Where he was still lodged.
Pale-gray light illuminated the dark stubble lining the oddly tensed face of the man underneath her. "Good morning."
In the dark heat of night Abigail had been a woman; in the cold light of day she was once again an aging spinster.
An aging spinster who had propositioned a strangerand then had begged and cried for him not to stop.
Abigail stiffened her spine. "Good morning."
He folded down the covers from around her shoulders and eased her upright so that she sat across his hips. "Do you mind?"
Doyou mind ricocheted inside her headthe words she had asked before using his manhood to rub against her engorged flesh.
Flesh she had named.
Iwant you to touch myto touch mymy pearl!
Her muscles tightened in protest; she felt as if she sat on a fence post. His shoulders were brown against the white of the sheet and pillowtight little brown nipples peeped through black chest curls.
Which meant that her breasts were equally visible.
Breasts he had suckled like a starving infant.
She slapped her arms across her chest.
His hips surged upward with unmistakable intent.
Abigail gasped. At the sensation of him prodding the very depths of her body. At the realization that the intolerable pressure had nothing to do with what was inside her vagina and everything to do with what was inside her bladder.
Freeing her right arm, she braced her hand on the mat of wiry chest hairchest hair thatshe had rooted around in like a starving infant. "Actually, yes, I do mind. You see, I need toto"
Words failed her.
She closed her eyes at the loss of whatever dignity she still possessed.
There simply did not exist a polite formula for informing a man buried deep inside a woman that the dictates of nature preceded the urges of the flesh.
A boisterous laugh penetrated her mortification. The motion of his body combined with that of the bed caused her to jiggle up and down on the extremely solid flesh planted between her legs.
Opening her eyes in pained outrage, she anchored herself to his chest with both hands; her freed breasts swayed unimpeded. Hard, calloused fingers dug into her hips while pewter-gray glinted up at her.
"A lesson for the both of us. Men wake up with a hard-on. Whereas women, I take it, wake up merely needing to relieve themselves."
Gritting her teeth, Abigail attempted to scramble off him, only to find that her legs refused to movethey were numb from lack of circulation. "I beg your pardon, but I seem to require assistance in gettingdownup"
The tanned skin around his eyes crinkled. "My pleasure, but you reversed the order. First we lift you up" Strong hands circled her waist. "Then we help you down."
Robert jackknifed up in bed and onto his knees in one fluid motion. Abigail hardly had time to gasp before he was out of her body and she lay sprawled on the bed. He loomed over her with his manhood jutting in front of her face.
It was every bit as impressive in the pale light of day as it had been in the murky dark of night.
Grabbing the gray blanket at the foot of the bed, she pulled it around her naked body. "Thank you."
His grin widened. "It's still storming outside."
She was all too aware of the weather. "Yes."
"I take it you have a chamber pot."
She did. Under the bed.
Supremely unself-conscious in his nakedness, Robert climbed off the bed and leaned down. The monotonous patter of rain was interrupted by the drag of smooth porcelain over hard wood.
Robert straightened. "Shall I help you?"
The heat blazing in Abigail's face felt like it would burst into flame. "I think not."
"Abigail, there is no place for modesty inside a one-room cottage. Men and women share the same bodily functions. I have to make use of it, too. What is the difference, for God's sake?"
She refused to look away from him. "The difference, Colonel Coally, is that women squat and men do not."
His gray eyes widened momentarily; then he threw back his head and roared with laughter.
He had very white teeth.
The laughter stopped when Abigail scooted out of bed slowly, carefully; the flesh between her thighs stung as though she had been impaled on a shaft of nettles. Her legs were like two slabs of wood, with no feeling in them whatsoever. Standing, bracing herself so she would not fall flat on her face, she reached for the faded green dress that lay heaped on the floor.
"Don't be ridiculous, Abigail." It was the colonel's voice of last night, sharp and autocratic. "It's pouring down rain outside."
