She began to fasten the front of her gown, but stopped. With the arrival of spring, sleeping in her clothes had become uncomfortably warm. When Andrew was alive, she’d slept in her shift. But she hadn’t dared to do so since. First, she’d been alone and afraid to be caught unprepared by some danger. Then Nicholas had come out of the forest, and she’d been afraid to do anything that might draw his attention.
But hadn’t he proved himself to be trustworthy? Hadn’t he slept in the cabin for more than a month now without once trying to creep into her bed? Besides, there was no reason for him to see her. She could disrobe now while he was asleep, then wait under her covers until he had risen in the morning. She would be so much more comfortable without the bulk of her gown, and it would be easier to nurse Isabelle.
Her mind made up, Bethie unbuttoned her gown—she’d had to switch to her old gown of homespun because the fire had ruined her newer gray gown—and draped it over one of the chairs. Clad only in her shift, she turned to check the fire, found it already banked. Next, she went to check the door, found the string pulled in. Fresh water sat in a bucket on the table, ready for her should she grow thirsty in the night from nursing. It seemed Nicholas had taken care of everything before he’d gone to sleep.
Stifling a yawn, she turned back toward her bed, gasped.
Clad only in breeches, Nicholas lay on his side on his bedroll, propped up on one elbow, his blue eyes looking straight at her.
Chapter 9
“I—I thought you were asleep.” Bethie instinctively crossed her arms to shield her breasts, feeling suddenly naked in her shift.
He said nothing, but continued to watch her, the skin of his bare chest golden in the firelight.
Then she saw the book in his hands. For a moment she did not quite comprehend, and then she gaped at him, astonished. “You can read!”
The corners of his lips turned up in a slight smile. “Aye.”
Forgetting her state of undress, she asked the first thing that came to mind. “How did you learn?”
He seemed to hesitate. “My parents wished me to have an education.”
It was the first time she could recall him speaking about his family. She knew so little about him—only that he lived in the wild as a trapper, had been captured and tormented by Indians, and had probably once fought against them. Yet there was clearly so much more to Nicholas than he revealed. His manner of speech, so refined for a soldier and trapper, told her that if nothing else. And now she knew he could read.
Curious, she wanted to know more. “Where did you grow up?”
Slowly, he sat up, his gaze fixed on her, book still in hand, the muscles of his abdomen and chest shifting as he moved. With his long, dark hair spilling over one shoulder almost to the floor, he looked every bit the Indian, apart from his blue eyes.
Bethie took one step backward, forgot her question, alarmed as much by the strange fluttery feeling in her belly as by the heat in his eyes.
“Would you like me to teach you?”
“Teach me?”
“To read.”
Learn to read? ’Twas something she’d never dreamt of doing. Neither of her parents had been able to read, and though her father had often spoken of sending his daughter to the nearby minister’s home for teaching, her mother had needed her help about the farm and had refused to spare her. Malcolm could read and had insisted that Richard learn his letters so that he could read the Bible, but he’d kept Bethie at home because she was a girl.
Was Nicholas, almost a stranger to her, truly offering her this gift? “My stepfather says readin’ is a skill wasted on women.”
The flash of anger in Nicholas’s eyes was unmistakable. “Your stepfather is a bloody idiot.”
She gasped to hear Malcolm Sorley spoken of with such casual contempt. No one had dared speak ill of him—until now. Why did the words frighten her? Did she expect him to storm through the door to punish her? Malcolm was nowhere near here.
She released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “You would teach me? Truly?”
“’Tis no more than the kindness you’ve shown me, helping me when I was injured, tending my horse, sharing your hearth and home.” His voice was velvet, as dark and deep as midnight.
She felt heat rise into her cheeks. “You repaid that debt many times over the night Isabelle was born.”
“There are no debts between us, Bethie, no ledger to tally ere we leave this valley. You have shown me kindness, and I would but do the same. I’ll teach you to read, and one day you can teach Isabelle.”
She glanced at Isabelle, who slept soundly in her cradle, imagined one day sharing such knowledge with her daughter.
A skill wasted on women.
The thrill of rebellion stirred her blood. She met Nicholas’s gaze. “Aye, Nicholas. I’d be most grateful.”
* * *
Bethie dipped the quill, which Nicholas had fashioned from a goose feather, into the clay pot of red dye she’d made of madder root, and tried to form the letters that spelled her name. E-L-S-P-E-T-H.
The watery dye sank quickly into the parchment of birch bark Nicholas had prepared for her, but left enough of a crimson stain for him to read what she’d written. She looked up at him, hoping to see in his eyes that she’d done it right.
He sat on her left, his hands busy cleaning his pistol. He glanced down at the parchment, met her gaze, smiled. “Perfect. Now try your surname again.”
His smile seemed more dazzling to her than the warm May sunshine that streamed through the open cabin door, and she felt her breath catch and her own smile brighten.
For two weeks now she’d been studying her letters with Nicholas’s help whenever she found a few spare moments—during the midday meal, after supper, just before going to sleep at night. He’d taught her the alphabet, then shown her how different letters came together to make sounds. Though the rules always seemed to change, she was learning. Watching the letters, before just strange shapes, transform into words before her eyes felt like magic. Never had she done anything so exciting.
