by Barbara Dan
Lydia bent to kiss his ear. "Even so, we shall be parents, come September."
"At least it should keep you out of mischief for a while," Bruce said, his teeth gently grazing on the tender nerves of her neck.
Bruce was such a torment that Lydia could barely put two coherent thoughts together. As he removed her camisole, she scooted lower in the bed, pressing her hips against him.
"Make love to me, Bruce," she whispered.
"What about the baby?" He hesitated, rubbing her tummy in a sensuous way that made her want to scream with anticipation. His lips brushed her navel, and the sheer heat of his kiss made her melt. She moved restlessly, parting her legs.
"I didn't rescue you just because of the baby," she said truthfully, regarding Bruce through sultry gold-tipped lashes. She arched impatiently, waiting for him to give her the loving she had longed for all these months. For which she had risked her very life!
Instead Bruce drew back. Oh, God, was she losing him? Alarmed, Lydia tried to hug him, but he shook her off gently. Rolling onto his back, he locked both hands behind his head and shot her a quizzical, sidelong glance.
"If not for the baby, then why?" he asked, his voice strangely husky.
"Bruce, I wanted you for myself," she said. Hoping to convince him, she touched the dark springy curls on his chest, then ran her fingers over the angular planes of his face, his strong jaw, the sensuous curve of his lips. The moonlight streamed across the bed, attesting to his sinewy strength and watchful glance. It was too dark to read his eyes, as he lay there, studying her, but she tried to imagine them warm with desire for her.
Why was he silent? A cold fear gripped her heart. What if he hardened his heart? Perhaps Bruce might never care for her the way she did him. Oh, God, she thought. How shall I bear it if he gets up from this bed and goes away again?
"Love me, Bruce," she whispered again and swallowed hard.
She had no idea how seductive her voice seemed to him, or the effect her soft, sweet curves were having. All she knew was that she needed him more than life itself, even more than the baby doing somersaults inside her.
If only he would say something. Anything!
Idly he stroked her belly, as if strumming a string instrument. His fingers played a silent tune, as he stared up at the ceiling. "So you went all the way to Halifax just for a tumble between the sheets?"
Lydia blushed. She could not begin to fathom his mind. "No, of course not," she stammered.
"Whatever it was, it was worth risking yourself and the wee babe?"
She stared at him in astonishment. Surely he credited her with better sense!
"I thought so at the time," she said cautiously.
"Did you now?" His dark velvet eyes cut sideways, like a sword through her heart. "What about the possibility of rape? Or swinging from an English gibbet? Did you give any thought to that?"
Lydia felt sure Bruce was only seconds from exploding.
"I wasn't worried." She lifted her chin pluckily. "I knew my plan would work."
"Ah, but your little scheme misfired—just a wee bit, now didn't it?"
"How was I to know?"
She sat perched, her knees beneath her on the bed, gazing down at him in the moonlight.
Bruce watched her silently, his dark lashes hiding his thoughts far from her. "To guarantee the success of your plan, you consorted with whores and drank with randy soldiers!"
Lydia's hands flew to her burning cheeks. "Oh, Bruce, it wasn't like that at all," she cried, truly brought low.
"No?" He rose up on one elbow, his magnificent dark head inches from hers, as he quizzed her. "I should like to know what possessed my wife to entertain prison guards in a whore's dress!"
My goodness! Lydia thought. He made it sound even worse than it was! At least a condemned criminal got a fair trial. "You have no right to question me like this," she whispered. "Besides, the dress was Seth's idea."
"So you cooked this up together. The minute my back was turned, you went traipsing off to that brother of yours! After I warned you not to have any dealings with him, too."
Lydia's face grew warmer still. "Seth tried to talk me out of it, Bruce, so don't go jumping down his throat."
"On the contrary, I intend to see that he gets half the prize money from the Bowden. But he doesn't especially interest me. What does worry me is you, wife." Sitting up, he looked directly at her, his eyes dark and probing.
"What do you want from me, Bruce?" Lydia choked back her tears. She felt very small and vulnerable, kneeling before her husband.
