by Nan Ryan
She was no longer the spoiled, impetuous girl, and he damned sure was not the gullible, worshiping boy. He was a man and she was a woman. Physically he wanted her and she wanted him. It was that elemental.
It looked as if he would be stuck here in Memphis for weeks, perhaps months. His stay would be made infinitely more pleasant if she shared his bed. In his jaded view she was but another spoil of war, another comfort to be enjoyed while he was here, like the spacious mansion, and the home cooking, and the enormous featherbed on which he lay.
Clay crushed out his cigar in a crystal ashtray. He took a corner of the silky top sheet and blotted away the moisture from his hair-covered chest. And he gritted his even white teeth and wrapped the sheet around the hard, straining tumescence jerking on his belly. Cursing the sleeping blond beauty responsible, he vowed that the next time it happened she would be held accountable.
25
EACH DAY MARY ELLEN dreaded seeing the sun go down.
Each night she lay awake in her bed, tensely aware that she and the Yankee Captain were all alone on the silent second floor of the old mansion. She half expected him to beat on her door in the middle of the night, demanding that she let him in.
It never happened.
Night after night passed uneventfully. Soon Mary Ellen began to feel foolish that she had supposed he might behave so rashly. He had certainly done nothing to make her think he’d even want to get inside her bedroom. He was, whenever she bumped into him, coldly polite, nothing more. He never tried to detain her, never made any attempt to get her alone. He hardly acknowledged her presence. Often his icy silver eyes would flick to her, then quickly dismiss her, as if she weren’t there.
To her chagrin, the enigmatic Captain was unfailingly kind and patient with the old cook and butler. It was evident that they were as fond of him as if he were still the likable young boy who had spent so much time at Longwood.
She couldn’t fault them. Neither Titus nor Mattie knew what had really happened all those years ago. They had been told nothing. Now they were old and childlike. She would say nothing to them.
Surprisingly enough, or perhaps not so surprisingly, the old black couple were not the only ones who showed absolutely no aversion to Captain Knight. The news that he was in command of the naval occupying forces had spread quickly. So had the news that he had commandeered Longwood.
The pro-Union Press Scimitar even did a favorable “Hail the Conquering Hero” piece in its Sunday edition.
It rankled Mary Ellen when old female acquaintances, stopping by the hospital with baskets of food and bandages, asked about the Yankee Captain with an accusing gleam in their eyes.
On a brief afternoon visit to the home of her friend Leah Thompson, Mary Ellen learned that Leah had heard gossip about the dark, handsome naval Captain.
“What? What are they saying, Leah?” Mary Ellen asked, a worried expression on her face.
“Now, Mary Ellen, don’t look so troubled,” said Leah. “No one is talking about you. They know you can’t help it that the Captain commandeered Longwood for his headquarters.” Leah inclined her head toward the back of the house. “Isn’t my home full of them, as well as dozens of other Memphis mansions up and down River Road? And all along Adams Avenue, too. They’ve moved into Isaac Kirkland’s big pink granite palace and James Lee’s mansion and even the old Massey house. There’s hardly a fine home in Memphis that hasn’t been taken over by the Federals, and Betsy Graham told me they’ve fanned out and moved into some of the outlying plantations and country estates where…where…well, now, not all the estates. I understand the Lawtons have been spared and—”
Mary Ellen cut in. “Leah, you were going to tell me about—”
“I guess you heard,” Leah went on as if Mary Ellen hadn’t spoken. “Daniel Lawton didn’t join the Confederate Army. No, sir, that able-bodied millionaire’s son has been right here at home all this time. Some whisper that Lawton Sr. might have ties to the North. I don’t know about that, but I do know the Lawtons are living like royalty while the South suffers. How long’s it been since you were able to get your hands on a pound of coffee? Cindy Smallwood said Daniel’s wife’s expecting again. That makes four, or is it five? I can’t keep up with—”
“Leah…” Mary Ellen gently tried again.
