“Anything! Anything but sitting alone in the Camerons’ plantation office, sipping brandy.”
It probably wasn’t what Christa had imagined either, he reminded himself. Maybe it was worse for her. She’d been engaged, she’d waited.
Callie had written Jeremy when they’d all heard the news that Liam McCloskey was dead. She had told him how they had all dyed their wedding finery black. Christa hadn’t mentioned her fiancé’s name today, not once.
He stood up suddenly.
She wasn’t going to sleep alone. One didn’t marry an ebony-haired enchantress and sleep in the guest room—even if she was a shrew!
He took one more swig of brandy. He sighed out loud, lifting his glass again to the air. “To all of us poor wretches!” he said. He smashed the glass against the fireplace, left the room behind him, and started up the stairs.
The damned Camerons looked at him again from the portrait gallery along the upper stairway. This time he paused and looked back.
“Not a damned word out of a one of you! She’s my wife.”
The word sounded so damned strange in connection with Christa.
He walked purposefully past the portraits and to her room. The door was closed. He entered the room and closed the door behind him.
Moonlight streamed in on the canopied bed. He walked to it and looked down at her.
She had fallen asleep. Another woman might have cried herself to sleep, but he doubted that Christa had done so. She lay on her stomach, and the covers were pulled just to the small of her back. The beautiful curve of it was plainly visible in the moon glow. Black hair spilled all around her, and her fingers were curled just below her chin. Her lashes swept her cheeks. He reached out and touched her face, wondering if he didn’t feel just a bit of dampness there, just a hint of tears.
“But this is it!” he said to her softly in the moonlight. “This is what you wanted!”
He sat at the foot of the bed and pulled off his boots. She must have been really exhausted—she didn’t even stir. He watched her face all the while that he stripped off his uniform, folding it neatly, piece by piece, and setting it upon her dressing table. He crawled in beside her, not touching her. He stared up at the ceiling, then swore silently at himself once again.
He knew damned well he’d never intended to rape her in her sleep, so what the hell did he think he was accomplishing by being here? He was on fire again, from head to toe. He had tried to pull the covers over his body, and now the damned sheet was rising, just as if there were a ghost down in the center of the bed. It was impossible to lie beside her and not want her.
Remember Jenny! he told himself fiercely. Remember what it should have been. Remember Christa’s words. The way that she says “Yankee” as if it were the filthiest word in the English language.
It didn’t work. He was as hard as a poker, and with the sheet flying up he felt like a flagstaff.
Well, he wasn’t getting up. They were married, and whether there was anything between them or not, he was suddenly determined that they were going to sleep like a married couple tonight.
She was his enemy, as no man had ever been.
But she was also soft and supple. Her flesh was silk, and he could just feel the whisper of it against his own. He turned slightly and her hair teased his nose, smelling like roses, feeling like a swatch of velvet.
He turned his back on her, making sure that their flesh didn’t touch. He slammed his fist against his pillow.
He started to count sheep.
It was damned funny.
No, it was torture.
But thank God for brandy, for long endless days, for total exhaustion. Toward morning, he slept at last.
He usually awoke easily, at the slightest sound. All those years of sleeping on the field in tents, alert to the slightest danger, had done something to his ability to sleep deeply.
But that night he slept as if he were dead.
And oddly enough, he had beautiful dreams. He was in some meadow, somewhere. Maryland, probably. He had always loved his home, where in the distance around him the land began to roll majestically and the mountains rose blue and green. The trees were rich and beautiful, draping over the trails in natural arbors. He was coming home. He was running because he could see her. Jenny. Delicate, feminine, her hair a cloud of sunshine around her, she ran down the trail toward him, her arms outstretched. He began to run. He could feel his heartbeat. He could feel the muscles constricting in his legs. The war was over. It was time to come home. She was reaching out to him.
Then the vision of her began to fade. In the dream he knew that she was dead.