Firmly clasping the blanket across her breasts, she threw the dress over her headand got totally lost inside it. Her stilted reply was muffled. "You may dictate to your men, Colonel Coally. I, however, am not ruled by military law."
Long, hard fingers reached inside the dress, grabbed her left hand, thrust it into a sleeve. "You did not object last night, Miss Abigail."
They both knew they were not discussing military dictatorship.
"Last night, Colonel Coally, was an anomaly."
"It is not necessary to go outside." The muted voice was suddenly flat. Her right hand was forced into a sleeve. "I give you my word as an officer that I will not intrude on your privacy."
"Thank you, but no." Her head cleared the dress. "I am in need of fresh air."
"Very well." He whirled her around.
Abigail stared past his dark headhis hair was hardly mussed, while hers felt full of live rats. "I can button up my own dress, Colonel Coally."
"Can you, Miss Abigail?" he asked enigmatically. Reaching inside the open placket of her dress, he grabbed hold of the blanket and yanked it up and out. Before she could voice her objection, he pulled her dress together and commenced fastening the tiny buttons.
Abigail silently endured his ministrations. The colonel just as silently retrieved her drawers.
She grabbed the silk from his hands and turned her back to wriggle inside the flimsy underwear.
"Where are your shoes? Or do you make a habit of running about barefoot?"
Blushing, back ramrod straightwherehad she put her shoes?ah, yes she marched to the door and crammed her feet inside the half-boots there. She contemplated putting her hair up, but knew there was no time to waste.
The wind almost knocked her back inside the door. It was accompanied by a blast of memories.
I want a woman to make me forget that I have spent the last twenty-two years of my life killing.
He had thought she was reading devotional literature when he had peeped through the window. Matrons and spinsters read devotional literature, not a woman who a man would choose to help make him forget.
What a shock he must have experienced, seeingThe Pearl clutched to her chest.
What a whore he must have thought her when she had propositioned him.
How pitifully desperate she had been, an old maid unable to accept her virgin status.
Idid not take you because I thought you were wanton, Abigail. I took you because I needed you.
The rain was icy.
For a second Abigail's intent wavered.
He knew everything else about her body, what was so shameful about this aspect of it? But then reason prevailed.
The colonel knew the wanton she had been in the night; not the spinster she was in the day.
Bowing her head, she fought the wind to close the door, then fought the wind and the rain and the mud all the way to the backyard privy. Only to fight it all the way back again on the return trip.
The colonel met her at the door; a towel was wrapped around his lean hips. After one look at Abigail's sodden clothes and dripping hair, he unbuttoned her dress and peeled it and the silk drawers off her. Wrapping the blanket around her, then, he picked her up as if she weighed no more than a child and sat her down on the wooden chair at the table where the air was unaccountably warm.
Abigail should have been outraged
at such cavalier treatment. Instead, she felt chastised… and oddly comforted.
Hunkering down in front of her, he matter-of-factly removed her shoes. "I fired the stove and put a bucket of water on to heat. All I could find in the cupboard was a tin of tea, half a loaf of bread, and a jar of strawberry jam. Would you like some toast now or would you rather wait for the water to heat up and have it with your tea?"
Abigail turned her head to look at the wood box behind the stove. It was missing a hefty portion of wood. The other chair was pulled up to the far side of the stove; it was draped with his clothes that she had dropped last night. Turning her head in the opposite direction, she surveyed the floor in front of the cupboard. There was no broken glass littered abouta broom leaned against the wall.
ThePearl, where she had dropped it by the bed last night, was gone, too. As were the hairpins he had taken from her hair.
She faced the man who waited at her feet. "I will wait for tea, thank you."
"You're a stubborn woman, Miss Abigail."
Abigail stared into the stark gray eyes that were on a level with her own and felt her heart skip a beat.
He lookedvulnerable. And intensely masculine.
Last nighthad been an anomaly.
It must have been.
