“Just you try it one time. You’ll find a huntin’ knife run clean through your gizzard, you no-good ornery polecat!”
Sim Grady cursed beneath his breath and stamped off the porch, not looking at Steele Denegal as he shoulderedpast him.
“Come on up here, young feller. Don’t pay no mind to that shiftless Sim. I’m Granny Fitzpatrick.”
Steele removed his hat and bowed to the ancient woman. She laughed.
“Gracious sakes, if you ain’t a long drink o’ water! By golly, Lilah, you got yourself a right fancy gentleman-friend here. What’s your name again, son?”
“Steele Denegal, Mrs. Fitzpatrick. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Same here,” she answered with a creaking curtsy. “Now I’ll leave you younguns to yourself.”
Granny went back inside. Alone together, Lilah and Steele stared at each other a bit uncomfortably.
They both started to speak at the same time. Lilah stopped, insisting that Steele say what was on his mind. Actually, he couldn’t say exactly what was on his mind. He knew Granny Fitzpatrick would be listening at the window, and if he spoke his thoughts aloud she’d no doubt take her knife to his gizzard, if, indeed, he possessed such an organ—a detail that he wasn’t quite sure of at the moment.
“I hope you don’t mind my coming, Lilah. Kingdom showed me the way.”
Lilah pulled her gaze from the open front of Steele’s shirt and glanced about. “Kingdom? I didn’t see him.”
Steele looked around, too, but the big slave was nowhere about. “He disappeared just before we got here.” Steele shrugged.
“He must have seen Uncle Sim,” Lilah reasoned. “They don’t get on well. Why don’t we take a walk?” she suggested, abruptly dismissing the subject of Kingdom’s mysterious behavior. “Granny and Mama will be peeking through the curtains if we stay here.”
Steele smiled crookedly at her words and felt a flush of excitement creep into his suntanned cheeks. Suddenly, fifteen years seemed to drop away from him. He experienced the same sensations he’d had when he was a lad of sixteen and in love for the first time.
“Whatever you say, Queen Delilah.”
They didn’t touch as they walked along side by side. But Steele became increasingly aware of Lilah’s exquisite beauty by the noon sun. At their first meeting last night, he’d been so taken by the color and intensity of her eyes that he’d noticed little else. By moonlight she’d been a goddess! But most women benefited from a dusting of moon-silver. However, Steele could find no fault with Lilah—unless the fact that her sun-streaked hair hung loose to her waist rather than being carefully coiffured could be counted as a defect; unless the summer gold of her smooth skin could be counted as inferior to the winter-white complexion favored by most women. No, Steele decided. Both features only heightened her allure.
Lilah, too, examined him as best she could without being obvious. His casual riding clothes gave her a graphic picture of what must be underneath. Muscles rippled in his thighs as he walked. Her gaze reached his open shirt front and the forest of dark curls exposed there. His shoulders were broad, she knew from the night before, and his arms roped with hard muscles.
What she hadn’t noticed before was the boyish quality of his easy smile. She took some comfort in concentrating on that. The sheer animal magnetism of his body could drive her to quite unladylike thoughts otherwise. She was aware of him in a way that she had never been aware of a man before.
“This way.” She could muster only a whisper.
Lilah led Steele to the edge of the swamp, a particularly picturesque glen where the red trumpet vines climbed the oaks and pines, and late-blooming wisteria still perfumed the air. A fallen tree served as a seat in the natural garden.
When Steele seemed disinclined to speak, making her uncomfortable under his smoky gaze, Lilah said, “I’m surprised you came to the house. I really didn’t expect to see you after last night, Steele.”
“Did you think I was the sort of man who’d flatter a lady by night, take unfair advantage of her in a moment of weakness, and then forget she existed?”
He touched her hair tentatively, as if it were made of spun glass and his fingers might break it.
“I’m really not like that at all, Lilah,” he whispered. “But then how could you know that?”
While he talked, Steele moved closer on the log until Lilah could feel his heat through her thin dress. His fingers moved slowly from her hair to trace her eyebrows, her nose, and finally her lips.
The tip of her tongue darted out reflexively, and she tasted his salty flesh. The sudden action and her surprise at her own boldness sent all her senses reeling. A sigh escaped her lips.
