Law, Susan Kay

by Traitorous Hearts

  "I thought you didn't want me to rescue you anymore."

  He grinned and threw his arms wide. "Come here and rescue me, Beth. I have a most desperate need to hold you."

  She flowed against him with a sigh of pleasure, fitting her curves automatically to his planes. His arms came around her securely, and beneath her ear she heard his heartbeat quicken. His hands began to roam, sweeping her back, and she discovered the thin cloth of her nightdress was little barrier to his warmth.

  "God, Beth, it's been too long."

  She leaned back to look up at him and gave a teasing smile. "You could have tried a bit harder, you know."

  "Are you serious?" He looked aghast. "Your mother is a regular Tartar when she puts her mind to something. There was no possibility I was putting my hands anywhere near her precious, innocent, defenseless Elizabeth before the vows were spoken."

  "Well, thank God you already had."

  He slid one hand around to caress her belly, massaging her softly through the wispy fabric. "You never got in touch with me after I'd left. Should I take that to mean we're not expecting?"

  She nodded.

  "Damn!" He grinned roguishly. "Well, I guess we'll have to get to work on that."

  "I imagine so." She leaned against him, letting her breasts press against the solid wall of his chest, watching with satisfaction as his features began to sharpen. "My father's quite looking forward to the grandsons we're going to give him."

  "I rather like the idea of daughters myself." He closed his eyes as she slipped her hand inside the opening of his shirt and began to explore. "Damn, Beth, you'd better stop that."

  "Why?" She found a place that intrigued her, right where the bulge of his pectorals segued into the ripple of his ribs, and traced it with her fingertips.

  "Because your parents are right next door, that's why."

  "So?"

  "So you're noisy."

  "What? I am not," she protested. "As if you're quiet!"

  "I'm the soul of discretion." He swooped, lifting her in his arms, and tossed her onto the bed. The rope frame creaked and she laughed loudly, "See what I mean? Noisy."

  He grabbed her ankle and sent his fingers wandering up her calf, slowly stroking the back of her knee until her eyes began to darken. "Remember, after you were hurt, and I brought you back to the Eel, and I checked your ankle before I left?"

  She nodded mutely, unable to think clearly enough to form words when his hands worked their magic on her skin.

  "I got so hard I was terrified one of your brothers was going to notice and I would never get out of there alive. I had a hell of a time sidling out of the place sideways," he said, and she felt a tiny catch in her heart at the thought that she could affect him so much.

  Grinning, he lay himself down on the bed, settling his big body on hers comfortably, and all amusement vanished.

  His gaze traced her face slowly, lingering on each feature as if he were trying to imprint it in his mind. He lifted a lock of her hair, watching in apparent fascination as it curled around his finger. The light blue of his eyes was vivid, shining, like the color of the sky on a brilliant winter day reflecting off pure, gleaming, fresh snow.

  "God, Beth," he whispered, his voice vibrating with emotion. "I do love you."

  His kiss was slow, gentle, a meeting of lips and breath and souls, almost delicate in its reverence. But Beth could feel the low, impending rumble of thunder.

  The first time he'd touched her, she'd called him Jon. The second, he'd been Jonathan.

  This time, he was simply her husband.

  ***

  A single tallow candle guttered on the nightstand next to Beth's bed. The mellow, dancing light played over the angles and hollows of her face. The thick golden-brown crescent of her lashes lay against the creamy skin under her eyes.

  Jon tightened his arms around his wife and watched her sleep. Outside, the sky was beginning to pearl into the gray just before dawn, but he had yet to close his own eyes.

  He couldn't bring himself to waste a moment in sleep.

  She sighed and shifted closer to him, as if seeking his warmth, and he found himself unaccountably proud that even in her sleep she turned to him. One naked thigh, curved, soft, womanly, but hiding, he knew, exceptional strength—much like Beth herself—slipped between his own, and he felt himself begin to harden yet again.

  Again! He feared he'd exhausted her completely before he'd finally allowed her to drift off to sleep, well into the depths of the night. He was disgracefully grateful that his bride wasn't a virgin on their wedding night, or he would have felt extremely guilty about demanding his husbandly rights three times.

  Of course, in all honesty, Beth had really been the demanding one.

  Her cheek rubbed against his arm, the curly strands of her hair tickling him. He couldn't resist sliding his fingers through the soft, golden strands, combing through the entire, heavy length. Her eyelids fluttered open; she looked up at him and smiled. A sleepy, content, womanly smile, a flirty little grin that rushed through his veins and went to his head faster than even Cad's most potent brew.

  "Hello," she said softly. "You're awake."

  "I haven't slept yet."

  "No?" She stretched, all suppleness and skin, sliding over him in a way that made him groan out loud. "I'm ashamed. And here I'd thought I'd tired you out thoroughly."

  He ran his forefinger down the narrow slope of her nose and dropped a kiss at the corner of her eye. "I wasn't going to waste a single moment of the first time I finally get the chance to hold you all night long. God, Beth, do you know how many times I've dreamed of this?"

