He wanted to learn everything about her, his obsession.
7
Diana snuggled deeper into the warmth of Tanner’s body, totally unaware that sometime during the night she’d sought him. It wasn’t until her lips brushed against skin that she opened her eyes to find herself wantonly pressed against his naked chest.
“Oh!” she gave a startled moan, her horror at the situation deepening when she tried to sit up but found that her gown had risen nearly to her waist and that her bare legs were entwined with his. What was more humiliating was her discovery that Tanner was awake and smiling in amusement.
“Sleep well?” he asked.
“I should have known you wouldn’t keep your promise to me,” she accused. She pushed away to untangle her legs and pull down the nightrail in one motion. Then she leaped from the bed.
“And what promise might that be, Diana? I don’t recall breaking any promises.”
“You know very well that you said you wouldn’t touch me. You gave me your word like a gentleman, but I shouldn’t have believed you. You’ve never acted gentlemanly with me.”
Reclining on his elbow, Tanner wasn’t the least bit self-conscious that most of his torso was bared to her gaze, the blanket bunched into a ball beside him from Diana’s frantic scrambling. He didn’t mind at all if Diana saw him naked, but apparently it meant a great deal to her that she’d been in his arms with her legs wrapped intimately around him. Dammit! he cursed himself, the wench didn’t seem the least aroused by any of it, only angry. If anyone should be angry, it should be he. Because of Diana’s unexpected nearness he’d been unable to fall asleep. Though he hid his frustration behind a smile, he was grouchy as hell.
“I assure you that you found me. I never touched you, you wrapped yourself around me like a little monkey.”
“I would never … never think … never do anything like that,” she said, but then she remembered that one of her legs had been on top of his. Diana’s long hair spilled in dark waves around her shoulders and down her back. The sun streaming through the thin curtains on the french doors highlighted the deep auburn, creating an aureole effect. She had no inkling of how beautiful she appeared at that moment, nor did she have any idea that the sun shone through her gown, revealing her body’s outline to Tanner, and she certainly had no idea of the physical effect she had on him. “I was sleeping and can’t be held accountable,” she finished lamely.
Tanner’s jaw tensed. He remembered how seven years ago she’d lied to his father and brother that he’d tried to rape her. She was still the same lying creature she was then, not able to take the responsibility for her own actions. “No, you’ve never wanted to be held accountable for anything.”
“Just what does that mean?”
“Nothing, Diana, nothing at all.” Tanner slid out of bed, magnificent in his nudity and not the least bit embarrassed by it or by the erection caused from Diana’s closeness of minutes ago.
Diana stared at him in spite of herself, unable to believe that any man could resemble a statue of Adonis she’d seen in a museum when she was a child. But Tanner was more ruggedly handsome and thus more appealing to her than the smoothly muscled and perfectly chiseled stone features. In fact, she found Tanner’s nose to be slightly crooked and one eye a tad smaller than the other. She thought it was absurd to be thinking about Tanner’s facial features when so much more of him was clearly exposed. So much more that wasn’t made of stone.
Gulping, her gaze settled on the part of him that sprang hard and erect from the dark bush on his lower torso. She’d thought Kingsley was well endowed, having never known any men with whom she could compare, but now she knew that Kingsley was far from Tanner’s equal. She couldn’t stop staring at him, and she wondered what it would be like if Tanner did what Kingsley had done to her.
“Diana, stop taking inventory!”
“What?” Tanner’s voice startled her and she jumped. She realized then how intently she’d been looking at him and flushed with the knowledge.
“If you wish a sample, I’ll be happy to oblige.” Tanner went to the wardrobe and waited. “Just say the word, my love, and I’m yours.”
“Doesn’t your conceit have any bounds? I have no such inclination as far as you’re concerned.”
“Liar!”
Diana flushed. “I’m not lying.” At that moment, she was telling the truth. Tanner’s physical endowments frightened her, bringing back all the pain of her marriage to Kingsley. If Kingsley had hurt her each time he claimed her body, then Tanner could very well kill her.
Something dark settled around his face. “Perhaps you find other men to your liking. But I remind you that I’m your husband, and I won’t tolerate a wanton wife.”
