But his knowledge of her body, her traitorous sensual body, was the other reason she remained locked in his arms. He seemed to know her better than she knew herself. When one large hand cupped her breast as if it was something precious and fragile, she moaned.
His lips slid away from hers to travel to the curve of her throat and taste her there. Then he dipped his head toward her shoulder nipping her soft flesh with strong white teeth.
She couldn't quite catch her breath and she didn't care. Her head was spinning from his touch, her heartbeat was as erratic as his. Her hands sought the strength of his shoulders as if needing an anchor on a stormy sea. Her fingertips dug into the muscles of his upper arms, trailing down to his elbow only to find their way to his chest and the strong definition of muscle there.
“Mon amour,” he whispered, his voice raspy with need. He inhaled deeply of her scent, a mixture of flowers and soap and an indefinable quality that was pure Hope. “My love.”
As nothing else had, his words broke the spell. She chuckled nervously, drawing away. “My goodness,” she said lightly as she pulled her long hair away from her face and looked everywhere but into his eyes, “I never thought I'd have to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a ghost,” she laughed.
“What?” He frowned, his hands still holding her arms lightly.
“Never mind,” she said quietly, her brain still refusing to function beyond the level of instinct. She pulled farther away and began to fuss with her hair to disguise the tremors in her hands and keep him from noticing the trembling in her body.
“Fai—” He stopped, sensing instantly the hurt in her eyes as she was startled into looking at him. “Hope,” he amended, his hands wrapping around her arms once more. “Tell me what it is.”
Instead, she stood up, towering over him as she stared down. “Put your boots on and meet me at the top of the hill. We have work to do if we're ever going to get you where you're supposed to be, with Faith. I'll be along in a few minutes.” And with that she spun around and hurried down the hill, as if she believed he could follow her.
But he couldn't, and it only added to his frustration.
CHAPTER FIVE
Hope placed the cassette recorder on the ground between them, then crossed her legs Indian-fashion. “Okay,” she began, “I'm going to ask you questions, and you tell me as much as you can. Anything might be a clue without your realizing it, so just talk your heart out.”
But his devilish smile knocked the journalistic business right out of her head and left her with butterflies in her stomach, instead. “Now that I understand what the machine does, I will be more than happy to accommodate you. It pleasures me to know you will be listening to my voice even when you are not with me.”
“Typical male,” she muttered. Trying to focus her attention on the recorder, she turned it on. “Okay, now. Where was Faith born?”
“She was born in England and raised in New York. Her father was in the British Army recently stationed at the fort on Lake Huron. When her mother died, she followed him out there, taking the route from Montreal through Sault Ste. Marie. She was accompanied by two other women—servants.”
“How did her mother die?” Hope's voice was clear and unemotional, as if she were interviewing someone she didn't know at all. She only wished she could convince her pulse of that.
“Her mother died of the fever, I believe. She was a very ill woman all her life. Despite her condition, Captain Trevor brought her to this barbarian country, leaving her in New York City with a twelve-year-old Faith, even though his wife pleaded with him to allow her to die in England. But he thought it would be better to have her here, thus demonstrating the loyalty of his family and helping to entertain other British officers' wives. He should have allowed her to stay in England until his tours in New York and then Port Huron in the Northwest Territory were over,” His voice held a note of disgust for the man.
“How old was Faith when this happened?”
“Sixteen.”
“And how old was she when you met her?”
His brows rose. “The same age. I met her the day after she arrived at the Port Huron. I was pretending to be a French voyageur—a trapper—until I reached the French-occupied territory. Until then, the uniform had a—how do you say?—tendency to get in my way. The British dogs can strike a Frenchman in the back at night and not soil their honor.”
Nothing registered except his first statement. “Sixteen? You were in love with a sixteen-year-old girl?” Hope's voice rose incredulously. “How old were you?”
Armand's eyes turned puzzled, “I am thirty-one.”
“A thirty-one-year-old world-weary soldier in love with a giggling teenager?” Hope forgot that the tape recorder was still running, that she was supposed to be conducting an interview and should remain objective. All that went by the wayside in the face of her emotions of the moment.
“Yes.” His eyes were even more puzzled than before.
“I don't believe it,” she said disgustedly. “That's practically obscene.”
“How so?” he asked, as intrigued by her reaction as he was hurt by it.
Hope stopped, remembering she was not talking to a man of her own times. “Faith was just a child,” she tried to explain in a more subdued tone, ignoring the stab of pain that seared through her when she imagined Armand and a teenager together.
“No,” he interjected firmly. “Faith was a woman, born and bred for the position of wife and mother. She would have been married to a British officer her father had chosen for her, but her mother was ill. She could cook, clean, sew, and take care of a husband and children. She had been expertly trained for that purpose all her life. What is so wrong about it?”
“You were too old for her!” Hope hurled the words at him, impatient with his lack of understanding. “She was just a child!”
