"Oh my God," she whispered, but Cad went on as if he hadn't heard her.
"They must have seen it, Ben, seen that we could stick together, that we weren't afraid to fight. That we could stand up to their bullying and their brass and their damn royal rights! They lost men all the way as they scurried back to their holes."
She lifted her shaking hand to her mouth. "How many?"
"I don't know. Two, perhaps three hundred injured. I don't know how many were wounded seriously but the army was hurt badly—we hurt their pride, and their damn smug confidence, and their men! They'll never assume we're nothing but annoying little flies again."
"And next time, they'll be ready for you," she mumbled under her breath.
"What'd you say, Ben?"
"How many of ours were hurt, Da? What was the price?"
"Less than a third of what they lost, I'm sure of it."
She took a deep breath. "And us? You're certain they're safe?"
"Not a scratch. You should know the Joneses better than that. We took up behind a stone wall, and those lobsterbacks couldn't even come close to us." He snorted. "Not one of 'em can shoot even half so well as Isaac, much less the rest of us."
"Why didn't they all come home, then?"
"I told you, they went to Cambridge. The British are stuck back in Boston." He nodded firmly. "We aim to make sure they stay there."
"And you?" she asked quietly, hoping she'd kept the fear out of her voice. If there was one thing Cadwallader Jones had no patience for, it was fear, especially in one of his children. "You and Isaac? Are you going too?"
"No." He frowned. "Not yet. Your mother and I are discussing it. She pointed out that the home guard needs someone to command it, just in case the British do decide to come this way, and, for now, I'm it—at least until I can get a competent replacement to take over from me. And she thinks your brother is too young, and I suppose she's right. He'll be sixteen soon enough, though, and there's no way we can keep him here after that."
"Oh." Bennie rose from her chair, hoping her legs would support her. It had happened. She'd known it was a possibility, had lain in her bed many nights trying to convince herself it wasn't going to happen, and yet had never understood the horrible reality of it.
They'd fired at her brothers, her father. Balls had probably whizzed over their heads and taken chinks out of the stone that protected them. Likely, the shots had come terribly close to ripping into all too vulnerable flesh.
She was a Jones, a member of a family that was famed throughout the district for being too big, too hard, and too tough to ever be hurt or beaten. But all those muscles were terribly fragile protection against ball and mortar.
And she knew they'd soon be fired on again.
Her knees wobbled; she could so easily crumple to the floor. She'd broken down in front of her father only one time, when she'd been a child and a boy at school had shoved her in the boy's privy, telling her that was obviously where she belonged; no real girl ever looked like she did. After she'd escaped, she'd run home to the Eel, only to have her father tell her that if she ever again cried in front of others, he'd lock her in the privy himself.
Being a Jones meant being strong. It meant never leaning on anyone else.
But for once, she wanted to be weak, just for a little while. It would be so easy. She wanted to be able to cry on somebody's shoulder, wanted to let someone else take care of her problems for a bit—wanted someone to at least want to take care of them. Or, perhaps, take on a bit of the burden, the worry. Maybe it wouldn't be so awful if it were shared.
Instead, she would deal with this the way a Jones always dealt with fear, or sadness, or hurt.
Alone.
She squared her shoulders and forced a smile. "I'm glad you're home, Da. I took care of everything for you."
He smiled proudly. "I knew you would, Bennie. We'll take care of everything while the boys are gone, won't we?"
"Of course. Now, I think I'll go practice while I can. It doesn't seem as if I'll have much time for a little while."
She made it through the door before she couldn't hold the smile any longer.
***
It was going to storm.
Jon glanced up at the sky. It was as dark as tarnished silver, and if he hadn't known it was late afternoon, he would have thought it was nearly nightfall. The wild, bitter wind whipped his hair across his face, and he shoved the strands out of his eyes.
The air smelled like rain, cool and metallic. He strode along rapidly, hoping to reach shelter before the storm unleashed its fury, even as he knew his destination was pure folly.
Any way he looked at it, he'd botched this job but good. He still hadn't caught whoever was passing information through New Wexford, and though he had a few ideas, well, ideas were cheap. Proving them was what was hard.
About all he'd managed to do here was get himself turned inside out by a woman whose eyes brimmed with suppressed life and whose music sounded answering chords in his soul. The first rule of espionage was to stay detached and objective, and he'd been doing that nearly his entire life without even trying. It came as naturally to him as the ability to walk through the woods without making a sound.
Yet for weeks his objectivity had been blown away as easily as a dandelion puff in the wind. Blown away by a woman whose loyalty mocked his, and whose own formidable control he longed to shatter too. Even knowing all that, even knowing it was wrong, useless, and downright stupid, he found himself walking down this trail one more time.
The stables were built of stone that matched the ground. The sky was even darker now, an unnatural lack of light that barely allowed him to make out the closed stable doors.
One window, high under the peak of the thatched roof, was open, and it was through this window the music came. Plaintive, low, streaming, it was nearly indistinguishable from the wailing of the wind. It raised bumps along the back of his neck and a rough ache in his chest.