“Well, anyway, you can’t take two steps in this town without tripping over a blue-belly. I’ll tell you one thing: If my William wasn’t down in Vicksburg fighting with the Rebs, these Yankees wouldn’t be sleeping in his bed. He’d sweep them all out like a—”
“Leah, Leah, please,” Mary Ellen interrupted again, knowing her friend was such a talker that she’d go on forever if not stopped. “What have you heard about Captain Knight?”
“Oh, yes, the Captain. I got off the subject,” said Leah, smiling. “Where was I?” She frowned thoughtfully, then her eyes lighted as she remembered. “I know what I was going to say. I was going to tell you that if anything, you’re an object of envy, Mary Ellen. Some of our lonely ladies would gladly overlook the fact that the handsome officer wears the wrong color uniform. He’d be more than welcome in their parlors.” Leah smiled wickedly and added, “And I suspect a few of those ladies would like to see Captain Knight out of that blue uniform, if you know what I mean.” She laughed heartily.
“Leah Ruth Thompson!” Mary Ellen scolded.
Mary Ellen’s face reddened, and she was inexplicably annoyed with Leah. She found nothing humorous about a bunch of silly women lusting after the Captain.
“Oh, don’t act so shocked,” Leah said, and continued to laugh. “You’ve got to admit the Captain’s a handsome devil, and I’ll bet he knows his way around the bedroom.”
“I have to go,” Mary Ellen said, springing to her feet.
“Go?” Leah stopped laughing and rose, too. “You just got here.”
“I like to get home before dark.” She went to the door.
Leah followed. “What is it, Mary Ellen? What’s the real story here? You’ve said you and Captain Knight were good friends when you were young. Childhood sweethearts. But you never told me what happened. Did he—”
“I married another man,” Mary Ellen said, forcing a smile to her face. “That’s what happened. Nothing more.”
Leah touched Mary Ellen’s arm. “You can’t fool me, Mary Ellen Preble. There’s something between you two, isn’t there? Tell the truth. Aren’t you attracted to him? Aren’t you just a little bit afraid of the conquering Captain Knight?”
“No. No, I’m not afraid of the Captain.”
But she was.
Mary Ellen thought about it as she walked back home. She was afraid of him. Afraid of the effect he had on her. There was something about him that filled the hot June air with a crackling electric tension. When he was in the house it was like being caged with a sleek black panther that might spring any second and devour his startled prey.
She could tell when he entered a room well before she caught sight of him. She could sense when he was near her; the blood ran a little faster through her veins. When she heard his deep, compelling voice out in the hall, her heart skipped several beats. When he looked at her with those icy silver eyes, she felt heat rise in her cheeks. When his lean, long-fingered dark hand absently rubbed his blue trousered leg, she felt the touch on her own tingling thigh. When he was present, her clothes felt too tight for her body and it was hard to get a deep breath.
Yes, she was afraid of him. This new, commanding Clay frightened her in a way she had never been frightened before.
She was terrified of him.
But weeks went by and Captain Knight continued to pay her little or no attention. While some of his men covertly cast covetous glances her way now and again, their aloof commander took no notice of her.
It was as if she didn’t exist.
Mary Ellen began to let down her guard. Sleep, though still difficult, came a bit more easily.
She was finally able to get some much needed rest in her own home.
Until she awakened in the middle of a sweltering, moonless Memphis night, hot and thirsty.
Her throat was parched. She felt as if she’d been trekking across the vast Sahara Desert at high noon. She got out of bed, felt her way in the darkness to the marble-topped chest of drawers, and eagerly picked up the china water pitcher.
Mary Ellen shook the pitcher in disbelief and frowned. It was empty. She turned it up to a glass, hoping there was at least enough water for one small sip. There wasn’t a single drop.
“The devil!” she said aloud.
Irritated, she set down the empty pitcher and glanced toward the clock, but she couldn’t see it, much less read the time. The room was far too dark. No moon at all.
Mary Ellen stood there in the thick darkness and listened for sounds from below. She heard nothing. Evidently it was very late or perhaps even early morning. Longwood was dark, silent, sleeping.
She had to have a drink.