The moonlight played over his naked torso. He had the look of a sleek, well muscled racehorse, powerful and beautiful. Her fingers moved restlessly in her lap. Distracted by her easy access to him, Lydia fantasized about kissing his mouth and burying her face against the maddening pulse in his throat. She imagined touching him all over and running her fingers through the hair curling damply around his ears. She sighed deeply and pictured, too, what she wanted him to do to her body.
Bruce was studying her as intently as she was him. His questions had made her defensive, he knew, but he wasn't nearly as condemning as she imagined. Indeed, her courage left him in awe. But he still couldn't comprehend why, carrying his child, she had led an expedition of half-baked sailors through the North Atlantic and emptied out a British prison.
All to rescue a husband she barely knew! Her behavior defied all masculine logic!
"Was it passion or merely boredom that drove you to it?" He reached out to play with the curls cascading over her breast. Lydia watched his fingers brush lightly back and forth across her nipple, making it harden. "Don't you realize the risk you took?" he asked softly.
"Risk?" She wrenched herself from her fantasies. She wet her lips, eying his mouth languidly. Why so many questions? she wondered, growing impatient. She could think of much better things to do, now that she had him all to herself.
"Dammit, Lydia!" Exasperated, Bruce dropped his hand from her breast and gave her arm a light squeeze. "I found you passed out beneath a soldier. It's not as if I walked in to find you tatting doilies!"
Lydia hitched her bottom, trying to get comfortable.
"Bruce," she explained as patiently as she could, "I know how it must have looked, but I couldn't help what happened. That soldier forced the whiskey down my throat! He took it in his mouth, and then he kissed me." She shrugged her shoulders and flung back her hair. "I guess I swallowed, trying to breathe."
Bruce winced. "How do you think I felt, finding my wife passed out, more dead than alive? And what about the possible harm to our child?"
"Please don't hate me," she pleaded, her eyes bright with tears. Bruce didn't answer. "I did it for you, Bruce."
Kneeling before him, Lydia looked like a beautifully carved figurehead of a sea goddess, her pale curves etched in the ethereal glow of moonbeams as they tiptoed stealthily across the bed. Only his goddess had come to life, and her shoulders were shaking, and she was shedding real tears.
Deeply humbled, Bruce wiped away a droplet from her cheek with his thumb. "I am honored that you think me worthy. But to risk so much for my poor hide?" It pained him to think how close he had come to losing her.
"It's the truth, Bruce. I was just so lonesome for you."
Bruce shook his head, still perplexed, though the aching passion in her soft, tremulous confession nearly drove him to distraction. "Ah, love, you weren't busy enough, with that big house to take care of? Why didn't you go to a few of Mrs. Rafferty's tea parties instead?"
Lydia raised her head and gave him a level stare. "Bruce MacGregor, I could fill my life with busyness forever, but that wouldn't keep me from wanting you."
With a deep rumbling chuckle, he gathered her close and tenderly nuzzled her ear. "Ah, Lydia, you're like no other woman on earth!"
Lydia curled up against him like the missing half of his soul. "Can you ever forgive me?" she asked, looking properly contrite.
"Forgive? For what? You're everything I cou
ld desire in a wife. More than I bargained for, I admit, and a mite headstrong, but otherwise—perfect." He kissed her perfect little nose.
Lydia collapsed against him with a sigh of relief. "Then you're not angry anymore?"
"No, but you sure scared the hell out of me!"
"Nothing frightens you." She rubbed her cheek against his furry chest, remembering how he had bluffed the Bowden's captain and crew into surrendering.
"You terrify me, woman!" He kissed her gently. "What could you have been thinkin', lass? To rescue a man who hadn't the good sense not to get captured in the first place."
Lydia pounced on him joyously, bathing his face with kisses and tears. 'That is simply not so, Bruce," she protested. "Remember, I saw you capture the Bowden with only two cannon. You were positively brilliant."
He shook his head. "Sheer luck. It certainly doesn't prove I deserve a wife like you."
"Oh! So you're complaining again!" She started working him over, planting a deluge of breathy kisses all over his face and neck. "You're the bravest, handsomest man in the world," she declared and dove under the covers to torture him elsewhere.
"Lydia, you heartless wretch!" he gasped, as she seized upon him with abandon.
