Kiss of a Traitor

by Cat Lindler

  Ford ducked beneath Dancer’s neck. Willa had tied off her horse and was fumbling with the saddle cinch. The ropes binding her hands made her movements clumsy. “Go inside,” he said after wiping the rain from his face and releasing her wrists. “Start a fire and remove those wet clothes. I shall care for the horses.”

  She hesitated for a moment. Then she nodded and slipped back out into the rain.

  He unsaddled the horses and rubbed them down with straw he found in the back of the lean-to. A hay pile sat off to one side. He plucked a handful and inhaled. The fodder was old but clean of mold. After dropping an armful in front of each horse, he hefted the saddlebags and other possessions and darted across the short space to the cabin door. Wood smoke mingling with the clean odor of rain filled his nostrils. Fierce wind tugged at his coat and sought to snatch his hat from his head. Rain pelted the pinewood-shingle roof and streamed from the eaves. Ford flung open the door, burst inside on a blast of wind, and dumped the saddles at his feet. As he slammed the door shut, he paused to catch his breath.

  The cabin was a one-room affair with a hard-packed dirt floor, fieldstone hearth, and two tiny windows covered with hide that snapped back and forth as the wind tore at them. A wood-and-rope frame bedstead stood against the wall opposite the hearth. In the center of the floor were a crudely hewn wooden table and two three-legged stools. A rude bench ran along one log wall. A wooden loom, listing to one side on a broken leg, sat in front of the fireplace. Beside the hearth lay a stack of seasoned oak and pine firewood. Pegs on the wall by the door held his rain-soaked greatcoat, which Willa had shed, and her floppy-brimmed felt hat. He stripped off his drenched jacket and hat and hung them beside hers.

  Willa was bending over and using a long stick to stoke the fire into a blazing inferno. The rain had slicked down her hair, molding it to her skull and neck and turning it to sleek, shiny black. The deluge had soaked through the greatcoat to her shirt and trousers and transformed them into sheer cloth that clung to her curves. When she leaned over and straightened back up, the muscles in her buttocks and thighs flexed and beckoned to him like the siren song of Circe.

  Ford stood mesmerized. His erection pulsed at the erotic images in his mind. When Willa pivoted around, alerted by his sudden silence, she must have identified the heat in his gaze. Her eyes widened, and her expression turned wary. She took a step away from him.

  “Why are you looking at me in that manner?” Her voice trembled. Raising her arms, she crossed them over her chest, covering the pointed nipples standing out against the wet fabric.

  His heart beat in his throat, but he settled his features into passive disinterest. “In what manner?”

  “As if you were a hungry dog who has stumbled across a juicy bone.”

  Ford blinked and swallowed his reply.

  “What are you thinking?”

  He turned away from her tempting body, bent and scooped up a bedroll. “Simply that you must be cold and hungry as well as wet.” He tossed the bedroll to her. “Lay this over that loom to dry.” To his ears, his voice sounded tight with wanting. Ford reflected on their situation as lust screamed through him. Alone. Alone in a cabin in the woods. Stuck in the wilderness with a storm raging outside. No chance for visitors to drop by. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. Alone. Alone with Willa. He had only to bide his time. His plan to bind Willa to him would begin tonight. He could have planned the situation no better. He merely had to sneak in past her picket lines and take her by surprise. Thunder rattled the roof shingles. It seemed the gods were in accord.

  He moved away, picked up the other bedroll, and flipped it to land beside her where she stood by the loom. Then he hefted the saddles onto the shaky table. The saddle blankets he spread over the stools. Striding to the fire with the saddlebags, he let them fall beside the hearth. On the pretext of warming himself at the flames, he slowly came about to face Willa again. A frown creased her face as she unrolled and hung up the bedrolls. Tension radiated from her shoulders and back. She lowered her gaze, and silky lashes swept her cold-reddened cheeks.

  Willa knew. He could see she did. It showed in her face and body, every movement slow and careful, as though she shared the cabin with a bear. A bear with a sore paw. And she was making an effort to remain invisible, nonthreatening, fearing any sudden move would goad him into attack.