“No, Steele.” She realized her voice was trembling, but forced herself on. “I didn’t think you were that sort of man. But what must you think of me? First, I flirted outrageously with you at the ball. Then, I let you take me alone to the beach at night. And now I’ve brought you to a secluded spot in the woods. I really don’t know what’s come over me.”
Lilah felt suddenly ashamed. A lady wasn’t supposed to behave this way—to feel this way about a man.
Steele continued tracing his finger along her chin and then down her neck, saying, “I think you are the loveliest, most exciting woman I’ve met in years, Lilah. Do you know why I have no one in my life right now?” He answered his own question before she could speak. “Because ladies nowadays are taught by their mothers to be cold and unfeeling, thanks, no doubt, to our ties with the old Mother Country, England, and Victoria’s stern ways. But I need a different sort of woman. My business with the shipping firm in New York takes me all over the country. I need a wife…” He paused. Had he actually said the word? “A wife who can stand the desert heat of the Southwest without a parasol, who can spend weeks at a time on board ship without having to take to her bunk at the first foul weather, who doesn’t mind the cold of the North. But most of all, I need a woman who’s not afraid to tell me she needs me and won’t turn away when I need her. The instant I caught your eye across the dance floor last night I felt that you were my kind of woman.”
Steele finished a bit out of breath. He stared at Lilah, shocked by his own outspoken frankness and the request it implied.
No, by God! he thought. I implied nothing! I’ve asked her to marry me!
Lilah lowered her eyes from his intense gaze. He lifted her chin until their lips were only a hair’s breadth apart.
“Do I shock you, Lilah Fitzpatrick?” He smiled at her. “I suppose I do. I shock myself. If ours were a normal relationship, I’d court you for months—years, maybe. Send you flowers, buy you pretty gewgaws on my travels, write long letters of my undying love. Finally, I’d wear you down until you accepted my proposal. But there’s not time for that. Dammit! I have only one week! I’ve been looking for a woman like you. And now that I’ve found you, Lilah, I have no intentions of letting you out of my clutches!”
At the end of this frenzied speech, Lilah felt his finger slide down her neck to the opening at the front of her dress. Her body tensed and she gasped softly when his light touch slipped into the crease between her breasts. Gently, he explored the velvet valley. Warmth kindled in that region and spread up to her face and down to awaken new stirrings.
“Dammit, Lilah, I’m in love with you, woman!” he almost groaned. “I knew it the moment you walked into the room last night! And all I had in mind for the week at Rainbow Hammock was a little rest and some fishing,” he laughed. “How do you feel?”
Steele didn’t give her a chance to answer, but pressed his lips firmly over hers. Now the strength of his arms around her was not just a memory, an afterglow from the night before, but reality. His nearness and the heat of their bodies made her dizzy. When Steele broke the embrace, he devoured the sight of her with hungry eyes.
“Steele, I know who I am now,” Lilah said hesitantly. “You might not be so free with your offers if—”
“I know, too,” he cut in impatiently .”What your ancestors did or didn’t do is neither here nor there to me. It’s you I want, Lilah. I don’t give a damn about them!”
“This is all so sudden,” she protested weakly.
“Love strikes like lightning, and, so I’ve been told, never in the same place twice. But I know now that’s pure fiction. I’ve loved before, and I’ll never forget that love. But it won’t diminish any of the caring I have for you, Lilah.”
Lilah felt like a rabbit in a velvet snare-trapped, but, oh, so tenderly. She wanted to free herself from his hold for reasons she didn’t understand, but at the same time she knew that if she accepted, his trap would prove a loving nest where she would be protected and cared for always.
“Lilah, darling, what do you want?” he urged, his lips fondling her ear.
The heat of her own passion became unbearable. She jumped up quickly. “I want to take a swim, Steele!”
He gave a great laugh. “Women! Try to be serious for a moment and they flutter away. Yes, my dearest Lilah, by all means, let’s do take a swim! But I can’t promise it will cool my feelings for you.”
Lilah took his hand, ordering gently, “Come with me, Steele.”
In moments, they arrived at the deserted, salt pond.