She had to admit, if she were to be wholly honest, that it was not learning to read alone that brought her happiness, but the time she spent with Nicholas, as well. The way he spoke to her as if her thoughts mattered to him, the way he endured her many mistakes with good humor, the way he encouraged her with praise—no man had ever treated her like this.
Being near Nicholas made her feel alive in a way she had never felt before. Oh, aye, he was bonny, but he was also strong, almost frighteningly manly. One look from him was enough to make her feel as if her blood had turned to sun-warmed honey. His smiles, which seemed to come more often these days, made it hard for her to think. Even the way he moved, with the confidence and grace of a predator, affected her. She found herself searching him out with her eyes, looking for reasons to cross his path, worrying about the meals she made for him, even fretting over her hair.
Could it be that she was coming to fancy him?
She dashed the thought away, started to dip her quill again, glanced down at Belle, who had fallen asleep while nursing. She set the quill aside, used her little finger to free her nipple from Belle’s mouth. “Come, little one.”
Nicholas watched covertly as Bethie settled little Isabelle for a nap and walked back to the table to finish her lesson.
Blood rushed to his groin.
She’d forgotten to fasten the front of her gown, leaving the silken cleft of her breasts open to his view. It had been difficult enough to sit so close beside her as she nursed her baby, her breasts bared, her nipples puckered like sweet raspberries ripe for the picking. He’d been forced to keep his hands busy cleaning his pistols to prevent himself from touching her.
Touching her? Hell, he wanted to do a lot more than touch her. He wanted to tear off that old gown of hers, to feast on the sight of her body. He wanted to taste her skin, to lick and suck her tenderest flesh until she screamed his name. He wanted to bury himself inside her tight h
eat, to take her on her bed, on a pile of soft furs, on the sandy riverbank.
His cock hardened to steel, throbbed heavily against the leather of his breeches, and he found it damned near impossible to drag his gaze away from her exposed flesh to the other steel in his grasp. When had he last wanted a woman like this?
Had he felt this way for Penelope? No, he hadn’t, and that was odd, considering that he had respected her wish to remain a virgin until after their wedding and had forsaken other lovers to court her. He ought to have been as randy as a bull around her, and yet it had been easy to restrain himself.
Certainly, months of solitude in the wilderness had often left him longing for the pleasures of a woman’s body. But on those occasions when he had sought out female company, one woman had been as good as the next.
Now he wanted only Bethie.
He’d told himself repeatedly that his obsessive need for her was nothing more than the result of having lived away from women for so long and then having been thrust into close contact with one. He’d told himself that when he left her with her family and disappeared into the wild once more, his life would return to normal. He’d even told himself that he would forget her with time.
He hoped to Satan he was telling himself the truth.
Being near her was making his life hell. It wasn’t just his extreme hunger for her that tormented him, but the way she seemed to unleash memories and feelings he’d thought far behind him. How she did this he knew not. He only knew that he had not been himself since the first moment he’d looked into her guileless violet eyes.
Still, offering to teach her to read had proved to be an inspiration. He truly enjoyed watching her learn, took pride in her quick mind, found satisfaction in teaching her something that had the power to change her life. At the same time the interaction was helping her to trust him, whether he was worthy of her trust or not. He could feel her fear of him slipping away day by day. Though she likely did not realize it, she now tolerated his casual touch—a hand on her slender shoulder, an accidental brush of his fingers against hers, the unintended press of his thigh beneath the table—without shrinking from him as she had done before.
But like a young mare gentling to the touch of her groom’s hand, she was still far from ready to be ridden. If he moved too quickly, he would awaken her dormant fears, and she would pull away from him. Still, he knew she felt some attraction to him, whether she recognized it as such or not. He had not been in the wilderness so long that he did not know the scent of a woman’s desire. Nor was he blind to signs of it—the way her pupils dilated when she saw him working without his shirt, the flush in her cheeks when she stood near him, the catch in her breath when his skin met hers.
But he could take her only so far. If he pushed her in any way or took advantage of her inexperience to manipulate her, he would be no better than the bastard who had hurt her. He might be able to wake her desire, but only she could claim it.
Nicholas heard the nub of her quill tap against the little clay pot, felt his gaze drawn to her once more. Her brows were furrowed in concentration as she wrote: S, T, E, W, A . . .
She dipped the quill again, bit her lower lip, hesitated. Her gaze lifted from the parchment, met his, her eyes full of doubt. “‘R’?”
He found himself wanting to kiss that lower lip, to run his tongue over the spot where her teeth had troubled it. “Aye.”
“I cannae remember how to start it.”
He stood, laid his pistol on the table, barrel facing the door, walked around behind her. Then he bent down, reached around her, took her small hand in his, began to guide her. “Like this.”
Barely aware of what his fingers were writing, he let his gaze fall to the slender column of her throat, where her pulse beat a frantic rhythm beneath the satin of her skin, then drop lower to the bared swells of her breasts, which rose and fell with each rapid breath she took. She smelled of honeysuckle and sunshine. He didn’t have to taste her skin to know it would be sweet.