He shook his head. “No, She was a woman. She was ready to be bedded, ready to bear children. What else would she do? Become a governess for someone else's children?” In bewilderment, he shook his head again. “No, she was just right for me. I was ready to settle down and take up the responsibilities of a wife and nursery, and she was of the right age to give me as many children as I deemed necessary.” He stared over Hope's shoulder for a moment as sadness settled over him; then slowly, he brought his eyes back into focus with hers. “Most women I know marry between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. It is the only way for a man to be sure of his lineage and for the woman to be good marriage material. Men must be established enough to afford a wife, so we wait until a later age to marry. Women are ready younger.”
“Were,” she said absently, slowly digesting that piece of information. She had read enough historical novels to understand the facts, but to hear them spoken of as a living reality was completely different.
“Were.” He repeated her comment sadly. He reached out and stroked her hand, his thumb resting on her knee. “Tell me about your times. When do you marry?”
“When....” She hesitated, knowing that some things weren't really that different. She cleared her throat. “When we fall in love. Some women marry early, but they usually marry young men. Most of the women I know go to university or college, and then wait a few more years to settle into a career. They marry at around twenty-four or five.” She studied his fingers touching hers.
His bronzed brow furrowed as he worked her words around in his head. “This world is very different,” he finally said softly.
The recorder clicked off and Hope reached for it, ready to turn over the tape. She pressed Rewind and waited a moment before stopping it in order to check the level of their voices. For a long moment there was nothing, then she heard her own voice. Then nothing. She tried another spot. Then another. The machine hadn't recorded a single word Armand had spoken.
Tears glazed her eyes. She held the small recorder tightly, squeezing it so hard it should have melted from the pressure.
“What is it?” Armand's hands covered hers, prying her fingers loose
as he gazed down at the woman he had thought was too strong to cry. “Tell me, please,” he said throatily, finally capturing her attention.
“You're a ghost.”
Pain flitted across his face. “Yes.”
“Really and truly.”
“Yes.”
“I'm so sorry,” she choked out. Her voice sounded as if it came out of a hollow log. Her heart ached with the heaviness of it all. And for the first time, she had to face the depth of her emotional involvement with Armand.
“But you knew this already. Why are you sorry or surprised now?” He reached up to thread her dark hair through his fingers. His touch felt wonderful, but it brought on more tears.
She sniffed, staring at his hand still covering hers. “I knew it, but I didn't believe it. Somehow I really thought, deep down, that it was all a riddle that we would find the answer to, and that you weren't really a ghost at all, just a man like other men.”
His fingers touched the bottom of her chin, tilting her face up to his. Her glistening eyes locked with his. “Can I not be both?” he asked softly. “Am I not both now?”
Her bottom lip trembled. “But you’re dead!” she cried as a tear trickled down her cheek and plopped on his fingers. Her voice held all the disappointment of the child inside her. And, worst of all, she was frightened beyond measure. “I've always been taught that death is when you're supposed to be beyond suffering and so you glide into heaven on angel's wings.”
“And for most people, I am sure that is what must happen. For others…” He gave a Gallic shrug, his deep blue eyes as melancholy as hers were, even though he tried to hide behind a smile. “Others must wait for some beautiful young woman to help them find their way.”
She swiped at the wet spots on her cheek. Of course he was right, and she had known that all along, but the reality hadn't been brought home until now, when the tape ignored this man who was so flesh-and-blood to her. She wanted him to be flesh and blood, but truth had an insidious way of intruding on dreams.
So she was crying for the broken dreams, not the reality, she thought, her eyes widening as she stared up at him. She was crying because she cared too much….
With sure, muscular strength, he circled her waist and pulled her onto his lap, his arms enfolding her securely. He pressed her head close against his chest and crooned words she couldn't understand, but the meaning was clear just the same.
Slowly, very slowly, the tension seeped from her. She raised her hand to cup his jaw, much as he had done to her earlier. “You're very special, Mr. Ghost,” she breathed softly.
“So are you, my very modern woman.”
“And you're right. You're a man, too. A very firm man.”
He grinned ruefully. “With a very real response when a beautiful woman is in my lap, wriggling around to make herself comfortable.”
Her smile lighted his eyes, then disappeared slowly with his. “Touch me,” Hope said, her whisper as soft as the breeze in the boughs above them.
His eyes never left hers. “Where?” He put his hand on her breast, filling his palm with its softness. “Here?” His fingers drifted along her ribs and belly to rest lightly on the jean-clad apex of her thighs. “Or here?”
Her lids fluttered with each touch, only to open once more, her gaze returning to his face. The openness of her thoughts stirred him further.
Inevitably his lips descended, at last brushing hers when all her breath had fled with the mere anticipation of his kiss. In slow motion he molded his mouth perfectly to hers. He nibbled at her bottom lip, silently seeking entrance. When she opened to him, his tongue danced lightly over her teeth and fenced with her tongue, then began moving in a sensuous rhythm.
Her whole body responded, awash with pleasure that rippled like a shallow stream cascading across a rock bed. Her arms tightened around his neck as she thrust herself closer to the brawn and power of him.
“So sweet,” he said raggedly, his lips finally leaving hers. Against the softness of her hair, he whispered, “Touch me. Hold me. Make me feel like a real man again.”