It would, she felt sure, be safe to slip out of her room and down the back stairs to the kitchen. She was familiar enough with the old house; she needn’t light a lamp and risk awakening anyone. She’d feel her way along in the darkness. Nothing to it. She’d hurry down to the kitchen, have a nice, cooling drink of water, and be back upstairs in her room before anyone knew she was out of bed.
Mary Ellen went back to the bed, felt around for her blue silk wrapper. She pulled it on over her thin blue cotton nightgown and drew her long, loose hair up outside the robe. Tying the sash, she cautiously made her way across the dark bedroom. Quietly she opened the door and slipped out into the pitch black hallway. Barefoot, she tiptoed a few tentative steps in the inky blackness and stopped short.
In the hot darkness she saw the tiny orange pinpoint glow of a lighted cigar. She froze as the tip of the cigar burned hotter, glowed brighter, moved closer.
Anxiously Mary Ellen began backing away, bumped into a hall table, and was trapped. A perspiring, bare-chested Captain Knight loomed before her, the lower half of his hard, handsome face faintly illuminated in the cigar’s tiny circle of light.
He said nothing, but he took the cigar from his mouth, reached around her, and crushed it out in an ashtray on the table. A little gasp of fear escaping her lips, Mary Ellen pushed on his naked chest and attempted to whirl away from him. But an arm of iron encircled her waist and he swept her tightly against his tall, lean body. She trembled. She blinked and squinted, but she couldn’t see him. Could only feel the heat of body, the warmth of his breath on her face.
“Don’t do it,” she murmured weakly.
“I have to,” he said, and his hot, hard mouth captured hers in a long, penetrating kiss.
When finally his lips released hers, Mary Ellen found herself sagging weakly against him, her flushed cheek pressed against the granite muscles of his slippery naked chest.
She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply of his clean masculine scent, her heart and her body in a tumult. But she managed to make a biting remark.
“You got your Annapolis appointment by making love to me. Wasn’t that enough for you, Captain Knight?”
His long fingers tangled in her hair, the Captain urged her head up off his chest. “Quite enough, thank you,” he said, meaning to hurt her, which he did. “And you, Mary? You got what you wanted as well?”
Preble pride fashioned her swift reply. “Of course I did. Yes! I most certainly did.” She wanted desperately to hurt him as he had hurt her. “I always get what I want,” she boasted, her head thrown back, straining desperately to get a glimpse of him.
She never saw, in the thick darkness enveloping them, the fleeting expression of pain that crossed his handsome face.
It was gone in an instant, and he said coldly, “And the divorce? Did you discover that a forbidden dalliance with the son of a seamstress was more to your liking than making love with your rich, aristocratic husband?”
“You vile, vulgar bastard!” she said, struggling against him. “I hate you, Captain Knight! With all my heart and soul I hate you, and I shall go on hating you until there is no breath left in my body!”
“Hate away, my sweet,” he said coolly as he tightened his grip on her hair and his lips slowly descended to hers, “because I intend to kiss all the breath out of your body.”
26
HE BENT HIS DARK head and again kissed Mary Ellen forcefully, his hot mouth almost brutal on her open lips. He felt her whole body stiffen against him and realized she was afraid of him.
He didn’t care.
His mouth stayed fused with hers as she tried frantically to free herself from his embrace. He refused to release her. He shifted their positions, pressing her back against the wall, trapping her with his leanly muscled body.
And he kept on kissing her.
Moaning her protests, Mary Ellen attempted to turn her head from side to side to tear her lips from his. But his strong fingers were tangled in her hair and he held her fast, forcing her head back.
And he kept on kissing her.
Overwhelmed by his fiery aggression, Mary Ellen tried desperately to save herself. She beat frantically on his bare back and shoulders with her clenched fists and whimpered her outrage at the forced assault on her senses. But the invasive, blazing kiss continued.
And continued.
It was a deep, intrusive kiss of such blatant intimacy, Mary Ellen felt its effects in the shock waves rocketing through her body. Her nipples began to peak, and a gentle throbbing started between her legs as his powerful, probing kiss awakened her long sleeping passions. Her entire body tingled as a thousand new electrifying sensations swamped her.
