we fired as an alert. He and his men fled like girls. Took all our food. I knew it then. We were going to starve to death.”

“Oh my God,” she whispered. Saw the scene, the young, proud Jeffrey, despairing of killing another human being, now facing death in the wilderness.

“Robert left on a raft he’d made from pine trees. Promised to come back with supplies. He was desperate, leaving his men behind, knowing when he’d return few would be alive. Ten days later, he returned. Not many survived. I did. Weak and barely able to stand, but alive. Later he said my youth and cunning saved me. I’d found a comb of honey and ate plant roots and even insects.”

He fell silent, looking down at her hand. His lips twisted into a grim smile. “That was my boyhood, Mandy. Slaughtering Indians while they slumbered. Watching men die around me from starvation. I celebrated my birthday in that field. I had just turned 16.”

Her heart twisted with pain for him. “Jeffrey...”

“That is the man you married, Mandy.” He raised his hands, her fingers still curled around one. “These hands are the hands of a man with a violent temper who has killed many. Every time I touch you, you are touched by a man with hands stained with blood.” His voice rang low with deep shame and agonized remorse.

“Jeffrey, you had orders, you did what you were told!”

She ached with pity and love. Such a burden for one so young. And all these years, guilt rode on those proud, muscled shoulders. Amanda knew what to do. She lifted his hands to her lips and began kissing each finger. She rubbed them against her cheek, not caring that he would feel the wetness of her tears.

“These are not the hands of a killer. They are the hands of the man I married. A brave, strong man who was willing to fight and lay down his life for a just cause.”

Torment filled his eyes, along with doubt. Instinctively she knew what to do.
Words are nothing.
He needed to see. For her to demonstrate she did not fear him.

Amanda pushed him back so he lay against the pillow. He complied with a questioning look as she straddled him. She kissed him, her hair curtaining his face. His lips felt so cold. He sighed beneath her mouth. Kissing his throat, she felt the slight bristle of his whiskers. Amanda stroked a hand across the wiry hair on his chest. Sucking in a trembling breath, she stroked lower and then encircled his shaft. Her strokes were awkward as her fingertips caressed the length. Beneath her touch, he hardened to steel.

“Love me, Jeffrey. Let me banish the nightmare for you so you’ll never have it again,” she whispered.

Memories of her mother’s censuring voice made her pause. Shame from the past rose, mocked her. Amanda swallowed convulsively, then straightened her shoulders. She locked inhibition and propriety into a dark closet, letting her love for Jeffrey lead her on. Taking his stiffened shaft in hand, she carefully slid onto him, sighing with pleasure as he filled her. She placed her hands on his muscled chest to brace herself. Amanda began sliding up and down, her body quivering with passion. Incredulity filled his wide eyes as his breathing became ragged and sharp.