Temptation’s Tender Kiss

by French, Colleen

  For a long time Sterling lay awake, listening to Reagan breathe evenly. There was something about her anguish that sent a chill down his spine. Tomorrow he would send a message to Captain Craig in Frankfort—just to be certain Indian John was safely imprisoned.

  "Cheat? God's bowels, Carter!" Sterling pushed back from the trestle table in the rear of the Blue Boar. The tavern was busy with the late-afternoon crowd. Voices buzzed in the background. The smell of cloves, lemon peel, rum, and sweat mingled with the pungent smoke of soldiers' pipes. "A man doesn't have to cheat to beat a pitiful card player like you!"

  Rum clouded the middle-aged officer's vision. "You son of a bitch of a pretty boy! They told me you were a cheat. I should never have played you!" He leaped up from the table, thrusting a fist beneath Sterling's nose. "You're talking about a month's wages here!"

  Sterling took a step back. The truth was, he had cheated. Just like Grayson had taught him. It was the only way to beat the man, and he had a reputation to uphold. He just wasn't as good at cheating as his brother was. "Now look, Edward, there's no need to get hot with me. If you haven't the coin, you can pay me later."

  The burly Carter took a step forward and Sterling took a step back. He had no desire to get into a brawl with this man . . . he'd been too helpful. This afternoon, Sterling had managed to glean several worthy tidbits of information from the drunken man. Edward Carter had recently been assigned to General Clinton's headquarters and was well informed of what the British Army was planning.

  "Coin! I'll tell you what I'll give you!" The red-faced man swung his fist, but Sterling ducked.

  "Come on, Carter, my major'll have me jailed for fighting."

  Several chuckles rose from the patrons of the tavern. One or two redcoats stood to get a better look at what was happening.

  "Can always count on Thayer for a little entertainment," someone shouted.

  Sterling held up his hands, backing up toward the door. "You've had too much to drink, Edward. I shouldn't have taken advantage of that."

  Carter swung again, but he was so intoxicated that he missed Sterling completely, his fist connected with the wall. "Ouch!" he hollered, shaking his hand.

  Sterling turned to make a quick escape.

  "You better get out of here!" Carter roared. "And I'd better not see your pretty face again tonight!"

  Sterling made it out the door, and headed down the street. He had a new informant to meet at a tavern on Vine Street in ten minutes and then he'd head home. He'd promised Reagan a quiet night of reading in the parlor, a night they were both looking forward to.

  Grayson Thayer stood in a silversmith's shop and watched Sterling pass by. When his brother disappeared around the corner, Grayson slipped out of the shop and sauntered across the street. The faded Blue Boar Tavern sign creaked as it swung over the doorway.

  The Blue Boar, this is where John said Sterling spent much of his time. Grayson smiled, smoothing his scarlet coat. Now it was time to have a little fun with that dear brother of his. By the time Sterling made it all the way over to Vine and waited for the informant that didn't exist, Grayson would have had a little time to cause a ruckus. The thought of Sterling being accused of things he hadn't committed made Grayson chuckle. A few days of Grayson being seen here and there and Sterling wouldn't know which way was up. Then there would be that red-haired woman to deal with. Grayson loved redheads.

  Running a hand over his tight blond queue, Grayson walked into the Blue Boar.

  "You! Edward Carter bellowed from across the public room as he came toward the door. "I thought I told you I didn't want to see your face in here again tonight!"

  Grayson cracked that handsome grin he was so well known for. "Surely, sir—"

  "Surely, sir, hell!" Edward cocked back his fist and slammed it into Grayson's flat stomach.

  Grayson doubled over in surprise and the man hit him over the back of the head, knocking his grenadier hat off his head.

  "God's bowels, man," Grayson muttered. "Must you force me to knock you senseless?" With that, he straightened, placing a well-aimed fist square across Edward Carter's jaw.

  Carter fell straight back, his head banging on the plank floor. Grayson stepped over his unconscious body, ignoring the other soldiers who had gathered around. He retrieved his cap, placed it on his head, and gave a nod as he went out the door. "Have a good evening, gentlemen," he called as he adjusted his cap.