"And you love it, don't you, my darling?" She stuck her head out momentarily, her lips moist from tasting him.
"I hardly deserve such rough treatment," he half-protested, as she crawled back down to have her way with him again.
"I'll stop any time you want, Bruce MacGregor," he heard her say. "Just as soon as you tell me that you're madly in love with me, and that you'll be with me when I have our baby."
Intent upon a night of sexual revelry, Lydia fondled him between her breasts, planting eager kisses upon the smooth pulsing head within her eager grasp.
Bruce moaned, desperate now to hold himself in check. She was, after all, going into the last third of her pregnancy, and though she might not be aware of the risks, he was concerned to exercise due care. But she was driving him wild! He felt himself teeter on the edge, as she continued to slither up and down with him firmly in her possession. He heard her throaty purr of obvious pleasure.
"Give in, Bruce," she panted.
"Ah, Lydia," he gasped, "your demands are at cross purposes. If I say I love you, you'll stop, and dammit, woman, that's the last thing I want you to do!"
"Then I shall have to be more persuasive," she announced, still holding him in her dainty hands. Suddenly her drawers came flying out from beneath the sheet. She flung back the covers as well. "Say it, Bruce!" she threatened.
Bruce threw back his head and guffawed. What a sight she was, a pink and gold gamin, grinning at him from where she crouched above his hips.
"You're bluffing." Bruce thought he would lose his mind, if she didn't put him out of his misery soon. He was hard and swollen to the point of bursting. "Take care, Lydia, or I may turn a wee bit radical myself."
"No more wild and reckless than I," she predicted, straddling him.
"We're quite the pair," he groaned, reaching desperately for her.
"A perfect fit." And she came down on his engorged member with gleeful abandon. She sat astride, breasts bouncing. Her gently rounded belly gave her the seductiveness of a fertility goddess celebrating a woman's basic rites.
Bruce caught her breasts in his big hands and, raising his head from the pillow, suckled first one and then the other rosy orb. "Lydia, you beautiful, incorrigible woman! I love you with all my heart," he cried, feeling the ecstasy rise.
Her hair danced about her milk white shoulders like a yellow shawl, as Lydia rode him. Up and down, first slow, then fast. Bruce thought he'd never seen a more glorious sight: All woman, all fire and passion! Sensing her hunger, he let Lydia take the lead. She shimmered and sparkled like a precious firefly upon a starry night, as she moved above him, her body faintly glistening.
His hands roamed freely, exploring her fertile body. His fingers, light and ardent upon her flesh, touched her thighs where they joined. She was filled with him to the hilt, and he could feel the tip of her womb. She set her own pace, ruled by a wildfire of passion that threatened to undo his control. Concentrating on her pleasure, he gently suckled her breast. She uttered a primitive cry, and her body quivered around him like a living glove. He felt her rise up, tighten and swing; then down again, hard. Harder she moved, in the throes of her own ecstasy and insatiably greedy.
Unable to hold back, Bruce moved toward climax with Lydia riding him with a wild intensity that was full of wanton tenderness. As rapture began to overtake them, Lydia gave Bruce her heart and soul in that moment of mutual surrender. She soared in her spirit, rejoicing, for Bruce held her love in his heart, and she held the life they had created together in her womb.
"Bruce, my love!" She gasped at the beauty of their loving, and cast herself upon his chest, as spun out as a golden leaf drifting down to earth in a wind storm.
Bruce lay beneath her, kissing her damp face and stroking her tangled hair. The intensity of their lovemaking left him speechless for a long time afterward. When at last he found the words, his astonishment was never more evident.
"So you did it all for passion." And he gently brushed a curl from her cheek.
Lydia ran her fingers over his smiling lips, and a deep abiding contentment filled her, more powerful than the passionate storm that had held her in bondage only minutes before.
"I told you, Bruce. I did it for you."
"Nay, Mrs. MacGregor," he chuckled, and she felt him start to come alive within her once more. "'Twas passion made you do it."
Lydia lifted her head and gravely met his ardent gaze.
"But, Bruce," she patiently explained. "You are my passion."
"Ah, dear lady, such passion will soon reduce me to a cinder," he teased, though she had reason to doubt it. His big hands skimmed over her back; then he clasped her trim derrière and pulled her in tight against him.
