by Amii Lorin
“Nay,” William said, shaking his head. ‘‘Mrs. Shelby has no time to sit for it either, man.”
The artist appeared crestfallen and on the verge of tears. Shoulders drooping, he turned to leave the Inn when the kindhearted Emily intervened.
“Pray, Mr. Shelby, grant me a boon,” she requested in respectful tones. “Allow the man to paint a portrait of the young miss, Faith.”
“Me!” Faith exclaimed, though she knew full well the deed was as good as done; the proof of it hung in The Laughing Fox of the twenty first century.
“Shush, child,” Emily murmured, “The man needs our charity.” Raising her voice, she appealed again to her husband. “What say you, William?”
“Well, now,” Mr. Shelby muttered, obviously not predisposed to the idea. “I do not...”
“I think the prospect of a new portrait merits consideration,” Pres inserted, his lazy tone of voice a clear indication that he had stepped back into the role of languid aristocrat. “I shall sit,” he went on, deigning to smile at the newly hopeful artist. Moving with fluid grace, he flicked a hand in Faith’s general direction, while addressing Mr. Shelby. “For a pittance, would you not like a portrait, a keepsake if you will, in remembrance of your mysterious young miss?”
The deed was done. The swiftly—and badly— executed portraits had been completed within a week and a half. The artist had started Faith’s that very same night, and done Pres’s entirely on the occasion of his second visit to the inn. Pres had requested lodging, and had sat long into the night for the painter. In the morning, as on his other stay, he was gone before Faith awakened. There was no sign of the painting, and the Shelbys assumed Pres had taken it with him. Faith knew better; the painting had to be somewhere in the inn, for at some future date, some future Shelby would hang it on the wall next to her own.
That had been over a week ago.
A soft sigh whispered through the quiet room. Would she ever see Pres again? Faith wondered. Only God knew how long she would remain in the past; she could be whisked forward into her own time every bit as quickly as she had been zapped into the past.
September had passed, as had the first full week of October. The weather grew steadily worse, unusual for so early in the autumn. Would the inclement conditions curtail Pres’s movements, making it too arduous to travel back and forth between his home in Philadelphia and his holdings in Lancaster and Reading?
A faint, scratching sound at the window startled Faith out of her less than encouraging speculations. Going stiff, she cast an apprehensive look at the window. Rain and sleet pounded against the pane; the wind moaned through the gnarled old tree—long gone in her time—situated outside now.
Tossed by the wind, the tree branches were brushing against the window pane, Faith concluded, exhaling a deep sigh of relief. For an instant she had been afraid there might be an intruder.
Fanciful, she chided herself. It was late, she was tired; time to shelve fruitless reflections, and call it a night. So thinking, she hopped off the bed, slipped the shawl from her shoulders, and crossed to the armoire.
Musing on the cold floor, and her colder feet, she emitted a muffled gasp when a strong arm encircled her waist and a broad hand was clamped over her mouth.
“Peace, Faith, I shall not harm you,” Pres whispered close to her ear.
Faith shivered, more from the inner tingling sensations caused by the feel of his warm breath against the sensitive skin below her ear than from the initial spurt of panic she had experienced.
“If you will promise not to cry out, I shall remove my hand,” he murmured, causing another wild tingle inside her. “Nod if you are in agreement.”
Faith bobbed her head, while noting with excitement that he hadn’t said anything about removing his arm from her waist.
His hand fell from her face. Then Faith’s mind whirled as Pres spun her around and pulled her into a tight embrace. She heard her name being murmured on a low groan, and then his mouth covered, crushed, devoured hers. He was soaking wet; his clothes, his face were chilled. But Faith hardly noticed. In swiftly accelerating stages, she was warmed, heated, set afire by the hungry pressure of his mouth, the tentative probe of his tongue.
Though Faith had not led a cloistered life, other than a brief, dissatisfying affair when she’d been a junior in college, she had not indulged in intimate relationships. By rights, she should have been shocked by Pres’s sudden amorous advances; and in some sense she was. Electrified, she curled her arms around his rain-slicked neck and returned his deepening kiss with a matching ardor.