  Outside, Grayson grinned. Well, that certainly didn't take long! Whistling beneath his breath, he headed back toward Miss Kate's for an evening of futtering and cards.

  Reagan hurried down Vine Street, trying to keep her petticoats out of the muck of the street. Over the winter the city she loved so dearly had become a cesspool of filth and ugliness. Trees had been cut down for firewood on every block. Windows were broken out of abandoned shops and houses, homeless dogs and cats roamed the street, starving to death. Everywhere she looked, she saw the desecration of the city that was the seat of her new country.

  Purposefully, Reagan shifted her thoughts. Tucked inside her gingerbread basket was a small jug of ink. A friend on the far side of the city had managed to acquire the ink and promised to get lampblack and varnish for Reagan to make her own again. With that business taken care of, she was bound for home.

  Grayson had promised to be in early tonight. They were going to have supper and then retire to the parlor for music some games, and a little reading. A quiet, domestic evening was just what they both needed.

  Reagan rubbed an aching temple, crossing the street. The weight of the world seemed to resting on her shoulders these last few days. Nothing was going right. She was concerned about Elsa. She was mad as hell with Grayson over the confiscation of her ink, but she feared to make too much fuss. He had said he wouldn't turn her in, but nothing seemed to be a given lately. She wasn't sure about anything anymore.

  With surprise, Reagan lifted her head. Was that Grayson up ahead? It had to be. There was no one else in the city with hair that beautiful. She smiled, watching the way his thick queue glimmered in the sunlight. Spun gold, she mused. She lifted her hand to wave to him and call out but came to a halt. Her hand fell to her hip. Her lower lip quivered, but the pain she felt in her heart was quickly replaced with white-hot anger. "How could you?" she whispered beneath her breath.

  Her Captain Thayer had just walked into Miss Kate's, the most infamous whorehouse in all of occupied Philadelphia.

  Reagan's first impulse was to run in after him and drag him out by his ear. But her heart was shattering beneath her breast. He had sworn he loved her and that he could never make love to another woman. But there it was, four o'clock in the afternoon. He'd stopped by for a quick tumble with some looseskirt before he came home to her!

  By the time Reagan reached her house, she was so angry she was spitting fire. She was furious with Grayson, but even more furious with herself. How could she have set herself up to fall like this? She had known from the first day what kind of man Captain Grayson Thayer was. He had made no attempts to hide it. She had only imagined that he was a different man here at home with her than he was to the rest of Philadelphia. She'd fooled herself into believing that the real Grayson was the man she knew, the tender, humorous, intelligent man. She'd tricked herself into believing that when he put on his uniform to leave the house, he put on an act. He became Captain Thayer, the pretty boy who drank too much and gambled too heavily.

  How could she have been so stupid? Grayson was one man. It was as clear as the black of her ink, the white of her paper. There had never been any shades of gray; she had imagined it because she had wanted it so badly.

  Reagan took the front steps two at a time. She set her basket inside the door, and marched up the grand staircase and into Grayson's room. Carefully, she removed her bonnet and set it on the bed, then she went to the window and flung it open.

  The first thing she picked was a pair of polished black riding boots. No man's boots should be that shiny! She hurled them out the windo
w and stuck out her head in time to see them hit the cobblestones of the street and hear the satisfying thumps.

  "Hey!" a milk girl called from below. "Watch it! Ye nearly clobbered me!"

  Reagan ducked back into Grayson's bedchamber. Next went three starched linen shirts and two stocks. They floated to the street below, one stock sailing on the wind until it caught on a neighbor's fence. That was followed by a handful of hair ribbons, a lump of shaving soap, and a new razor.

  "Hey up there!" came Sterling's voice. "What are you doing?"

  Reagan snatched up a pair of emerald-brocaded breeches and threw them out the window.

  Sterling caught a glimpse of her head as she ducked back in the room. "Reagan? Reagan, have you gone addlepated?" Sterling began to retrieve his belongings. A crowd was beginning to gather behind him across the street.

  "Guess you've really done it now, Captain," someone shouted.

  "In hot water, are you?" a man asked good-naturedly. "Glad it's you and not me!"

