“I suppose I should,” she murmured contentedly, rubbing her foot against his leg.
“Is that a yes?” Quint asked, his uncertainty making his voice a bit too gruff.
“That’s a yes, Quintin Tyler.” Lily looked deep into his eyes. “Bloody hell, married to a Yankee soldier.”
“Ex-Yankee soldier,” Quint corrected her. With Lily beneath him, her bare skin against his own, he could think more clearly, or so it seemed as he gazed down at her. A sliver of sunlight, peeking through the side of the dilapidated barn, crossed her face.
He couldn’t go back. He’d shot a Union soldier. No one would care that the sergeant had been about to kill the woman he loved. To return would mean prison and death. Nothing mattered but Lily.
“Where will we go, Quint, my love?” Lily whispered. Her hands traced the planes of his face.
“Say that again,” he ordered gruffly, burying his face against her neck.
“Where will we go?” she teased.
“The other part.”
“Quint, my love,” she whispered. He grazed his rough beard lightly against her cheek and her neck as he lowered his face to her, contentedly brushing his lips against her soft skin.
“That’s the part I wanted to hear again.” He cupped a breast in his hand and ran his thumb gently over her nipple. Lily arched her back slightly and pressed herself into his hand, leaning her head back and purring like a kitten.
“It doesn’t matter where we go,” Lily said, languidly breathless. Her eyes were hooded as Quint continued to caress her body in ways that he knew drove her wild with wanting him. “As long as we’re together.”
“Do you mean that?” Quint lifted his head to look into her eyes.
“Quint, my love.” Lily gave him that trusting and heartfelt smile that could make him forget, for a while, that life outside the abandoned barn went on as before. “You and I, together, can conquer anything.”
She meant that. He could read the sincerity in her expressive eyes. He couldn’t tell her now. After they were married, after he’d shown her again and again how much he loved her, then he would tell her the truth. All of it.
He grew and stirred within her, and Lily’s smile widened. They loved one another with slow tenderness, their earlier frenzy behind them. It was a tenderness born of love and caring and passion—and a knowledge that there was a lifetime of such afternoons ahead of them.
Along with their clean clothes and a simple meal was a small bag of gold Lily had hidden in the loft. She had hated to leave her trunk with the cleverly hidden false bottom, but was practical enough to bring only what she could carry in a satchel that would fit behind her saddle. Besides the gold there were three dresses, one to wear and two that could be rolled up tightly and stored in the bag along with a hairbrush and two clean shirts for Quint.
The bedroll would fit behind Quint’s cantle, and there was dried beef and hardtack in the saddlebags. She didn’t have any paper money, but in these times that was a blessing. Anyone would be happy to take gold or silver in payment for their needs along the road. A room, perhaps, and certainly more provisions.
They would have liked to spend the night in the ramshackle barn, but they were still too close to Baltimore to be comfortable. So they changed into fresh clothes, shared a portion of the fresh bread Lily had purchased in town, and left the deserted farm. They were headed south. That was as far ahead as they had planned. Virginia. Lily wanted to stop by her home and show it to Quint. And to see for herself how it had fared. Funny, but it no longer seemed like home to her. Home was her house in Nassau, if that was where they decided to go. In truth, home was wherever Quint was, and that awareness warmed her as they rode down the dim path in the twilight hours.
They traveled south, keeping to the back roads and riding until it was too dark to see even a few feet in front of them. They camped a short distance from the trail, keeping a cold camp and sleeping under a thin blanket, snuggled together with Lily’s head nestled against Quint’s shoulder, her leg thrown over his. It wasn’t warmth they were seeking under the stars. The night was mild, with warm air pushed by a gentle breeze. What they sought was the comfort of knowing that they were not alone, that they had become a part of something more than they had been before.
Lily was exhausted and fell asleep almost immediately, but Quint’s rest came not so quickly or so deep. He held Lily as though she might slip away in the night if he didn’t. The knowledge of his lie nibbled at his conscience, even as he told himself that he had no choice.