Pres went stone still for an instant, then a groan vibrating his throat, he dropped his hands to her hips and lifted her into the arching thrust of his taut body.
Faith’s senses exploded. A hard knot of desire formed in the pit of her stomach and quickly descended to the most feminine part of her. She burned, ached with a need she had never before believed it was possible to feel. She wanted, wanted ... everything imaginable.
Shaken by the intensity of her response, Faith slid her hands to his chest and wrenched herself back, away from him and her own clamoring senses.
“Pres, stop, please,” she panted, turning her head to avoid the allure of his seeking mouth. “You ... you’re going too fast, too…” Her voice faded as, muttering a curse, he released her and stepped back.
“I vow, I owe you an apology,” he said in a ragged voice. “But damned if I will make it.” His chest heaving, Pres stared at her from eyes glittering with the light of passion. “I am not sorry I kissed you, Faith.” His lips curved into a regretful smile. “I am sorry you stopped me from going further.”
Faith felt she should chastise him, but in all honesty she could not—for along with a renewed chill in her body, she too was feeling sorry she had stopped him. She took a step toward him, then halted, eyes growing wide with surprise as the strange look of him registered on her calming mind.
Even in the meager light of the flickering candle set on a tiny table beside her bed, Faith could see the roughness of his clothing. Gone was the elegantly tailored attire he usually wore. It had been replaced by the more common garb of pants, loose jacket, shirt and boots, all in dark colors.
He looked ... shadowy!
“Pres?” Faith heard the unspoken question in her voice and knew her suspicions were reflected in the eyes she raised from his clothing to his face.
“Yes.” Pres answered her unvoiced question. “I am the shadowy figure the country folk have been twittering about over their ale mugs.”
Faith inched back, coming to a stop when her spine made contact with the armoire.
“On my honor, I swear you have no cause to fear me, Faith.” Pres didn’t pursue her, at least not physically. But his soft, beguiling tone seemed to coil around her heart.
“But... why?” she asked in a whispered plea. “Why do you dress like this and go roaming around the countryside, rattling the locals?”
Pres shrugged. “It serves a purpose.”
“What purpose could possibly be served by skulking about?” she demanded in disappointed anger.
“The purpose of scavenging whatever information and food I can avail myself of for my commander-in-chief,” he replied coldly.
“Washington?” Faith breathed, staring at him in shock and amazement.
“Yes,” he said. “General Washington.”
“You’re a spy?”
“I am a scout,” Pres corrected her severely. Then he grinned. “And a spy.” His grin fled as quickly as it had flashed, leaving his face drawn and strained. “I should not be here,” he muttered. “But I had a longing to see you ... and a need to know.”
“Know?” Faith frowned. “Know what?”
“Some six days ago we... the army was turned back by the British at Germantown, just as you foretold on the night of your arrival here,” he said, watching her through narrowed eyes. “It was as if Howe’s forces were expecting us. It was a rout. My comrades and I circled around, deflecting th
e enemy’s attention from our commander.” A muscle twitched in his taut jaw. “My horse stumbled, thereby saving my life. The man riding before me took the ball aimed at my back.”
“Oh, Pres.”
His shoulders rippled, as if he was shrugging off her murmur of sympathy. “The outcome was never in question. General Washington has withdrawn to—”
“Whitemarsh.” The place name popped into her mind and out of her mouth.
“But how do you know these things?” Pres said urgently.
“I told you before,” Faith answered, slumping wearily against the armoire. ‘These events are all history to me... soul-stirring history of my beloved, free country.”
“Free?” Pres pounced on the word.
“Yes, Pres, free,” she said. “You made the right decision when you chose to side with the revolutionaries instead of the crown, as your family did.”
Pres straightened to his full height of over six feet. “There was never a question of where my loyalties lay,” he said sternly. “I love this country, also.”
