“There’s more.” Nicholas looked gravely into her eyes. “I was on the firing squad. I fired the shot that killed him.”
“You? You killed him?”
Nicholas nodded, his lips a grim line. “I wish I could say I felt some compassion for him in the end, but I didn’t. I was happy to pull that trigger.”
Unsure what to say, Bethie laid her head against his chest, stunned by what he had done for her. ’Twas no small thing to take another man’s life.
He kissed her hair. “Your bathwater is getting cold. I’ll be right outside the door if you need me.”
As he released her and turned to leave, it dawned on Bethie that somehow Nicholas had known. Somehow he’d understood her need to wash all traces of Richard from her bed, her home, her body.
“Nicholas, stop! Dinnae go. Bathe with me.”
He turned to face her, a lopsided grin on his face, held his arms out to his sides, looked down the front of his sweat-stained shirt. “It’s a tempting invitation, love, but I’m covered with a day’s worth of sweat and dirt. I’ll foul your water.”
She stepped forward, rested her hands on his chest. “You can wash me first, and then I’ll wash you.”
He brushed a finger over her cheek. “Bethie, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I don’t want to rush you. I don’t want—”
“I want you, Nicholas. Do you no’ understand? You make me feel clean.”
Nicholas looked into her eyes, saw her need, a need for something far beyond mere sexual gratification. “Very well, then. It would be my pleasure.”
He helped her to undress, threw her gown and shift in a heap on the floor. She didn’t know it yet, but he was never going to let her wear either of them again. He intended to burn them. The bundle on the bed held new ones stitched by Annie and Minna.
Then he steadied her as she stepped into the bathtub, felt his gut clench when he saw the bruises that marred her soft skin, marks of another man’s cruelty.
After tonight, there would be no other man.
“Oh, this feels heavenly! And it smells heavenly, too!” She gave a gratifying sigh of pleasure.
Only the first of many, if Nicholas had anything to say about it.
First, Nicholas washed her hair, felt her go limp in his hands as he massaged the lavender-scented soap into her scalp, rinsed it away. “Does that feel good?”
Her answer was a soft “mmmm.”
Next he washed her arms, amazed for a moment at how slender they were, how soft, how fragile they seemed compared to his own. He rinsed the soap away, bent down, kissed the yellowing bruises, so clearly left by a man’s big hand.
Then he washed her feet, her slender calves, her thighs, coming within inches of her golden curls before withdrawing his hand.
She moaned in frustration. “Nicholas!”
He chuckled. “Patience, love.”
She splashed him, gave him a smile that turned his blood to flames. “I find I am no’ a patient woman tonight.”
“Is that so?” He slicked his hands with soap, moved around the tub until he sat behind her, slid his hands over her breasts. “Then I’ll have to teach you how good it can be when you wait, when you savor it.”
She moaned, pushed the weight of her breasts deeper into his palms.
He molded them, shaped them, ran his thumbs over their taut peaks, and knew from her rapid breathing that she was as aroused as he was. He bent down, nipped the sensitive skin just beneath her ear, felt her shiver, let his soap-slick hands slide down her breasts to her belly.
“Oh, aye, Nicholas!” She arched, lifted her hips off the bottom of the tub, in anticipation of his intimate touch.
Then he slid his hands back up to her breasts, rinsed the soap away, unable to suppress a chuckle at her disappointed moan. “Were you expecting something, love?”
But his need was building, too, and a man—or a woman—could wait only so long.
This time when his hands slid down her body, one stopped to tease her nipples, while the other slid down into her curls, delved into her soft folds, sought her most sensitive flesh.
As her head fell back and a whimper left her throat, he bent down, took her in a deep, openmouthed kiss.
Bethie welcomed the invasion of his tongue, relished the heat of his kiss, as sensations almost too good to be true flowed over her. The caress of warm water on her tingling skin. His fingers flicking and teasing her aching nipples. The pressure of his hand against her throbbing sex.