  "No more than I have." Contentment. Happiness. Satisfaction. Love. How had she ever thought she'd known the meanings of those words? Now she knew that her understanding of them had had everything to do with the surface and almost nothing to do with those deep, swelling feelings that started way down inside.

  She studied him in the darkness. Most of his face was hidden in shadow, but his pale eyes shone, gleaming light and bright in the darkness. Why hadn't she been able to read them before? How difficult it must have been for him to shield all his emotions from the world with those clear eyes that went all the way to his soul. There was burgeoning passion and open happiness, total approval and unshakable love. And, behind them all, almost hidden, there were deep, swirling shadows of... disquiet. Disquiet?

  "No!" she said sharply, pushing herself out of his embrace and sitting up in bed. "You're not going back, Jonathan."

  Surprise flashed for only an instant. He sat up too, the sheets falling away from him and pooling around his bare hips. "I have to, Beth."

  A sick heaviness settled in the region of her heart, and she felt the burn of tears. She tried to blink them away, forcing herself to sound teasing. "I'm really getting very weary of this. Every time we lie together, you run off to war. It's enough to make a woman wonder."

  The words came out bare, heavy, not at all as she intended. She saw pain streak through his eyes like summer lightning, then his jaw hardened in determination. "It's my duty, Beth."

  "You think I give a damn about duty?" She'd heard about men who, unable to live with the acts they'd committed in the name of war, became careless with their own lives, taking outrageous chances, as if seeking their own punishment. She was shaking, nearly ill with the fear that Jon would follow that path. She'd thought he'd come to terms with what he'd done, had settled in his own mind that he'd had no other choice. But what if she'd been wrong? What if he was driven to atone for the wrongs he was convinced he'd done?

  He would drag her down to hell with him, for his loss would be her own damnation.

  "Beth," he said helplessly. He couldn't talk to her when she was so far away. He took her into his lap, grateful that at least she didn't resist him, and rested his chin on the top of her head. "Am I wrong in thinking we want a family?"

  She sniffed slightly. "'Twill be difficult to manage if you're not around to impregnate me."

 
He sighed. This was more than he'd ever expected to have out of life, the soft weight of her nestled against him, the stir of her breath against his skin. He would have given every bit of wealth he'd ever have to stay right here forever. But there were some things he couldn't surrender.

  "I want our children raised in freedom. In a country where they are valued, where what they can achieve is limited only by their own talents and determination. If I must fight for that, then I will."

  She made a strangled sound, then slipped her arms around him, hugging him tight. "I'm so afraid."

  "I am too." He closed his eyes, fighting the suspicious wetness that gathered there. "But it's even more important to me now, Beth. Before, I fought only for country. Now I'll fight for us and our future. And I'll be able to do it openly this time."

  She burrowed against him, as if she were trying to be absorbed through his skin, an idea that held a certain appeal. "But it's more dangerous for you now," she mumbled in a broken voice. "If you are captured, you wouldn't just be a prisoner of war."

  "I'd be a traitor," he said, his voice even and edged with steel. "I guess I'll just have to make sure I'm not captured, then."

  "You'd better," she choked out.

  He lifted his hands to cradle her face, tipping her head up so he could search her eyes. "You don't honestly think that I'm really going to leave you for good, do you? After waiting this long to find you? After we've come through so much already?" He hoped she would see it in his eyes, feel it in his touch. He knew he had to do this, but he also knew he was coming back to her. Not even the most horrendous demons hell could unleash could keep him from her; certainly neither a tiny bit of lead nor the British forces could do it. He wouldn't let it happen.

  "I want you to say it, Beth," he said, his voice harsh with intensity. "I want you to tell me you believe I'm coming back."

  She smiled at him then, the light of certainty in her eyes shining behind the shimmer of unshed tears. She reached up, tracing the bones of his face with a touch that was both light and absolutely sure.

  "You are coming back to me."

  Epilogue

  It was the spring of 1783, and Colonel Jonathan Schuyler Leighton was finally coming home from war.

  The road he trudged down, just outside of New Wexford, was rutted and frozen. He didn't notice. His eyes, his attention, his entire being was focused on one thing: the modest, whitewashed frame house settled prettily among bare, towering maples at the edge of Finnigan's Wood.

  The windows of the house, like the door, were oversize, slightly out of proportion. He liked that; the house seemed to suit its occupants.

  The house was bathed in silver light from a narrow crescent moon. Branches rubbed and squeaked together in the chill wind that seemed to have forgotten spring was on its way.

  But Jon wasn't cold. In one of the upper windows, through diamond panes polished to startling clarity, a single candle glowed. He could nearly feel its warmth from here. The flame was small, steady, burning with golden light. Burning for him.

  He knew that small blaze had been glowing there for more than eight years, night and day. It had been there, never wavering, never fading, every time he'd been able to come home on leave, a symbol of the belief that he would indeed come home.

  He was nearly there, and the bone-deep, soul-searing weariness of so many years of war began to lift, replaced by a burgeoning, swelling joy. For this time he didn't have to leave again.

  Quietly, unwilling to wake the occupants of the house, he pushed open the front door. Once inside, he just stood there, absorbing the soft sounds of a resting house and breathing in the scents of beeswax and cooking spices that meant home.

