He leaned forward until he was nose to nose with her. “I’d like to remind you that I saved you from Pitman, that I saved Abigail’s neck, and today I probably saved you from hanging. That doesn’t sound very cowardly to me.”
She rubbed her bruised arms. “I don’t like your methods.”
“We can’t all be your romantic Raider. Besides, I thought you were convinced he was dead.”
“Don’t say that! Let’s go to my house and—”
“Not on your life. You aren’t stepping foot out of this door today. I don’t trust you not to go directly to this admiral and challenge him to a fistfight. I plan to keep you alive day by day. Now, tell me what you have in mind when you talk of patriotism.”
But no matter how much he coaxed, Jessica wouldn’t tell him anything.
* * *
Jessica awoke with a sick stomach, an aching head and a tongue made of hide glue. Her first thought was that she would never trust Alexander. He had no intention of talking to her about patriotism. He’d only wanted to get her drunk so that she was too befuddled to fight what had been done to her.
Slowly, keeping her head steady, she threw back the covers of Alexander’s bed. It’s a wonder he doesn’t sleep under pink satin, she thought.
“Good morning,” Alex called from the doorway.
“It’s not good. Alex, I hate that coat,” she groaned.
He grinned. “It’s new. They’re lovers’ knots and pineapples. I rather like it. Want something to eat?”
“Where are my boots?”
“Here. Jess, I think you should rest today.”
“Of course I should. Just sleep the afternoon away. How are the children?”
“Eleanor is coping fine. She and I raided the larder and there’s more than enough food for them.”
“Taggerts don’t—”
“Accept charity, I know. You want some help?”
Jess pulled on the second boot. “I have to go fishing. I have to—” She stopped suddenly because she remembered her ship was no more. “Did they burn her?”
Alex sat beside her on the bed and took one of her hands. “Yes, Jess, they did. I met Admiral Westmoreland—he’s quartered himself and ten of his men at the Wentworths’—and I think I’ve persuaded him that you were never really involved.”
She jerked away from him. “That won’t bring back my ship.”
“No, but if you stay away from the Raider, it might help.”
She stood, grabbed her head and stomach to steady them, then glared at him. “What do you understand? All you know is…is lovers’ knots and pineapples. For all anyone knows the Raider is dead. He’s dead, my ship is burned and I—” She stopped and turned away, but she’d break before she cried before this man who looked like a nest of fireflies.
“Jess…” Alex began, moving closer to her.
“Don’t you touch me.” She moved away from him, unlatched the door and left the room. She didn’t pause in the common room either, just called, “Come with me, Nathaniel,” as she passed and kept going. She refused to look at the townspeople who stopped and gawked at her. They were afraid of her now, afraid some of the trouble she was in would touch them.
She paused for a moment by the blacksmith shop. Ethan Ledbetter, bare forearms glistening with sweat, his sweaty shirt plastered to his back muscles, was hammering on a hot horseshoe—and Abigail was standing in the shadows, looking at him as a hungry child looked at a Christmas feast.
Hot tears came to Jessica’s eyes. Was the reason the Raider hadn’t appeared because Ethan now had Abigail?
“Jessie?” Nate said from beside her. “Mr. Alexander is coming.”
“Then we are going,” Jess said angrily and started walking quickly.
She worked herself without stopping for four days. At the end of the first day, Eleanor had given her a piece of her mind.
“You may try to kill yourself if you want, but you’re not going to kill Nathaniel.” Eleanor had carried the exhausted child upstairs.
So Jess went out alone. She threw nets into the sea and pulled them back. She nailed together an old pushcart and hawked the fish she caught about town. Many of the people were afraid to buy from her. Her name was tainted now and everyone was afraid of the admiral and his soldiers.
The admiral walked the streets of Warbrooke from early until late. His soldiers jumped at every sound. One of them shot a little girl’s puppy when it ran in front of him unexpectedly. The taverns by the wharf were closed.
Warbrooke was a town under military rule.
Three times Jess tried to talk to men about freedom, about protesting what was happening, but no one would listen to her.
At the end of the fourth day, she was at the little cove north of her house. Her hands were raw and blistered; she was cold; she was hungry. She thought of the children at home and she gathered her net for one last cast.
“Jessie.”
At first she thought it was only the wind saying her name.
“Jessie.”
She turned on her heel and looked into the darkness where the land formed a little cliff on one side of the cove. She saw nothing at first, but then out of the darkness came a hand, a hand extended toward her, palm up.
She ran to him.
The Raider held her in his arms so tightly her ribs nearly cracked. “Jessie, Jessie, Jessie,” he whispered over and over, clutching her, his face in her hair.
“You’re here. You’re all right,” Jess gasped, tears in her eyes and in her voice. “Let me see. Let me see where you were hurt.” Frantically, she began pulling his shirt from his pants, eager to see that he was indeed unharmed.
“Let me help you,” the Raider chuckled as he unbuttoned his shirt.
“I can’t see. It’s too dark.” She was so near to bursting into tears. She hadn’t cried when they’d burned her boat and she hadn’t cried when the people had ostracized her, but now she didn’t know if she could hold back any longer.
