by Henke, Shirl
Dinner that evening was Madelyne's first trip downstairs since James was born, and the servants had gone to great lengths to make it festive. Huge sprays of fresh summer flowers lent their fragrance to the succulent aroma wafting from Delphine's kitchens. Without Robert's somber presence and acidic comments, the meal should have been pleasant, but Andrew and Devon were almost as bad as their uncle.
As the men argued through dinner, Madelyne watched the subtle byplay between Devon and Barbara and, she noted, so did Andrew. Something was going on, but Madelyne could not decide exactly what. Barbara had always disliked Andrew. After observing the way he behaved toward Devon, she was inclined to see some merit in her friend's judgment. As always, Andrew was solicitous and gentle with her, but now that she had made other friends in his brother and Barbara, Madelyne was beginning to see her “dear cousin” in a new light, an unflattering one.
Perhaps he's just jealous of Dev's charm and handsomeness. Lord knows the rogue has entranced Barbara, and she's scarcely a green girl. But there was something more to the seemingly instantaneous attraction between her friend and the ranger captain. Dismissing the idea as fanciful, she intervened in the heated discussion between the two brothers over the conduct of the war.
“The man's a bumbling oaf, thinking to take on General Cornwallis headlong,” Andrew said. “We sent him off with his tail between his legs after Guilford Courthouse.”
“Nate Greene is no fool. He knew when to fight and how to retreat strategically. Guilford Courthouse was a pyrrhic victory of the first order,” Devon said tersely.
“It would seem to me that since the battle ended in a draw, either side could claim it as a victory,” Madelyne said carefully. “The fact is, both men quit the field and regrouped.”
“But Cornwallis chose to regroup in Virginia while Georgia and the Carolinas lay exposed like fish in a dammed-up creek,” Devon argued. “He's fighting a traditional war against non-traditional foes.”
“He's fighting rabble,” Andrew scoffed.
Madelyne colored in anger at Andrew's aspersion on her husband and his cause.
“Those rabble have the brains to realize what it takes to win a civil war,” Devon replied. “They can't face down disciplined British regulars in conventional battle, but they're masters at disruption and skirmishing.”
“But aren't such raids merely annoyances?” Barbara asked Devon.
“Scarcely. Men like Pickens and Clarke in Georgia have cost us a fortune in supplies and countless casualties through desertion and injury. Within the past weeks, they've taken Augusta and Georgetown. And that old fox in South Carolina has led Tarleton on a fool's chase for months. When Marion joined Greene, they almost took Ninety-six. Cost Lord Rawdon half his command.”
“Francis Marion was a friend of my mother's family before the war,” Madelyne said sadly. And now my husband serves under him.
“Let us drink to a swift cessation of this insane war,” Barbara interjected, raising her glass in a toast.
“And to the triumph of his majesty's forces,” Andrew added.
“Let us just see it done,” Madelyne said.
“Surely, in spite of Quintin's allegiance, you don't mean that,” Andrew remonstrated, taking Madelyne's hand solicitously.
“Ah, but she does, and so do I. Men make wars. Women who bring children into the world would only see it safe for them.” Barbara smiled at Madelyne, whom she noticed had freed her hand from Andrew's grasp.
“Well spoken...for a woman,” Devon said with a glint of humor as his glass chimed against Barbara's.
Madelyne noted that he and Barbara could hardly tear their eyes from each other's faces.
“Yes, but women do not have a bent for political matters, I fear,” Andrew said with a patronizing tone. “English-speaking children are scarce safe in a world where misguided rebels ally with Frenchmen.”
“Who was it who said, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’?” Madelyne asked, distracting Andrew from the intimate exchange between Barbara and Devon.
She vowed to find out exactly what was going on between her friend and Devon Blackthorne.
Chapter Nineteen
Barbara waited until the house was completely silent. The tall clock downstairs chimed two. All the servants were asleep. Even Andrew, who was prone to staying up late and nipping at Robert's excellent brandy, had retired to sleep off his overindulgence. She belted the silk robe about her waist and slipped from her room into the dark hallway.
