Temptation’s Tender Kiss

by French, Colleen

  "No, we'd finished with the subject of my leaflets. I told you, I have to keep printing, just like you have to continue reporting to Major Burke."

  "It's not the same thing and you know it. " Sterling forced a smile as two Tory women passing them on the cobblestone walk admired his good looks.

  "It's precisely the same. Nothing has changed between us, Grayson. I love you, you love me, but we're on opposite sides here, and unless you're willing to shed your red coat for a blue one, there's really no need for us to go on about this."

  Sterling's voice caught in his throat. Now that he knew that Reagan was the courageous penman, he felt as if he was betraying her by not revealing his true identity. They were on the same side for God's sake! But he'd given his word to Captain Craig, and the word of a commanding officer was the word of God in General Washington's Army. It had to be that way. It was the only way they could possibly beat the greatest military power in the world.

  "Reagan . . ." Sterling opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. He was so frightened for her. If she was caught printing and distributing the pamphlets, he didn't have a chance of saving her. His position was too precarious right now. And by the time he could get help from Captain Craig, it would be too late.

  She smiled at him sweetly. "Here we are. " She stopped at a brick stoop. "Mistress Claggett's. I'll only be a minute. " She skipped up the steps and knocked.

  A few minutes later Reagan and Sterling were headed back up the street, her empty basket swinging on her arm. She had delivered a batch of gingerbread to Mistress Claggett, as well as a stack of her latest pamphlets.

  She had resigned herself to the fact that there was no turning back now. She had a responsibility to the cause to continue printing her essays now that they were making an impact. Soon the British Army would be gone and much of the pressure would be lifted. Reagan wiped at the moisture that gathered in the corner of her eye. Of course, then Grayson would be gone, too.

  Grayson Thayer gave a cackle as he snatched the nearest wench off the table. The dark-haired woman was barefoot, a striped tick petticoat tied around her waist. Her breasts hung bare, her dark nipples the size of silver coins.

  "Criminy, Capt'n, go easy on a girl!" She lifted a leather jack of ale off the table and took a great gulp.

  Grayson spun her around in his arms, taking one nipple in his mouth. She laughed, spewing ale over the both of them. "You got a appetite that just won't quit, don't ya?"

  John, a privateer with a gold earring in his ear, joined in their laughter as he caught a barmaid by the hem of her skirts. She was the only woman in the private room at Miss Kate's that was fully clothed.

  "Keep yer hands off," Sally Morris cried, slapping the man hard on the hand with a wooden trencher. "I'm just servin' up the meal, not the dessert!"

  Grayson spun around, the dark-haired woman still in his arms. "I told you about that, John. " He laughed, his golden-blond hair brushing his shoulders. "Miss Sally here's been promoted, haven't you, girl?"

  The barmaid blushed, turning away from a blond doxy still dancing on the table to the sound of music from below. "Thanks ta you, sir."

  "Now why don't you go down and see about my palm toddie. Old Kate said she got the arrack in today. " Grayson dropped the whore he held into John's arms, and the girl gave a squeal of delight.

  "Yes, sir. " Sally bobbed a curtsy and turned to go.

  "Oh . . . and, Sally. Could you check and see about a package for me. I'm expecting my uniform."

  "Yes, Capt'n Thayer."

  Grayson smiled, closing the door behind her. He had to report soon, but first he was going to have a little fun with that dear brother of his. Sterling Thayer was going to pay for the months Grayson spent in that hellhole of a fort in New York!

  Reagan lifted the light flannel of her nightgown and knelt on Sterling's feather tick. "Grayson. " She shook him roughly. "Grayson, wake up!"

  Sterling bolted upright, his hand flying instinctively to the primed pistol resting on the table beside his bed.

  Reagan pulled back.

  Since he'd discovered she was the penman, he barely slept, and when he did, it was a light, fitful sleep. "What? What is it?" The bedchamber was pitch-black except for the malodorous beef-tallow candle she'd left on the desk.

  "Where is it?"

  He pulled the goosedown pillow over his face. "Where's what?" came his muffled voice. It was low and husky from lack of sleep.