Her swelling breasts were crushed to his sweat-slick torso, the crisp damp hair of his chest tantalizingly abrasive to her aching nipples straining the thin fabric of her nightclothes. Pressed flush against him, she responded involuntarily when his wet, sleek tongue plunged deeply into her mouth, leaving nothing inside untouched, untasted, untried.
Mary Ellen’s head was spinning, her heart pounding furiously. She was both apprehensive and appalled at what was happening to her. She so wanted to be repelled by his kiss, to despise his touch. But it was impossible. She hadn’t felt like this since the last time he had held her, kissed her. No, that wasn’t true, either.
She had never felt like this.
She remembered only an innocent boy’s sweet, gentle kisses. This was a jaded man’s probing, urgent caresses, and she couldn’t resist him. Still she tried, knowing what would surely happen if she did not.
Mary Ellen continued to fight her fierce attraction to this dark, dangerous man who held her so tightly in his strong arms. Shocked and excited by such raw masculine power and passion, she felt panicky. Felt as if she were smothering, but deliciously so. Each brazen thrust of his tongue, every strong pull of his lips, the growing pressure of his arm around her waist, drew her more fully into him.
This dark, erotic seducer whom she could not even see was practically swallowing her up in his bold, burning kiss, as if starved for the taste of her. Mary Ellen couldn’t help herself; she melted under the fierce persuasion of the handsome Captain’s drugging kisses.
Her fists stopped raining impotent blows on his bare back and muscular shoulders. She quit struggling so furiously. Her body stopped thrusting and wrenching against his in a futile attempt to get away from him. The long dazzling kisses, the animal heat and granite hardness of his well-honed body, the blessed cover of the encompassing darkness—all combined to work their provocative magic on the weakened Mary Ellen.
Somewhere far back in her still functioning brain a warning was flashing that she was in imminent danger of losing herself to this mysterious man. She should fight doggedly on or risk dire, far-reaching consequences.
But at the moment she didn’t want to listen to reason or warnings. She didn’t want to think. She wanted only to feel. Finally Mary Ellen sighed softly in acquiescence, wrapped her weak, weary arms around his neck, and dissolved in his embrace.
The experienced
Captain Knight knew the exact second of her surrender. And it was surrender. She didn’t know it yet, but he did. He knew as well that this surrender was total.
She was now his.
Under different circumstances he would have immediately slowed the pace of his seduction. Skilled and generally sensitive even with the most wanton of women, he would have taken the opportunity to start over at the beginning. To woo and win her with whispered words and tender kisses and gentle caresses.
But the tension between them had built for too long; his hunger for her was too great.
Captain Knight’s passion swiftly eclipsed Mary Ellen’s, and his blood turned to liquid fire in his veins. Ruled only by blinding desire, he could barely keep from tearing the nightclothes from her warm, desirable body and taking her right there on the floor.
He continued to conquer her with amorous kisses, and when his heated mouth finally freed hers, Mary Ellen tried one last time to save herself.
“Let me go,” she whispered breathlessly, her head falling back against the wall, her heart drumming a rapid, uneven cadence.
Her answer was a wet-hot kiss to the sensitive side of her throat and a firm, decisive tug of the sash at her waist.
“No…please…” she murmured as he swept the blue robe from her body in one swift, fluid movement, leaving her defenseless in her thin damp cotton nightgown.
The touch of his fingers as he unbuttoned the gown’s high-throated bodice made Mary Ellen’s senses reel. She tried to say no, but she choked on the word. Her pulses leapt wildly with the warmth of his breath on her shoulder. Her exposed flesh trembled, and she moaned when his fiery lips pressed a kiss to the curve of her neck and shoulder.
She winced when his hand slipped inside the opened gown and closed warmly over her swelling left breast. His thumb rubbing back and forth over the tightening crest brought a gasp of pleasure, and he quickly covered her mouth with his own in a searing kiss. Her lips opened ardently under his as her passions flamed.
