He blazed a trail of molten kisses along the curve of her cheek to the turn of her jaw, pausing at the delicate hollow under her ear, inhaling the fresh fragrance of her skin at the base of her neck. His warm breath wafted over the gentle curves of her breasts, which were pushed up by her corset, before he pressed his lips to the valley between them. He brought his hand up to cup one mound that was covered by her lawn camisole, shifting his attention to it, moistening the fine material with his tongue as he teased the nipple underneath to hardness.
Feeling her breasts tightened with unacceptable desire, Lettie acknowledged a flutter of panic. This was too new, too far beyond her experience to be treated so lightly. She must stop it, but how was it to be done without incensing him to the point of forced assault? Before she could find the means, she felt his hands at her waist once more, felt the quick compression of her ribs and then the release of her corset hooks. The small cry of protest she made was lost in the gasp of relief forced from her as her lungs filled with air. An instant later, he took her lips once more, his hands gently, confidently marauding.
She would hold him from her until she could form the words that would protect her. She shifted her hands, spreading her fingers as she increased their pressure against him. The movement brushed open his coat. She felt the taut bands of muscle that wrapped his chest under her fingertips and palms. The discovery was engrossing. Without conscious thought, she allowed her touch to linger, exploring the hard contours and planes, the tight, flat coins of his paps. The linen of his shirt was a barrier. The sudden need to have it removed, to feel his skin against hers was so strong, so startling that her hands clenched upon the material in a wracking spasm, and she felt the rise of such heat that her body seemed to glow with it.
In unerring answer to that convulsive movement, Ransom wrenched open the buttons of his shirt and stripped it off with his coat. It was only when he drew her against him that Lettie realized the buttons that fastened her camisole had been slipped from their holes and that she was naked to the waist. Her breasts, exquisitely sensitive, brushed the soft matting of hair on his chest. She caught her breath with the pleasure of it, a pleasure that mounted to her head, destroying thought.
Lost, she was lost in the incredible sweetness of his mouth, the fascination of the sensations he aroused, and the wild and voluptuous urgency of the race of the blood in her veins. She had never felt like this, never dreamed it was possible. It was frightening, yet irresistible magic.
He loosened her petticoats. Rustling softly with starch, they were drawn from her to be cast aside. Her pantalettes followed, as did his trousers and underclothing. The touch of his hands and mouth was constant, pervasive, invasive. It glorified her, incited her to imitation. Never, never had she been so close to another human being. Never had she been left so little privacy, so little modesty, or needed either less. Never had she been handled with such assurance or with so much abiding care.
She was a virgin, and if he had not known, he soon discovered it and eased the way for her with infinite art and patience, providing bliss as an antidote to pain. As a cure, it was peerless.
Hot and strong and vital, he pressed into her. Now above her, now drawing her upon him, they strove among the cornhusks. Joined together, male and female, they moved in passionate wonder to the ageless and wild rhythm. It tensed their muscles and heated their bodies, beat in their blood and echoed in their hearts. It transformed them for a single bright and blinding moment, fusing their spirits for that brief time, giving them ineffable grandeur. But it could not make them one.
It was some time later when Ransom stirred. Raising himself to one knee, he raked together the husks that formed their bed and spread a petticoat over them. He found and straightened the blanket, then lay down and reached for Lettie. His voice carefully neutral, he said, “Come, you’ll be more comfortable.”
“I’m comfortable here.” That she was lying naked on the floor made no difference. She pulled her shoulder from his grasp, moving away a few inches.
His chest rose and fell in a silent sigh. “Do you expect an apology? You won’t get it.”
It was an unreasonable attitude, and he knew it. He was sorry, more sorry than he could say. He had wanted to think her deliberate removal of her outer clothing a provocation, had managed to let his fury at being duped and shot by her convince him that it was so, at least for a short time. Deep down, he had known better. It had been no more than an excuse to do something he had wanted to do since he had first held her at Splendora. The proper thing, the only honorable thing now was for him to offer her the protection of his name. And that was impossible. What else was there, then, except to play the complete scoundrel?
“All I want,” she said, the words muffled as if she was hiding her face in the curve of her arms as she lay on her stomach, “is to be left alone.”
It was odd how much that simple declaration hurt. He set his mouth in a grim line as he reached for her once more. “Too bad.”
Lettie heard the derision in his tone and also a note of the same assurance that had so easily led her astray. She jerked away, surging to her hands and knees and scrambling from him. She struck something cold and metallic. The revolver. It skidded a few inches and she pounced on it. As she brought it up, she used both thumbs to cock the hammer.
The metallic double click was loud in the darkness of the corncrib. Overhead, the rain whispered down, quiet now but relentless. Lettie’s breathing sounded loud in her ears, and she controlled it with an effort.
“Now what?” the Thorn said.
Lettie gave a short laugh as the answer came to her. “Now you leave.”
“What?”
“Get your clothes and get out.”
There was a certain humor in the situation. Ransom’s mouth quirked before he spoke. “You would send an injured man out in the rain?”
