“Ian!” she breathed.
“Rhiannon!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, so sorry!” she murmured, easing back from her toes to her heels, letting him go. But his hands were on her shoulders; his eyes were warm with light. “That felt good, actually. I miss my wife, and I know that she wouldn’t begrudge me a hug from my new sister-in-law.”
She felt her cheeks flood with color. “I didn’t do it to hurt him.”
“I know. I’ve seen General Magee.”
“Ian, is he—”
“He’s my brother. Do you think I’d let anything happen to him for what he did—something that every man out there wanted to do? He didn’t need my help or protection. All the Yanks were on his side. But don’t worry. He’s been taken away. The photographer can rant and rave, but he won’t get near Julian. He’ll be all right. They’ll take him back to Washington.”
“And you’ll get him exchanged, won’t you?”
“I’ll do my best, yes.”
She lowered her head. He lifted her chin. “If he knows that I’m getting him out, he’ll bide his time. Left on his own, he might pull some fool stunt to escape.”
“I know.” She squared her shoulders. “I suppose I’ll be back in Washington soon enough myself. I’ll try to see him there.”
Ian was studying her. “He is pretty angry with you,” he admitted.
She shrugged. “I had to do it.”
“Umm. General Magee told me you were frantic. But I’m curious. How on earth did you manage to trap Julian? I hadn’t thought that you’d gotten on especially well—I mean, when we met, you did pass out because you thought that I was him returning. That hardly seems a case of undying devotion. What did you say to him to convince him to come and meet you—to marry you?”
She hesitated, started to lower her head, then shrugged. “I told him I was expecting his child.”
Ian’s expression was very much like one his brother might wear. “And it was a lie?”
Again, she hesitated. “No. I—I told him that I lied. He was pretty hateful. But ... it’s the truth.” She winced, and spoke very softly. “I—I was addicted to opiates ... I ... well, you see, he was there. And I suppose I tried to make the night what I wanted it to be, with Richard, and oh, God, I can’t believe that I—”
“It’s all right, you don’t have to explain anything to me,” Ian said. “Come here.”
He put an arm around her, pulled her against him, and smoothed back her hair. To her horror, she burst into tears.
She cried, and he soothed her. Finally, the overwhelming currents ended, and she was flooded with embarrassment once again. “I’m all right, really. I’m sorry. It’s just ...”
He lifted her chin. “If you could endure all those injured men without crying, I’d be very sorry indeed that you had married my brother.”
She smiled. “Thanks. But I am all right. I’ll be all right. I know that you’re looking after his welfare, and that’s all that really matters. I—”
“But you married him.”
“But of course, it’s not a real marriage, I’d never hold him to it. I have to get back to Dr. Flowers now.”
“That’s who you’re working with?”
“Yes, of course, you know that he’s General Magee’s chief surgeon.”
“And where are you staying? You’re not still on the field, are you?”
“No, no, I now have a little room with some of the other nurses in the attic of an old farmhouse, the old MacIntosh place. I’m fine, I’m in good hands. Thank you, Ian.” On her toes, she kissed his cheek, and then she turned around and fled.
He had just put his head down on a pillow in the little farmhouse that was his way station on the trip to Old Capitol when he heard a tapping at his door. “Julian!”
It was his brother’s voice. He rose, frowning, and came to the door. “Ian?”
“You were sleeping?”
Julian arched a brow. “Of course. Ian, I work from dawn to dusk—”
“Yes, but you can sleep later. We have to take a ride.”
Julian inhaled. “You’re helping me to escape?”
“Sorry, I can’t do that. But ... the fellows and I ...” He paused, and turned, indicating that Jim Brandt and Robert Roser were behind him. “We think that you should have a wedding night.”
His brow shot up higher. “Ian, the war may make a man pretty desperate, but I’d prefer my own company to an audience of the enemy, especially under the circumstances of my marriage.”
Ian sighed. “My boy, I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself. No audience. Your wife is alone.”
Julian frowned. “Alone? How? She knows about this?”
“Not exactly. So many nurses have been moved out that she wasn’t terribly surprised, so I heard, when General Magee assigned her to private quarters—a little caretaker’s house to the rear of the farm he took over as his hospital building.”
His heart quickened. No ... the whole of his body quickened. He could feel his own pulse, pounding in his ears. He looked beyond Ian, to Roser and Brandt. “You two are all right with this?”
“I said that you’d give them your word you wouldn’t use the night for a chance to escape. And that McKenzies keep their word.”
Julian nodded. “What about—”
“The Yanks whose lives you saved? I think they’ll be all right with it,” Ian said.
“But Rhiannon—”
“Well, that’s up to you. No, she doesn’t know you’re coming. Well, of course, if you don’t want to take this opportunity ...”
“Let’s go,” Julian said.
They had a good mount for him to ride. They escorted him through a glade, across a field, and along a rear trail that circled the back of an old farmhouse. “That’s it,” Ian said, indicating one of the outbuildings far back. His horse pranced nervously. “Don’t fall asleep. You have to be out before dawn.”
“I wasn’t planning on sleeping.”
“There’s one thing you should know.”