  "You know very well what. The ink. Not only is my last jug gone, but I can't find an inkwell in the house," she shouted angrily.

  Sterling groaned, rolling onto his stomach, the pillow still over his head. "Can we talk about this tomorrow. It must be three in the morning. " He'd stayed up until two writing a message to Captain Craig. It was now folded and tucked safely inside a flat pewter coat button.

  "No, we can't talk about this tomorrow. Do you know how hard it is to get ink into the city? You can't sabotage me like this, Grayson!" She yanked the pillow off his head and hurled it across the room.

  He rolled back over, opening one eye and then the other. "I can and I will. If you haven't got enough sense to stop this nonsense, then I have to."

  "Why? Why are you doing this?" She leaned over him, her mass of auburn hair falling on his bare chest. "You don't care about Mother England, or the Army, or any of this flummery!"

  Anger seized Sterling and he sat upright, snatching her wrist so that he could draw her closer. She struggled against him, her eyes bright with fire and brimstone. "I care about you, damn it!"

  She scrambled off the bed. That wasn't the kind of answer she wanted—it wasn't one she could deal with. She had to think rationally, and there was nothing rational about their love. "I'm not going to let you do this to me. " She shook her head, backing out of the room. "Do you hear me, Grayson Thayer? I won't let my father die in vain."

  Sterling ran a hand through his shoulder-length hair "Reagie, your father never expected you to carry on after him. It's not what he would have wanted."

  "I know, a woman's safety and all of that," she answered sarcastically.

  He clenched his fist. "It's not worth dying for."

  She took the candle and went out the door. "To me it is," he heard her say as she left him alone in the dark room.

  Sometime later in the night, Sterling felt Reagan shaking him again.

  "Reagie, no more tonight," he told her sleepily irritable.

  She clasped his bare arm. There was a tremble in her barely audible voice. "Grayson you've got to help me. She's gone."

  "Who? Who's gone?" He rubbed his eyes, looking up at her stricken face.

  "Elsa. She went to bed early with a headache. I couldn't sleep so I went to her room. " She gave a nervous laugh. "When we were little girls and I couldn't sleep, I always got into bed with Elsa. But she wasn't there, Grayson."

  "She's not anywhere in the house?"

  She shook her head. "Her bed was never slept in."

  Sterling heaved a sigh, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. It seemed he wasn't meant to get any sleep tonight. "Reagie . . ." His guess was that she was with Ethan.

  "I know. The blacksmith, but she wouldn't do that. Not spend the night with him. She doesn't know anything about what goes on between a man and a woman."

  Sterling nearly laughed out loud. How could Reagan be so blind? What would it take for her to accept Elsa as a woman? "I'm sure she's all right."

  "No. Something's happened. I just know it."

  He reached for a pair of breeches and stepped into them. "I'll find her, Reagie."

  "I'll go with you!"

  "No. " He shook his head. Dawn was beginning to break in the east, bursting with the colors of a new day. "We shouldn't be seen this time of morning walking the street. I can travel faster alone. If someone stops me, I can just say I've been playing cards at the Boar all night. " He pulled his shirt over his head.

  Reagan knew he was right, but it was difficult to concede to him. She twiste
d her hands in her pale-blue sleeping gown. "I don't know how she got out of the house. I was in the parlor all evening. She never went by."

  "The window, maybe?"

  Her eyes widened. "It's the second story! Little Elsa—"

  "Little Elsa isn't little anymore, and the sooner you face it, the better. " He pulled on a brown serge vest, the pewter button with the message inside tucked safely in the pocket. "Now you wait here for me. Can you do that?"

  She watched him check his flintlock pistol and then slide it into the waistband of his breeches. She nodded. "I'll wait."

  "I'm not kidding with you about this. You can't be seen on the street anytime you shouldn't be there. I've appeased Major Burke by identifying Westley, but I don't know for how long."

  "Just find Elsa," she whispered, clutching the bedpost. "Just find her and bring her home, Grayson."

  A short time later, Sterling tapped on the front door of Ethan's cozy frame house. Lights burned inside; something was wrong. This was too early to be up, even for a blacksmith.