“Now turn your back until I’m in the water,” Lilah commanded, slipping behind a large oleander bush and quickly dropping her frock about her ankles.
She peeked out to make sure he wasn’t looking, then dashed into the cool water, and called, “All right. I’ll look the other way while you come in.”
Steele didn’t call out to her, but slipped noiselessly into the pond. She had no idea he was there until his hands closed over her breasts. She struggled in surprise, but he held her firmly. She tensed when she felt the full length of his nakedness pressed to her back. What was he going to do?
“Lilah, let me love you,” he whispered with urgency. “Here… now… please!”
His plea and the gentle persuasion of his fingers turned her to hot clay in his hands. She let her feet come off the silty bottom and float upward, at the same time leaning her head back on Steele’s shoulder. He eased the pressure on her body to allow her to rise to the surface. For a long time she lay on top of the water, her eyes closed against the sun and Steele’s appreciative gaze.
She was aware of the water lapping between her outspread legs and the silky feel of Steeled wet hands on her skin—touching, caressing, exploring. His touch both cooled and fired her at the same time.
“Come to me now, darling. I need you,” he commanded with husky tenderness.
Slowly, he brought Lilah’s body down and turned her to face him. Droplets glistened in the hair on his chest. She stood looking into his eyes, waiting, not sure what he expected of her. He bent to meet her salty lips. Then his tongue trailed a burning path down her neck to her breasts.
When she moaned her own urgency, Steele caught her about the waist and lifted her into position. She closed her eyes. At the first painful thrust she cried out. He held her close until she relaxed, then he eased smoothly into her body. Rocking against her, he set the water into rhythmic motion with his movements.
Her rising passion built to a point beyond endurance. Small explosions began going off in all parts of her body. They grew in magnitude until she sobbed and clung to him, waiting for the final detonation. With a shuddering spasm that coursed through both of them at once, they shared the ultimate, total bombardment of senses and emotions.
Afterward, they lay on the bank together, drying in the sun. Steele said, “Well, Queen Delilah, did I please you? Will you have me or send me off to your tower?”
Her mind still reeled with the aftershock. Will you go with me to the North Pole, Lilah? Her mind distorted Steele’s questions, then shouted back at her. Yes!—Will you fly to the moon with me, Lilah?—Yes!—Will you marry me, Lilah?—Yes! Yes! Yes!
Finally, the word reached her lips in a whisper, “Yes!”
Steele turned over on his side and stared down at Lilah’s salt-spangled flesh. He caught one rose-pink nipple lightly between his teeth and teased it with his tongue.
When she moaned softly and reached for him, he let go and whispered, “Will you be my wife, Lilah?”
“Yes, Steele, yes,” she breathed, and rolled into his arms once more.
Chapter 6
“Shee-it!” Jeremy Patrick cursed softly. “She was supposed to be mine now that Brandon’s gonna marry Saralyn!”
He had arrived at the pond just as Lilah and Steele had entered the water. Quietly seething, he turned from his vantage point in a clump of crepe myrtles, mounted his horse, and headed back toward Fortune’s Fancy. He’d tell his father that he couldn’t find Mr. Denegal. But, when the time was right, he’d let both Lilah and her lover know that he’d witnessed their cozy interlude.
“Damn Yankee!” he muttered. “I ought to call him out! Yeah, that’s what I ought to do! Post him, if he won’t meet me! Not just put up notices around here either—over to Savannah and even up to New York. Let the whole world know he’s a yellow-bellied guaran-damn-teed coward!”
He and Brandon had always had a sort of unspoken pact: If Brandon ever tired of Lilah, Jeremy could have her. And he’d been waiting… panting… crazy—ready to take on his brother’s cast-off responsibility.
“Goddammit!” Jeremy fumed. “Who the hell does he think he is? Comin’ down here and foolin’ around with my gal in my pond?”
Jeremy took a flat, silver flask from his pocket. ‘“Bout empty!” he growled, his sodden mind focusing for a moment on the main cause of his anger. He turned it skyward until the last dribble of whiskey burned through his mouth and on down into his gut, then threw the empty container away and cursed again.
