Ashes in the Wind

by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

  She gave him an impatient toss of her head. “Then, sir, I will wait without.”

  As she stepped toward the door, Cole’s eyes swept her, and with sudden decision, he reached out a long arm and slammed the portal closed in front of her. She halted in startled surprise and looked up at him, meeting his suspicious glare.

  “With the key in your hand ready to lock me in? And your cloak on ready to fly?” he demanded. He snatched the key from her grasp. “I think not, madam. You will wait with me until I am at least garbed to pursue.”

  He took the thing and sealed the portal quickly, then withdrawing it, tossed the key over his shoulder with careless finality. His blind accuracy was amazing, for after rebounding off the wall, an almost musical chord rang in the room as the key rattled into the large, brass spittoon.

  Alaina’s eyes had followed its arching flight, then after a brief pause, she raised a noncommittal brow to her self-sure husband. “I think you may have difficulty retrieving your key, sir.”

  Cole glanced at the spittoon and shrugged indolently. “It belongs to the hotel. Let them retrieve it.”

  Alaina matched his shrug with one of her own. She turned away from him, the cloak spreading wide and displaying to his gaze her well-mended petticoat.

  “What on earth!” He reached out and pulled the cloak from her shoulders, casting it behind him into a chair. She faced him again with a mild question in her gaze as he stared in reproof at her hooped undergarment.

  “Great Caesar’s ghost, madam! I have seen better on a ragpicker’s wife.”

  “Your attention to the detail of woman’s garments is truly-amazing, sir. Indeed, you seem quite knowledgeable about feminine underthings and such,” she replied spritely, then half apologized as she smoothed the offending garment. “But this has served me well, and I keep it in a good state of repair.”

  “A labor of lengthy diligence, madam, to be sure,” Cole snorted, and, with a quick movement, reached behind her narrow waist and tugged the bow free.

  “Sir!” Alaina gasped as the petticoats fell to the floor.

  His eyes took in the simple cotton pantaloons which, though of an inexpensive cut, snugly fit her slim though well-rounded hips. He could admire what they contained far more without their blighting presence.

  “I have a wife who garbs herself like a farmer’s wench,” he growled half to himself, “though I’ve provided her with far better things.”

  In exasperation he stepped to the bootjack and applied its ministration to his footwear. Glancing back over his shoulder, he found her regarding him with a tolerantly amused smile as one would a child in a tantrum. It outraged his sense of righteousness. In the face of her blatant patronage, he ignored good sense and deemed it timely to exercise his authority. He restated his earlier words, but this time with a firm directive. “Henceforth, madam, you will garb yourself as befits the position of Mrs. Latimer.”

  She calmly replied. “When you are gone, sir.”

  “Now!”

  She met his gaze squarely. “I will not!”

  Almost incredulously he asked, “What did you say, madam?”

  Something prickled at Alaina’s consciousness, but she did not take heed of his oftentimes coolly controlled temper. “I said, I will not!”

  The little ragged wench! She all but dared him! Cole sailed his shirt and vest into a chair, stepped to her open trunk, and removed the leather case he had sent to her. Unhooking the fasteners, he flung open the top and rummaged through the contents, carelessly spilling them over the bed.

  “Here!” He flung a delicately made, gossamer thin chemise to her feet. “You will wear this! And these!” He tossed lace-bedecked pantaloons, sheer silk stockings, frilly petticoats, and a satin and lace corset in rapid succession. The last garment he withdrew was a deep green velvet traveling dress, richly trimmed with leather piping and tiny buttons of a dark tan hue. This last he laid on the bed with more care and jabbed a commanding finger at it. “And this! I want to see you in this!”

  Alaina had regained her composure and struck a motherlode of stubbornness at least as rich as his. She left the garments at her feet, and though no word passed her lips, the look in her eyes as she silently met his gaze was pure mutiny. Deliberately presenting her back to him, she folded her arms and stood with one slippered toe beating a rapid tattoo on the floor.

