"Monahah!"
"Well, the colonel may try to stop him from going."
"What do you mean, might try? The colonel outranks him, doesn"t he? Or am I missing something?"
"No, no, but Jamie is up for reenlistment.
Technically, he could have walked away from the cavalry a month ago.
Paperwork gets slow out here sometimes."
"But why would the colonel want to stop him from going?"
"Oh, the colonel probably wouldn"t. Not by himself, that " Monahah, you are near to frustrating me to tears! What are you talking about?"
Now Monahah was a brilliant red. He stuttered, then started again.
"Miss. Eliza is the one who might mind."
"Eliza Worthingham."
"Monahah!"
"Oh, you don"t know! Why, miss, Eliza is Colonel Worthingham"s daughter."
"Oh!" Tess cried, startled.
"Tarnation, I didn"t mean to upset you none. Don"t you worry. The lieutenant ain"t n.o.body"s fool, and he ain"t about to have his life run by a skirt, even if Miss. Eliza is a pretty piece of fluff. Ah, h.e.l.l, not that you"re not every bit as pretty--prettier!--but you see my point? He ain"t ever gonna have his mind made up by a woman. Not any woman.
Oh, dear, this ain"t getting" no better, not one wit! Come on, Miss.
Stuart, let me do one duty fight and get you home for the night!"
"Ah, yes, thank you, I think that I am quite ready to retire," Tess told him, He walked her through the now empty alehouse and she thought of how disastrously the evening had ended. Then she found that her fingers were fluttering to her lips and that she couldn"t forget the way Jamie had kissed her.
She would never forget the way he had kissed her. Not if she never-saw him again, not if she lived to be a hundred and two.
He wouldn"t ever let himself be run by a woman. That was what Monahah had said. But if he came with her, he would feel he had been trapped into doing it. He had been forced to say he would come with her to calm down Clara.
But if he stayed. Then it might be worse, because if he stayed after he had stated he would go, it would be because he had been ordered to stay--because of Eliza.
He"s torn between the two of us, Tess thought. And which one of us will win?
They had come to the Casey house. Monahah opened her door and lit a lantern for her, then looked around the small building.
"Seems clear," he said.
"Why, Lieutenant, this is a cavalry outpost! What would I be afraid of here?" "Never can be too careful," Monahah said cheerfully. "We learn that out here, ma"am."
"Yes, I"m sure you do," she said softly.
"Well, thank you. I do feel quite safe now."
He told her good-night and left. Tess sat down on the foot of the bed and slipped off her black leather dance slippers.
Then she paused, feeling as if something in the place wasn"t quite fight.
She stood up and looked around. She hadn"t had much brought in from the wagon, but one trunk was shifted away from the wall when she was certain she had left it against the wall. Her brush, which she had set on the small vanity, had fallen to the floor.
She picked up the brush and set it on the vanity. Then she walked over to the trunk and opened it.
It wasn"t in wild disarray, but she knew someone had been into it.
She always folded her clothing meticulously and kept it in defined piles, her flatiron on the bottom of the chest, her heavy skirts next to it, her light blouses and lingerie on top. Things had been moved.
She sat again. Maybe Monahah was fight. You never could be too careful.
There was no one in the little house now, but there had been. Who?
Eliza. Tess was certain of it. She smiled.
"Eliza," she whispered softly.
"I"ve been dealing with the likes of yon Heusen. Fighting you is going to be easy."
She finished undressing, slipped on the borrowed nightgown and crawled beneath the covers. Her eyes wouldn"t close, though. She was ready to deal with Eliza. But what if she had already lost the battle?
There was no way she could know until morning. It was a horrible night.
She pt feeling Jamie"s kiss upon her lips again and again. And no matter how she fought it, she k~pt imagining that kiss falling against her throat, her palm. and Other places.
She slept very late. D~pite the bugles and the commotion of a company heading out for a day"s scouting, when Tess finally slept, she did so deeply and well. It was nearly noon when she imagined she heard a sharp rapping on the door. She ignored it. Then she shot up as the door burst open and heavy footsteps fell within the house.
The covers fell away. Her hair was tousled and falling around her shoulders, her gown dislodged from one shoulder and draping precariously low over her breast. Startled and disoriented, she gasped when she saw Jamie Slater in full uniform, his plumed hat low over his eyes, his legs apart and his gloved hands on his hips as he stared at her.
"You," she muttered.
He swept his hat from his head, bowing very low.
"Yes, do excuse me, Miss. Stuart. I wanted to let you know that we would be leaving at the break of dawn tomorrow. I realize, of course, that dawn might be difficult for you, sinee you are still abed this midday, but I do intend to leave promptly. Are we understood?"
"Tomorrow! You"re still--you"re still taking me?" His eyes narrowed sharply.
"I said I was. Why wouldn"t I be doing so?"
"No--uh, no reason." She allowed her lashes to fall, shading her eyes.
"I was just worried that maybe ... that maybe you hadn"t meant what you said."
He was silent for a s~ond.
"Miss. Stuart," he said softly, "I always mean what I say."