Madelyne had given Devon a room at the far northeast end of the house, accessible to the river breeze, overruling Mrs. Ogilve, who had spitefully assigned him a cramped dormer room on the third floor. As Barbara neared his door at the end of the hall, she felt her heart beating furiously. The night was warm, but not nearly hot enough to cause the dewy sheen of perspiration on her body.
I've summoned him and he's come. Now what do I do? Her pride demanded that he come to her room, seek her out and seduce her this time. But she knew he would not. As it was, his visit to Blackthorne Hill must have been undertaken only after lengthy agonizing. A week had passed since they met at the racetrack. The very next day, she had arrived here to find Madelyne safely delivered of her son. And Devon had not come. Until now.
She did not knock but slowly turned the heavy brass doorknob. The door swung open on silent, well-oiled hinges. Moonlight poured in a window at the end of the hall, bathing her in silvery light as she stood in the doorway.
Devon sat reclining on a mound of pillows in the wide, soft bed. He wore only a pair of snug, soft buckskin pants, his upper body and feet bare in the warm night air. His eyes were riveted on her as she hesitated. “You've come this far...don't stop now,” he drawled softly.
Devon fought the desire to run to her and embrace her, but the pain tore at him, watching her slim body silhouetted in sheer silk. Moonbeams danced on her pale hair as it fell around her shoulders. His indolent pose was a sham, but he would never let her know how desperately he wanted what he could never have.
Barbara stepped inside the room and closed the door. Dev still did not move, just watched her with burning dark eyes. “I'd almost given up hope that you'd heed my message.”
“Perhaps I only came because I heard of young James's birth.”
“Liar,” she whispered, drawing slowly nearer, watching the increasingly rapid rise and fall of his chest. “You're not so indifferent to me as you would pretend.” She reached out one hand and touched the golden hair on his chest, running her fingers through it, then splaying her palm over his pounding heart.
He clasped her wrist and held it away from his chest. Her hand looked milky pale against his darkly bronzed fist. “Barbara—your ladyship—I cannot have you,” he murmured softly, then pulled her toward him. She fell on top of him, her breasts pressed against his chest, her legs entwined with his.
Their lips were inches apart as she whispered, “You already do have me, Dev.”
He ran his fingers through her hair. “Everything about you is refined, perfect.”
“Everything about me is yours, Dev.”
“But only for tonight, your ladyship.”
“Then let us not waste tonight, Dev,” she said, kissing him as he had taught her, brushing his lips, then rimming them with her tongue until he opened his mouth and savaged hers.
With a low growl, he rolled them both across the bed, until she was beneath him. As his hand reached between them and yanked the sash of her robe free, he said, “You came to me for this and I can't deny you, God help us both.” The robe opened, revealing one smooth, milky breast. His dark hand cupped it, feeling the nipple grow hard as she arched into the caress. Her whole body seemed to open to him, invite him, envelop him.
He trailed hot, wet kisses from her mouth down the slim column of her neck and over her delicate collarbone until his seeking lips fastened on her breast, suckling, teasing, arousing. She writhed against him, her fingers digging into his shoulders, urging him on as he laved the other breas
t and gave his attention to it. He was rough as he tore the sheer silk away from her hot, eager flesh. She helped him, pulling her arms free of the sleeves and kicking off her soft slippers.
Devon moved lower, his tongue twirling in the hollow of her navel until she whimpered. Then he let his questing lips move down her flat little belly to the golden curls at the apex of her thighs. When his mouth found her soft, wet heat, she gasped in shocked pleasure aíid seized fistfuls of his hair in her hands.
Barbara felt the wild, sweet caress of his tongue and lips, touching her so delicately, so deliciously. It was scandalous. It was sinful. It was bliss. She opened further for him, spreading her legs wide as he continued this magical new way of loving her.