“Then use your hands,” the Raider said softly. “Here, Jessie, I’m not worth crying over.” He pulled away from her long enough to turn his back to her. “The gunpowder sent some rocks flying. Feel the ridges? They’re healed now.”
She ran her hands over his strong back, feeling the scars. She remembered all too well that he had received those while protecting her. The flood of tears could not be held back any longer. She buried her face in the skin of his back, mashing her nose against his spine, her mouth open, tears coming in a deluge. Her hands dug into his skin at his waist.
“Jessie, my darling,” he whispered, turning and pulling her to him. “You have more to cry about than anyone. Go ahead and cry.”
“I thought you were dead. Or married.”
“Neither,” he said as he picked her up, then sat with her in his arms, holding her close, her tears wetting his neck, his chest, his back. “I wouldn’t marry a silly nit like Abigail. I want only the best.”
Jessica began to cry harder.
He stroked her hair, caressed her back, then his hand moved down her hip and onto her thighs. “And I certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to let someone talk me into saying I’d slept with her when I hadn’t.”
“She loves him,” Jess gasped. “I saw her.”
“You saw Abigail and Ethan, not me.” He began to unbutton her shirt.
“There was blood on my hands. Everyone said you were dead. Alex said you should be dead.” Her tears came harder.
“What does he know?” He pulled her shirttail from her pants, then unbuckled her belt. “Why do you spend so much time around him anyway? That coat he had on today isn’t good for your eyes. It’ll give you squints.”
“It’s lovers’ knots,” she sobbed. “Did you know they burned my ship?”
“Ah yes, my darling.” He drew her to him and lifted her up as he began sliding the loose, baggy pants over her hips. “There was nothing I could do to stop them. It happened too quickly. I hear you spent the night with Montgomery.”
Sh
e pulled away from him, looking into his eyes glistening behind the mask.
“Not the way you mean. What in the world?!” She gasped in horror as she looked down at herself clad in her chemise, her trousers down to her ankles, and her boots still on her feet.
The Raider practically dropped her upper body on the rocky shore, then in one lightening movement, went to her feet and pulled off her boots and her trousers.
Jessica, sniffing, blinking to clear her eyes, was too astonished to move.
The bare-chested Raider began moving toward her like a panther, on all fours, silkily moving his body over hers.
“Why you—” she gasped, then hit him in the jaw with her right fist. She wasted no time rolling out from under him.
But he caught her ankle and pulled her back to him, pinning her beneath him. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Me?” she gasped. “If you think I’m going to let you touch me you’re crazy. You—”
He kissed her.
“If you think I’m—”
He kissed her.
“I never planned—” she said more softly before he kissed her again.
“Jessie,” the Raider whispered against her lips. “You’re driving me crazy. I think about you all the time. I love you, don’t you know that? I’ve been in love with you for a long time and I’d make my declarations to you if I could. But I can’t go any longer without making love to you.”
“No, I—”
He kissed her again. “You have a choice. We make love tonight on the soft, cool sand or I rape you tonight on the sharp rocks.”
Her eyes widened. “You wouldn’t.”
He grinned at her. “I’ll love it either way. It’s your choice.”
“But…but that’s no choice at all.”
“Maybe I’ll start with one and end with the other. Although I’ve heard rape—especially on a virgin, if you are one—is painful. For a woman, that is. Some men, though, find that all that kicking and clawing and scratching spurs them on.”
“Of course I’m a virgin,” she snapped.
“I thought so,” he murmured as he moved his head down to her neck and began to nibble her skin. “Make up your mind yet?”
“A woman should only sleep with the man she’s to marry.” Her eyes were closed as his lips began moving down her body.
“Maybe you’ll marry me when I’m no longer the Raider.”
“And live where?”
He chuckled as he put his face between her breasts. He untied the laces with his teeth since his hands were holding hers above her head. “You’ll live wherever I am. Jessie, Jessie, how beautiful you are.” His tongue was running along the roundness of her breasts. “Have you decided yet?”
“Decided?” Her voice sounded far away. “Yes, I’ll live where you do.”
His tongue encircled her nipple. “Is it to be rape or lovemaking?”
She couldn’t concentrate. “The church says I must save myself.”
“Ah, then, consider yourself forced.” He released her hands. “Jessie, how much I love you.”
Jessica didn’t think anymore as his hands slid inside her underwear and deftly began to remove it. The night air on her skin was an added caress as he removed all her clothing. His hands seemed to be everywhere, running up and down her body, inside her thighs, on her calves. Then her feet were moving on his body, and she found her soft soles touching his bare legs. She could feel the hair on his legs and the coarseness of it felt wonderful, exciting and so different from her own body.
His hands cupped her breasts, kissed her body, his tongue moving down to her navel.
Jessica groaned as he moved on top of her.
When he first entered her, she felt the pain and began to fight him. He held her body and his still, and began to kiss her slowly and lingeringly until she relaxed under him. And when she relaxed, her legs began to open.
“Don’t fight me, Jessie, love me.” He nibbled her ear and when he entered her fully, there wasn’t as much pain. “I…Jessie, I need you.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I am here.”