Diana had no idea what this veiled comment had to do with her. She only knew that Tanner had a way of pricking at her calm and composed surface and exposing emotions she didn’t want to deal with. In fact, she didn’t know how to deal with emotions any longer. Since she’d married Kingsley she had closed herself off from happiness and pleasure, having no idea that marriage could offer her both. In her mind she associated marriage with pain, and a husband with the source of the pain.
“I don’t care what you do at all,” was the shrewish retort she hurled at him. Bending down, she scooped up her black gown from the floor and started to walk to the bathing room.
Tanner stood before her and grabbed her wrist. “What are you doing?”
“Getting dressed, do you mind?”
“Not in that rag, you’re not.”
Silver and gold sparkles crystalized and flared within the depths of her sapphire eyes. “I shall wear whatever I choose, Tanner. I’m in mourning for my dead husband.”
“I’m your husband now!”
Before Diana could utter another sound, Tanner wrenched the gown from her grasp and before her startled eyes rent it in two.
“You’ve ruined my dress,” she stormed at him. “I haven’t anything to wear now.”
Flinging open the wardrobe doors, Tanner pointed to the row of gowns, more dazzling in their varied colors than gemstones. “Wear one of these.”
“I’d rather wear a sack than something you’ve provided for me.”
Diana flinched when he moved dangerously close to her, like a panther who has sought his prey and is now ready for the kill. “Wear the damned bedsheet for all I care.” His voice sounded like a tiger’s low growl. “But you’re never going to wear black again to honor my brother, because if you do I’ll tear the dress from your very back.”
Tanner stalked away from her and in one movement he lunged for a pair of breeches, a shirt, and his boots before leaving her alone. The slamming of the bedroom door only increased her ire at him, and though she knew she should be frightened by his display of temper and displeasure, she wasn’t. With Kingsley, in a like situation, she’d have buckled at the knees. However this was Tanner, and by all accounts she should be trembling and quaking with fear. She knew he was quite capable of tearing the gown from her body, and would probably do it, too, if he had the mind.
Yet suddenly Tanner didn’t scare her. She remembered his gentleness with Briarhaven’s slaves and achingly recalled how he’d tenderly held her in his arms when he’d claimed her for a dance on the bluff all those years ago. The same ebony pair of eyes that had gleamed with tenderness then had also glinted with black anger. Diana felt he mistrusted her, disliked her, and didn’t desire her at all. How wrong she had been! Maybe he did marry her to seek his revenge upon the Sheridans by claiming Briarhaven, but no matter how he felt about her, a man’s body didn’t lie.
The excited shiver slipping up her spine at the memory of that was nearly her undoing. Tanner wanted her.
“I won’t think about him at all,” she decided and set her mouth in a thin little line. Tanner’s physical attributes or sexual prowess weren’t her concern. She married him to save David and to help Anne and the children, that was all. Nothing intimate would ever happen between her and Tanner.
Men were animals anyway, eager for any available woman. Something told Diana that many women had probably availed themselves of her new husband over the years, but that wasn’t her concern. The small jab of jealousy she felt meant absolutely nothing. She’d never be Tanner’s wife in the truest sense of the word, not that part of her didn’t find him attractive. She did, and she might as well admit it to herself. Kingsley had been attractive too, but what he’d done to her had sickened her. She had had enough of the pain and the disgust to last her a lifetime. No, Tanner would never have her, and he’d do well to convince his body of that fact.
Glancing down at the black dress still on the floor, Diana felt a perverted sense of relief gush through her. She wouldn’t have to pretend to mourn Kingsley any longer. For the first time in a year, Kingsley was truly dead to her and Tanner’s very destruction of the gown had done it. She didn’t have to play the proper widow for him or anyone else.
The opened wardrobe beckoned to her with its finery. Deciding that she couldn’t wear a bedsheet, Diana availed herself of the clothes Tanner had provided for her.
