Temptation’s Tender Kiss

by French, Colleen

  Reagan trembled. Her dark eyes met with startling blue. Sterling brushed the tear with his finger and touched its tip to his tongue.

  "I . . . I'm all right," she whispered.

  "Why didn't you scream? Your father must be upstairs."

  "I . . . I didn't want to make a fuss. I thought I could handle him. It's not the first time I've been accosted since—"

  "Since the king's men came into your city," he finished for her.

  She nodded, squeezing her eyes shut. She was giddy with spent fear. That was why her heart pounded, wasn't it?

  Sterling brushed a thick lock of hair off her cheek. "I can't keep coming to your rescue like this, Mistress," he teased.

  Reagan laughed, lifting her lashes to return his gaze. "I'm indebted to you again."

  "No," he breathed. The scent of her soft, sweet flesh enveloped him. All reason slipped from his head as he watched her rosy lips part with each breath. Before he could stop himself, he lowered his mouth to hers. He had to taste those lips, just once. . .

  For one shocking moment, she allowed the captain's mouth to touch hers. He smelled of fine leather, of shaving soap, and of starched linen. Of its own accord, her hand rose and came to rest on the epaulet of his scarlet uniform. She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks. She could feel herself relaxing in his arms.

  Suddenly something snapped deep within her—her father's words, the images of dead patriot soldiers, the leering faces of Hessian guards on the street . . . They rose up inside her, making her cry out in anguish.

  "Grayson!" She pulled away from him, drawing her hands to her lips.

  Sterling reached for her. He couldn't stand the look of horrified guilt on her face. Then he lowered his hands. He knew no way to comfort her. He knew how she must feel. In her own mind she was betraying her beliefs. He was the enemy. "I'm sorry."

  "How dare you!" she spit. The color in her cheeks drained to a pasty white. "How dare you! You come in here on the pretense of saving me from the lieutenant's hands!" Her thoughts were coming clearer now, now that he wasn't touching her. "You . . . you're no better than him!"

  "Reagan—"

  "You're worse, you know that, Captain? Him,"—she pointed to the ceiling, gaining momentum "—he is what he is, it's plain to see, but you, you're deceitful! You take unfair advantage!" She was so damned angry. So angry with him, so angry with herself for not having had enough backbone to resist falling for his game.

  For a moment Sterling just stood there, staring at her trembling form. The firelight from behind filtered through her thick, rich hair forming a halo of brilliance. Her face was pale with rage, her eyes dark with bitter resentment. There was something about this woman that made his chest constrict, that made it difficult to gather his thoughts. All reason told him he must walk away. Nothing but doom would come of such a union, but still, for a moment he lingered.

  Reagan refused to lift her lashes to meet the captain's gaze. Her shame was hers alone. She didn't look up until she heard him retrieve his cloak and walk out of the room. In frustrated fury she jerked a mug off the mantel and sent it flying across the room. Only the shattering of the clay cup, as it hit the plastered wall, gave her release.

  A few mornings later, Reagan came down the front steps and went into the kitchen. "Elsa, are you down here?" Unable to sleep, Reagan had risen early with the intention of baking gingerbread. Making the sweets and selling them to various people was the perfect guise under which she could safely move about the city and distribute her leaflets.

  "Elsa?" Reagan stood in the center of the kitchen, perplexed. When she'd woken, Elsa was already dressed and gone. She assumed her sister was downstairs making breakfast. Although Nettie did most to run the household, Elsa was an excellent cook and often made breakfast so that the old woman could sleep later in the morning.

  Where could she be? Reagan wondered, panic rising in her chest. She wasn't in the cellar, the latch was hooked on the kitchen side. Reagan hurried through the downstairs rooms; her sister was nowhere to be seen.

  Racing up the front staircase, Reagan gave a knock and walked into her father's bedchamber. Uriah stood near the fireplace, shaving. "Papa, have you seen Elsa?" She tried not to sound too concerned.

  "Not this morning. Why?"

  "Oh . . ."—she lifted her hand "I—just wanted to tell her something. " Before Uriah could speak again, Reagan had made her exit and hurried down the hall.