After a few swift strokes, trying not to hurt her, he collapsed on top of her, sweaty, limp, sated.
“I love you, Jessie,” he whispered as she caressed his dark hair, feeling the knot of his mask.
For some reason, she did not repeat his words back to him but was silent as she clasped him to her, her legs tightly by his.
As Jessica began to come to her senses, she thought of the enormity of what they had just done. Now she was linked to this stranger for all eternity. She moved her head so that she could look at him and what she saw was a man in a mask. She didn’t even know what this man who’d made love to her looked like.
“Mmmm,” he said, studying her look. “Angry at me for having my way with you?”
“Who are you?” she whispered throatily.
“I can’t tell you that, sweetheart. I would if I could. Did I hurt you?”
“You’re hurting me now,” she said and felt tears welling in her eyes.
He moved off her, then gathered her in his arms and rocked her. “You’ve been talking to people all week. What about?”
Her tears began to dry as anger replaced her other emotions. “Cowardice.”
“Whose? Theirs or yours or mine?”
“Theirs, of course. I don’t believe I’m a coward and I know you aren’t.”
He was caressing her bare skin. “Jessie, I want you to put your clothes on. A few more minutes of this and I’ll be having you on the rocks again.”
Jessica hesitated.
“No, no.” He smiled. “Virgins need rest between bouts.”
She moved away from him and reached for her clothes. In spite of the lack of light and his mask, she could see his eyes’ brightness as he watched. Her first impulse was to cover herself but then she began to feel powerful, as if only she could bring this magnificent man low. She arched her back as she pulled on her undergarments.
“Jessie…” the Raider warned.
She gave him a sly smile while looking at him through her lashes.
With a low growl, he sprang for her. Oh, what a delicious sight, she thought, this muscular, tawny-skinned, masked man moving through the night toward her. She opened her arms to him. He began kissing her neck hungrily.
“I may not know your face when I see it, but there are other parts I’ll recognize. You’d better keep your clothes on in town.”
He laughed against her neck. “Get up, you little temptress, and get dressed. I want you to tell me what cowardice you were talking about.”
She wanted him back in her arms, but no matter how she moved her body, he didn’t touch her again. While he dressed—and watched her, she was sure—she thought she heard a few groans coming from him, but he seemed to have infinite control.
When they were both dressed, he pulled her into his arms again and when he held her tightly to his chest, she could feel how much sweat was on his body. She smiled contentedly and rubbed her cheek against the damp silk of his shirt.
“Now tell me what you’ve been doing.”
She told him just about everything that had happened since she had seen him last. Her throat closed as she started talking of the loss of her ship, but the Raider gave her a little shake.
“No more feeling sorry for yourself,” he commanded.
Surprisingly, his harsh words made her feel better and she was able to continue without tears.
“So,” he said slowly, “you want to stir up more trouble.”
She pulled away to look at him. “I want to fight. That man had no right to burn my ship. Just because England is our mother country doesn’t give her the right to treat us like…like…”
“Children?” he supplied.
“We really aren’t children, you know,” she said quietly. “We’re adults and we have the intelligence to govern ourselves.”
“Jessie, you are talking treason.”
“Maybe, but I’ve heard rum
ors about things that are being said and written in the south. I thought that maybe if I could get hold of a few pamphlets, I could make the people of Warbrooke realize we’re not alone.”
“And how are you going to get these pamphlets? How do you distribute them without getting caught? How do you protect your family while you’re saving the country?”
“I don’t know,” she said angrily. “It’s just an idea. I haven’t worked out the details yet.”
“Maybe I could help,” he said softly.
As usual, Jess didn’t think before she spoke. “No, I get in more trouble helping you than I do alone. Maybe someone will give me a ride on a ship leaving port. I can—”
It had taken a while for the Raider’s temper to reach the boiling point, but now it spilled over. He grabbed her shoulders. First he cursed her in a few words of Italian, then in Spanish. He caught his breath and then spoke between teeth clamped together. “I will get your pamphlets. I will distribute them and you will stay home where women belong.”
Her eyes flashed angrily. “If I’d stayed home until now, you’d be dead.”
For a moment they glared at each other.
“Who have you been talking to?” he asked.
“No one,” she said, beginning to back down. “Alexander merely pointed out a few facts to me.”
“That fat sea walrus? Why is he always around you? What do you want from him?”
“Are you telling me who to see?” She started to rise. “You don’t own me because of what we just did. And you have yet to prove that you can do anything without a great deal of help. Some Raider you are! The only successful raid you’ve ever made is under a woman’s skirt.”
Jess put her knuckle to her mouth. She knew she’d gone too far.
The Raider stood, his eyes hot with anger.
“Wait, I didn’t mean that,” she began. “It was just that you shouldn’t have told me to stay home.”
He didn’t say another word to her but turned on his heel and disappeared into the night.
For a while, Jess stood there, straining her eyes and ears for a sight or sound of him, but she heard and saw nothing. Turning, she gathered her nets and fish and started home.
Chapter Eleven