They woke while the sky was still gray and came together as naturally as if they had never been apart. They made love lazily, without words, and Lily never even opened her eyes. Quint woke her to a world of physical sensations, following the instincts that guided his body.
When Lily dressed, she donned a full-skirted dress that would allow her to ride astride, though she complained that she’d much rather wear her trousers. One concession she refused to make. Beneath the simple dress Lily wore her knee-high black boots. They were sturdy and more practical than any more feminine substitutes she could have acquired.
Quint was always on alert for Union patrols, but the trails they followed were all but deserted. Only twice during the day did they lead their horses from the trail to hide while others passed. The two lone travelers they encountered were no threat. They were simple people, ragged and weary, and if they had ever been soldiers they’d lost their battle edge long ago. Neither of them stopped to look into the dense forest that lined the road, sensing the presence of others. They simply plodded past at a lethargic pace, eyes on the road, feet kicking up dust as they dragged drearily by.
They stopped before dark, setting up camp in a secluded valley. It would be another cold camp, even though they’d seen no evidence of either army. Quint wouldn’t take the chance of alerting the soldiers that were bound to be close by, either Union or Confederate.
Lily handed Quint a strip of dried meat and a piece of hardtack. The biscuit was hard, but edible, and he washed it down with water from the canteen they shared.
Quint sat on the hard ground with his back against an old tree. The small clearing they were in was surrounded by such giant growths, dwarfing the lovers in the dying light. He’d said little since they’d stopped, and a frown creased his brow.
He couldn’t run away. That certainty had come to him somewhere on the road, not a sudden revelation but a gradual and sure knowledge. He wasn’t a deserter. It hadn’t been a whim that had driven him from his home and family, and his motivations were no less clear now than they had been then. He would marry Lily, get her to safety, and return to Washington to face Colonel Fairfax. It wouldn’t be easy to explain away what had happened, but neither would it be impossible.
“Quint, my love,” Lily said, settling herself between his legs and reclining against his chest. “What are you thinking about? You look positively morose.”
Quint kissed the top of her head and wrapped an arm around her. “Nothing.”
Lily twisted around and turned her face up to his. She fingered the beard that had begun to grow the night the Chameleon was destroyed. His hair was so long that it was beginning to curl over his collar, and Lily trailed her fingers through the long strands.
“You’re beginning to look like a pirate, Quintin Tyler.” She gave him a mock pout. “The beard is rather dashing, but I don’t think I like it. It hides too much of your face from me.”
Quint bent down to kiss her softly. His decision meant that he would have to leave her behind, that they would be separated for months, or even years.
When he pulled away from her, Lily reached out and ran a lightly browned finger along his nose. “You never did tell me how you broke your nose.”
Quint wrapped both arms around her and held her tight. “It was while I was in the infantry.” His tone was light and he gave her a crooked smile. “A sergeant tried to toss me a piece of hardtack. My attention was diverted and it hit me right on the beak. As a matter of
fact,” he continued even as Lily began to giggle, “I believe it might have been the same piece of sheet-iron cracker we had for supper tonight.”
He nestled a breast in one hand and ran his thumb over her nipple, and it hardened beneath the cotton of the plain dress she wore. Lily laid her head back against his shoulder, and her laughter stopped.
“That’s not true,” she murmured softly.
“No, it isn’t.” Quint unbuttoned her dress with one hand while the other pushed the voluminous skirt high to reveal creamy thighs.
After he made love to her, he slept in her arms and held her close. Twice in the night he woke with a start, only to find Lily sleeping peacefully against him. She’d found her peace with him, but Quint felt as though he were still searching. It wouldn’t be finished until he told her the truth, and the war was over. Only then would he know the peace that was etched on her face.
Quint and Lily were married the next morning, in a small country church that had been long neglected. White paint was peeling, and several windows had been broken. Whether they’d been shot out or broken by vandalous children with rocks, it was impossible to tell. But the church had suffered, as most of Virginia had suffered.