Liquid heat gathered in her belly, became a molten blaze. But she wanted more. She wanted him inside her. She tried to speak, to tell him what she wanted. The words came out in ragged pants. “Nicholas . . . please . . . inside me!”
“Are you certain, Bethie?”
“Oh, aye!” If tonight was to be a new beginning, then she would have it all, and she would fear nothing.
He growled, and she felt his finger make slow, erotic circles over her entrance once, twice, three times.
“There is no man but me, Bethie. There never was.”
Then slowly, so slowly that it made her whimper in anguish, he slid his finger deep inside her slick and aching core.
The sweet shock of it sent her spiraling over the edge. Pleasure buffeted her, wave upon fiery wave, tore a cry from her throat, as he prolonged her climax with deft, penetrating strokes.
For a moment she lay still in the water, floating, stunned that an act that had once brought her so much pain and suffering could be so pleasurable. And a tremor of anticipation shot through her as she wondered what it would be like to have his thick, hard shaft inside her.
Then she opened her eyes, looked up into a gaze that burned with need. She couldn’t help but smile, thinking of all the ways she would torment him. “Time for your bath.”
Bethie lingered over him, knowing it would drive both of them to a frenzy of desire. She washed his long hair, rinsed the day’s dirt and sweat from his shoulders, arms, and chest, secretly savoring the feel of him beneath her hands—the roughness of his body hair, the hardness of his muscles, the softness of his skin.
He smiled, a sensual twist of his lips that made her heart beat faster. “Dinnae be thinkin’ you can fool me, lass. I know what you’re doin’. You’re tryin’ to tease me, to drive me mad.”
His attempt at Scottish brogue made her laugh. She did her best to mock his English. “You, sir, are mine to do with as I please.”
Then she reached beneath the water, took his erection in her hand, and began to stroke its length, taking extra time to tease the satiny tip.
His laughter became a quick intake of breath, and his hands slowly clenched around the sides of the tub, as she built the rhythm, stroke upon slow stroke. But just as she felt him nearing his peak, she stopped, went to wash his feet.
“Wench!” He groaned, kicked water at her.
She shrieked, chided him. “It serves you right for makin’ a lady wait.”
He grabbed the soap from her hands and in a blink had scrubbed and rinsed his legs. Then he dropped the soap, stood, stepped out of the tub. “The lady need wait no longer.”
Water ran in glistening rivulets over his sun-browned skin to the floorboards. His hair clung in dark, wet ropes to his chest and shoulders. His shaft stood, thick and heavy, against his belly.
There was no more teasing, no more games.
He pulled her against him, his fingers buried in her wet hair, his lips hot on her mouth.
Then he carried her two short steps to the bed, laid her on the soft linen, stretched out above her. They rolled and twisted in a tangle of limbs, locked in a heated kiss, desperate for the taste of each other, the feel of each other.
Bethie broke the kiss, reached down, took his length in her hand, stroked him. “I want you inside me.”
Nicholas thought his heart might actually break through his chest. He took a deep breath, fought to rein himself in. Those were words he’d never expected to hear. “Bethie, I don’t think—”
“Please.??
?
The look of innocent trust in her eyes made something twist in his stomach. After all she’d been through, that she should trust him . . . “As you wish—but not like this.”
He rolled onto his back, settled her astride him, reached down, held himself so that the head of his cock met her heated core. “It’s up to you now.”
She looked surprised at first, then she smiled, bit her lower lip—and lowered herself so that the head of his shaft nudged inside her. She gasped, a soft, sweet sound, then lifted her hips, withdrew from him, before lowering herself upon him, taking a bit more of him this time.
Months of suppressed need, of wanting her, of wanting to be inside her, had left him on the brink, and Nicholas began to wonder if he would survive the night. As she gradually took more and more of him into her slick heat, he fought the urge to thrust, forced himself to hold his hips still, to let her determine the pace.