~
Diana ate a hearty breakfast for the first time since the British occupation, having cream and sugar for her tea, and bacon with a delicious omelet prepared by Cammie. Tanner was already gone, and Diana squelched the bit of disappointment she felt. His very presence overpowered the rooms of the house, and she missed his hugeness, the baritone voice that seemed to fill every niche. But there was no need to care whether Tanner was home or not, she convinced herself, and allowed her tongue to linger on the sweet taste of her tea. Their marriage was a simple arrangement.
“You look very pretty,” Cammie said, complimenting Diana’s choice of an emerald green gown. A red bow pulled up Diana’s dark tresses, which fell in curly ringlets past her shoulders. “Mr. Tanner has excellent taste in clothes.”
“Did he really choose these gowns for me or were they for other women?” Diana didn’t know why she asked this question. Cammie stopped clearing the table and looked puzzled.
“What do you mean, Mrs. Sheridan?”
“I mean Tanner — Mr. Sheridan — must surely have many lady friends, women he has brought here, and the gowns may have been used by them.” There, she’d said it! Now she’d learn the truth and shout triumphantly at Tanner that she knew he hadn’t bought any of the clothes expressly for her. She needn’t feel this urge to be beholden to him or to soften her feelings for him or even miss him when he wasn’t there.
“Oh, no, ma’am. Mr. Tanner made a list of colors and fabrics that would suit your complexion and hair. He even had a gown made to match your eyes. Didn’t you see it?”
“Yes, I saw it.” Diana recalled the sapphire blue gown in the wardrobe. It was velvet with small slivers of crystals entwined with gold braid.
Cammie smiled and picked up Diana’s plate. “I remember he said that your eyes had more gold than silver speckles in them, but when you laughed the silver ones up and multiplied, causing your whole face to glow like the sun on a warm afternoon or the moon on a cloudless night. That Mr. Tanner can be real poetic when he takes a mind to it.”
Diana couldn’t think of anything else to say at that point. Cammie’s comment had put her in her place. She felt utterly wretched for misjudging him, for believing that he was foisting off another woman’s clothes upon her. But what else could she believe? All men had other women besides their wives. Kingsley had had Jarla, throwing up the slave girl’s fertility in her face so often that she’d come to believe she was less than a woman. And he’d gone into Charlestown on numerous occasions, always letting her know that he’d spent the night at some sort of a brothel, going so far as to taunt her with what the whores had done to him, then forcing her to do the same to him.
Just thinking about some of the horrible things she’d been forced to do to Kingsley caused her stomach to feel queasy. “Act like my whore, Diana.” She could hear his voice in her ear still, almost imagine she felt his breath upon her neck, his fingers on her shoulder.
“Diana?”
“Oh!” She twisted around in shock to realize that someone was whispering in her ear and fingers were on her bare shoulder. Expecting to see a ghostly apparition of Kingsley, she saw a very healthy looking Tanner. “You startled me!” she accused.
“It seems I’m always frightening you. I’ve never seen anyone jump the way you do.” Tanner sat in the chair nearest to her. “What are you thinking about so hard?”
She had no idea how pale and distraught she appeared from her humiliating memories. “I was thinking about Kingsley,” she said sadly.
Tanner examined his well-manicured nails. “Yes, of course.”
“Have you eaten?” she asked, needing to change the subject. “Cammie fixed a most appetizing breakfast.”
“I ate before I saw General Lord Rawdon. I’m glad you liked the food.”
Diana raised an eyebrow. Rawdon again. “I was quite happy to taste tea with real sugar and to have pork. At Briarhaven, we’ve been living on what we stored over a year ago, but all of the animals were slaughtered and eaten by Farnsworth and his men. Sometimes a British supply wagon does get through and Captain Farnsworth shares his rations with us.”
“I’m certain you repaid him for his kindnesses to you.”
The remark went over Diana’s head. “Oh, yes, Harlan and I made certain Farnsworth and his officers were welcome.” She tried to hide the blush that stole across her face when she recalled how Farnsworth and his men were repaid. She wondered what Tanner would say if he knew their small kindnesses had resulted in her relaying information about British activities to the Swamp Fox. After all, it seemed Tanner was quite chummy with Lord Rawdon. Only someone well connected could obtain the release of a condemned man, purchase a piece of confiscated property, and have food that other people would kill for, not to mention the expensive and elaborate gowns in the wardrobe. “Captain Farnsworth has been most accommodating.”
