by Linz, Cathie
The feel of her teeth starting to clamp over his hand—the one still covering her mouth—got his attention in a hurry!
“Don’t you dare,” he warned her menacingly before hastily pulling his hand away. “And don’t make any noise, either.”
She gave him a look that would have splintered any one of the marble headstones around them. Then she looked for Hayward Whitaker. He’d gone! So had the carriage that had brought him there.
“Where did he go?” she whispered.
“Who?”
“Hayward Whitaker. Why else do you think I’m hiding behind a damned headstone in a cemetery?”
“Beats me.”
“I’d like to beat you. Senseless. Why did you have to come here tonight and ruin everything?”
“Wait a second, here. Let me get this straight. You trailed Hayward Whitaker out here to a deserted cemetery? Have you lost your mind?”
“The meeting place was his idea, not mine.”
“Who was he meeting?”
“Damned if I know,” she countered. “You jumped me before I could see.”
Kane made no apology for his actions. Instead he glared at her as they both remained crouched behind the headstone. “I thought that’s why we hired the damned detective, for him to do this kind of dirty work.”
“I wouldn’t have gotten so dirty if you hadn’t pounced on me!” she retorted.
“What you were doing was dangerous,” Kane said, his voice still a low growl. “What if they’d seen you here? What if they’d been the ones to ‘pounce’ on you as you so delicately put it? I doubt they’d have let you out of here alive.”
She was alive, all right—alive with bolts of electricity shooting through her where his body touched hers. Although Kane had removed his hand from her mouth, his other arm still encircled her. She could feel the warmth of his hand as it rested just beneath her breast, branding her with its searing possessiveness.
“How did you get here?” she demanded, willing her heart to stop beating like a wild thing.
“I saw you leave the boardinghouse. You’d been acting strangely all night,” he added parenthetically, “so I followed you in a hired carriage.”
“Where is the carriage now?”
“At the gate to the cemetery.”
“Great. I’ll bet Hayward Whitaker saw it on his way out.”
“Normally the cemetery gates are closed during the night. The driver told me that. And he was parked to one side, so no one could see.”
“Fine. Let’s go question him. Maybe he saw where Hayward was headed.”
Reaching for her cap and dusting the dirt off it, she pulled away from him and marched down the lane leading away from the river and back toward the main entrance.
Kane hurried after her. “I can’t believe you were stupid enough to sneak out here—”
“I’m not the stupid one. You are! I was following a lead—”
“You were putting yourself in danger.” He went on a tirade, out of which she heard one sentence above all the others. “How the hell am I supposed to find my way back home if something happens to you?”
“Oh, fine! So now I’m just a ticket back to the twentieth century? How kind of you to be worried about my welfare,” she snapped.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
“I know no such thing,” she said as she attempted to pull herself up into the carriage, thoughts of questioning the driver forgotten.
Kane took her by the waist and lifted her, practically tossing her inside. Climbing in after her, he slammed the door shut and banged on the roof to tell the driver to get them moving.
Susannah deliberately ignored him, staring out the window into the moonlit landscape. The hard white road leading back to town threaded ribbonlike in the night.
“We’re going to clear this up here and now,” Kane began.
She cut him off, the look she tossed him over her shoulder as fiery as the Savannah sunshine. “I already told you that I know exactly what you meant.”
“Then know this...” he growled, before pulling her into his arms and kissing her. He was so angry he wasn’t thinking straight. Kissing her might have alleviated his anger, but it sure as hell didn’t help him think any better. He didn’t care. Once he had her in his arms, once he had her soft mouth under his, nothing could stop him—except her resistance.
But she didn’t resist.
Susannah meant to meet his anger with fury of her own. Instead, only the passion came through, and was returned in the way his tongue slid between her parted lips to tangle with hers. His need was naked, his hunger openly expressed as he growled her name before tugging her closer.
Susannah slid her fingers through his hair, marveling at the silky texture of it. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders as he nipped her earlobe on his way down her throat. His nimble fingers made short work of unfastening her camisole, undoing ribbons and buttons so that his hands could slip inside to cup her bare breasts in his palm.
Susannah was fiercely glad she hadn’t worn a bra that night. She didn’t want anything getting in the way of his touch. He was meant to touch her this way and she felt as if she’d waited a lifetime for it to finally happen. Now that it had, the pleasure was even more intense than she could ever have anticipated.
Brushing one thumb over her right nipple, he lowered his head to circle the other one with his tongue, painting erotic pictures with this most seductive of brushes. Shivering with delight, she drew him closer, her fingers sinking into his shoulders as he teased her with his lips before taking her into his mouth.
Her head tilted back against the leather seat as ecstasy swept through her. She didn’t know he’d undone the trousers she wore until she felt the heat of his hand against her feminine mound. The thin nylon of her bikini underwear did little to block out his touch, amplifying it instead as he slowly rubbed the heel of his hand up and down, up and down.
The carriage flew over a bump in the road, dislodging her breast from his mouth. Her murmured protest of the loss was integrated into their kiss, as once again their mouths merged with unmitigated passion.