  Embarrassed, Sterling snatched up two shirts, now stained with mud. Another pair of breeches sailed out the window. "Reagan!" he shouted. "For God's sake, what are you doing, woman?" He picked up the breeches.

  Reagan leaned out the window, tossing down his new mulberry velvet coat. It landed on the rail of the front stoop and Sterling grabbed it, in the process dropping his armful of clothing.

  Anger rose from the tip of his polished boots upward until his face grew red with rage. First the near-brawl with Edward, then his informant hadn't showed up, and now this. What did she think she was doing? He couldn't take much more of her temper! A pair of French gabardine breeches floated by him.

  "Reagan!"

  She tossed out a full bottle of port and he dove to catch it. The toe of his boot caught on a cobblestone and he went down on one knee. The bottle burst on the street, sending shards of glass flying.

  Sterling threw down his armful of shirts and breeches and the mulberry coat and raced up the stoop steps. He burst through the front door and ran up the staircase. "Reagan Llewellyn," he shouted. His bedchamber door was closed. He turned the doorknob. Locked.

  "Reagan! Open this door!"

  "Get out of my house!"

  "You're embarrassing me in front of my colleagues. I'll be a laughingstock. Now open this door and tell me what the hell you're so fired up about now!"

  "I said get out. " Her tone was frigid. "You're no longer welcome here!"

  "Reagan, this is where I live," he told her, tight-lipped. "Now let me in and tell me what's wrong."

  "Go away!" she shouted. "You swore to me!"

  "Swore to you what?" When she didn't answer, he took a deep, cleansing breath. "Reagan, I don't have time for games. If you don't open this damned door, I'm going to break it in."

  "I don't ever want to look at your face again. Turn me in if you want. I'll not have vermin like you in my house."

  Sterling was so angry that his balled fists shook at his sides. With one hard kick to the door, it splintered at the lock and he burst inside. She's picked up every stitch of my clothing and thrown it out the window for God sakes! he seethed.

  "Reagan!"

  She stood at the window, throwing out a handful of worsted stockings and garters. He pulled her from the window, and a cheer rose from the crowd down on the street.

  "That a boy, Capt'n!" someone cried from below.

  Sterling slammed the window shut. He lifted an accusing finger. "Tell me what's going on here, now, before I really get angry."

  She crossed her arms over her chest protectively, swearing to herself that she wouldn't cry. "You lied to me," she flung bitterly. "I gave you the only thing I had to give, myself, and you deceived me."

  What was she talking about? Sterling didn't have the foggiest notion. He rubbed his temple, he had a pounding headache. "You've got to tell me what we're talking about here."

  Her throat was so constricted that she could barely speak. "I saw you there."

  Losing all patience, he shouted, "Saw me where?"

  She looked away, biting down on her lower lip. "Miss Kate's," she said finally.

  "The whorehouse on Vine?" he asked in disbelief. Wasn't that where one of those bills had come from? "I've never stepped foot on the premises in my life."

  She threw back her head in bitter laughter. "I can't believe you'd stand here and deny it. I saw you. You're as guilty as sin."

  He was flabbergasted. "Reagan, I swear to you I've never been in Miss Kate's. I can account for every place I've been today."

  She dropped her hand to her hip. "Oh, well then, tell me, Captain. Where were you an hour ago? I was on Vine."

  He looked away. Everything was falling apart. Reagan was the one good thing in his life, and he could feel her slipping from his grasp. "I can't tell you," he said quietly.

  Her eyes went wide. "Can't tell me? You can't tell me because I know where you were. I saw you walk into that whorehouse!"

  "It was business, but not there. " He tried to reach for her, but she pushed him away. "Just trust me, sweetheart. I wasn't in any whorehouse. Something isn't right here, but I don't know what it is. Major Burke got a bill from Miss Kate's a few days ago, saying I'd been there the night of the birthday party. " He saw a light flicker in her cinnamon eyes.

  "Grayson, I don't want to hear any more lies. " I want to believe you, she thought. But I've been so stupid. I've let my heart lead me instead of my head since the day you stepped foot in the house.