“And what’s that?”
“She is expecting a child.”
Julian nodded. “Thanks.” He dismounted from his horse and walked swiftly toward the small cottage.
She awoke swiftly with a sense of panic.
She’d heard ... something.
It was a small cottage, two rooms, a bedroom, and a parlor and kitchen area with a big fireplace for heat and cooking. The fire had ebbed, and the light in the cottage was dim and misty. The windows were open to the cool night breeze, so something might have been knocked over.
She halfway rose, clutching the covers to her chest. Had she imagined that there was movement in the parlor area? General Magee had commandeered the farmhouse and all the outbuildings, and she wondered if the owners, put out of their own home, had come back.
Or maybe it was a deserter, someone out to harm her. She was always in Magee’s protection, and the officers were so respectful of her and so careful, she had forgotten to be afraid. But now she was alone.
She picked up a heavy brass candlestick by the bedside and crawled out of the bed. Carefully, on her toes, she made her way across the room. She tiptoed into the parlor, toward the door.
Then she heard a sound behind her. She spun around, her candlestick swinging.
“No, ma’am, I don’t think so!”
The harsh voice terrified her. She opened her mouth to scream as the candlestick was wrenched out of her hands. The candlestick clattered to the floor, and she was lifted, a hand clamped firmly over her mouth. She kicked wildly, struggling. She tried to bite the fingers that crushed her mouth.
“Rhiannon, you are a damned witch!”
Rhiannon ... He’d used her name.
Her panic subsided; her anger rose. He was walking through the doorway to the bedroom with her, and she was shaking so badly she couldn’t have hit him if she’d tried. How in God’s name had he come here? Why hadn’t he said something? Why had he scared her to death?
S
he felt herself flung back on the bed with him atop her. She came back to life again, struggling to push him off, to sit up. She had wanted to see him so desperately, wanted to touch him, to know that he was all right.
“Stop it, damn you!” he swore. “I’ve borne enough indignity, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you kick me and cripple my intentions!”
“Your intentions?”
“You married me, remember?”
“Julian, we’re on a battlefield.”
“No, we’re in a cottage. On a bed. Damned good place, the way I see it.”
She couldn’t breathe. She wanted him. Wanted him more than she had that night that seemed so long ago now, when she had been so lonely and drugged. She couldn’t remember Richard’s face tonight, and it didn’t even matter; Richard would have understood. She craved Julian, even the harsh feel of his hands, his scent, the lean hardness of his body, the feel of his lips, the touch of his eyes ...
And yet he was so angry. There were women who did not madden him, women who fell passionately beneath his spell, like the young soldier girl with the huge blue eyes he had taken from the field, from death ...
“Julian, no, this isn’t right!” she stated firmly.
“Oh?” He rolled from her, a brow arched. Propped on an elbow, he gazed down at her. She steeled herself to keep from reaching out to stroke his jawline.
“No.”
She rose, wishing she had a robe. She was clad in a bleached muslin nightdress that kept falling from her shoulders, leaving her no dignity. She walked to the foot of the bed, staring back at him. “You’re a prisoner, Julian. They’ll come hunting you down. You’ve got to get back.”
“Oh?”
He rose as well, walking toward her. She backed away from him. “Yes. You’re in danger.”
“Am I really? In danger, from more than you?”
“Julian, if they catch you—”
“Yes?”
“You’re an escaped prisoner. They might kill you.”
“What if I were to say that a night with you was worth it?”
“I’d call you a liar.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“You know, I could scream, I could summon the Yanks.”
“Yes, you’ve done so before.”
“Yes.”
“But I eluded them.”
“Not here.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Julian, I know what you feel. In fact, I was told in no uncertain terms today by the girl you plucked from the battlefield that you hated me.”
He paused, a smile curling his lip. “She told you that?”
She lowered her eyes, irritated that her voice became so low. “It wasn’t necessary for you to tell people—”
“I told her I had a wife.”
“You have to get out of here, Julian. You don’t have a real wife.”
“What I don’t have,” he stated, “is a great deal of time!”
With that, he reached for her, so suddenly and with such fierce determination that a soft cry left her lips. She was swept up, and before she could move, his mouth came crashing down on hers. Hard, demanding, his kiss ravaged with passion and ardor. She tried to twist, and could not, and though she felt his anger, she couldn’t fight, didn’t want to resist. Her lips parted to his savage assault. The sweep of his tongue ignited fires deep within her. She pressed her hands against his shoulders, then just her fingertips. He walked with her, and again she felt the softness of the mattress against her back. And he was above her, straddling her. His fingers fell on the buttons of the simple muslin gown.
His mouth was on hers again, savage, demanding, fierce. His hands tugged at the buttons of the gown, then gave up, and with an impatient oath he ripped it apart. The surgeon who could perform the most delicate of operations could not deal with the tiny buttons. And it didn’t matter, because his hands, his talented, supple hands were on her bare flesh, thumbs teasing her nipples, palms caressing ...
The sensations burned like molten silver straight to a center between her thighs. She gasped as his lips trailed the touch of his hands, as his tongue curved around her breasts, as his fingers lowered in a long stroke down her side. Her fingers curled into his hair, tugging at his head.