Silently he opened the stable door and slipped inside, shutting it tightly behind him. The absence of the breath-stealing wind was abrupt, and he filled his lungs with the warm, steaming heat of horses.
In here, the call of the wind was muted, but the lure of the music was stronger. It sang of fear and loneliness, and all those dark corners that lurked in every human, corners most tried to deny. This music embraced them, gave them life and breath, and its power resonated in deep, shadowy corners of his own soul.
He could see nothing in the darkness. He brushed his hand along the wall, searching for the ladder that led to the loft. The stone was cool and rough under his palm.
It didn't take him long to find the ladder. One of his gifts was a memory that allowed him to recall places and things with absolute precision. The wood was smooth, polished from use, and he quickly climbed up to the source of the music. To Beth.
He didn't know how long he stood there, wrapped in the darkness and the song. He only knew that when the music became so beautiful it hurt, he had to get closer to her.
A board creaked under his foot, a sign of his carelessness. The music stopped.
"Who's there?"
"Just me."
Silence.
"Talk to me, Beth, so I can find you."
"I'm here, Jon." Her voice was a whisper, a seductive thread twining through the darkness. He scuffled through the hay to her. She was just under the window, a small opening that admitted no light, gave only a glimpse of the bruised, roiling sky.
He dropped down beside her onto a blanket that was thick and scratchy. The hay rustled and cracked with each motion.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Hush." He didn't want to tell her yet; he just wanted to be there, to sense her closeness through the dark, to feel her warmth reach out to him, to catch beguiling drifts of lavender mingling with the hay.
"Play for me, Beth."
She was quiet for such a long time he was afraid she would say no.
"All right," she said finally.
/> It didn't really matter why he was there, she found; it was enough that he was. Before she had played of loneliness; now she played of fear, of mud and blood and anger, of a freedom that could only be bought at unbearable cost. Before she hadn't allowed herself to think of bodies lying, bleeding and abandoned in the road, of the acrid smell of powder and the sickening cry of pain.
And when she was done, she knew why he had come. "You're leaving, aren't you?"
She heard him take a breath and slowly let it out through his teeth. "Yes."
"Where are you going?"
"Sent to Boston. Company will rejoin regiment."
She groped for his hand; when she found it, he laced his fingers with hers. His skin was callused, his touch infinitely tender, and she wondered if the same hands which could touch her so gently could pick up a rifle and fire on her countrymen, maybe even on her family.
"When?"
He slowly rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb.
"Tomorrow."
Her fingers tightened. "It's so soon."
"Yes."
Outside, the wind whirled in a world that was violent and frightening; inside, there was only the dark and a hand to hold.
"Teach me to play, Beth."
His voice seemed disembodied, a rumble that surrounded her and shimmered down her back. She nodded, knowing that, even if he couldn't see her, he would know her assent.
She found her way to him by touch alone and knelt behind him, her breasts nestled against his back, and braced the violin against his shoulder. She allowed her cheek to rest against the fine silk of his hair.
This time, she made no attempt to instruct him. His hands rested on hers, so lightly they didn't impede her playing. He merely followed the motion of her fingers, feeling them call the music from the instrument.
The loneliness was back. And this time, when she conjured up images of bodies lying in the mud, the body she saw was his, with dark, spreading stains spoiling the brilliant crimson of his coat. His rich, shiny hair was caked with mud and tangled around his pale face, his eyelids forever closed over those extraordinary pale eyes. All around him, the army marched, their steps sure and steady, undeterred by the body that lay in their path.
A flash of brilliant, piercing light; the sharp, ear-shattering crack of a musket fired at close range.
Bennie shrieked, dropped the violin, and collapsed against Jon's back, trembling. Her heart was pounding so hard she was sure he could feel it.
He turned and lifted her, settling her in his lap, and tucked her head firmly against his neck.
"Shh," he said. "Shh. It's only the storm."
The sky unleashed. She heard sheets of rain pouring down outside, pounding against the roof, running down the side of the stable. She burrowed closer to Jon, his big warm frame a bulwark against her fears.
He was stroking her back; up, down, easy, slow, the sensuous caresses turning her shivers of fear into shivers of something else entirely. She needed to touch him, needed to know that, at least for now, he was still safe and whole and alive. Her hands crept to his back, testing the solid muscle underneath the wool.
It was torture. She was kneading his back with a cautious thoroughness that made him want to beg her to explore other regions. With her head nestled underneath his chin, he could feel her breath flowing over his neck, a warm caress of air that was somehow more exciting than skin.
It was temptation. His neck was hot and smooth against her cheek, and warm, male musk filled her nostrils. And she knew she had only to reach out her tongue to taste the skin so tantalizingly close.
It was the smallest stroke; moist, textured tongue in the hollow of his neck. He groaned, knowing that even that bare touch was more than he could take.
And suddenly he was tired of it all. Tired of spending so much time pretending to be someone else that he no longer had any idea who he really was. Tired of watching every word, expression, and action. Tired of living so close to the edge of death.
Tired of being utterly alone.