  Without a moment's hesitation she flung open the door to Lieutenant Gardener's bedchamber. "Where is she?"

  Roth turned around in surprise. He was dressed in nothing but a nightshirt; in his hand he held a glass of rum. He turned to face her. "Where's who, sweetheart? By all means, do come in."

  Her dark eyes narrowed dangerously. "My sister. " She glanced around the room. "She's not in here, is she?"

  Roth looked around. "Not unless she's under the bed. " He lifted his glass. "You can check if you like."

  Reagan spun around and ran out the door, slamming it behind her. Other than in the attic, the only room left was Reagan's bedchamber, the one Grayson now occupied. She rested her hand on the polished brass doorknob, then released it. She knocked loudly.

  "Yes" came Sterling's voice.

  She took a deep breath and entered the room. "Captain, have you seen my sister this morning?" She tried to keep her eyes averted. Sterling was seated on a chair, rolling his stockings. He wore a pair of tight breeches and an immaculate white lawn shirt. His hair was unbound and fell in a golden curtain about his shoulders.

  "Seen her? No. Is she missing?" He dropped his stockings and padded barefoot across the hardwood floor.

  "No. I mean, I don't think so. It's just that she's not in the house. " Reagan ran her fingers through her thick auburn hair. She hadn't tied it back this morning thinking she'd wash it before breakfast.

  "Let me dress and I'll go looking. I'm sure she's come to no harm."

  "No. I'll find her myself."

  Sterling pulled a velvet ribbon off Reagan's dressing table and began to tie back his hair. "It'll only take me a minute to saddle my horse."

  "I said no, Captain," she snapped. "She's got to be here somewhere. " She backed out of the door. "She never leaves the house without one of us."

  Taking the front steps two at a time, Reagan ran down the hall and burst into the kitchen intent on retrieving her cloak to go outside.

  Elsa was just coming in the back door; a basket swung on her arm.

  "Elsa! Where have you been?" Reagan came to a dead halt, her hands dropping to her sides in relief.

  "Been?" Elsa shrugged off her red woolen cloak and set the basket on the worktable. "I been out."

  "I can see that, Elsa! I mean . . . where? You scared me half to death."

  Elsa hung her cloak on a peg near the fireplace and reached for her muslin apron. "I told you, out, Sister. You want cornbread or oatcakes for breakfast?" She knelt in front of the fireplace and began to set up the cooking spider.

  Reagan lifted her gaze heavenward in exasperation. Her heart was still pounding beneath her breast. Elsa was her responsibility; if anything ever happened to her, it would be her fault. "Elsa, you know you can't go out without me or Papa or Nettie, now just tell Sister where you've been."

  Elsa stuck out her lower lip stubbornly. "I'm not going to tell. You and papa are always going in and out, whispering, scribbling on your little pieces of paper. You don't tell me where you go. Sometimes you don't tell the truth. I don't have to tell you where I went. I'm a full-grown woman."

  "Elsa!" Reagan's eyes grew wide with shock. Her sister had never said such a thing in her life. "Who's been filling your head with these things? You don't know what you're saying!" Dear God, she thought. Has one of the soldiers in the house been talking to her? Worse yet, how much does she know of our business with the leaflets? Have I put her life at risk as well?

  Reagan went to her sister and took hold of her shoulders. "You must tell me where you went!"

  Fat t
ears slid down Elsa's porcelain cheeks. She shook her head. "Not telling."

  "What's the problem, here?" Sterling came up behind Reagan. "I told you she was here somewhere. Not hurt, are you, Elsa?"

  Reagan released her sister and turned to see Grayson handing her little sister his silk handkerchief. "Excuse me, Captain, but this is none of your affair. " He'd been so concerned for Elsa's welfare that he hadn't finished dressing. He was still barefoot.

  Reagan's eyes locked with his. Don't do this to me, Grayson, her mind screamed. Don't care about us. You're the enemy. I hate you . . . I have to hate you.

  Sterling didn't know what to say. Reagan was right. Elsa's disappearance was not Captain Grayson Thayer's concern. "I only meant to—"

  "Meddle," Reagan interrupted fiercely.

  Elsa turned and ran from the room, now sobbing.