“I somehow doubt you are hurt enough to matter.”
“You’re a hard woman, Letitia Mason.”
“Not hard enough, or you would be dead.”
It could not be denied. “Are you hard enough to shoot a man at all?”
“Try me and see,” she returned in cold tones.
The temptation to do just that was almost overpowering. She had been tried enough for one day, however. The best amends he could make at this moment might well be to leave her this small victory. His voice tinged with admiration, he said softly, “Another time.”
She didn’t trust him, not even when she heard him move to gather his clothes. It had been too easy. She had expected, had been afraid, that he would force her to pull the trigger. Once she would have said that she could do it without remorse. That was before she had drawn blood, his blood. The thought of injuring him further made her feel ill, though he seemed in no way incapacitated by his nicked foot. She was taking no chances, however. Holding the gun level on the moving shadow of his form, she backed to the side wall of the crib and eased along it as far away from him as possible.
She heard the slither and slide as he got into his trousers and shirt, the stamp as he pulled on his boots and settled his feet into them. He bent once more, perhaps to find his coat and oilskin poncho, then came the sound of his footsteps moving toward the door. He paused.
“Would you send me out among enemies without the protection of a weapon?”
There was something in his tone that disturbed her. She shut it out. “What would you have me do? Give up my only defense?”
“You need none from me, this I swear. And while I am with you, you need no other protection.”
“If what just took place is an example of your protection—”
“I did not say that I would not hold you … or taste your sweet lips or touch the perfect twin hills of your—”
“Get out!”
His chuckle had a ragged sound. The door opened and then closed. He was gone.
Lettie let out her breath, her shoulders sagging in relief as she lowered the gun. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back aga
inst the wall. Tears gathered, burning as they pressed for release. She swallowed hard, reaching up to wipe the overflow with the heel of her hand.
Dear God, but she had been a fool. She was well served for blithely driving out into the wilderness alone. She could not think of why she had done it, except that she had not quite believed in the danger. There were few places in the East where a woman alone was not safe. The only salve she could find for her pride was that no one need know. Even if she had the right to claim assault, she had no intention of making her humiliation public.
She was not sure what had happened to her. She felt as if she had dishonored her brother’s memory, her family, and, most of all, herself. Such a thing must never happen again. She would see to it that it did not, but, more than that, she would see that the only other witness to the whole degrading incident, beginning at the spring and ending here in the corncrib, did not live to tell of it. The Thorn was not only a murderer; he was a sneaking despoiler of women. He must not be allowed to get away with his crimes.
Cool, wet air drifted around her bare flanks and she shivered violently. Stumbling a little, she moved to the pile of cornhusks and dropped down on her knees, groping for her clothes. She put them on with shaking fingers, buttoning the last button to the throat. The blanket had been left behind, and she wrapped it tightly around her as she sat bolt-upright against the log wall. Her eyes burned as she stared into the darkness, waiting for daylight.
Lettie must have slept, though it seemed she only closed her eyes for an instant. A noise jerked her into alertness so suddenly that every nerve leaped and jangled. She grasped the revolver and struggled out of the blanket. Pushing to her feet, she moved with stiff steps to the door. The rain had stopped during the night. The gray light of dawn was filtering through the cracks in the log walls and between the loose planks of the door. She leaned to peer through a crack.
In the direct line of her vision, standing in front of the corncrib, was the buggy. The noise she had heard was the rattle of it being brought out of the shed. On the weed-grown track beyond it was a flicker of movement. It was the form of a man on horseback riding away in the early-morning mist.
The Thorn had not gone far when he left her, or so it appeared. He must have spent the remainder of the night in the shed with the horses. He had hitched the buggy and led it out for her before taking his leave. How very chivalrous of him, she thought with acid irony. It was a pity he had not shown more of such an instinct earlier.
It was when she mounted the buggy that she found the locust. Dry, prickly, and pale tan, thrust through with a vicious black thorn, it lay on the leather seat. She stared at it with all the horrified revulsion she might have felt for a snake curled to strike. Her first impulse was to crush it or to cast it from her at the very least. She reached out to pick it up gingerly.
It was feather-light and delicate, and it clung to her fingers with its tiny claws, every one intact, as if it would never let go. The thorn that pierced it was polished to gleaming perfection, hard and black and without blemish. The two specimens were each perfect in their way; they were also perfect reminders of the folly of which she was capable and of its consequences. She would do well to remember. Taking her handkerchief from her pocket, she wrapped the symbol of the man called the Thorn in it and placed it carefully on the seat beside her.
When Lettie reached the river, the ferryman came from his house with his coffee cup in one hand and a biscuit in the other. He was tall and rawboned, his features obscured behind a straggling mustache and beard that grew nearly to his eyes. He kept up a string of questions and commentary as he pulled the ferry across the river.