The room seemed to be spinning around her as she thrashed in abandon. She was being drawn deeper and deeper into a dark whirlpool of passion, blind to everything else but the heat and the need burning at the core of her body, the need that only Dev could create and quench. Barbara felt the cresting of her climax as it built slowly, then suddenly burst upon her like cannon shot, fiery, fierce, overwhelming.
Dev gloried in her shuddering release as it surged, peaked, then gradually ebbed, leaving her panting and spent. He tasted the musky sweetness of her body, now replete, as he raised his head and studied her moon-sheened magnificence.
“You even taste noble, your ladyship.” His eyes glowed as they swept hungrily up her body to meet hers.
Barbara watched him as he lay beside her. He was still clad in those tight buckskins, made even tighter by the hardness of his arousal. She reached down and cupped him, feeling his staff straining against the soft leather. Her mind turned over several tantalizing possibilities as she stroked him, watching the tension build in his beautiful lean body. Muscles and tendons stood out in his neck, shoulders, and arms as he arched his hips to the rhythm she set.
While she continued to fondle him with one hand, her other moved to the buttons of his fly. She reached for the top one and felt him hold his breath. Then she proceeded to unfasten them, slowly, one at a time. His breathing grew erratic and rough. When the last button was loosed, she tugged at the tight pants. He helped her slide them over his hips and his staff sprangfree,erect and straining with need. She touched it reverently, lightly, letting her fingertips glide up and down the hard, velvety length of it.
“You witch,” he gasped, kicking his pants free and shoving them from the bed with one foot.
“I only do as you have taught me,” she whispered, appearing to consider how next to approach her wondrous new toy.
“You're enjoying this,” he rasped out accusingly.
“You said it. I'm a witch. And you're under my spell.”
He muttered an oath she could not decipher as she lowered her head over him and began to taste of his flesh. At first she went softly, slowly, not certain what to do or how to move. Then he instructed her with words and his hands, showing her how to take him in her mouth and pleasure him far more roughly than he had her when loving her this way.
Soon he was thrusting in a frenzied rhythm. Never before had she felt such a sense of power and at the same time such tenderness as when his whole body began to tremble, then grew rigid as he spilled his seed in great pulsing waves. He cried out her name as she took his offering, rich and sweet on her tongue.
“You, too, taste good,” she whispered as she slid up into his embrace, her face nuzzling the crisp hair of his chest.
How long had it been? Dev counted the months, endless and empty since last he had held her. There had been no other. God help him, he must leave before first light and never see her again.
At least he'd taken care to see that there was no chance a child came of their loving. He could never destroy her reputation that way or leave a bastard of mixed blood to be raised and despised by some English lord. Thinking of the viscount who was courting her, he tightened his hold on her possessively. Lie with me and let us sleep, my love, for only this one last night.
But Barbara was not content to lie still. She raised her head and began to kiss his throat, then ran her tongue along the golden beard stubble on his jaw while her hands explored the hard muscles of his arms and back.
“Be still and sleep,” he commanded.
“No, we must not waste the night, remember? Let's taste of one another and see…” She let her tongue flick across his lips, then opened her mouth and kissed him voraciously.
His curses were muffled in her mouth as he deepened the kiss, abandoning control.
“You see,” she said feverishly as she trailed her lips across his cheeks and over his eyelids, “we blend together our tastes and scents anyway.” Then she returned to his mouth and a fierce predatory kiss.
Dev gave up his resolve as she clamped her thighs together, imprisoning his turgid, aching staff. He rolled on top of her and buried himself deeply. She urged him on with words and hands, digging her nails into his hips, drawing him further inside her. When he began to thrust furiously, she slowed him to a languorous pace, whispering, “Let it last, beloved, let it last.”
He struggled to control himself, then set an even rhythm, his hips rising and falling as her legs wrapped about him, holding him fast. She arched with every stroke, panting, whispering his name. Just as he felt them cresting, he stopped and held her still.