Tanner scowled blackly, picked up the silver teapot on the table, and filled a cup, foregoing the sugar and cream, and took a large sip. Diana could tell something was bothering him, but since Tanner didn’t see the need to tell her what it might be, she ignored his dark look.
“Would you care to know how your father fares?”
Holding the small china cup in his huge hand, he hesitated for the fraction of a second before placing it on the matching saucer. “I doubt he cares how I am.”
Diana shrugged a milky white shoulder. “He may care more than you believe, but Harlan hasn’t been well. His heart is weak.”
Did the bronze of Tanner’s complexion pale a shade? She thought it did, but when he spoke he sounded quite uncaring. “My father is a basically weak man.”
“You’re being very unfair to him. Harlan is a strong-willed individual. I don’t know why you persist in…”
Tanner held up a warning hand. “Let’s not argue about my father, Diana. It will only lead to what happened between you and me that night on the bluff. I doubt you want to remember any of that again.”
This time she blushed furiously. If only he knew how many times she went over that night, how often she had wanted to feel that same way again. But she saw that Tanner didn’t seem the least bit disturbed by the memory or anxious to speak about how he’d ruined her life with his touch, his melting kisses, and the lie of loving her. Well, she too could be nonchalant about the whole disgraceful episode. Shaking her head, she gave a lilting laugh. “I was so young and silly then — so inexperienced.” Where had that come from?
His eyes darkened to the color of pitch, but a tiny flame of amber leaped into them. Tanner bent forward until he was so close that the top of his dark head touched hers. She caught the unmistakable masculine scent of him, enveloping her in such a torrent of warring emotions that she grew dizzy and warm. His lips were but inches from hers, and her eyes traced the contours of his sensual mouth. Was he going to kiss her? Did she want him to kiss her? Dear God, she nearly
choked on her breath. She did!
“Perhaps I shall benefit from your experience,” she heard him say. “I suspected you were a whore at heart.”
Tanner rose quickly to his feet, nearly pushing over the Queen Anne styled chair in his haste to leave the room. Diana felt as if the wind had been knocked from her body. It took a few seconds for her to regain her breath and her tongue. She screamed at his departing back. “I detest you, Tanner Sheridan! I’ll hate you forever and always!”
He stopped in the doorway and turned around. When he did so, his gaze seemed to strip her of her gown. Out of nowhere she realized that she’d dressed to please him and that he hadn’t said a word about how she looked. “That’s quite a long time to hate someone, my dear, but I’ve had a head start on you.” Spinning on his heels, he left. The door slamming behind him told her that he had gone.
“I wish you’d stop slamming the door whenever you take your leave!” she shouted at the air. “I wish just once you’d stay and finish a fight and not run away.”
But Tanner hadn’t heard her. Diana sank into her chair and refused to believe that the dampness on her cheeks was tears.
8
Diana stood on the dock that ran the distance from the bay to the offices and warehouses on Vendue Range. She had no idea why she’d come here and now was sorry that she had. She sniffed from the combination of the cold and her sorrow when she saw the condition of the building that had once been her father’s brokerage house. Broken panes of glass hung in jagged shards at the windows, and the oaken front door had been kicked in. No doubt vandals had done their dirty work inside, probably destroying the dark paneling in the room that had served as her father’s office.
Her father had supplied slaves to the nearby plantations, and it was because of his work that her family had come into contact with the Sheridans, who were always in need of good slaves. She recalled standing on the street with her father beneath one of the wide sheds, waiting for the slaves to take their turns on the auction block, raptly listening to her father’s soft, well-modulated tones as he explained why a certain slave would fetch a huge price and another wouldn’t. At the time, Diana hadn’t thought too much about how those poor people must feel, how traumatic it must be for them to be spirited away from their homes and families along the Madagascar coast and transported thousands of miles to South Carolina, and to lose their freedom in the process.
Savage Deception (Liberty's Ladies) Page 10