  "No. " Sterling sighed, lifting a hand. "But you treat her like a child."

  "You don't understand. " Reagan stood so close to him that she could feel his breath on her face. Her mind was in a jumble. She knew they were discussing Elsa but all she could think of was the last time she and Grayson had stood here in the kitchen. He'd kissed her. She could still taste his breath on her own. She'd enjoyed his kiss and some part of her wanted him to do it again.

  "Oh, I do understand. " Sterling turned away. He had to stay away from this wench. She was his greatest threat to his cover.

  "No, you don't!" Reagan's face was flushed with a mixture of anger, fear and desire. "She's not like us. She's a child. She'll always be one."

  "She isn't a child. She's a beautiful young woman."

  Reagan shook her head. "She had a fever as a babe. She's not right in the head."

  "It just takes her longer to do things," Sterling countered. "Perhaps she'll never read Latin or do figures, but she's a hard worker. She's a good woman."

  "I have to protect her."

  Sterling poured himself a mug of cider from a jug on the table. "You're smothering her!"

  "How the hell do you know so much about this?"

  He leaned against the table, crossing his arms over his chest. "I had a cousin, Mary, back in Virginia. She was kicked in the head by a cow when we were ten. She's married now, with eight children. She and her husband have a farm near Williamsburg."

  Uncomfortable alone with Grayson, Reagan made herself busy starting breakfast. "She's not like Elsa. Elsa can't take care of herself."

  "She was just like Elsa, though maybe not as well off. " He paused, knowing he'd already said too much. "You know, sometimes we use people like Elsa as a crutch."

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "Why haven't you married? You should have your own family, a husband, children."

  Reagan whipped around, leaning over a bowl, and broke a precious egg into it. "That's not of your concern, either, Grayson!" She'd called him by name. It had just slipped off her tongue.

  Sterling drained his mug and put it down. "Don't be a martyr, Reagan. Someday this war is going to be over. Live your life and let Elsa live hers."

  She turned back to face him, ready to give him a piece of her mind, but he was gone.

  Chapter Five

  "You most certainly may not hold a meeting in my parlor!" Reagan lifted squares of gingerbread out of a pan and laid them in a napkin-lined basket.

  "I wasn't asking permission. " Sterling stated flatly. "I was simply being considerate enough to warn you prior to the event."

  He'd scheduled a meeting for tonight with several men who'd been delegated to aid him in investigating the treasonous political leaflets. The sooner he got to work on the assignment, the safer he felt his cover would be. In the meantime, he was compiling his first message to be sent to General Washington at Valley Forge.

  In the kitchen, Reagan wiped her damp forehead with her arm. The heat from the oven was oppressive, despite the January chill. "I won't be taken advantage of like this, Captain. Take your drunken Mr. Gardener and have your meeting in the corner tavern. I understand you're quite welcome there."

  Sterling leaned against the doorframe. Reagan was utterly beguiling this afternoon with the sleeves of her faded gown pushed up to bare her slim arms, and the damp tendrils of auburn hair clinging to her rosy cheeks. He was only a little surprised that word had already trickled back to Reagan that he frequented the Blue Boar Tavern. His brother was a drinker, a gambler, and a ladies' man. He'd already laid the foundation for the first two of Grayson's vices, it was the last that he hadn't brought himself to conquer. There was something about this red-haired woman that kept him from seeking loose company to warm his bed.

  Sterling frowned, forcing his brother's stern expression to take precedence over his own. "If you continue to be difficult, Reagan, I'll just ask that you and your family be removed from these quarters."

  She looked up him, her shrewish demeanor crumbling. "You wouldn't, would you? This has been my family's home for seventy years."

  "It might just be easier that way. " Easier . . . safer, Sterling thought, for both of us.

  "No. " She wiped her hands on her apron, approaching him. It wasn't just the family home, it was the printing press. She and Uriah were nearly ready to roll the first publication from their secret hiding place. She had been up half of last night composing an essay on the evils of military trials for the civilian population. "Please don't send us away. It would break my father's heart. Elsa, she'd never adjust to a new home after all these years."

  "And what of you, Reagie?" he asked softly. He took her hand and turned it over to study her palm. It was covered in a layer of dusty flour. He raised her knuckles to his lips; she smelled of spiced ginger.