He had gone out into the stormand had come upon her cottage. Once past the initial heat of lust, a man like him would not want a woman like her.
But you are not just any woman, Abigail. For the duration of the storm you are mywoman.
It still stormed.
Abigail braced herself against the rejection that was certain to come. "You lied, Colonel Coally."
The dark face grew shuttered. "In what, Miss Abigail?"
"You said you wanted everything."
"You said last night was an anomaly."
"ThenI lied."
For one endless second the steady rhythm of the rain ceased. Then tiny lines radiated out from the corners of Robert's gray eyes, and they were no longer stark but warm pewter.
"How does the sponge feel?"
Blushing, Abigail tilted her chin. "It feelsthere."
"I'll take it out for you."
The blush grew hotter.
"After I soak you in hot water to relieve the soreness."
She refused to look away from the pewter gaze. "And what then, Colonel Coally?"
"Then I'm going to put it back in."
Suddenly the damp, dreary rain was more pleasant than a sunny day.
"Perhaps I will have that toast now, Colonel Coally."
"We made a bargain, Abigail. Until the storm ends we call each other by our first names and you are free to indulge in any sexual urges that you wish."
The red-hot stove hissed as water boiled over onto it. Grabbing a towel, Robert picked up the handle of the bucket and poured the hot water into the little hip bath beside the sink. Steam roiled up to the ceiling. The remainder of the water he poured into a tea pot. Then he refilled the bucket and set it back on the stove.
"Are we on bread-and-water rations?"
"Only until Mrs. Thomas makes it through the storm. She and Mr. Thomas look after the cottage. For a few extra shillings a week she cooks and cleans and does my laundry."
"I doubt she'll make it today."
"No." A warm glow of anticipation grew inside Abigail's stomach. Another night with this man was well worth a little starvation.
Robert toasted bread to a fine turn. And spread strawberry jam lavishly.
She waved her cup toward the cupboard. "There's butter insidenot much, so unless you want to save it for later…"
His gray eyes darkened. He met her gaze, a half-brooding, half-searching look. "Why did you pull away last night?"
She squared her shoulders, fully prepared to lie. If he had not discovered her faults, who was she to point them out? Instead, she said, "You were taking my hair down."
"You have beautiful hair, Abigail."
"I have gray in my hair, Robert."
She did not expect evidence of her rapidly approaching old age to inspire laughter. But it did.
She tilted her chin and held up her cup of tea with her little finger sticking out at the required degree. "I am glad you find my age amusing, Robert."
"Abigail, I am five years older than you are. And if you had any gray hairs, I would not be laughing."
"But I do," she stubbornly insisted.
"Then I don't see them."
"A woman my age should not let her hair down."
"Perhaps that is why there are men like me, to take it down for them."
She lowered her eyelashes to block those pewter eyes before she started believing in the impossible.
"Is your leg well?"
"Which one?"
Abigail's gaze rose to the bait. "Your left one"
Only to be stopped by the glint in his eyes.
"You have a wicked sense of humor, ColonelRobert."
"And you have a sore bum to look after, MissAbigail."
"It is not my bum that is sore."
"I know what is sore. And I know how to make it better."
The bucket of water on the stove hissed. He added it to the hip bathand disappeared behind a fog of steam. Vigorous pumping sounds penetrated the gray mist; they were followed by the cascade of water pouring into water. The writhing steam thinned, revealing Robert leaning over the tub, checking the temperature with a seductive swish of liquid.
He straightened. "Your bath, madam."
Abigail approached the tub and boldly dropped the blanket. Robert just as boldly picked her up.
He kissed her.
His tongue was scalding hot. It was flavored with strawberry jam.
The bathwater was just as scalding hot, with none of the sweetness.
Disregarding dignity, Abigail threw a leg over each side of the tub and heaved herself up. Robert was equally determined to hold her down. And far more successful.
"Let me up! This is scalding!"