The hot sun on his bare head and the sudden, new infusion of alcohol into his empty stomach made him dizzy. He leaned forward over his horse’s neck.
“I’m gonna get ’em both, Juniper, old gal,” he said thickly to the animal. “If I can’t have Lilah Fitzpatrick, nobody can!”
Jeremy let Juniper have her head to ramble back to the house as she would. He’d have to hide out in the barn or somewhere until the liquor wore off. Elizabeth Patrick didn’t hold with her son’s drinking in the early afternoon.
“Come to think of it,” Jeremy muttered to himself, “Mama don’t cotton to anything much that’s pleasin’ to a man.”
Girlish squeals from the veranda suddenly caught his attention. Amalee and some of the young female guests, who had been gossiping on the front porch, moved like a swarm of colorful bees to the door.
He noticed, in particular, the plump figure of Darcie Metcalf with her brown curls, flirtatious eyes, and bosoms big enough to make a man drool, he thought.
“Darcie Metcalf, the belle of Oak Haven plantation,” he mused aloud. “Might not be too bad to marry a girl like her. Sure would make Mama happy. She’s been wantin’ me to hitch up with a good breeder. Saralyn Habersham sure won’t provide her with many grandsons. Frail as a willow, that one is.”
“Hey, Jeremy!” Darcie chirped from the veranda.
Jeremy waved and almost lost his balance on Juniper. “Hey, yourself, Darcie! You going on the maroon tonight?”
“I reckon,” she replied noncommittally, knowing he knew full-well she wouldn’t miss the castaways beach party for any reason short of sudden death.
“I’m gonna be lookin’ for you, girl!” Jeremy called out with a lecherous grin.
“Oh, you old thing!” Darcie squealed, then followed the other girls into the house.
Jeremy headed for the stable, thinking of the possibilities the coming night might offer.
Back at the plantation house the girls were upstairs supposedly napping, but too excited to do so. Stripped of their ruffled gowns and stays, they lounged about on the bed and sofas in Amalee’s room discussing the ball and the upcoming maroon on the moonlit beach.
“Are
you going to let Henri Dupree kiss you tonight, Amalee?” Betsy Lattimore of Magnolia Hall asked.
Amalee sat up, a wanton smile on her face at the mention of her favorite beau from Savannah. She fluffed her pillows and replied, “Since I’m the hostess tonight, I’ll expect every last one of them to kiss me… and that includes that handsome Mr. Denegal! Besides, how am I supposed to choose a husband if I don’t know what I’m getting in advance? Mammy Zalou always says, ‘Ain’t no call to buy a pig in a poke!’”
“Amalee!” they all shrieked in unison.
“How excitingly wicked of you, dear!” Darcie Metcalf snipped. “I can hardly wait until I’m eighteen and Papa gives his permission for me to be courted.”
“Why, Darcie dear, I never expected you would wait for permission! I just assumed that you’d already sampled the lot of my suitors… and my two brothers as well,” Amalee countered sarcastically. She hadn’t missed the exchange between Darcie and Jeremy out front. The look in Jeremy’s eyes she knew well, and it made her boil with jealousy.
Howls and giggles followed Amalee’s statement. Only Saralyn Habersham remained silent. She blushed faintly at the thought of her Brandon and Darcie together. No, she decided, the very thought was too outrageous to concern her.
Much chagrined, Darcie answered primly, “I intend to save myself for my husband, thank you!”
“I wouldn’t worry about that, if you have your sights set on brother Jeremy,” Amalee laughed. “By the time he’s through savoring the sweets, you’ll be a shriveled old maid. And his tastes run to chocolate as well as vanilla!”
A general gasp went up around the room.
Amalee looked thoughtful for a moment. “Now Henri is different. One can tell from his bearing that he is more discriminating and will demand a high degree of breeding and purity in his bride.” She paused until she was sure all eyes were on her, then slipped the embroidered handkerchief, which the girls all knew Henri had given her, daringly into her camisole close to her heart. “On the other hand, it might be interesting to marry a Yankee like Mr. Denegal and go live up North.” Her green eyes sparkled with mischief and she whispered wickedly, “I’ve heard that Yankee men are absolutely ferocious lovers!”
Rainbow Hammock Page 7