Whatever the reason for the building’s condition, the preacher seemed grateful for the gold coin Quint pressed into his hand. There were no questions, even though Quint knew he and Lily didn’t look like an especially prosperous couple.
They had spent the morning just outside the small town, bathing in a swift-running creek. Lily’s hair was still damp, curling in a pale brown-and-golden cascade down her back.
If he didn’t remember anything else about this day, Quint knew he would never forget the way Lily looked. She’d dressed herself in a vivid blue linen gown with just a touch of lace at the collar. The blue made her eyes shine with green fire, and tranquility made her face glow. That damp hair curled around her face as well as down her back.
Standing before the preacher, repeating the words with his eyes on Lily’s face, Quint committed her face to memory. The light sprinkling of freckles, those perfectly shaped lips. She seemed so sure of their future, so unafraid. She would have fire in her eyes when he told her what he’d done, and what he still planned to do, but by then she would be his wife. She would know how much he loved her.
Quint allowed himself a rare moment of peace. There was so little beauty in the world anymore—real beauty, moments like this one that transcended reality. It wouldn’t last, so he savored it, as he savored the love in Lily’s eyes, a love so deep, it almost hurt to look at it.
Lily deserved a fancy wedding, with flowers and candles and a church filled with friends and family, but she seemed content with the shell of a building and the preacher’s own wife as a witness.
The preacher said a prayer for them at the altar and promised with a small smile to remember them in his prayers again that night.
He pledged himself to remember them in his prayers in the weeks and months to come, a vision of love and faith in a time of hate and hopelessness.
Sixteen
Lily approached the home she had been born and raised in with growing apprehension. Elliot had employed Joshua Wiggins, a man who used to help out on occasion, to look after the place, but that had been almost two-and-a-half years ago. In her mind the farm was the same. Well-tended and untouched by war, deep green ivy growing over the red brick. Lush grass. The neighing of horses.
But what she had seen since her return to the States had shown her that the war had left little untouched. What if she found her home burned to the ground, like the house they had stopped at that first day?
She looked at her husband and smiled. Her husband. She liked the sound of that, and it felt as natural as if they’d been married years, instead of days. She’d never thought to feel this close to another person.
“Are we almost there?” he asked, pulling his horse up to ride beside her. For most of the morning she had been silently guiding him, her tension building with each step.
Lily nodded and smiled at him, then urged her mare forward.
The ornately carved sign that marked the path to Lily’s home was hanging crookedly and was almost completely covered by the ivy that had claimed the post. Lily slid from her mare and brushed the growth away, then she stepped aside so Quint could read the marker.
Sherwood.
“Sherwood?” Quint slipped from his saddle and joined Lily, inspecting the sign more closely. “The name of your home is Sherwood?”
Lily grinned and shrugged her shoulders. “I know. It was probably careless of me to name the Captain after my home, but it seemed so perfect. My father loved the legends of Robin Hood. I grew up hearing the tales of Nottingham and Sherwood Forest. When I ran the blockade for the first time, I felt rather like Robin Hood.”
Lily turned her gaze down the lane, a lane that curved snakelike through the dense trees, giving no indication of what they might find at the other end. Sherwood Forest.
They walked slowly, leading their horses down the path. Lily was almost reluctant to reach her destination, and Quint took her hand in his, as if he sensed her disquiet.
“Are you sure, Lily?” he asked quietly. “We can turn back, if you’d like.”
Lily gave him a small smile and kept moving forward. She was a little scared, that was true, but she was also determined to see what had become of her home.
When they rounded the bend, they had an unobstructed view of the two-story red brick house before them. There were signs of disrepair—weeds that grew tall at the edge of the porch, a single broken window—but the structure was standing otherwise unchanged, and Lily’s mouth curved into a wide smile. She turned to grin at Quint.