"Hold still, Abigail. The water is not going to do you any good unless it is hot."
"Only a lobster would benefit from water this hot!" Closing her eyes in pain and frustration, she tried a more civilized approach. "Please let me up."
"Did I tell you how beautiful you are?"
Abigail knew perfectly well that she wasn't beautiful. Her eyes snapped open. "You are fond of the color red, I take it?"
A low, masculine laugh filled the hot steam. "Abigail, you get much redder when you blush. I promise that after you've soaked for a while, you will feel much, much better."
"You mean that after I have soaked for a while, I will be well done."
"Done enough to eat."
The blistering heat that flooded her body had nothing to do with the water.
With a little sigh, Robert sat down on the floor at the head of the tub. "Lean back, Abigail."
With an answering sigh, Abigail leaned back. The hair on his chest made a wiry pillow. A sure hand came up and brushed the damp hair off her forehead. It repeated the soothing motion until the water and the caress became one and Abigail felt as if her bones were dissolving. She tilted her head back.
His head tilted forward to meet her gaze.
She felt her heart skip a beat.
He looked so alone.
No man, regardless of what he had done, deserved to bear that much pain.
"Tell me," she softly commanded.
The gray eyes grew opaque. Bending his head down, he rubbed his nose against hers. "Tell you what?"
"Tell me why you entered the Army at the age of thirteen."
"But you said that was illegal."
"And then tell me what you did in the Army."
He raised his head. Thick black lashes veiled his eyes.
"I enlisted in the Army because I was ambitious and I wanted to see the world. I was a big strapping boyno one questioned my age. No sooner did I sign on as a drummer boy than my dream came trueI was shipped to India."
Steam collected on his las
hes, pearled on the black stubble covering his face.
" India is a diverse country," Abigail prodded. "What section were you stationed in?"
The thick black lashes lifted. He looked so terribly remote, staring at her out of eyes that were looking back twenty-two years. "Have you been there?"
"No."
"You are correct, Indiais a diverse country. It has jungles. It has deserts. And it has mountains. When the morning sun rises over the mountains, it turns the sand blood red."
"It sounds beautiful," Abigail said quietly, cautiously, wondering what could possibly have happened there to put that kind of expression on a man's face. "Were you there for the Sepoy Rebellion?"
The pewter-gray eyes filled with cynicism. "It's ironic, actually. The Sepoy Rebellion started because the Muslims and the Hindus objected to the British use of rifle cartridges greased with pig and cow fatwhereas the British infantrymen would have been perfectly happy to have some of that fat on their hardtack."
He shrugged, a fleeting scratch of hair and muscle against her back. "No, the rebellion was over by the time I arrived in India. My regiment was stationed at the foot of the mountains. I sneaked away to practice my drumming one morningit's easier to drum than to sew and cook, which were the duties assigned to me until I learned how to properly drum a march."
Robert paused, lifted his right arm. Long fingers gently stroked her throat.
She arched her neck, giving him access to her body, the only comfort, she suspected, that he would accept. "So that morning did you learn how to drum?"
"No. ASepoy a Bengal army mancame upon me where I was playing in the ravine. The rebellion wasn't over for him. He thought it sport to kill a drummer boyone less British soldier to deal with in the future. Not worth a bullet, but certainly I was worth the effort of skewering on a bayonet."
Abigail writhedinside. Outside, she calmly held his bleak gaze and accepted the gentleness of his touch while she tried to imagine her eldest nephewthirteen now, still playing with hoopsin the Army facing death.
"What happened?"
"Do you really want to know?"
"Yes." Her voice was firm.
"TheSepoy taunted me, rushing me with the bayonet, drawing blood, pulling back. After a while he got overconfident, thinking that the English boy with blood and sweat and snot and tears running down his face was no threat. He forgot about the drumsticks. They're tapered, you know, and made out of good, solid wood. I drove the first one into the soft part of his belly."
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