He reached up, stroked the beaded velvet of her nipples with his thumbs, tried to make his muscles relax as inch by torturous inch she took him inside her. When he thought he could take no more, she lifted her hips once more, then slid down the length of him, taking all of him.
“Oh, Nicholas, it feels . . . so . . . good!” Her eyes were closed, a look of bliss on her sweet face, her hair a damp, tangled mass that hung to her hips. She was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.
“I’ve wanted you for so long!” He clasped her hips, moved in slow circles beneath her, fighting to hold on as her tight sheath caressed him, carried him toward the edge. “No man but me, Bethie!”
Bethie heard the strain in his voice, heard her own whimpered reply. Never had she felt anything like this. It was erotic beyond imagination, being joined to this big man, his body inside hers, a part of hers. He stretched her, filled every inch of her, made her complete. Each thrust felt better than the one before, made her desperate for the next, as she moved with him, rode the fire.
How had she lived without this? How had she lived without him?
She heard her own keening cries, called his name as the pleasure built inside her. “Oh, oh, Nicholas!”
“My God, Bethie! I can’t hold back, not anymore! You’re too sweet, too tight!” His jaw was clenched, his brow furrowed as if in pain.
“Then don’t hold back!” She bent down, kissed his sweat-slick chest. “Love me, Nicholas!”
With a feral growl, he rolled her onto her back, wrapped her legs around his waist, looked into her eyes. “No man but me!”
Then he was thrusting into her, deep and hard, his shaft driving against some secret spot inside her, drawing frantic cries from her throat. His lips were on her mouth, her eyelids, her cheeks, her throat. His voice was a ragged whisper. “No man but me!”
Her body trembled at the power of his words, the potency of his loving, as he carried her up and up and up to a place she’d never been before. Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes, tears that cleansed, tears that purified, tears that washed the past away.
Precious torment. Sweet surrender. Shattering bliss.
“Nicholas!” She cried out as the force of it hit her, drew the life from her body, and gave it back again, pleasure showering her like tears, like rain, like starlight.
“No man but me!” His body shuddered, and she heard his deep groan, as he, too, succumbed, spilling himself inside her.
Then, in the stillness, he kissed her tears away.
Chapter 25
The siege lengthened through July, and with it came heat, hunger, deprivation. The people of Fort Pitt were woefully low on everything but water. Of firewood for cooking and washing there was precious little. Food was just as scarce, as the Delaware and Shawnee, having already killed or driven off most of the wild game, also fed off the king’s garden—and kept it under near-constant watch.
Nicholas led almost daily forays, some into Lower and Upper Town to gather whatever wood they could from the burnt cabins, and some into the garden and fields after spelt, vegetables, cattle, even the occasional startled rabbit. Though they left the fort at different times of day and from different ports and sometimes managed to take the Indians by surprise, they came under attack each time, risking their lives and sometimes gaining little for it. So far they’d lost only one man, a militiaman who’d taken a ball to the belly while tending the cattle. Two others had been injured.
There could be little doubt as to who was faring better thus far. As hungry soldiers watched from the ramparts, Indian canoes traveled up the rivers loaded with corn harvested from the surrounding farmsteads. And although the Indians had not yet launched another direct attack, they were always present around the fort, coming right up to the walls in the dark of night, hiding in the ditch, penetrating the glacis, frightening people with their death whoops. And just so the English could see their strength, they openly crossed the rivers out of range of the cannon, many hundreds of them. Although Captain Écuyer had told messengers sent by the chiefs that Fort Pitt had supplies and ammunition to outlast a siege of three years, Nicholas knew that unless reinforcements arrived, they would not survive three months.
* * *
“You take my portion.” Bethie slid her slice of salted pork onto Nicholas’s plate, ignored her growling stomach. “I am no’ hungry just now.”
“Bethie, eat.” Nicholas frowned at her, tossed the precious slice back onto her plate.
“But you work much harder than I. You need a man’s portion.” She started to toss it back, but the scowl on his face stopped her.