She hadn't thought; she had only known that dreaming of the taste of his skin was so much better than being tortured by images of death. She hadn't even realized she'd acted on her fantasy until she heard him moan.
She moved her mouth up, blindly searching, tracing her lips along the sharp line of his stubble-shadowed jaw. She knew so well what his features looked like in the bright, clean light of day. How much more interesting to discover what they felt like in the deep, intense blackness.
He grabbed her upper arms and held her away, his fingers biting painfully into her flesh.
"Beth," he said, his voice a harsh rumble. "You can't."
She went rigid, sure she had frightened him again. "Why not?"
"You don't know..."
She waited, holding her breath, for him to leave her again.
He didn't. "There are... some things... that I remember well," he said.
Lightning flashed a brief, brilliant instant that gave her a glimpse of his face, white in the brightness, his features bold and stunning. He was looking down at her with an almost violent yearning that so closely mirrored her own. Thunder rolled, a deep, baritone tremor that rippled down her spine.
"Good," she whispered.
"Beth—"
"I don't care anymore, Jon. I don't want to think anymore. I can't think anymore. I just want to feel."
He kissed her then, his mouth coming down with a hard force that pushed aside everything but the feel of his lips. Gone was the gentleness of every other time he had touched her, swept away by a greedy desperation that left no room for anything else.
He wasn't kind. He wound his hand in her hair to hold her head still, and the instant she leaned against him his tongue swept inside her mouth, demanding she give him everything. And she did.
When his tongue skated along the edge of her teeth, she prodded back. When he plundered the deepest recesses of her mouth, she forced her way into the darkest, sweetest corners of his. And when he swept his tongue along the inside of her lower lip, she sucked on it, hard, bringing it deeper.
Dimly, she knew this was wrong, knew she was using sensation, passion—him—to block out the fear. But she couldn't stop; the hot enchantment beat in her blood and lured her on, a seduction she didn't know how to deny.
He knew it was wrong, unforgivable, to take this from her when there were so many lies between them. But the pounding reality of war was too close, looming over his shoulder and waiting for the opportunity to strike. If he was to die, struck down in a barrage of gunpowder and blood on some nameless field, he needed it to be with her image burning clearly in his mind.
The scent of lavender and the warmth of her lips clouded his thoughts. He released her hair; she needed no encouragement to stay. He smoothed his hands down her back, exploring the clothing he couldn't see.
A blouse, buttoned down the back. Easy. The buttons popped open as easily as ripe summer berries dropping off a vine. He stopped only to squeeze her shoulders before shoving the clothes—her blouse, her chemise, one movement—down to her waist.
He drew back, intending to find somehow, some way, to slow down. Nature defeated him.
Lightning again. A flash of rich, round, pale breasts, and the dark, tight disks of her nipples. He bent his head to the unbearable sweetness of her breast in his mouth.
Nothing in her life had prepared her for this, for the intense wave of heat as he sucked at her nipple. For the greed, as she was helpless to do anything but clutch at his head and hold him closer.
She felt tight, ready to burst from her skin as his tongue rasped across the tip of her breast. She grabbed his jaw, urging him to the other side. A tug, a stroke, sent her mindlessly tumbling into pleasure.
He stopped, gasping, to stamp kisses along the curve of her neck, the slope of her shoulder. His hands were fervent and insistent, sweeping over her back and arms, curving around her waist.
Her lack of sight intensified her other senses. She was overwhelmed by
the pounding of the rain and the harsh sigh of his breathing. She smelled spring and him, felt every ridge on his fingertips as he skimmed them over her nipple.
Lord, he thought, how long had it been? How long since he'd been enchanted by the silkiness of the skin over a woman's collarbone, been driven to madness by the taste of tender flesh inside an elbow?
Never.
She twisted in his arms, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt, tugging it from his breeches. And then she was touching him, kneading the muscles at the side of his waist, sliding her palms over his chest.
Heaven? Hell? Who cared?
He'd spent a lifetime being in control. Every time he'd touched a woman, he'd been cautious, careful, always conscious that his strength could easily bruise such fragile creatures. Yet here was a woman who met his strength, encouraged it, answered it with her own, and it destroyed every shred of control he'd ever owned.
The feel of his hands on the bare flesh of her thighs caused her to shiver. The brush of his chest against the sensitive tips of her breasts made heat flash through her body, quick and sharp as the lightning. He lifted her, turned her, planting her knees on either side of his thighs, then settled her against him. Her skirts were pushed up around her hips. The heavy pressure of him against her most intimate flesh made her shake.
There was nothing of romance here, sweet, gentle kisses in a meadow flushed with spring. This was a storm, unleashed in all its fury. Desperation, turbulence, greed, a violent need that bordered on insanity.
Rocking against him, she pressed herself closer, and felt his answering shudder. He had one arm wrapped around her back, and he slid his other hand between them, down, down, and touched her.
He was deft, sure, wildly exciting. She felt heavy and hot. His fingers glided easily against her, touching some spot that sent a spasm of pure pleasure shooting through her. She sucked in her breath, and his fingers stilled.
Law, Susan Kay Page 16