  An almost lecherous smile tempted Cole’s lips as his eyes swept the bed. He would not have her see it and replaced it with his best ominous frown. He limped forward, moving close behind her, as his hand dipped low to lift the scissors from the sewing kit. His quick fingers pulled out the waistband of her pantaloons, and after a deft snip, they sagged loosely downward. With a startled gasp, Alaina snatched for them and retrieved her modesty, but, with a surgeon’s sure hand, Cole reached out to her shoulders and cut through the straps. Unhampered, the shift plunged and was barely caught at the brink. She whirled, an expression of indignation frozen on her face.

  “Ahhh,” Cole smiled condescendingly. “I have your attention now.” He made a leg and bowed his half naked torso in a courtly gesture. “At your leisure, madam. The day is still young.”

  Alaina clutched the freed garment higher over her heaving bosom, aware of the presumptuously possessive gaze that swept her. Leisurely he turned and, selecting a pair of trousers from his case, laid them on the bed. Unbuttoning his fly, he peeled his trousers down and seated himself on the edge of the bed to remove them. But his curiosity plagued him, and he could not resist a glance over his shoulder. His wife had moved, leaving the fine garments where they had fallen, and now stood facing the corner of the room, resolutely refusing to watch him. His eyes coursed down the fine curves of her stiff back, from the slim erect column of her neck, to the beckoning fullness of her hips. The all too apparent womanliness of her evoked a strong stirring of desire, and he felt a familiar hardening beneath the snug fit of his undergarment.

  He rose and moved to stand behind her, not touching, but near enough that she was trapped and could not move without coming into contact with him. He braced his forearm against the wall and gazed down upon the tantalizing curve of her breasts that swelled almost free of the damaged chemise and the hand that held the garment in place. He ached to caress the womanly softness of her, to hold her close, and ease the lusting ache that gnawed at the pit of his belly.

  “You are woman, Alaina,” he murmured huskily.

  “Indeed?” she sniffed and clutched her precarious modesty all the closer, pressing the fullness of her bosom upward until it fair besotted his senses. He lusted. He craved. He burned with desire. And all for her.

  “Enough to drive a man insane,” he breathed. Strange lights danced in her shining hair, and her slender shoulders gleamed with a soft, creamy luster.

  “I had no idea,” she apologized brightly though his presence nearly overawed her spirit. “But perhaps you wish to prove your words.”

  “Prove?”

  “Your insanity! Your madness!” She struggled to sound flippant and casual. “But you need not burden me. A few flecks of foam upon your lips would serve as well to prove the claim.”

  The heady scent of her perfume mingled with the essence of pure woman, filling his head and warming his blood. The heat of his hunger spread with eager bounds through his loins. “ ‘Tis well you are married, Alaina, for if not so bonded, you would have ended as the paramour of some European prince. You were made for love.”

  His nearness threatened to destroy her composure. But alas, only threatened. “Married? An arrangement of temporary nature? Your proxy sent to a far-off place to exchange words with a woman who has no other choice? Marriage? Is that what you call it?”

  “Yes.” His hand reached out to caress the silky smoothness of her bare shoulder. “Legal and binding in any court of law.”

  She pulled away from his touch, unable to breathe. “It was more an agreement, I’d say.”

  “Of course,” he chuckled. “An agreement to ease the qualms of your
uncle so he would sign the papers. By any definition, you are my wife.”

  “Of chastity and restraint,” she continued, struggling to steadfastly keep her thoughts on what she was trying to express, and in the course of such, missing the meaning of his words. Beneath her bosom her heart thumped far too wildly for her to claim a mere tolerance of him.

  “We are man and wife,” he said huskily. “What chastity and restraint does that forebode?”

  “We are Doctor Cole Latimer”—her voice came as a flat, toneless drone—“wounded hero of the Union, and Alaina MacGaren, wanted for murder, treason, thievery, spying, and other assorted crimes.”

  “You are here because I married you.”

  She laughed briefly. “I am here because I had no other choice.”

  “Choice? Yes, indeed.” He turned her angry words aside. “Choice you are, my love.” He ran his fingers down the shining darkness of her hair, smoothing it as if in awe. “The very cream of the lot.”