“You’re feeding a baby. Eat!”
She ate her meager breakfast, watched as he cleaned his pistols and long rifle, realized what he was doing. “You’re going out again today.”
He looked down the barrel of the rifle, slid the cleaning rod down its length. “Aye. The corn is ripe, and Écuyer doesn’t want it falling into Indian hands.”
“Why must it always be you? Can no one else lead them this time?” She stood, paced the length of the room, a knot of fear in her belly.
“We’ve been through this before. The men trust me to lead them and—”
“And you know every beanpole and row of that garden now. Aye, I know. But surely the men who planted and tended the bloody garden know it just as well.”
“Aye, but how many of them are good marksmen? How many of them have faced down a charge of painted warriors?” Nicholas stood, set his rifle on the table, pulled her into his arms. “Most of them are privates, like young Fitchie. They’ve seen little of real battle. If we’re not able to harvest the spelt and the corn, we’ll starve before help arrives.” He paused, smiled. “Of course, we can always eat the dogs.”
Bethie laughed despite her fear. The captain’s loathing for barking dogs—and the settlers’ resulting hatred for him—had become fort legend. “How can you jest about something so grave?”
He nuzzled her ear. “It made you laugh, didn’t it?”
Then he kissed her, a gentle, languorous kiss, and she tasted the salt on his lips.
These past three weeks with him had been wondrous, the most precious of her life. Yet it seemed that love came at a price. Never had she felt more keenly the fear of loss, for never had she stood to lose so much. If aught were to happen to Nicholas . . .
Right now, in this moment, he was alive and strong. How she wished she knew some words of enchantment, a bewitchment to keep him safe until help could arrive.
“What will we do if reinforcements dinnae come?”
It was the question Nicholas asked himself every day. A part of him thought he might have been wiser to take Shingiss’s offer of safe passage and lead Bethie away from all of this. But with so many warriors from so many nations traveling through the forest, they would have been running a gauntlet all the way over the mountains and beyond. As it was, they’d barely made it to Fort Pitt alive.
And though Nicholas had some store of pemmican, cornmeal, and salt pork in his gear, it wasn’t enough to feed the two of them for more than a few weeks. Besid
es, Écuyer would surely search the barracks once food ran out and press all personal stores into service. He’d already done as much with livestock. Those who had cattle or chickens had been forced to sell them to the Crown for coin they might not live to spend.
“I suppose Écuyer would be forced to abandon the fort and ask Shingiss and the other chiefs to let us pass in peace back over the mountains.”
“Would the chiefs allow this?”
He remembered Shingiss’s words in the garden. “I’m not sure. I doubt it. Still, Écuyer will have no choice but to trust them and risk the journey or to wait until we are so weakened by hunger that Shingiss and his allies are able to take the fort.”
“What would the Indians do to us?”
She felt so sweet, so fragile in his arms. He inhaled the lavender scent of her hair, pressed his lips to her brow. “If we abandon the fort and journey east, I suspect they will try to ambush us somewhere along the way. If they take the fort, it will follow days of bloody battle.”
“Nay, I mean what will they do to us, to you, to the soldiers, to the women and children.”
He could feel her fear, but he had no honeyed words to assuage it. He would not lie to her. “This is war, Bethie. It’s a war such as I’ve never seen. I imagine they would kill most of the adult men and torture the rest. They would kill the smallest children and babies—those they deemed young enough to be a burden on the trail home. The women and older children they would either kill outright or take captive.”
She seemed to consider this for a moment, her gaze seeking out Isabelle, fear for her baby written on her face. “Annie says you were taken while trying to save the lives of two young soldiers and that you were forced to watch as they were burned to death. Is that true?”
Whatever he had expected her to say, it was not this. Her words felt like a fist to his stomach. It took a moment before he could answer. “Aye.”
“And they tortured you.” Her voice was almost a whisper.
“Aye.”
Screams. Burning pain. The stench of scorched flesh.