  A corner of his lip lifted. Rather than warning him off, Willa’s awareness of his condition egged him on and fanned his desire higher. He moved toward her, his footsteps thudding quietly on the dirt floor. She raised her chin and met his hunger with challenge in her eyes. His faint smile stretched into a grin, causing a flicker of fear to surface behind her set expression. Ford stopped before he lost control and lowered Willa to the floor to ravish her. Reining in the spiraling heat in his loins, he gestured to her clothes. “Strip off those wet things, or I shall be obliged to nurse you for the next few days.”

  Willa shook her head. Droplets flung outward from the strings of her hair. “I shall be fine. I’m warm now and have a strong constitution. The fire will soon dry my clothes.”

  He unbuttoned his shirt. “I find myself unwilling to take that chance. Have you a change of clothes in your saddlebags? Those in mine should be dry. Now disrobe.” Pulling off the shirt, he hung it on the loom with the blankets.

  She circled around him to her saddlebags and fished inside them, coming up with a thick, woolen shirt and a pair of worn trousers. She looked inside the other bags and pulled out his dragoon breeches.

  “Throw those pants over here,” he said as he peeled his wet trousers off his hips and down his legs.

  Willa sucked in a breath as she watched Aidan from the edge of her eye. He still wore his woolen undergarment, but when he slipped it off his shoulders and began to push it down, she turned her head and threw the breeches in his general direction. Her hands started to shake.

  “You should not have removed your blindfold.” His chiding voice stung her as sharply as a lash. “'Twas a reckless action.”

  She sent him a heated glance. “More reckless than running blind, neck-for-nothing through the forest and taking the chance of tumbling headfirst into a pine tree?” She spun back to the fire and stabbed at the logs. “Do not concern yourself, Lord Montford. I have no notion where we were, where we are now, or where you are taking me. I’m in no danger of spilling the rebel leader’s location to my father and the British army.” He need not know she suspected Marion’s camp was very near the spot where Aidan captured her. She kept that secret safely tucked away. With the shirt and trousers clutched in her hands, she swallowed and searched the room for a private corner beyond the fire’s glow. She would not undress in front of Aidan. When his hands landed on her shoulders, she jumped.

  “Go behind the loom, if you must,” he said. “But remove those clothes now.”

  She pushed away his hands and walked over to the loom, holding her shoulders back in a show of bravado only skin-deep. She quickly removed the wet shirt and trousers behind the shelter of the bedrolls and climbed into the dry clothes. While she dressed, she kept an eye on Aidan through the small gap between the bedrolls. He wore only the tight breeches. His bare chest gleamed in the firelight as he moved to the saddlebags and pulled out hard-baked sweet potatoes and cornbread squares wrapped in cloth.

  His half-nude state took her breath away. He looked larger, more primitive—and even more dangerous. She now had no difficulty reconciling him with the tough rebel officer whose path she crossed in Socastee Swamp. Less easy to bring to mind was the image of the courtier who minced beside her during the ball at Willowbend. He had as much in common with that dandy as a panther had with a house cat.

  Slabs of muscle slid and contracted smoothly beneath his suntanned skin, rippling like the haunches of a racing horse. A mat of dark, curly hair covered his chest, spread from shoulder to shoulder, and crept up to his throat. It thinned out into a wide line as it dove beneath the waistband of his breeches. Moisture dotted his back and shoulders and sparkl
ed in his chest hair when the fire’s light caught in the drops. As the flames cast a reddish hue on his face and bare skin, her imagination submerged into visions of Vulcan, the blacksmith of the underworld, luminous with the sweat of labor in his forge lit by the fires of hell.

  When he glanced over, she dropped her gaze. Her face burned with chagrin and something else, something tugging at her lower stomach. Wind howled around the cabin corners and rattled the window coverings, sending puffs of smoke down the chimney and out into the room. Rain drumming on the roof sounded like a charging troop of British cavalry. Above nature’s commotion, her heart knocked as it slammed against her ribs.

  “Have you dressed?” he asked. “Should you tarry a good deal longer, you will find naught to eat but crumbs.” He set the food on the hearth and crossed to the cabin wall. Lifting the bench, he carried it over and placed it in front of the fire. He hunted once again through his bags to draw out a hide-covered tin flask, strips of venison jerky, and handfuls of ripe blackberries.