  "Me?"

  He spoke as Sterling the man, not Grayson the soldier. "You. What are your reasons for wanting to stay?"

  She watched, mesmerized, as his lips brushed against her chafed knuckles. English officer, proclaimed womanizer or not, there was no denying that this man made her pulse quicken. "I want to stay here because it's my stability," she answered honestly. "This war, it's turned my life inside out. Friends I was once close to are no longer my friends—"

  "Joshua Litheson?"

  She nodded, slowly taking her hand from his grasp. "Half of the city has fled, businesses shut down, the blockade keeping food from coming in. Nothing will be right again. " She crossed her arms over her chest, staring at the British officer's face. In the depths of his eyes she saw understanding. "This house and my family is all I have left of my life before the war."

  "My life's changed, too," he answered softly.

  "Please, Captain, don't send us away."

  He smiled. "Are you promising to behave yourself?" He couldn't possibly send her away. She was his spark of light in the blackness of this war.

  "No. But I won't poison you or your men's drinks."

  "Or listen in the keyholes?"

  She laughed. "I hadn't thought of that, though I doubt a peon captain like you would have any information General Washington hadn't received a good fortnight ago!"

  Sterling's reply was cut off by Roth Gardener's voice. "Captain! Captain!" Roth came down the hall and Reagan returned self-consciously to her gingerbread.

  "Yes, Lieutenant?" Sterling glanced up, irritated that he and Reagan had been interrupted.

  "You're wanted, sir."

  "Where?"

  "At the prison down on Third and Market."

  "Wanted for what?"

  "Witnessing, sir. That spy they captured. They intend to hang him and we're wanted as witnesses."

  Reagan paled. "What spy?"

  Sterling chose his words carefully. "A boy by the name of Ian St. John was picked up last week."

  "Ian? I know him. He's nothing but a child."

  "Fourteen," Sterling answered. "It seems he was a drummer in the rebel army. He says his enlistment's up and he just came back to see his ailing mother. " Sterling had assumed the boy would just be imprisoned. This was one of the most difficult aspects of his undercover duty—to si
t and watch innocents suffer or die and be unable to help them without risk of jeopardizing too many other lives.

  "Susan St. John is ill. " Reagan's dark eyes met Sterling's. "Surely you don't think General Washington would be using children as spies."

  "It isn't up to me to decide, mistress," Sterling answered.

  "Well, I don't know about you, sir, but I've got better things to do than stand around in that cold, stinking jail. " Roth started back down the hallway. "I'll meet you out front in a few minutes."

  "You're going now?" The wheels of Reagan's mind were already turning. Young Ian St. John wouldn't hang, not as long as she still drew breath.

  "Yes. I guess I am. My meeting will still be at eight, though. " He hesitated for a moment, but when she made no reply, returning her attention to her gingerbread, he left the room.

  The moment the captain had gone, Reagan yanked off her apron and went into the lean-to off the back of the kitchen where Nettie slept.

  Under the cloak of twilight, Reagan moved along Market Street. A bone-chilling, misty rain fell from the heavens; the street appeared to be deserted. Just to be safe, Reagan walked slowly, her body hunkered over, a walnut cane clutched in her left hand. She wore Nettie's ancient, patched cloak, the hood pulled well over her face. Layers of baggy woolen stockings concealed her trim ankles, with a pair of her father's barnyard boots completing the guise.

  Up ahead, the makeshift prison loomed in the shadows. The British had filled the Walnut Street prison to capacity and now used this confiscated building on Third and Market to incarcerate as well.

  Hoofbeats came clip-clopping up the street and Reagan slunk against the wall, refusing to look up as two soldiers rode past. When the sound of the horses faded in the distance, she made her way to the door on the street and twisted the knob.

  Inside, green-and-red-uniformed officers laughed and chatted. Smoke filled the room, mingling the heady scent of burnt tobacco with the smell of clean leather and starched uniforms. The men smelled of a conquering army.

  "What do you want, old woman?"

  Frightened, Reagan lowered her head, mumbling. "To see my son. " She concealed her youthful voice with the gravelly strain of worn vocal cords.