  His soft answer and soothing caress awoke tingling answers in places she tried to ignore. This betrayal by her own body aroused an impatient vexation. She had foolishly thought that all the quickening fires she had once felt in his presence would be cooled by now, and if not thoroughly squelched by the insult of his proposal, then surely slow to rekindle. But she was becoming increasingly aware of the folly of that conclusion. He touched; she burned. It was a hard fact for her pride to accept, especially when it was he who had demanded a chaste marriage. What did he expect her to be? Some limp-willed twit who catered to his mercurial moods?

  “You treat the word love lightly, sir, when that same emotion should be a prior test of devotion and commitment before the vows.”

  Cole lowered his face to stir her hair and breathe deeply of its fragrance. For Alaina, it was as if some discordant screech had sent a shudder through her. She pressed forward against the wall, trying to break the contact that so bestirred her.

  “Cool your heels, sir,” she warned crisply. “This is not of our agreement.”

  “To hell with agreements and prior things,” Cole muttered thickly. “Your need is that which only a man can fulfill, and I would have no other do it but myself.”

  Pulling her away from the wall, he bent and lifted her in his arms as she struggled to keep herself covered.

  “Major!” she panted breathlessly. “This game has gone far enough. Put me down!”

  “Games are for children, my love. But this is something more between a man and his woman.” His eyes burned into hers as he strode purposefully to the bed with her. “There’ll be no more pretenses between us in our marital bed.”

  Kneeling on the mattress, he lowered her to its softness and, before she could move, his arms came down like sinewed pillars on either side, trapping her between them. He lowered his weight until he half lay upon her, pinning her arm (and her hand that had held the pantaloons) beneath him. She dared not attempt to free it lest she touch some portion of his loins and needlessly confound what meager defense she could muster.

  It was all too vivid in her memory that she had fought him on that first night long ago and that physical resistance had been useless against his unswerving seduction. His mood now seemed of the same bent; he had no apparent intentions of releasing her until their vows were tied securely in a most physical knot of passion.

  His fingers slowly slid up her arm to the hand that grasped the top of her shift, his thumb brushing over the soft peak of her breast, quickening her breath and her heartbeat, before he gently caught her hand. Pressing a warm kiss upon her knuckles, he drew her arm around his neck, then his mouth dipped downward to hers. It was a teasing kiss, brief and light, his tongue leisurely tracing the contours of her trembling lips, while she tried o chide her wayward will into obedience. His warm breath touched her ear, and his teeth nibbled at the base of her neck, sending delicious shivers through her. She closed her eyes, relaxing in his arms, growing warm and pliant. Then suddenly her eyes came open with a start, a gasp born on her lips. The loose shift had been easily brushed downward, and now his mouth was a hot, searing flame against her breast. She writhed beneath the slow, flicking tongue of fire, feeling consumed by its heat. She knew a growing tightness in the pale, roseate peak and an almost driving urge to rise against him, to open her shaking limbs and let the boldness of his manhood fill the aching void.

  Still, some last shred of reason deep within her screamed in terminal agony and beat with frenzied fists against the soft underbelly of her sagging resolve. No! Stop him! the voice roared in stentorian conscience. Set him back! ‘Twas his fancy to have the bargain! Hold him to it! Her mind resumed its function, casting him as a spoiled child who had never been taught the meaning of no! What woman he wanted, that woman he took. How long would it be before he saw another wench to his liking? Her ire thus awakened, she directed it well, letting her body go limp and lifeless beneath his caresses.

  Cole’s hand had slipped down to the severed pantaloons, pulling them free as he slowly stroked the smooth velvet curve of her hip. His fingers wandered beneath the fabric, downward across her belly as his lips returned to take hers. With a small turning of her head, she managed to avoid his kiss.

  “Is this the way it’s to be?” she whispered. “The same as it was before?”

  He raised slightly, frowning down at her in puzzlement.