  Willa came around the side of the loom and approached the hearth. “Have you roast beef and Yorkshire pudding in there, as well?” she asked, struggling to keep her tone light.

  His smile froze, and his eyes gravitated to her shirt and the open space between her breasts where two buttons were missing. She lifted a hand to cinch the material together and settled beside him on the bench. He blinked and gave a faint shake of his head. “Not quite,” he said at last. “I daresay this is nearly as satisfying.” He lifted the flask and removed the plug. As he tipped back his head and drank, strong throat muscles undulated. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and passed her the flask.

  She gave it a cautious sniff. Strong liquor fumes burned her nose. “What is it?”

  “Moonshine.” His voice sounded as hoarse as a frog’s. “Panther’s breath, they call it in Carolina. What passes for brandy among the working class in the Colonies. Farmers distill it from corn or rice.” While he unwrapped the cornbread and a wedge of cheese, he gestured with a hand. “Try it. It will warm you.”

  She lifted the flask and sipped. Fire slid across her tongue and trickled down her throat. She coughed and all but dropped the flask. Carefully, she set it down on the bench. When she saw the laughter in Aidan’s eyes, she hoisted it again and took a hefty swig. Searing liquid coated her mouth and throat with a taste not unlike pine tar. Determined to carry through, she forced herself to swallow. Immediate heat spread to her belly and through her limbs, setting them to tingling.

  “'Tis quite strong,” she gasped. “Is it not?”

  He expelled a laugh, reached over, and took the flask from her trembling fingers. “Strong and fortifying. Precisely the cure for a wet, dreary night such as this.”

  Willa nodded slowly, feeling as though her head and neck were not quite connected to each other any longer. But the moonshine warmed her muscles. She no longer shook from the cold the rain had driven into her bones.

  They devoured the fare Aidan had packed, alternating bites of sweet potato and venison with sips of the fiery liquid. As Willa munched on sweet-tart blackberries, her stomach full and her head swimming, her eyelids drooped. She started awake when Aidan’s hand on her shoulder shifted her upright to prevent her from tumbling off the bench.

  Her last sensation was of arms slipping beneath her knees and behind her back to lift her off the bench. They carried her across the room and lowered her onto blankets on the bedstead’s rope frame. Hemp groaning and wood creaking drifted through her ears. The ropes dipped when a heavy weight joined her, settling in behind her and curling up around her. Warmth as strong as the hearth’s flames bathed her back and lulled her into a deep sleep.

  Chapter 19

  The heat awoke her … that and the snare drummer inside her head. Warm tendrils seeped into her back, under her bottom and thighs, across her waist, and up the center of her chest to settle between her breasts—as though she had backed up against a stove, and it curled its fire-warmed cast-iron around her. Pain rapped against her skull while she listened to the rain, which continued unabated as it battered the cabin roof and pelted the chinked log walls and hide-covered windows.

  Willa slid open an eyelid. Night still reigned. Only a few glowing coals in the fireplace alleviated the darkness shrouding the room. The meager light burned into her open eye, intensifying her headache and causing her stomach to churn. Willa moaned and let her eyelid drop again.

  The heat between her breasts shifted and slid over to cover one breast. She gulped. Comprehension seeped in as insidiously as the tide rising in the salt marsh. Aidan’s hand palmed her breast. The warmth along her body was his. They were lying in the bed together.

  She inched her head around to see if he was asleep. Good Lord, above all else, she had no desire to wake him. She studied his face—sooty lashes drifting across his taut cheeks, sensual mouth slack and soft—and wondered about the future. Not only now, lying in Aidan’s embrace, but later, when she returned home. Should she accept all he alleged—and she yet harbored doubts—that her fiancé was a British spy, posing as a rebel spy, masquerading as British spy, ad nauseum? And no one had caught on to his deception? It seemed too unlikely, more suited to a plot in one of Emma’s novels than reality. However, she supposed it was feasible. He seemed on cordial terms with both Francis Marion and Banastre Tarleton. On whose side was he? And why did a voice cry out inside her, begging to be heard? What was the inconsistency that continued to pick at her?