"Let's enjoy the fire," she suggested, demonstrating renewed interest.
"In that case," he said, thrusting deeply, "we'd best build a slow hot fire."
With exquisitely unhurried strokes, he made love to her. Time after time, with the sure instincts of an experienced commander at the helm, his vessel entered the slip, gliding with unerring skill and drawing out her pleasure. Caught in the undertow, they swept out to sea, running in and out on rapid tides with a passion made mad by the jealous moon. Drawn together on the peak of a white-cap, building and cresting over and over, gasping and bobbing, they nearly drowned upon the sea of love together.
Finally, still merged, Lydia and Bruce collapsed happily into each other's arms and slept.
One hour and twenty-seven minutes later, Bruce reached groggily for his breeches and staggered out on deck to relieve his second mate. He felt as wobbly-kneed as a new colt. But going without sleep was of no great consequence, for at last he had unraveled the mystery that had plagued him for days. He had Lydia figured out—aye, and properly subdued!
Thank God, there would be no more sudden surprises from his wife, he told himself.
And a good thing, too, because he had his hands full, just keeping the Bowden afloat.
Chapter Twenty-Six
During the night Bruce resumed command five miles out beyond Fisher's Island, he and his crew wearing dark clothing to reduce the chance of discovery. Sneaking up on Admiral Hardy in the fog, he used the Ramillies' stern lights to guide him into the Thames, whereupon he headed straight for Old Paddy's wharf.
Both banks of the river were dark, as mysterious and silent as the backside of the moon. As the Bowden slipped into an empty berth, a dozen sailors, moving like phantoms in the night, quickly secured her, then went below, with none but the town's night watchman taking note of her arrival.
With the dawning of June 28, 1814, Robbie Harris, always an early riser, was taking a stroll along the pier, when he spotted Captain MacGregor escorting his yawning wife down the gangplank. "Welcome home, Bruce!" he called. "Glad to see ye mad
e it safely home."
Shaking hands, MacGregor glanced about the deserted wharf and spotted the Isobella anchored farther up river. "I see my wife's brother made it into port ahead of us."
"Aye." The old warehouseman's eyes twinkled, as he turned to Lydia. "Your brother an' Lieutenant Graham arrived safe an' sound last night. The whole waterfront's buzzin' about your bold escape from Halifax prison."
Lydia flushed guiltily, but stubbornly stuck to the alibi she had concocted to explain her absence. "Yes, my husband filled me in on the details, when he picked me up in Westerly."
"Is that so, Mrs. MacGregor?" Harris chortled. "And did he tell ye how he captured the Bowden? Or were ye an eyewitness?"
Bruce raised his eyebrows at his wife, standing beside him in her brother's baggy pants. "He's wise to you, my dear."
Lydia plucked nervously at an imaginary speck of dust on her husband's sleeve. "I trust you'll quash any wild rumors, Mr. Harris. Otherwise I'll never be able to hold my head up again."
Robert Harris and Bruce exchanged a look and broke into uncontrollable laughter.
Harris, recovering first, wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. "'Twill be hard to hush this up, lass. Aye, an' that sunburn on your nose will take a bit of explainin', too."
Lydia exchanged a conspiratorial wink with her husband. "Did I mention how bracing the sea air is around Westerly, Mr. Harris?"
After more ribbing and laughter, Lydia finally turned her thoughts homeward. When Harris assured her that everything was going well at the big stone manse on Old Point Road, she smiled jauntily. "Excellent news! Well, I believe I'll be getting on home now, if I might borrow your carriage, Mr. Harris?"
"Of course, dear lady." Robbie summoned Wayne to drive her and, while solicitously escorting her to his carriage, seemed to notice her unbecoming garb for the first time. "My, my! The storm must've been a terrible ordeal." His brow wrinkled with concern.
Bruce chuckled. "My wife bore up like a regular sea dog."
Lydia blushed at his remark, and he gave her waist a gentle squeeze, then handed her inside the carriage. "Off with you now, wife. I'll be home as soon as I can." Giving her a peck on the cheek, he promised her, "We'll spend a quiet evening together, just the two of us."