“I’m glad,” she said simply. “I was worried about that. Your dress, your manner. . .”
He smiled. “They also serve a purpose.”
“I see that now.”
“But this matter of travel through time—” Pres shook his head. “I do not comprehend.”
“Mind bender, isn’t it?” Faith asked, sighing. “I don’t understand it either. All I know is that on Christmas Eve, two thousand and fourteen, I walked into the yard ...”
“Into the snow,” Pres inserted.
“Yes,” she concurred. “I was feeling so alone, so lost. I... I appealed to God for guidance. I buried my face in my hands and cried. Then a voice called my name, and when I looked up, Mrs. Shelby was crossing the yard to me, the snow was gone, and I was here.”
“Unbelievable,” he murmured.
“But I can prove it!” Faith cried. Recalling the watch and cigarette case in her apron pocket, she turned to open the armoire door.
“No, Faith,” Pres said, weariness weighing his tone. “Unbelievable as it is, I do believe you. I must. I will examine your proof another time, perhaps. For now, I am tired.” He glanced at his clothes and smiled. “I am also very wet, and rather cold.”
“Oh!” Faith leaped away from the armoire. “Yes, of course, the rain! Get out of those clothes at once,” she ordered, unmindful of her own wet nightgown, dampened from the contact with him. Rushing to the bed, she pulled off the top cover. “You can wrap yourself in this quilt. It’s old, but warm.”
Moments later, stripped down to his small clothes, Pres stood before Faith beside the narrow bed, the quilt draped toga-style around his lean body and making him look as imperious as a Roman emperor. A smile playing over his mouth, he swept her body with gleaming eyes and arched one dark brow. “Your gown is damp also,” he murmured, loosening a corner of the quilt and holding it away from his body in invitation. “You are shivering. Would you care to warm yourself by joining me inside this cocoon?”
Startled by his observation, Faith quickly glanced down and felt her cheeks grow warm at the sight of her nakedness, the curve of her breasts, her chill-hardened nipples, the vee bracketing her feminine mound, outlined and defined by her damp gown.
“Do not be embarrassed or shamed.” Though his voice was soft, it held a hint of command. “You are so incredibly beautiful, Faith. Come, my sweet, be with me, warm me, allow me to warm you.”
Uncertain, anxious, Faith hesitated for several long moments, studying the tender expression on his face. She didn’t know this man; knew nothing at all about him other than what little she had garnered by observing him on his few stops at the inn. And yet she felt she did know him, and trusted him instinctively.
Still, Faith hesitated. It had been so long since she had shared any form of intimacy with a man. She had been too busy running the inn, too distracted and disinterested to be bothered.
Watching Pres watch her, Faith acknowledged that she was still busy; Mrs. Shelby saw to that. And she was still distracted; who wouldn’t be in such weird circumstances? But she was interested in Pres—interested and bothered.
She wanted to be with this man. It was as simple as that. As an anticipatory thrill intensified the shivers skipping over her body, Faith stepped forward, into his open arms, and sighed contentedly as he enclosed them within the warm folds of the soft quilt.
“There, is that not better?” he whispered, ruffling her hair with his breath,
“Yes,” she admitted. “But my feet feel frozen.”
“Mine also.” Pres tilted his head back to smile at her. “If I promise to conduct myself like a gentleman, would you consent to lie upon the bed with me?”
“Yes,” Faith answered without hesitation, without reservation.
The transition from floor to bed was made with a minimum of awkwardness, and a muffled giggle from Faith. Then, snug and warm all over, wrapped in the quilt and Pres’s arms, she threw caution to the wind and brazenly raised her parted lips to his mouth.
Chapter 4
“Vixen.”
Faith smiled and once again brushed her mouth over his, creating havoc with his senses—and a most sensitive part of his anatomy.
Suppressing a groan of response, of need, Pres captured her teasing lips, crushing them beneath the hungry weight of his passion-hardened mouth. The ardor Faith revealed by her own response stole his breath away. Never, never before had he become aroused so quickly, so completely. As depleted and tired as his body was, it quickened with a demanding, painful desire to be as one with Faith.