  Ethan came to the door, his dark, sleek hair mussed, his clean muslin shirt untucked. "Captain. " He pushed back a lock of hair off his forehead.

  "Elsa's here, isn't she?"

  The blacksmith nodded, motioning for Sterling to come in. "I told her to go home, but my Elsa refused. The bobbins are sick, all four of them. Some kind of fever. She's been up with them all night."

  "I thought it might be something like that. " Sterling laid a hand on Ethan's shoulder. "Is there something I can do for you, friend?"

  He shook his head. "My Elsa says the worst is over. She's broken the fevers. The bobbins just need rest now. " He led Sterling through the main room of the house and into a smaller one off the side. Two beds lined opposite walls with Elsa seated between them on a kitchen chair. Two small figures lay curled up in each bed with quilts tucked tightly around them.

  Elsa looked up. "Captain," she said in a tired voice.

  "Reagan was worried about you," Sterling said quietly so as not to disturb the sleeping children.

  Elsa turned down the lamp and tiptoed past the two men. Sterling and Ethan followed her back into the main room of the house. "Tell Sister I'm fine, but I can't come home until the children are better."

  "Elsa, she was afraid something had happened to you. You can't keep climbing out windows."

  Gently, Ethan took her hand. "It's all right. Go home with the captain. You tell me what to do and I'll take care of the children."

  "Don't be silly!" She went to the fireplace and swung a kettle of water over the flame. "Sick children are women's work. I'm not leaving them until I know they're all right. Fever can do funny things."

  Sterling went to the door. One sister was as obstinate as the other. "Reagan's not going to like it, Elsa."

  She shrugged. "So she won't like it. Tell her I'll be home before it gets dark. She can holler at me then."

  Ethan followed Sterling to the door and stepped outside with him into the early morning sunlight. "I'm sorry to cause trouble, friend, but she can't be stopped when she sets her mind. " He laughed proudly. "Like a bull, she is."

  "I know precisely what you mean, Ethan. I know someone else just like her. " He slipped his hand into his vest pocket and brought out the pewter button that contained his message. "While I'm here, I might as well give you this, to be delivered as soon as possible."

  "That I can do. " He gave a wave as Sterling went past the white picket fence and through the gate.

  Out on the street, Sterling hurried home. Reagan was waiting for him in the front hall.

  "I found Elsa," he told her, closing the front door behind him.

  "You found her?" She spread her hands. "Then where is she?" Reagan had thrown a dressing gown over her nightclothes and had tied back her hair with a satin ribbon. She was an angel in the early-morning sunlight.

  "Ethan's little ones are sick. Elsa stayed to get them through the fever. " He took Reagan by the hand, leading her up the grand staircase.

  "I don't understand. How did she know they were sick?" She allowed herself to be led upstairs. She'd had no sleep all night and was so tired that her vision was blurred.

  "Because she was there when they got sick."

  "She was there? But I forbade her to see the blacksmith."

  Sterling led her into his room and to his bed, and began to unbutton her dressing gown. "It looks to me like your sister's got a mind of her own."

  Reagan gave no resistance as he pulled her gown over her head, leaving her naked. "But I have to go get her."

  "No, you're not going to get her. I told you, she's taking care of sick babies. " Sterling lifted Reagan and tucked her into his bed. In a moment he was nude and sliding in beside her. He took her in his arms and kissed her bare neck. "Go to sleep, Reagie, and we'll fight about it in the morning."

  Chapter Twenty-four

  "Elsa, I'm just trying to protect you."

  Elsa stroked her cat's head. "You don't understand, Sister," she answered stubbornly. "The children were sick. They could have died!"

  Reagan gripped the broom in her hand, struggling to find patience. "Elsa, you shouldn't have been at the blacksmith's house to begin with. You could have killed yourself climbing out that window."

  "Could not. " She opened her arms and the cat leaped to the plank kitchen floor. "I use a rope."

  "Elsa, how can I make you understand? The blacksmith's just taking advantage of your kind nature. You're there cooking and cleaning for him like some maidservant."

  Elsa crossed her arms over her chest. "His name's Ethan."