Vaguely, from the deep, deep recesses of that dream, he began to hear a noise, and he realized that the noise was coming from the real world of consciousness.
“Christa!” It was a soft, feminine voice. Then there was a rapping on the door. “Christa …?”
He opened his eyes, fighting the last vestiges of sleep, pushing himself up.
He glanced to the right. Christa was just struggling to awaken. He was startled at just how quickly he found himself aroused at the sight of her. Her back was beautiful and sleek against the bedding that was falling from it, her hair was pure ebony against the snow-white coloring of the sheets. It fell in wave after wild wave down her back, and despite himself, he found himself making comparisons. Jenny had been so delicate, so ethereal. Blond, pale, soft. Christa was as slender, perhaps more so, but even slender she was richly curved, and she was not in the least ethereal. She was passion and fire and sensuality.
He wanted her.
“Christa …?”
Someone was directly beyond their door. With his present feelings, he couldn’t help but feel a malicious pleasure in the fact that Christa seemed so truly alarmed at the prospect of being discovered with him in her bed. She glanced at him with absolute horror in her beautiful blue eyes.
“What in God’s name are you doing there?” she hissed. “You’ve got to get up, you’ve got to get out of here.”
He leaned back against the bedstead, studying her, shaking his head slowly. He crossed his arms stubbornly over his chest. “I don’t think so, Christa.”
“That’s Kiernan! She and Jesse have come back. If my brother finds you here, he’ll kill you.”
“Christa, I’m married to you. Remember? And what a pity! Jesse’s back? Just think, for a matter of less than twenty-four hours, you’ve had to con me into marriage!”
She flashed him a furious look. “You’re a horrible person, Jeremy McCauley. No less than I’d expect—”
“From a Yank. Yes, I know.”
She flashed him another of her regally condemning glares, then started to push up from the bed determined to find clothing even if he wasn’t going to do so.
He reached out quickly, sweeping an arm around her, and drawing her back down.
“Jeremy, let me go—”
“Cover up, my love. Someone’s about to burst through that door.”
And he was right. He’d barely brought the covers up over the two of them when the door did burst open.
A loud gasp sounded.
Kiernan stood there. And Jesse was with her.
But they weren’t alone.
Daniel and Callie were beside them.
The foursome stared into the room, jaws gaping. “Oh, my God!” Kiernan breathed.
Five
Beyond a doubt, they had quite an audience. Jesse, still in the military, was in his blue uniform, a signature plume in his cockaded hat. Kiernan, at his side, was elegant in a yellow-and-mustard day dress that emphasized her blond beauty. Daniel had retired his butter-nut-and-gray uniform. He was dressed in fawn breeches, a black frock coat, white shirt, and red cravat. Callie wore a blue dress with modified petticoats and a velvet bustle. Her gray eyes were very wide with surprise, and he might have smiled at her expression—if the room were not so filled with combustible tension.
Beside him, Christa groaned. He kept his arm around her, wond
ering how—with this audience—he could still be so aware of her, of the feel of her hair tumbling over his shoulders and chest, of the silken feel of her naked flesh beneath his fingers. She was trembling.
He was certain that not one of the Camerons facing them intended to be so rude, filling the bedroom with their presence, gaping at them, slack-jawed and stunned.
“My God, how can you possibly be here?” Christa demanded, staring at the group. “I—” she began again, but she was cut off.
“Jesu—it’s McCauley!” Daniel said. There was a raw edge of anger in his voice. Well, that could be expected, Jeremy thought. Daniel was more hotheaded than Jesse and fiercely protective of his sister.
How the hell do you think I felt about mine? Jeremy wondered in silence.
There was a long stretch of silence.
Then Daniel spoke again. “McCauley, if you’ve—”
Callie jumped to Jeremy’s defense. “Daniel! That’s my brother!”
“And my sister!” Daniel grated out.