  "I'm telling you," he said slowly, evenly, trying to make his words sink in, "that it wasn't me. What can I say to make you believe me, give me the benefit of the doubt?"

  "There's nothing you can say," she snapped, sailing through the doorway into the hall, her skirts raised well above her ankles. "Unless of course you can tell me there's two Captain Grayson Thayers in Philadelphia."

  It came to Sterling like a flash of lightning in a storm-darkened sky. Grayson.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  "You shouldn't have come here, Sterling. " Captain Craig let him in the back door. "It's four o'clock in the morning! You weren't spotted leaving the city, were you?"

  Sterling walked into the lantern-lit kitchen. "It couldn't wait, Charles. " His eyes met his commanding officer's. "My brother, where is he?"

  Captain Craig tucked his linen shirt into his breeches. "You agreed that it was best you didn't know."

  "Where is he, Charles?"

  He studied Sterling's face for a long moment. "New York, a fort. He's been well taken care of."

  Sterling shook his head grimly. "He's not there."

  "I've gotten no word of an escape. He's still there."

  "He's not there because he's here. He's in Philadelphia, Charles."

  Captain Craig gave a snort. "Impossible. " But then his eyes narrowed. "What makes you say so?"

  "There've been inexplicable happenings all over the city. I've been accused of getting into brawls, stealing horses, and taking on whores two at time. Witnesses everywhere . . . except that it's not me, Charles. " He took a ragged breath. "Who else could it be but Grayson?"

  "That's absurd! No man could get away with it. Surely your brother wouldn't—"

  "You don't know Grayson. " Sterling sat down on a bench, running a hand through his thick blond hair. "My brother has a sick sense of humor."

  "You honestly think it's him?"

  Sterling nodded, and Captain Craig slammed his fist on the trestle table. "Damn! You were so close. But I guess this is where we pull you out, friend."

  "No. I'm this far"—he spread his thumb and his forefinger—"from finding out when the Brits move and where they're going. I've found an excellent source, a man who's assigned to General Clinton's headquarters. They're going to move soon. General Washington needs to know if the troops are going to move north or south, and when. I can't bail out now."

  "Sterling, it's too dangerous. Grayson catches up with you and you'll be swinging from a rope before we can get to you."

 
Sterling leaned across the table. "I don't think so, Charlie. " He lifted a finger. "It's not Grayson's way. If he was coming for me, he'd have come by now with a full regiment behind him. No, this is some sort of revenge for me, having him kidnapped and locked up in that fort."

  "You're too good a man for us to lose, it's not worth it."

  "I have no intentions of getting into trouble this late in the game. All of these months I've spent in that city and I'm inches from getting that information we need. " He got up off the bench. "Charlie, I've got to go back in. " I have to say good-bye to Reagie, he thought.

  Charles heaved a sigh. "I don't like it, Sterling."

  "Give me another week, just one week. " I can't leave her like this, not with the way things are between us. "I swear to you, I'll be out in a week."

  "What do we do about this brother of yours, if it is him?"

  "I don't know," Sterling answered honestly. "I won't know until I talk to him. We may have to capture him again, although it won't be as easy a second time. I may just let him go."

  "Let him go! We can't do that! He could come after you anytime!"

  "Opposite sides of this war or not, we're still brothers. Grayson might play with my head a bit, but I don't think he'd intentionally see me hang."

  "You don't think? Seems to me the bet's awfully steep. " Charles followed Sterling to the door. "Are you sure you don't just want to call it quits? I've got a good, safe assignment coming up in Williamsburg. You deserve it."

  "I'll be all right, Charlie. " Sterling gave him a squeeze on the shoulder as he ducked out the door and into the night. "Oh, by the way, you haven't got any other information for me, have you?"

  Captain Craig held up the lantern, letting the lamplight illuminate Sterling's face. "No. What do you mean?"

  I can't tell him Reagan dreamed about Indian John . . . that somehow, somewhere deep in her mind, she knows he's not dead, Sterling reasoned to himself. He swung into Giipa's saddle. "Never mind, it was nothing important. I'll be back before the week's end, with the information on that troop movement."