  Reagan frowned, looking up from her sweeping. "What?"

  "Ethan's not 'the blacksmith,' he's Ethan and I want you to call him Ethan."

  Reagan exhaled slowly. "All right. Ethan is just using you rather than paying a maid. I forbid you to go back to his house. Nothing but ill can come of it. You don't understand the dangers involved. You don't know how he could hurt you. " She stopped to stroke her sister's ivory cheek. "You're so beautiful, Elsa. You don't understand how a man can take advantage of a girl as pretty as you."

  Elsa pushed Reagan's hand away. "He's not going to get me in circumstance, if that's what you mean."

  Reagan's eyes widened in shock. "In circumstance! Elsa!"

  "Me and Ethan talked about that and we decided we wouldn't do it until after we were married."

  Reagan could barely speak. "What do you know about that?"

  Elsa smiled, giggling. "Same as you and Captain Thayer."

  Reagan gasped.

  Elsa went on, twisting her hands in her apron. "I like it when Ethan kisses me. He makes me feel soft and squishy inside. But we're not going to do the rest, even though I wanted to. Not until we're married."

  Reagan laid aside her broom. She couldn't believe she was having this conversation with her little Elsa. What did she know about her and Grayson? She was afraid to ask. "Married. You're not getting married!"

  "Don't yell at me. " Elsa went to the fireplace and unfolded an iron spider. "If you yell, I won't listen. " She covered her ears with her hands. "I won't listen to a thing you say."

  Tears stung Reagan's eyes, and she wiped at them hastily. It seemed like she'd cried more this week than she'd cried in her entire life. How could she make Elsa understand that she wasn't capable of being married, of having a family? The fever she'd had as a baby had left her incapable of a normal life. Their physician had said so himself. Reagan took a deep breath. She went to her sister, taking her hands away from her ears. "I won't yell," she said quietly. "But you have to promise me that you won't see the blacksmith anymore. I'm only doing this for your own good."

  Elsa opened her mouth and then snapped it shut. She lowered her eyelids submissively, and reached for the fireplace poker. "Yes, Sister. I won't see him anymore."

  "It's for the best, Elsa," Reagan soothed, stroking her sister's dark cap of hair.

  "It's for the best," Elsa echoed obediently.

  Reagan pre
ssed a kiss to her head. "Thank you. Sister's got enough to think about without having to worry about you."

  Elsa lifted Mittens into her arms, watching Reagan leave the kitchen. She kissed the cat between the ears, brushing its soft fur against her cheek. "Sometimes you just have to agree with her," she told the cat quietly. "Then you just go ahead and do what you want anyway."

  "No. " Reagan bolted upright in bed, clutching the bedsheets. She gasped for breath. She was hot all over, but shivering with cold. "No! No!" she shouted, grasping her throat in stark horror.

  "Reagie, wake up. " Sterling shook her trembling shoulders. "Reagie it's just a dream! Wake up, sweetheart."

  Her eyes flew open and she grasped his arms, her eyes dilated with fear. "No! He was there! He's going to kill me! He knows everything!"

  "Who? Who knows everything? Who's going to kill you?" Sterling pulled her into his arms, covering her bare shoulders with the counterpane.

  She trembled with fright in his arms. She was bathed in perspiration, her heart still thudding wildly. "Indian John."

  Sterling's breath caught in his throat. "Indian John?"

  "He was there. I could hear him. I could smell him. That knife. " She rested her head on Sterling's shoulder. "He was going to cut me with that knife."

  Sterling took a deep breath. "He's dead, Reagie. He can't hurt you."

  "I know," she breathed, finally beginning to calm down. "I know he's dead. You killed him. But it seemed so real!"

  Sterling settled back on the goosedown pillow, holding Reagan in his arms. "Go to sleep now," he whispered. He kissed her soft, flushed cheek. "There's nothing to be afraid of. No one's going to hurt you."

  She nodded, snuggling down in the bed beside him. Wrapped in Grayson's arms, she knew she was safe. He had killed Indian John. She knew her fears were unfounded. Slowly she drifted off to sleep again, determined to dream of pleasanter things.