“All right, all right!” Jesse lifted a hand, stepping into the breach. “Let’s try to sort this out—”
“Dammit!” Daniel shook off Callie’s restraining arm. “She’s your sister, too, Jess—”
“Yes, and I’m sure we’re not making her feel very wonderful, standing in here and staring at her like this. Jeremy, there is an explanation, right?”
Christa opened her mouth, about to speak. Jeremy tightened the pinioning arm he had around her. “You know, Daniel,” he said smoothly, “you do, sir, have a hell of a nerve questioning me with such a damned note of accusation when I came home in the middle of the war to find my sister expecting a baby. And then to find that she’d clean disappeared, kidnapped south by some Reb the next time around!”
“I married your sister—” Daniel began heatedly.
“Whoa!” Jesse warned, coming to stand between them. Not only did they have an audience, Jeremy thought wryly, that audience was coming closer and closer. “Daniel, Jeremy, you made your peace about Callie a long time ago! Daniel, Jeremy fought with us to save this place. Let’s have some reason here.” He paused, then stared hard at Jeremy. “All right, McCauley. Just what the hell are you doing in bed with my sister? I need an explanation, and a good one!”
“There’s a damned good one,” he said lightly, addressing Jesse but his eyes narrowing on Daniel. “She’s my wife.”
“Wife!” Kiernan gasped.
“Christa, is that the truth?” Daniel shot quickly to his sister.
“Yes, I—”
“You married him?” Daniel said incredulously.
Callie cleared her throat. “Daniel, it’s not so amazing that someone would marry my brother!” There was an angry emphasis on the last two words. She stared at Jeremy. “You married Christa?”
“Callie!” Daniel snapped.
Once again, Jesse stepped into the fray. “Let’s not create offense where none is intended,” he said flatly. “If we state surprise, Callie, it is merely because we never imagined Christa and Jeremy carrying on a civil conversation together, much less marrying one another. But it is the truth, right?”
“It’s the truth,” Jeremy said. “And I’m more than willing to explain it all, if you’d be so good as to excuse us long enough so that we can dress?”
“Oh! Yes, of course,” Kiernan said. She started for the door. No one else was moving. She cleared her throat. “You all! They’re naked and in bed and we’re just staring at them!” she said in exasperation. “Jesse, come on. Daniel, Callie?”
“Oh,” Jesse said quickly. Callie lowered her head and followed behind him. Daniel was the last to leave. “I’ll see you in the study—” he began. But Jesse had his arm.
“Come on, Daniel. They’ll be down in a minute!”
And Daniel, too, disappeared through the door. It shut with a small bang.
“Oh, my God!” Christa breathed. She leaned forward, burying her face in her hands. “How on earth did they all get here so quickly? Not just Jesse, not just Daniel. It will be so hard to get out of this now!” She leapt up, too distracted at first to realize that she was swirling around the room in all her naked glory as she searched for her clothing. The tangled fall of her hair was wild and sensual. The contrast between the rich color of her hair and the ivory of her flesh was exotic and tempting. He realized that she had two small dimples at the base of her spine, one over either buttock.
She wrenched open one of her drawers. “We’ll have to try to explain it to them,” she murmured, not even glancing his way.
Jeremy rose more slowly. He walked over to stand just behind her back. She found the pantalets she had been searching for. “I know that there’s something we can say—” she started.
But he took hold of both of her shoulders and stared into her eyes. “No.”
She shook her head. “What do you mean, no? I forced you into this, remember?”
“You forced me—and I did it. Well, now it’s done. We’re not getting out of it.”
Her breath quickened. He was gazing into her eyes, but he could see the rise and fall of her breasts with his peripheral vision. Jesu. A part of his anatomy started to rise right along in response.
Christa’s gaze slipped from his. A gasping sound escaped her and she tried to elude his hold, her chin rising, her eyes narrowing. “My brothers are home now, Jeremy. If you even think to touch me, I’ll scream!”