“Sherwood.” She said the simple word with a depth of emotion that astounded her.
The front door opened, and a thin old man came down the steps, an ancient but obviously well-cared-for rifle gripped in his hands.
“Git, the two of ya,” he barked sharply. “I ain’t got no extra food for you tramps. The Yankees took it all.” He raised his rifle to his shoulder and pointed it at Quint. “Now, git!”
“Mr. Wiggins?” Lily took a step forward. The white-haired man on the front porch of her home looked as if he could have been Joshua Wiggins’s father. He had certainly aged more than two-and-a-half years. Wiggins was thin, and even from this distance she could see his hands shake like an old man’s.
Wiggins lowered his rifle slowly. “Miss Lily?” He squinted, and eventually smiled as she stepped close enough for him to see her features. “Lord have mercy, it is you.”
Joshua Wiggins led them into the house, and that was where Lily saw the changes that had taken place since Elliot had taken her to England. Several pieces of furniture were missing, and her home, which had always been spotlessly clean and well cared-for, was dusty and neglected. Bare spots screamed at her. A table was missing, and her father’s favorite chair… the bookcase she had tried to climb at three with disastrous results… all gone, the books that had once been carefully housed in the bookcase scattered across the floor.
But there in the study was the portrait of her mother, and somehow her father’s desk had survived. Too heavy to move quickly, perhaps. Lily looked to her husband and found him staring at the portrait.
“Your mother?” he asked, never taking his eyes from the face in the painting. “It’s you, Lily, but without the mischief in your eyes. She was a beautiful woman, almost as beautiful as you.”
“I don’t remember her,” Lily said pragmatically. “She died when I was four. My father tried to tell me stories about her, to keep her alive in my heart, but she was no more real to me than Robin Hood.” She couldn’t remember ever feeling deprived of a mother, because her father had given her so much love.
Over a meal that consisted of beans and passably fresh bread, Lily related to Joshua some of what had occurred since her departure from Virginia. She didn’t tell him that she had spent much of that time as a blockade runner. Joshua was an o
ld-fashioned man and never would have understood or accepted that role for her. But she did manage to shock him by telling him that she had broken her husband out of a Yankee prison.
That caused Joshua to spare a second, thoughtful glance at Quint. Lily didn’t bother to explain, but managed to catch her husband’s eye and give him a sly smile.
They climbed the stairs to Lily’s old room. The room had always seemed small to her, but now, with no furniture remaining but the bed, it seemed huge.
Quint wrapped his arms around her as he kicked the door shut. He wound his fingers through her hair and brushed it aside so he could lower his lips to her sensitive neck.
“Look at this, Lily.” He took a step forward, guiding her with a light touch. “A real bed.” His voice was low and husky. “I might not let you out of this room for days… weeks. We could grow old together in this room.”
They worked their way toward the bed that dominated the room. It was tall, the feather mattress covered with a faded green quilt. Quint brushed his hand across Lily’s breasts, while the other hand splayed against her belly. Lily closed her eyes and rested her head against his shoulder, a low purring sound deep in her throat. All he had to do was touch her, and she was ready for him, burning with a fierce desire that ruled her body.
Quint reluctantly released her and fumbled with the buttons that ran down the back of her dress. He was cursing under his breath before he was halfway done with the chore. “I want you to get a few more of those dresses like the one you wore to the prison.”
“That awful pink thing?” Lily whispered.
“That awful pink thing you can slip out of in a flash.”
“Glad you liked it.” Lily turned to him as he pushed her dress over her shoulders and down to reveal the thin chemise that barely covered her breasts. “I made it myself.”
“Make a few more,” Quint whispered. “Never wear anything that takes this long to remove. I’d like to loosen those laces and have you on the bed in seconds, instead of minutes.”
“Patience, my love,” Lily said, revealing her own impatience as she struggled with his clothing. “We have a lifetime for this.”
In Enemy Hands Page 16