Then his hands were on her thighs. His touch was between them. His lips were on hers again, and she was returning his kiss with a fierce explosion of hunger all her own. Her fingertips fell on his throat, his shoulders. He moved long enough to strip away his shirt, shed his boots and breeches. The remnants of her nightgown touched the floor, and the searing fullness of his body brought its heat against her. His limbs entwined with hers. She felt the hardness of his erection against her flesh, and the longing and excitement she felt brought a flush to her cheeks, even in the darkness, even though they lay alone together.
His fingers entwined with hers. His mouth covered hers, then moved to her throat, to her breasts. His body shimmied against the length of hers, until he lay between her thighs. She closed her eyes, fingers tautly vised with his. She gasped, embarrassed again at the wave of windswept pleasure that engulfed her with the intimate stroke of his touch and tongue. She writhed, twisting, squirming, rocking, wanting more, fighting the unbearable waves of ecstasy that threatened to spill and splash and engulf her ...
And suddenly he was with her. Moving, thrusting, rocking, soaring. Her arms locked around him, released. Her fingers danced over his shoulders, kneaded, clung, embraced. His lips found hers again as his body drove and retreated and brought her even higher. The world erased, pain faded, and for brief shining moments all she knew was the splendor of being in his arms, of the ecstasy that shot through her like fireworks against a velvet heaven. She held fast to him, trembling, shaking, jerking, holding closer and closer and burying her face against the sleekness of his shoulder. And finally she lay against him, silent in the night.
After a few minutes, she felt his knuckles brushing lightly over her cheek. “Well worth any risk,” he whispered. Then he shifted slightly, pulling the drapery behind the bed, looking out at the night, or the coming dawn—she didn’t know which, she had no idea of the time. Then she felt his eyes on her.
“Is the child mine?” he asked her.
“The child ...” she murmured. She didn’t know why his question put such unease into her. “I ... but I told you—”
“The child, Rhiannon. It must be mine.”
“Yes—” she began, and broke off. Of course. He had seen Ian. Ian had arranged her housing. Ian was outside somewhere now. They might be at war, but Julian was his brother.
“I didn’t think that your brother would see you again for some time,” she said tautly. She gazed back at him, her anger growing. “Worth any risk, sir? Is your brother waiting at the door?”
“He would never be so rude.”
“But he’s near?”
“Yes.”
She tried to twist away from him. “Julian, damn you—”
He straddled her, catching her wrists. “Ah, music to my ears! Say it again.”
“Damn you, Julian, let me up—”
“No.” His eyes seemed to invade her very soul again. “Not yet.”
“Julian ...”
This time his kiss was slow. As if he tasted every fragment of her being. And when he had finished with her lips, she was filled with slow, sweet-burning fire again, and with a hunger that grew more voracious again with each passing second. She needed to touch him, kiss him, feel him. Her lips found his shoulders, his chest. Her fingers caressed the muscle that jerked and trembled beneath them. She moved against him, the length of her hair winding around the sleek dampness of his flesh. She grew desperate, suddenly more aware than he that time was slipping away.
She touched him, caressed him, made love to him. Most intimately took him into her mouth. The world seemed to spin to an ever more blissful rhythm as his hoarse whispers filled her ears, as passion seized him and he swept her hard beneath him, into his heated embrace. T
hey seemed to dance. She felt his every movement, the searing warmth of his sleek, damp body, the force of his rhythm ... and she felt she touched the sky, and she wished that she could stay in his arms.
She felt the massive tension in his body, the shuddering that swept him as he climaxed, and then the simple wonder of being in his arms as they drifted down.
Yet not sweet. For he was instantly up, and looking out the curtains once again.
She reached for the sheets, hugging them. “You’re—you’re not going to try to escape?” she asked.
He looked at her, shook his head as he stumbled into his clothing. “I gave my word,” he said simply. Then dressed, he came back to her side.
“You are going to have a child—and it is mine?” he asked, gently lifting her chin.
“Yes.”
“Take care of the babe, and yourself. Get off the battlefield.”
“But—”
“Work in Washington if you must. But get off the battlefield.”
“Julian—”
He kissed her lips lightly. “Until we meet again.”
“You’re a prisoner, Julian—”
“In more ways than you know, my love. But I will not remain so long. That I promise you.” His lips touched hers briefly once again. Then he was gone.
Chapter 20
AS THE NEWS CAME in about the terrible clash of arms at Gettysburg, Brent couldn’t help but feel the weight of resentment. Men were dying. Men had been left behind. The injured died on the field for lack of help, they died in the ambulances on the march home, they suffered in anguish, and they died.
But here he was ... With the ladies.
He sat at his desk, late, reading the dispatches that had come in from the front. With every word, he felt more powerless, more pained. So many dead. But the war would go on. The Union general, Meade, had not pursued Lee. Lee was deeply distraught, ready to resign his position. He accepted the blame for what had happened, yet he had once again made good an escape with the bulk of his army. Lee was revered; he had held together an army and found victories where few men could. Brent was certain that they would not let Lee go until the bitter end.