He could hear the grating of his own teeth, the comment made him so furious. He jerked her hard against him. “Christa, this isn’t a garden party any longer. Can’t you understand the seriousness of what you’ve done? You’ll scream?” he hissed. “Then you’ll just have to go ahead and do so because I’ll touch you when and how I like. They’re your brothers. You married me. And unless you’re really fond of bloodshed, you had best bear that in mind. Now, I’m sure you wouldn’t mind in the least becoming a widow, seeing my Yankee carcass slipped into a shroud. Your brothers are good, damned good, but don’t underestimate my abilities. I managed to stay alive through four years of fighting at the front too. So if you ever think about doing anything so stupid as causing a further friction between us, just remember that.”
She had grown very pale. She no longer resisted his hold upon her. Her lashes, so long and rich a black, fell over her eyes. “Will you let me go, please? We do need to give them some kind of an explanation.”
Instantly, he released her. She turned her back on him and stepped into the pantalets. He strode across the room and picked up his own neatly folded clothing, dressing quickly. He could hear the splash of wash water from the pitcher to the bowl as he buckled his scabbard in place. With his back to her, he waited for her.
“You can go down without me,” she told him. Damn, how she wanted him gone! More time to plan a story for her brothers? Why a story, when the truth explained it all so clearly?
“You want to send me down to face the lions alone?” he drawled, turning to watch her. She was in the process of slipping into a dress. Christa certainly had enough gowns. This was another day dress, a handsome blue-and-gray plaid taffeta with black lace trim. It was elegant and very demure.
She dressed with care for every occasion. She stared at him, trying to do the hooks. He walked around behind her, impatiently grabbing her about the waist and pulling her back to him when she would have avoided his touch.
“My brothers are not lions,” she said. “And I thought that you didn’t give a damn about them.”
“I’m not afraid of them,” he told her. “I never said I didn’t give a damn about them. There’s a big difference.” He rubbed his chin. He needed a shave. It would have to wait. The Camerons downstairs—including his sister—did deserve some kind of an explanation.
He was going to let Christa give it.
“Shall we go, Mrs. McCauley?” He offered her his arm. Christa ignored it, spun around, and started for the door. He followed on her footsteps.
Christa walked down the hallway throug
h the gallery, painfully aware of him behind her. This could have been so easy. If Jeremy had behaved like a gentleman and kept his distance.
She suddenly felt a rush of blood rising to her cheeks. She could remember waking beside him. It had been almost like a dream. Being curled against him had been nice. She had felt the warmth of his body and the muscled length of him. She had also felt the hardness of him, warm and pulsing against her bare flesh. It hadn’t been horrible at all, it had been fascinating, sensual, nice. She had wanted to turn around and curl against the strong male body. She had wanted to be held.
It’s what it would have been like to wake up married.
She was married.
According to Jeremy, they were really married. She stopped short suddenly in the portrait gallery.
Camerons stared down upon them.
“What are we going to say?” she asked him.
“Let’s see. I know. I rode by, you were swept off your feet, we couldn’t wait a minute, you married me.”
“How amusing,” Christa murmured.
“How pathetic,” he responded softly. He had dressed in his full uniform, down to his hat. It was a cockaded cavalry hat, just like Jesse’s. Jeremy wore two plumes in his.
With the hat pulled low over his forehead, his eyes were barely discernible in the shadows of the hallway. He seemed exceptionally curt this morning, even for Jeremy. As if he were totally impatient with her now, and as if he truly regretted all that he had gotten himself into.
Except that he didn’t seem willing to help get them out of it! He was a tall man and she felt again the disadvantage of looking up to him. His hair was still slightly askew beneath the brim of his hat, falling rakishly over his forehead. Her heart took a hard thud. He was a handsome man, but a very hard and unapproachable one at the moment. He leaned against the banister and casually studied her. “They’re your brothers, Christa,” he reminded her. “What’s the matter with the truth?”
“I just don’t want them to …” she began, but her voice trailed away.