“You would tempt a saint,” Pres whispered, bathing her lips with the tip of his tongue.
“Are you a saint?’7
“Far from it,” he admitted, laughing softly.
Faith frowned and drew back a few inches.
“I am two-and-thirty, Faith,” Pres murmured, hauling her close to him again,
“Are you?” Faith asked, surprised. “I thought you were older.”
“Indeed?” Asperity tinged his voice; Pres did not appreciate her opinion, or the echo of his own previous remark.
Faith offered him a soft smile and raised her hand to stroke his taut cheek. “I didn’t mean you look older, Pres,” she hastened to assure him.
“No?” He arched his dark brows. “What, then, did you mean?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “You look so much the man of the world, so mature, so in command of yourself.”
“Ahh ... I do like the sound of that,” he said on a purr. “Please continue, I am fascinated.”
“Oh, cut me some slack,” she said in a choked voice, burying her laughter against his chest, and tickling his skin, and his fancy, with her warm breath.
“Cut you some...” Pres’s voice was lost to his chuckle. “Oh, Faith, you delight me.”
“Do I?” Faith’s laughter fled. Raising her head, she stared into his eyes. “Truly?”
“Truly,” he repeated, lowering his head to hers. “You are the singularly most delightful and intriguing creature I have ever met.” His mouth sought hers, but Faith pulled her head back to stare at him in astonishment.
“Intriguing?” she exclaimed. “Me?” She gave a sharp, impatient shake of her head. “I?”
“Yes, of course, you.” Pres smiled. “I know of no other who has traveled through time.”
“Then, you really do believe me?” Faith asked in wide-eyed expectancy.
Pres felt a tug at his heart; in that moment, she seemed so like a lost child seeking reassurance. What must it be like for her? he mused. How confusing, how frightening to find oneself in an unfamiliar place and time, surrounded by strangers.
“Yes, Faith, I really do believe you,” he said with utter sincerity. “I do not know nor understand how or why you have come here, but I do believe you.”
She heaved a ragged sigh of relief, and snuggled closer to him, safe and secure in his arms.
Pres
’s feelings of tenderness, gentleness, caring, protectiveness were touched, negating the baser one of carnal lust... or was it simply that his body was too tired to maintain the physical demands?
No matter. He was weary, and when he allowed himself to recall the time spent in the saddle, both during the battle at Germantown and in the days following it, he was disheartened. The recent chain of events did not portend well for the cause of freedom.
The single bright spot in his life at present was the woman he held in his arms, who had aroused unexpected feelings in him, and on her claim that from her future prospective, the freedom they were all fighting so desperately for was an accepted fact.
Absently stroking silky strands of hair from Faith’s soft cheek, Pres pondered the question of why he believed her incredible tale of time travel. She could be mad, or merely deluded, or even a base liar.
But he did not think so.
There was something about her, something inherently honest that spoke to something within him. Faith had told him the truth. Pres was prepared to stake his life on it.
She turned her head to press her lips to his fingers. “What are you thinking about?”
“You,” he murmured, absently tracing the contour of her downy cheek with the tip of one finger,
“What about me?” she asked in a whisper, making a soft mewing sound, not unlike that of a contented cat being gently stroked.
“Your present circumstances,” Pres answered, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a sudden yawn. Weariness lay heavily on him, tugging at his eyelids. “It must be harrowing for you.”
“Yes, at least it was at the beginning,” Faith replied. “It isn’t as bad now. I’ve adapted somewhat. I don’t understand any of it,” she went on, sighing. “I don’t know that I ever will.” Levering herself up onto one elbow, she peered into his face. “How long has it been since you’ve had any sleep?”
“Please, forgive me,” Pres said, covering his mouth to muffle another yawn. “But I assure you, I have heard every word you uttered.”
“Oh, Pres, there’s nothing to forgive.” Faith smiled. “Or are you just trying to avoid my question?”