He was certain she felt the heat between them as surely as he did, and his erection grew by another painful inch. Yet he knew he must not kiss her, not so soon, not like this.
But his lips would not be denied.
Against his will, they brushed her cheek as he spoke. “See? It’s easy.”
He felt a tremor run through her, heard her breath catch, saw her lips part and her lashes drift to her cheeks as her eyes closed. The quill fell from her grasp, forgotten.
“Aye. Easy.” Her voice was a breathy whisper.
And even as he savored her response, even as his lips sought her throat for a second taste of sweetness, he cursed himself for playing at seduction with a vulnerable woman, a woman who deserved more than he could give her, a woman who’d already been cruelly used. Was not this scheme of his to heal her past hurt just another way of using her? Was his head so clouded by lust that he could not admit, even to himself, that he was doing this as much for his own pleasure as for hers? Were the few nights of bliss and the emotional release he could give her justification for the pain he would inevitably cause?
He knew the answer, and yet he could not stop himself. It had been so long since any woman had desired his touch, so long since he’d watched a woman melt from his kisses. The taste of her need, the scent of it, drove him to the brink. God’s teeth, he wanted her!
Bethie felt the heat of him behind her. Her skin blazed white-hot where his lips had touched her. Unsure what she was doing, unable to think, she leaned back until her head rested against him. He felt so solid, so strong, while she felt weak and shaky.
Good heavens, what was happening to her?
The large hand that had held and guided hers slowly slid up her arm, caressed her through the thin wool of her old gown, leaving a hot trail of awareness as if her flesh had just been wakened to life.
Then he stood, pulled away from her, and she would later not be able to say whether he had truly moaned in frustration or whether she had imagined it.
When he spoke, his voice sounded strained. “I need to check my traps.”
“Aye.”
He’d taken a few steps toward the door before he stopped, spoke over his shoulder. “Your gown—you forgot to fasten it.”
* * *
Bethie slipped into the warm bath, felt the day’s strain melt away. Sprigs of fresh lavender floated in the water, the first from the spring garden, their sweet scent released by the hot water to tickle her nose and soothe her mind. She took up the soap and began to wash the day away.
Everything that could have gone wrong this evening had gone wrong.
Isabelle had been fussy and had wanted only to be held. Bethie had been so distracted trying to nurse a crying baby that she’d let the venison stew she’d been cooking burn and stick to the bottom of the stew pot. In her haste and frustration, she’d become careless and knocked the madder-root dye to the floor, where it had spread in a pool of crimson, leaving a bright red stain on the honey-colored wood, before sinking through a crack between the floorboards. She had just salvaged what she could of their dinner and cleaned up the mess, when Nicholas had come in from the day’s chores to find her cross and flushed, trying to dish stew while bouncing a squalling baby in her arms.
He had stepped through the door, closed it, his sharp eyes seeming to take in everything at once. A faint smile had tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Shall I take her?”
He hadn’t waited for an answer, but had scooped Isabelle from Bethie’s arms and begun to walk the length of the cabin, crooning softly and holding the baby upright against his chest.
As if this were what she had been waiting for all along, Belle had immediately quit crying and begun to suck her thumb.
Bethie might have voiced her frustration had not the sight of Nicholas doting on her wee daughter stolen her breath. She had marveled that a man as raw as he could be so tender with a babe not his own. What had he done to enthrall them both, mother and child alike?
Somehow she’d gotten
dinner on the table—venison stew, corn cakes, field greens, fresh buttermilk. She’d been able to eat despite the distraction of his presence across the table from her. But then he’d brought up the subject of leaving again, of taking her back to her family.
She had tried to ignore him, tried to change the subject, but he had persisted, watching her all the time with that piercing gaze of his.
“The river is still running high and fast, but within a week, perhaps two, it will have dropped enough to ensure safe passage. We’ll stop at the nearest trading post and trade for a wagon so you need not suffer horseback the entire journey. ’Tis a long way to Paxton.”
She had tried to find a way to refuse that would not arouse his suspicion or reveal her secret. “I—I’m no’ ready to leave here yet. My husband—”
“Would want his wife and daughter to be safe.” His blue eyes had seemed to measure her, as if he were probing for the cause of her reluctance.
Did he know she had a secret or was she just imagining it?
“And if I wish to stay longer?”
“Then you lack all sense, madam. You cannot truly wish to remain here when you know full well that you risk death—and worse—for both yourself and Isabelle. Is not the brutality of this war written in me?”
He’d stood so abruptly his chair had toppled backward. Then he’d turned his back to her and left the cabin without a word.
Bethie had felt like crying, though she hadn’t known exactly why.
“Nicholas Kenleigh. Nicholas Kenleigh.” She whispered his name as if somehow the secret to her feelings for him were held within it. She spelled it in her mind—or tried to.
Why did the very sight of him make her feel this knot of longing in her belly? Why did she feel as if her blood were singing when he smiled at her? And the way she felt when he touched her, like snow melting into a tremulous trickle of water—
Was this desire?
Even as she asked the question, panic welled up in her heart at the answer.