”I should withdraw from you before—”
She stopped him with an incoherent cry and bucked against him, driving them both over the abyss into the conscienceless oblivion of a shattering climax. When he tried to pull away, she tightened her long legs around his hips and held him fast until he collapsed on top of her, breathless and spent.
Barbara held him in her arms and watched him sleep for a while after that, studying every nuance of his splendid face—its finely arched eyebrows, strong straight nose, sculpted, sensuous lips. His skin was swarthy and dark in contrast to his tawny gold hair. Truly he brought the best of two worlds together, and he was her world, her life.
“I will not lose you, Devon Blaçkthorne.” Her soft voice whispered on the night air as she kissed his closed eyes, then lay beside him and fell fast asleep.
Sunrise came early, for it was just past the summer solstice. Devon, used to riding with ranger patrols, awakened as the faint streaks of pale pink light crept over the river below them. He looked down at the sleeping woman as he gently disengaged himself from her. Then he dressed in silent haste, picked up his few belongings, and placed them in the saddlebags lying across a chair. He knelt and carefully pulled the wrinkled robe over her. Be happy, your ladyship...for both of us.
Barbara awakened when she felt the loss of his body heat. Disoriented, she sat up in the big, empty bed and felt the pillow beside her. It was still slightly warm. Instinctively she knew he had left her. And left BlackthorneHill, never to return.
* * * *
Madelyne heard James cry before Amy, the young black nursemaid, could reach the child. She motioned for the girl to return to her bed and picked up her son while Gulliver watched from his sentry post at the side of the crib. The sky was not yet light. “You're sleeping longer and longer between feedings,” she said, praising him as he eagerly began to suckle at her breast.
When she had finished feeding him, Madelyne changed his napkin and put him back in his cradle. She debated about returning to her own bed for a few more hours, but her strength had returned quickly after the birth. Both Dr. Witherspoon and Delphine praised her pluck and each claimed credit from the other. Smiling, she dressed quickly in simple muslin skirts and a calico bodice with wide lacings down its front, now an essential style for her to be able to feed James.
The heat of June had not yet risen with the sun. Madelyne considered a walk among her flowers during the coolness of the early morn. She had just opened the door to her room when she saw a figure disappear down the back stairs. From the long, silver-gilt hair, she knew it must be Barbara, but what was her friend doing up at this hour—and dressed in only a filmy robe?
Heedless of he
r dishabille, Barbara raced barefooted down the stairs and into the back hall. The stables were south of the big house, most quickly reached by the rear door. She opened it and ran across the dew-drenched grass, to find Dev leading his bay horse from the stable door.
He stopped in his tracks, frozen as she ran up to him, dressed only in the sheer, badly rumpled silk robe he had virtually torn off her body the preceding night.
“Go back inside before you’re seen, your ladyship,” he said with quiet finality. He reached for the pommel of the saddle to swing up,, but she grasped his arm, forcing him to turn and face her or throw off her hand.
“Don't leave me without saying good-bye.” Her voice broke.
“All right then, good-bye. Does that make it any easier?” he asked raggedly.
”I don't want it to be easy.” She stood with shoulders erect, head held regally as she met his anguished eyes.
“You're a titled Englishwoman, nearly affianced to a titled Englishman.”
“Weymouth is Monty's choice, never mine.”
“He's a viscount, rich as sin, and not a bad sort from what I hear in Savannah. You could do far worse than wed him.” Every word cost him, and he knew she knew it.
“Yes, I imagine I could. I could wed you.”
“Never. I can't offer for you, Barbara. I have nothing. You've seen how my own family feels about me. I'm not even welcome as a guest in Uncle Robert's house.”
“Robert Blackthorne will soon die of his own spleen. Damn him.”
“Even so, his life or death won't change anything for us,” he said, taking her hand in his and kissing the soft white skin on the inside of her wrist. “You know what we've just done can't be repeated. It should never have happened.”
Knowing what he had tried to do last night when she had come to him, she asked, “What if I am with child?”
His face grew stony. ”I tried to warn you. We were lucky last year.”
“But what if—”