And she did. Her hands strayed across his taut muscles, yanking at the shirt tucked tightly into his breeches, then flitting to other parts of him as if to reassure herself that he was really there. Finally the shirt was open, drawn over his head and tossed toward the bed of moss and pine needles nearby. She had been right. His chest was covered with a thick, black mat that curled lovingly around her fingertips.
His hands trembled as he undid the buttons of her blouse, until finally he viewed her soft flesh. “Mmm,” he growled against her breast, breathing in her scent as he did. His tongue came out to taste her, lingering until she could no longer stand it.
She unsnapped her jeans, then reached for the buttons of his pants. Suddenly their need for each other seemed to swirl around them like an early-morning mist, isolating them in a world where nothing existed except their touches, their breathing. Their lovemaking.
He entered her just as a slip of wind whistled through the trees, and their sighs matched the sound. Hope felt a fullness, a completeness she had never experienced before, and she wanted to drown in that heavenly sensation.
When he began to move, it seemed as if they had made love a thousand times before. Their hands wandered in synchronicity, caressing bodies and shoulders and arms and legs until all of Hope tingled from his touch.
Her climax came with a shock that shot her eyes open to stare deep into the depths of his and watch the reflection of his own furious need. Then her lids eased shut and she floated back to earth. Furled in his arms and legs, she wanted to stave off reality as long as possible.
“Are you all right?” he asked, brushing aside a stray curl that lay across her cheek.
A smile of utter contentment curled her lips. Her eyelashes were still resting on her cheeks. “Mm-hmm,” she sighed.
“Did you enjoy?”
Her smile relaxed into a grin. “Mm-hmm.”
“Are you happy?” The note of humor in his voice was obvious. Clearly he would continue asking questions until she gave him more proof.
“Mm-hmm,” she sighed again, and puckered her lips to offer a kiss that landed somewhere along the curve of his warm, broad shoulder.
He moved his hips slightly. “Would you care to try again?”
She opened her eyes. Wide. “What?”
His face was a portrait of patience. “I said, would you care to try again?”
“Why?”
“To make perfect what we have just practiced,” he said with solemn sincerity. Then she looked into his eyes and saw the devilish laughter lurking there.
“I thought it was perfect.”
His brows rose. “Oh? Do you have much to compare it to?”
She knew where he was heading. Still, she was obstinate. “Perfect doesn't need comparisons. It just is.”
The silence that followed her statement was filled with other noises. The hauntingly lonely laughing sound of a loon echoed across the water, and another bird answered. The wind stirred the branches, then stilled. Waves lapped gently at the shore at the bottom of the hill.
“Hope,” he began.
“Yes, my ghost?” she whispered against his nipple. She felt it pucker and harden from the caress of her warm breath.
“I would like to try again,” he said unsteadily. “Would you?” She raised her head and smiled into his eyes, and he was almost blinded by the sweetness of it.
“Yes. I would.” Her hand strayed to the proof of his ardor. “Very much.”
And they did.
As the afternoon sun tipped the trees and began to put on a show for them, turning the sky into a palette of pastels, they lay in each other's arms and talked quietly.
He told her of his life on what sounded like an estate near Nice, France. His parents had been wealthy, his father a duke, his older brother a playboy, scattering his favors around the hillsides as if women couldn't wait for him to bestow them. When the wealthy parents of several young girls pr
otested en masse, his brother left, joining a group of other young men headed for the New World to become fur traders.
“And then?”
“Then my father died.”
She stroked his side, demonstrating her sympathy. For her the events he described had occurred more than two hundred years ago but for him it was only a few years.
“Father was often ill, but none of us ever realized how ill. One day, he bent over his desk and rested his head on his arms. And he died.” He stroked Hope's head, his fingers combing the thick silk of her hair. “It was Francois's duty to take over as head of the family, but the damn fool was too far away for us to maintain contact with him. At that time France was letting this Northwest Territory slip through her fingers. The British were fighting us, and beginning to win.”
He sighed. “Since our family was well-known by the king and his courtiers, they permitted me to come to the Colonies and report on the French and British conflict. In the meantime, I could seek my brother and send him home, where he was needed.”
“Did you find him?”
He sighed again. “Yes. As if fate had decreed it, I discovered he was at Fort Charles on the Lac du Bois. I believe you call it the Lake of the Woods. When I reached my brother, he was dressed in buckskins, and he had a bride. She was Ojibwa: young, beautiful and very much in love with him.”
“What was her name?”
“Watermark.”
She lifted her head to look at him, a question in her eyes. He smiled. “Apparently the name only had meaning for her tribe. No one bothered to relieve my curiosity about it. Francois did tell me he had married her six months earlier and that she was carrying his child. He was not too pleased to see me because the winter was almost over and he had to continue his work of harvesting pelts. Watermark had to help him.”
“You mean he didn't want to go home and become a duke?”
He grinned at her choice of words. “No. He had become too fond of the freedom he found in this wild country ever to be happy maintaining an estate. That would require more work than anything else he had ever done. Even trapping. Also, he knew his wife would not be accepted in France. He had changed too much to go back.”
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