One kiss blended into the next as they experimented with tilts and angles. Susannah didn’t realize she was lying on the seat until she felt the smooth leather against her back. Even then, she only noticed her new position with some distant part of her mind. The rest of her attention was focused on the rising heat throbbing deep within her.
Kane was stroking her from collarbone to navel, his fingertips leaving a trail of delight with every passing. And each time, he went a little lower, until his fingers slid beneath the elastic waistband of her bikinis to tantalize her there.
The carriage hit another bump and swayed, shifting his fingers so that they slid down farther, brushing against the secret nub hidden in the crisp curls.
Susannah cried out as the mounting anticipation suddenly snapped, and surges of raw bliss pulsed through her body. Kane kissed her expressions of pleasure from her mouth. His hands were on the fly of his pants when the carriage came to an abrupt halt, tossing him off the seat and onto the floor.
The sudden jolt brought him back to earth in a hurry. Scrambling to his knees, Kane berated himself for his lack of control. What had he been thinking of, trying to seduce her in the nineteenth-century equivalent to the back seat of a car? His anger had taken him over the edge. Her passion had hastened his fall.
At least she’d gained some measure of satisfaction, while he was still hard and throbbing, with no relief in sight. His frustration was increased.
Susannah’s looking at him with shocked and dazed big brown eyes didn’t help matters any, either.
“Do up your jacket,” Kane growled as he heard the driver climbing down and coming around to open the carriage door for them.
His curt words burned her soul. Humiliation washed over her, replacing the last lingering tingles of pleasure that might have remained. How could she have let him touch her like that? Why hadn’t she fought hi
m off? Instead she’d sunk onto her back and practically offered herself up to him. That was sure to reconfirm his impression of her being a loose woman even further.
How did she explain to him that she hadn’t been with a man in more years than she cared to remember? And that there hadn’t been many in her lifetime—a grand total of two. Abstinence and celibacy were in, didn’t he know that?
Roughly shoving buttons into buttonholes, Susannah managed to get her jacket done up just as the driver opened the door. Flying out of the carriage as if spring-loaded, Susannah dashed up the boardinghouse steps, leaving Kane to deal with paying for the cab.
She hid in the tiny water closet until she regained some self-control. She didn’t have a lantern with her. The darkness hid the tears sliding down her cheeks. How was she supposed to face him after what had just happened between them?
Closing her eyes, she prayed for Elsbeth to send her back, to return her to her own time. But there was no magical blue light to zap her home. Instead she sensed a soft regret, as if Elsbeth were—in her own way—trying to give her comfort.
To some degree, it worked. Susannah’s tears stopped and her mind started working, attempting to come up with something to say that would disguise her humiliation and return things to normal.
As it was, she didn’t have to worry. Kane did what little talking there was when she finally returned to the bedroom they shared.
“What happened in the carriage was a mistake,” he stated curtly. “It won’t happen again.”
Susannah nodded her agreement, before slipping behind the dressing screen and hurriedly ripping the rumpled men’s clothing from her body. She took a quick sponge bath, but knew there was little hope of washing away the memory of Kane’s touch. Sliding the gown over her head she hurried toward the bed and climbed in, tucking the mosquito netting into the mattress and wishing she could tuck herself into a tiny ball and disappear, as Kane muttered something about going out for a long walk.
* * *
Susannah didn’t sleep well. She hadn’t gotten to sleep until almost three, when Kane had finally returned. He was up and dressed before she opened her eyes the next morning. She came downstairs to find him sitting at the large dining table, along with three new guests at the boardinghouse.
“Ah, there you are,” Mrs. B. greeted Susannah. “Why, that ensemble looks most becoming on you, dear.”
Susannah looked down at the white blouse she wore; the leg-of-mutton sleeves accomplished what shoulder pads did in her era—broadening the shoulders and making the waist look narrower. Of course, a corset was also supposed to physically make the waist narrower, but so far Susannah had managed to avoid wearing one of those.
She wasn’t so lucky avoiding Kane’s eyes as she walked into the dining room with Mrs. B. One glance and she read the simmering anger and hunger in his blue eyes. And the steely determination.
Susannah’s spine stiffened, and her chin lifted as she prepared herself for battle. She was not going to turn into a simpering miss. And she wasn’t going to put up with his attitude problem. He was the one who kissed her in the carriage last night, starting the entire erotic chain reaction. The blame lay at his doorstep, not hers.
She preferred being angry with him to the hurt she’d felt last night. Her indignation provided her with a cloak of composure as she greeted the newcomers to whom Mrs. B. was introducing her to.
“These are the Misses Abernathy of Savannah,” the landlady was saying. “Miss Agnes and Miss Agatha, may I present Mrs. Susannah Wilder of France.”
The two women looked like a history lesson come to life. They had the kind of features Susannah had only seen in paintings—faces etched with life—and they held themselves with a regal air that Susannah could only admire as they courteously nodded their heads at her.
“And this is Professor Dudley Hering of Boston.” Mrs. B. repeated her earlier introduction of Susannah.
“Charmed, I’m sure,” the professor said, taking her hand and completing a stiff bow over it. He’d risen from his chair the moment she’d first entered the room.