He hated like Hades that he hadn’t been able to take her across the evening before, especially with it setting in to rain and all, but there hadn’t been a consarned thing he could do; there had been a time when he had been mighty fearful that he’d be lucky if he ever crossed again himself. He would have invited her to have a bite of breakfast, but the thing was, there was sickness in the house and he didn’t think he’d better. Anyway, he was glad she had found a dry place to spend the night. No, he hadn’t seen anything of the man who had been chasing the pair that had held him up. Must have gone back t’ other way. He sure hoped the scare she’d had didn’t put her off this part of the country. They needed schoolteachers.
As loquacious as the man was, his attitude was comforting. It seemed that there was nothing particularly unusual in being stranded for the night, that she was more to be pitied than censured because of it. It was good to realize that everyone would not instantly place the worst construction on her escapade, even if it was deserved.
Regardless, it was a relief when Natchitoches was behind her and she finally reached Splendora.
Aunt Em scolded and exclaimed, but after a long look at Lettie’s pale face, sent her to her room with promises of a breakfast tray and a bath and with orders not to emerge until she was rested. It was Mama Tass who toiled up the steps from the outdoor kitchen with the breakfast tray, and Lionel who manhandled the long zinc bathtub of the type known as a julep tub — a bath thought to be efficacious for the relief of a julep-induced hangover — into the room. The boy also brought the cans of hot water to fill the tub. He had no other duties at the moment, he said. Mast’ Ranny was still asleep. He had been taken by one of his headaches right after she had left the day before and was shut up in his room.
Lettie did not expect to sleep, not in the middle of the morning with the sun shining outside. Not when she was a fallen woman, sore in body and conscience. But the bed was soft, the sheets smooth, and the breeze drifting through the open window, gently billowing the muslin curtains, was fresh and scented with magnolia. The strain and guilt of the night seemed far away. She stretched, feeling her lips curve into a smile for no reason as she stared up at the tester above her. She closed her eyes.
It was late afternoon when she awoke. The room was quiet and still and overly warm. Outside her windows, the sun was casting sharp and slanting shadows across the veranda floor. A murmur of voices came to her. Through the gauze weave of the curtains, she could see the shape of a man standing at the veranda railing. For an instant, her heart jarred against her ribs, then she recognized Ranny’s quiet, almost diffident voice and the higher tones of Lionel in answer.
How very lazy she felt. There was no excuse for such self-indulgence; she did not know why she had succumbed to it so easily. She was no highly bred Southern belle prone to giving way to the least weakness. In truth, beyond a bit of soreness, she felt little different, scarcely changed at all by the ordeal of the night. Hiding herself away, licking her wounds, and feeling sorry for herself was not going to mend matters. She must take hold of herself and get on with what she had come here to accomplish.
She knew it was not possible to see into the bedchamber from the outside through the muslin curtains; still, she dressed herself in a corner well out of the line of vision of anyone on the veranda. She brushed her hair and twisted it into a thick coil on top of her head for coolness, then, because she was already warm, bathed her face and hands in the basin on the washstand. As she patted her face dry, she looked in the mirror. How very flushed and overheated she looked, and how stifled. She put down the linen towel and, on impulse, unfastened the cuffs of her sleeves, rolling them to the elbow. Then she released the two top buttons of her high collar. That was better, but she really must buy at least one or two dresses more suited to the climate.
Ranny turned as Lettie emerged on the veranda. A slow smile lighted his face, kindling the soft blue of his eyes. His gaze rested for an instant on the white hollow of her throat that was exposed by her open collar, and a corner of his mouth quivered before he ducked his head. “Afternoon, Miss Lettie.”
Lettie divided a smile between the man and his companion. “Good evening, Ranny. Lionel told me you had not been well. I hope your headache is better?”
“Much better. And … you?”
The question was abrupt, as if he was embarras
sed to ask or else cared strongly about the answer, which was, of course, unlikely. She smiled with an assumption of ease “If you mean have I recovered from my outing, yes, indeed.”
“You should have let me go with you.”
The warmth in her face faded like the sun going behind a cloud. “Yes, perhaps I should.”
It had been wrong of him to remind her, Ransom thought. He was going to have to remember that her smiles were for Ranny, for the child-man she thought he was and not for the one he was in truth.
To distract her, he said, “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”
“About what?”
“About teaching me. Do you still want to?”
Certainly. I would enjoy it very much, if you care to learn.”
“If you will teach Lionel, too.”
Lionel, who had been following their conversation with some interest, opened his eyes wide. “Aw, Mast’ Ranny!”
Ranny grinned at him. “I’m not doing it by myself.”
“It’s not fair!”
“Your daddy will like it.”
The boy hung his head. “He don’t care.”
“Yes, he does,” Ranny said quietly. “He does.”
Lettie thought she understood them, though she could not be sure. Lionel’s father, Ranny’s manservant before the war, had apparently deserted the boy, leaving him in the care of his mother, Mama Tass, while he went off to enjoy his freedom. It spoke well for Ranny that he was trying to give his young friend a good opinion of his father, deserved or not.
“I will be glad to teach Lionel,” Lettie said. “It will be good to have company for the drive to the school every morning, not to mention two friendly faces in my class.”
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