"I was just worried that you didn"t really want to go" -- "Oh, for G.o.d"s sake! I"m going. We"re going. Tomorrow.
That is, if you get up on time."
She smiled, then forgot her animosity toward him, and just about everything else for that matter. She threw back the covers and leaped from the bed and raced toward him, casting herself into his arms. His hands came around her as he held her uptight, his arms wrapping around her. "Thank you!" she said earnestly. Then she realized what she had done and how she was standing.
And that them wasn"t much of anything between them. She could feel the pressure of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against the hardness of his body, and she knew that the thin cotton gown wasn"t hiding anything of herself.
She backed away, swallowing fiercely.
"Thank you," she repeated.
"I.
really do appreciate it. Very much. I don"t suppose that you could ever understand, but I do." The gown was falling off her shoulder again. She tried to retrieve it. Then she realized that she was standing in the morning sunlight and that every curve and twist of her form, and even the shadows of her body, would be completely evident to him.
And her body was warming, and she was certain that her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were swelling, and she was breathing far too quickly, and he could probably see the pounding of her heart.
"Sincerely, thank you." And she was still muttering. A broad grin stretched across his features. She plunged quickly into the bed beneath the covers.
"Miss. Stuart?"
""yes?"
"Do me a favor once we"re under way, will you?"
"What"s that?"
"Please don"t chatter away endlessly like that, huh?" "I never chatter!"
she said indignantly.
"Never?" His brow arched.
She flushed.
"Almost never. Lieutenant, do you realiz~ how very rude you"re being?
You"ve disturbed my sleep, and now you haven"t the decency to leave me alone to dress." His eyes fell upon her. Lingered over her. He was still smiling.
"Do excuse me then, Miss. Stuart. But count on this--for the next few days, I"ll disturb your sleep often."
He tipped his hat to her and strode from the room. Tess pulled the covers close around her, then she smiled and sank low into the bed.
It was a busy day for Jamie. Jon Red Feather was going to be accompanying him, but other than that, they would travel alone. Since he didn"t know quite what he was going to come up against, he spent a fair amount of time determining what he wanted to pack on the supply horses and what he might bring in Tess Stuart"s wagon.
Dealing with Colonel Worthingham hadn"t been hard. Eliza had been behind the trouble, he had known that.
Worthingham might be blind about his daughter, but he was a good officer.
Not that Eliza wasn"t careful. She had been with Worthingham when Jamie went to see him. She had spoken of the danger, of how Jamie was needed at the post, and she had been so sweet no one might ever have suspected her of having an evil thought.
Worthingham had suggested that another man might do the job; Jamie had politely reminded him that he wasn"t officially in the cavalry anymore, and that had done the trick. He had three months now, three months on his own.
And Jon was his own man. He always had been. Jamie was glad Jon was coming along, even if he was being a thorn in Jamie"s side over Tess. As if the minx needed any champions. The girl did know how to fight her own battles.
He didn"t want to battle, he thought. He closed his eyes, then remembered the way she had looked that morning, half dressed and completely seductive, the outline of her delineated by the sunlight against the soft white cotton.
And she 83 had smiled and thrown herself into his arms. He remembered the taste and feel and texture of her and had known that he had to get out of the room before he took a running leap and fell upon her in the disarray of her gown and covers.
He was a fool. He should be steering as clear of her as he could.
Instead, he had given his word to take her to Wiltshire. And he kept his word.
There was just so much he wanted from her in return. And she was desperate enough to give it.
That wasn"t the way he wanted her, he told himself. But then he reflected that he wanted her in any way possible, and he wasn"t quite sure ethics entered into the question. And he had to stop thinking about her. He clenched his teeth and set to work.
It took most of the day to requisition the weapons and ammunition he wanted to take. It was dark by the time he was ready to return to his rooms. He wanted a good dinner and a long, hot bath before he started out on the trail.
His orderly would have arranged for his bath. When he opened the door to his office and saw that the lantern had been lit and a steaming hip bath set in the bedroom, he breathed a sigh of relief. He tossed his hat onto a chair, unbuckled his scabbard and holster and set his weapons on his desk. He pulled off his boots and left them where they fell.
By the time he reached the doorway to the bedroom, his shirt was unb.u.t.toned and he was flinging it on the floor. He was anxious for the bath.
But then he paused in his trousers, his eyes narrowing. He wasn"t alone.
Eliza was in the bedroom. And Eliza had been in his bath. She was curled up on his bed, her dark hair damp and forming tiny ringlets to frame her face.
She wasn"t exactly naked, but her appearance would have been less decadent if she had been. She was wearing a lace corset he could almost see through, and which lifted her cleavage to bold new heights. She wore some kind of silk and lace pantalets, and nothing else.
"I came to say goodbye," she told him huskily. "Eliza, you"re a fool,"
he told her irritably.
"What the devil do you think you"re doing in my room?"
"Aren"t you glad to see me?"
"Frankly, no."
She curled up on the bed, watching him like a cat.
"I"m not letting you go off with that little blond s.l.u.t."
"Eliza, take a look at yourself and think about what you"re saying."