Kane, meanwhile, kept right on eating.
“Your husband was just about to tell us about your life in France,” the professor said.
“We wouldn’t want to bore you,” Susannah replied, not trusting Kane to come up with a halfway believable story. After all, she’d already heard his idea of French—Regardez la cam-er-a, s’il vous plaît. She remembered the humor in his rich voice that day as he’d spoken to Mikey.
This morning he wasn’t speaking at all; at least, not to her.
If the others around the table noticed the tension between Susannah and Kane, they were too well-bred to make any comment about it.
As far as she was concerned, the new guests couldn’t have arrived at a more fortuitous time, as their charming stories helped mitigate the effect of Kane’s silent treatment. And anything that could keep her mind off Kane and the intimacies they’d shared in that carriage was a godsend.
“Things are very lively in the last days of November, when the tall, handsome planters from the surrounding plantations come to town,” Miss Agatha was saying. “Will you still be here then?”
Susannah shook her head. “We won’t be staying that long.” She shot Kane a discreet look over the breakfast table, but he continued to give her the silent treatment. Susannah gave him equal measure in return.
Equal measure... Susannah had to smile at her own quaint turn of phrase. The truth was that she was starting to think more and more like a native. A part of her felt strangely at home in this time period, with its elegance and grace.
She wasn’t at home in these tightly bustled skirts, however. She squirmed slightly in her seat, longing for a pair of jeans, and remembering the men’s pants she’d worn to the cemetery last night—when Kane had scared a good ten years off her life before taking her in his arms....
No! She wasn’t going to think about it anymore.
Despite those good intentions, after breakfast Susannah realized her willpower was weakening. Kane had taken off without telling her where he was going. It was no good staying inside and brooding about him. She needed to go out.
Mikey accompanied Susannah on her “perambulation,” as the Abernathy sisters called it. On a whim, Susannah decided to explore the area along the riverfront, where a virtual forest of masts was formed by the tall sailing ships docked there. The levee was lined with warehouses, which over a hundred years later would be turned into trendy boutiques and restaurants as the city’s waterfront was rehabilitated.
In fact, from her hotel window Susannah had been able to see some of the very same old staircases and wrought-iron-trimmed brick buildings. Then, as now, the high stairways led to mysterious cubbyholes and alleyways.
“Does this look like France?” Mikey interrupted her thoughts to ask her as he pointed at the wharf stretched out below them.
“It certainly is a busy place,” she replied.
“It gets much busier in the fall,” Mikey claimed. “That’s when they sell most of the cotton and load it. You can hear the clanking sound of the hoisting crane from morning till night and the piles of bales reach just about up to heaven, I reckon.”
“That high, huh?” Susannah said, a smile in her voice.
“And the ships waiting to load the cotton are backed up all the way to...all the way to France!”
Grinning at the boy’s exaggeration, she said, “Wow!”
“Are you speaking French again?” Mikey demanded suspiciously. Without waiting for an answer he said, “We better be going now. ‘Tain’t a good thing to be hanging about the waterfront too long. We might get into trouble.”
Susannah knew all about trouble. Trouble, in a nutshell, was Kane Wilder’s middle name.
* * *
“Hey, look. There’s that fancy redheaded lady you been asking about,” Mikey exclaimed as he and Susannah passed a dress shop on their way home.
“Hay is for horses, straw is cheaper,” S
usannah automatically said, even as she noted that Mikey was right. Mrs. Hilton was inside the shop.
It was a heaven-sent opportunity, and one Susannah wasn’t going to overlook. A small bell over the door tinkled as she entered the shop. Mrs. Hilton did not look up, but remained engrossed in a conversation with the dressmaker. In the end, Susannah had to literally bump into the other woman to get her attention.
“Why, hello there. Fancy bumping into you here,” Susannah said with a brilliant smile. “We met at Hayward Whitaker’s office the other day,” she added when the other woman appeared to be pretending not to know her. “My name is Susannah.”
Like so many before her, Mrs. Hilton’s gaze fastened on the garnet necklace and matching earrings Susannah was wearing. This time Susannah made no comment about the other woman’s interest. To her surprise, Mrs. Hilton began speaking to her in fluent French. “I have heard people say that you are from France. Is this true?”
“Yes, it’s true,” Susannah answered in French. “Did Hayward talk to you about me?”
The other woman’s eyes flashed with jealousy. “I thought you did not know Hayward.”
“I don’t. You appeared to know him pretty well, though,” Susannah added.
Mrs. Hilton ignored her observation. “Where in France do you make your home?”
“A very small place.”
“Your parents were American?”
“They still are American,” Susannah replied. “They are very much alive and healthy.”
“Really? They must be very old by now.”
Susannah glared at the other woman, not appreciating that comment one bit.
Then Mrs. Hilton switched back to English just as abruptly. “You are a friend of Andrea Hall in New York?”
“Her name is Althea Hall,” Susannah said.
“You are a friend of hers?”
“Why the curiosity, madam?”
“Forgive me,” Mrs. Hilton apologized with all the sincerity of a carpetbagger. “I was under the impression that you were curious about me and I thought that turnabout was fair play.”