  She had little inclination to pursue her thoughts at this particular time, what with the headache and her current predicament. Easing back her head, she tried to slide out from under his arms. She moved but an inch or two when his fingers tightened and gently kneaded her breast. Her brain clamored for her to leave the bed in all haste, but her body turned treasonous. Soft melting began between her legs as tingling currents sped through her limbs. Her breast swelled in his palm, and the nipple tightened.

  Aidan shifted, and the bed groaned. Something soft and moist touched the back of her neck and sucked gently. His hand traced slow circles around and over her nipple. On some level she recognized the softness as his lips, the moistness his tongue, but Willa was loathe to pull away. Warm breath tickled the small hairs at the base of her skull and set up a corresponding shiver and a leaping in her belly.

  He rolled her over onto her back. Now she faced a real quandary. She knew where his actions were leading. After all, she had seen her stepmother and the woman’s lover in the gazebo. She had two choices: Leap from the bed and brain Aidan with a pistol … or allow him to continue. Were one to believe Society, a betrothed was practically a husband. But should she remain, she would be taking an irrevocable step toward the cessation of her freedom. She would be Lord Montford’s—in body as well as on paper—and she would be bound to strew all her protests against marriage to the wind.

  When he loomed over her, she ran out of time to waver. He lowered his head, and his breath streamed over her mouth. She stiffened, her insides twitching. Then he covered her mouth with his, alighted on her lips in a lazy gliding. And when he urged her lips apart, he sank his tongue into her depths. All coherent thought burned to ashes as a bolt of desire jolted her belly. His tongue teased, dipping and circling. Willa timidly touched her tongue to his.

  The small movement seemed to galvanize him. He slid his body up and over hers. The heat and hardness of his manhood bore into her sensitive mons. His kisses grew hotter, deeper, wetter. When he pressed his hips into her pelvis and skimmed his erection along the crest of her womanhood, what sounded like a growl vibrated from his chest.

  Her heart galloped around her ribs like a runaway horse. A shred of common sense told her what they were doing was morally inappropriate, but her body reveled in his heat, his weight and hardness. As his tongue swept through her mouth, her head spun. The ache in her loins filled them with liquid weakness and the heat of a hundred Carolina summers.

  He eased away from her lips to plant small kisses across the cu
rve of her cheek, the angle of her jaw. His mouth brushed across her temples and brow like a light breeze. He moved down to her ear, and his tongue curled around and inside the shell. She shivered and burned. And from the secret, aching part of her, she scented her own arousal, as intoxicating as the panther’s breath.

  Aidan pulled away and rose up on his arms to draw her into his intense gaze. His eyes burned with silver fire and bathed her with blatant need. All distrust between them, past and present, crumbled away. What Willa saw in his face was truth. He wanted her.

  “Before we proceed any further,” he whispered in a rasping voice, “I must know if you truly desire this. Say the word, and I shall let you go. Once we pass beyond a certain point, there will be no turning back.”

  Willa had no desire to deliberate. Despite what her sense of propriety told her, she wanted Aidan, as a woman wanted a man. She was powerless to voice her desire. Instead she caught his face in her palms and pulled his mouth down to meet her lips. She gave him a scorching kiss, one designed to scatter any good intentions he may still have harbored.

  He shifted off her while still holding her kiss, smoothed his hand along her neck, and grasped the base lightly, his thumb against her pulse point. His touch whispered downward, undoing her remaining shirt buttons as it traveled. His fingers slipped inside the edges and settled on a straining breast, plucked at her nipple, strumming it in a rhythm that increased her tension to almost unbearable tautness. Pulsing rose up in the cleft between her thighs, and Willa instinctively tightened her inner muscles.

  When his mouth replaced his fingers on her breast, she whimpered. The hot, moist sensation and his flickering tongue seemed almost painful in their intensity. Moving his hand down her belly and under the waistband of her trousers, he tangled his fingers in the curls at the juncture of her legs. A finger stole inside her, and he grunted softly when his touch encountered her wetness.