  Her lovely mouth curved in a soft, haunting sweet smile as she continued, staring up into those fiery blue brands that rested upon her. “You’ve already given me the jewels. What’s to be my worth this time? Should I hold out for the clothes?” Her arm slid from around his neck, and her fingers toyed with the medallion, bringing it to his attention. Its bright golden chain gleamed tauntingly against her soft creamy nakedness. “Do you have another one of these? Oh, Major,” she laughed softly. “You do wax extravagant in your lusts.”

  The softness of the tone did not disguise the bitter satire of her words. Cole felt his desires flagging beneath the sting, but in an attempt to ignore it, he bent closer, lowering his lips toward hers.

  “Is this the way you plied Roberta—with sweet devotion?” she asked innocently.

  Cole ground his teeth and jerked away in frustration. He rolled off the bed and, with nostrils flaring, glared down at her. She sat up, glancing at him apprehensively as she clutched her arms over her naked bosom.

  “Am I not worthy of the price?” she asked in well-feigned hurt.

  A savage curse came from his lips and, snatching up his clothes and boots, he limped from the room and out of sight. A moment later Alaina appeared in the doorway, the long cloak providing her with cover as she watched him fasten his trousers with quick, taut jerks. He sat down to tug on his boots, but winced slightly as he donned the right one. He straightened his leg, rubbing his thigh as if some pain had struck him, then his gaze raised and caught her look of worried concern.

  “Hold your pity, madam,” he growled. “I am not some crippled beggar to be satisfied with the crumbs of your compassion. It’s plain to see you share the blood of the Craighugh brood.”

  She raised her chin, slightly miffed at his conclusion. “Is holding you to your promise a wound so deep you cannot bear it?”

  “Madam, the sharpness of your two-edged tongue does flay a man more deeply than Roberta ever contrived to do. Like her, you have a way of tempting a man until he fairly simpers at your feet, but when the truth of the matter is hot in hand, you set it aside like some trophy torn from the loins of a living beast.”

  “How can you claim that my simple refusal rends your manhood?”

  He stared at her, his face rigid, then rising to his feet, snatched his cane and coat. “I yield to you, madam,” he barked. “I’ll have the carriage brought around, and I shall take you home.”

  As he limped to the door, Alaina calmly reminded him. “You forgot your hat.”

  Cole faced her with amazed disbelief. No one had baited him with such boldness since he was a child. Even Roberta had known when to cease. Not da
ring to vent his rage, he strode from the room, slammed the door behind him, and glowered at a startled bellhop who stepped quickly aside as he hurried past.

  Alone once more, Alaina did not yield to a feeling of smugness, but, rather, a worried fear that she might have gone too far.

  Chapter 28

  THE northwestering road meandered across low, rolling hills and wandered through tall forests of elm and oak that mingled their rain-darkened autumn colors with the impassioned greens of interspersed pines. The gale that had driven sheets of rain slashing down upon the brougham as they left the city receded once again. The rain dwindled into swirling shreds of drifting, grayish mists, as if Cole’s decision to continue the journey home had left the elements with no other choice but to retreat from their violent display. The countryside lay in breathless repose. Indecisive raindrops trembled on the tips of long, green needles, while on the ground, the thick carpet of wet leaves cushioned the thud of horses’ hooves.

  Alaina sat tense and silent in her corner, all too aware of Cole’s scowling brow silhouetted in bold profile against the far window. He had taken the place beside her and stretched out his right leg, propping his boot upon the opposite seat in an effort to ease his discomfort on the long ride. Though the steady, rapid pace of the well-matched team pushed the miles behind them and dusk was rapidly darkening the leaden sky, few words had been exchanged between them. It was a brooding silence, and in no manner peaceful.

  The road traced a path along a river, and the brougham slowed as they approached a sharp bend. Suddenly, from a distance, a shout rent the serenity of the forest, and Olie hauled on the reins to bring the animals to a halt. Cole dropped his foot from the seat and leaned out the window to search the road, while Alaina watched him anxiously. She was not fearful by nature, but she had heard enough gruesome stories about the Sioux uprising to make her somewhat leery of this wilderness and its inhabitants. Her qualms eased greatly when Cole relaxed back into the seat and leisurely withdrew a cigar from his silver case.