  He mounted up the center stairs that swept up in front of him, his footsteps light. His hand slid easily over the glossy surface of the handrail, and he remembered the day he had spent rubbing it to that fine-grained finish. He'd only been able to work on bits of the house himself; his father-in-law had built most of it, helped occasionally by whichever Jones male had been home on leave, and with more assistance from Beth than she probably should have been giving. But he was glad that there were parts of the house that bore his mark, that showed the labor of his hands and the care he'd put into it.

  He paused at the first bedroom to the right. Two small beds, dressed in frilly white, were filled. His girls. He didn't know how long he stood there, noting all the changes, how much they'd grown since he'd seen them last.

  Six and four years old! God, where had it all gone? His eyes stung as he thought of what he'd missed, all the things he'd never get to see. The times when their white, baby-fine curls had turned to thick, gold sunshine; when their chubby little bodies had begun to slim and lengthen into childhood. It was nearly beyond his strength not to scoop them right into his arms and hold them close. They'd squeal then, he knew; when he came back after he'd been away, he always squeezed them just a little too tight.

  He let them sleep. In the next room, milky moonlight pouring through the window illuminated a small tester bed. Cadwallader Leighton was the pride of his grandfather, who, after two girls that he adored, had all but given up hope that his daughter would produce a grandson, and who had nearly burst his buttons when he heard his newest grandchild's name.

  The Jones men had not been impervious to war after all. They'd lost David at Valley Forge, and his widow and child had moved in with Cad and Mary.

  And, of course, they'd also lost Brendan, who was never mentioned in the Jones house. Jon knew Beth received occasional letters from her brother, who was in Montreal and had found work cataloguing the library for a community of monks. Brendan seemed content with the books and the silence.

  Henry had lost a leg at Princeton and had come home bitter and angry, drained of every bit of exuberance and joy.

  Little Cadwallader was nearly a year old now, his head covered with swirls of fine, light brown hair that gleamed almost white in the moonlight. His skin was smooth, flawless, and Jon couldn't resist running the back of one finger over the plump curve of his cheek. His eyes were closed, outrageously long lashes resting gently against his cheek. Jon knew those eyes were big and brown and shiny with the wonder of the world and the knowledge that he was loved.

  Jon shuddered slightly and felt a drop of moisture slip out of the corner of his eye. He hadn't seen his son for nearly eight months and had never been there when one of his children was born. But he felt a deep satisfaction that they would grow up in a place where freedom was more than a word.

  He stepped out in to the hall and heard the faint whisper of bare feet on the polished wood floor.

  "Jonathan?" she said uncertainly.

  She was standing in the doorway of their bedroom, the place she'd slept far too many nights alone. The rich spill of her curls tumbled down her back, and the pale sweep of her nightdress swirled around her lush, strong body.

  "Jonathan!" she cried.

  He didn't remember how she got there, he only knew that suddenly she was in his arms, clutching him tightly around the neck, trembling as he held her.

  "Can you stay this time?" she asked, her voice muffled against his chest.

  "Yes," he said hoarsely. "This time, I'm home for good."

  And then he found her mouth, a kiss flavored with desperation and emotion and feelings pent up over far too much time. His lips slanted and his tongue swirled with hers, going deeper, farther, more. He had to have more.

  He wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her clear of the floor, walking her back into the bedroom without breaking the contact. He leaned over the bed, bracing himself with one arm while holding her with the other, and lowered her to it, still without ever moving his mouth from hers.

  There was no time for preliminaries. He was quick, nearly crazed, as he kept his lips firmly on hers while he shoved her nightdress up to her waist and fumbled with the fastenings of his breeches.

  He touched her once, briefly, to assure himself he wouldn't hurt her. Then he thrust inside her, quickly, on
e strong flex of his hips and he was buried as deeply as he could go.

  He went still. There was no longer any necessity for speed, for he was where he needed to be. Now there was time for caressing and stroking and touches, time for sliding his tongue along her collarbone and kissing the place where her pulse beat in the hollow of her throat. Time for gentleness, time for tenderness. For now he was with Beth, in her, surrounded by her.

  For now, at last, he was home.

  It was over. Finally, completely over. No more would her husband leave her after only a few days of heaven. No more waking up in the middle of the night, trembling and drenched with sweat after living through dreams that were drenched with blood. No more standing watching their children sleep and wondering if they were going to grow up without a father. No more rumors of battle that obliterated anything but icy fear.

  It was over at last. Jonathan had come home to her.

  She placed her hand along the slope of his jaw. The stubble rasped against her palm as he turned his head to gently place a kiss there.

  Beth looked up at the man who lay over her in the dark, whose body filled hers and whose presence filled her heart. His face was illuminated by moonlight and the wavering flame of the solitary candle. His features were sharpened, made even more handsome by the hardships of war and command. There was strength there, and harshness, and an aching, extraordinary tenderness.

  He was the most beautiful man in the world.

  And he was hers.

  Susan Kay Law lives in Minnesota with her husband and two sons. Her first novel, Journey Home, won the 1992 Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award. This is her second novel.