Fortune's Flame

by French, Judith E.

  Kincaid shook out a blanket over the hay he’d heaped up for a bed. “Hist now, hinney,” he scolded. “Nay more of your nonsense. It’s been a long day. I thought ye’d be grateful I found ye a hot meal and a soft bed.”

  “Where’s your bed?” Heavy rain was drumming on the cedar-shake roof above them and running down the outside walls, but the spot Kincaid had chosen seemed to have no leaks.

  “Two blankets. One beneath and one above. It makes one bed, the way I see it.”

  “You certainly don’t expect me to sleep in your bed,” she said. “I’ll take one of those blankets, thank you.”

  “Nay, lass. I’d have ye beside me where I can keep ye safe. It’s a bad lot in the tavern, and I’ll not have ye wanderin’ outside in the night to be snatched up and used as a common whore.” He stretched out on the blanket and patted the space beside him. It was nearly pitch dark in the loft, but a tiny lantern gave enough light for her to see his self-satisfied smile.

  “You’re drunk,” she accused. “I’m going to Panama with you, but I never said anything about sharing a bed with you. Our agreement is strictly business. ”

  “Woman, you’d vex a saint. I’ve had a few drops, but I’m far from drunk.” He exhaled loudly. “And if I was foxed, your virtue would still be safe with me. I’ve never been so drunk that I’ve not chosen who I’d futter with.”

  “Thank you for the compliment,” she snapped.

  “ ‘Tis nothing personal, hinney,” he said. “I like my lassies womanly, not all claws and spit. You’re good enough to look at, but there’s imps in hell would give a man less grief than you.” He patted the blanket again. “You’d best sleep while you can. I can’t promise when we’ll have so snug a bed again.”

  She sniffed. Imps in hell. She’d not have slept with Kincaid if he was crown prince of England and she an actress on the London stage. The man thought entirely too much of himself, and she certainly knew a drunk when she saw one. He’d downed enough whiskey to drop a horse. “Hmmpt,” she grumbled. “We could have had a real bed in the tavern.”

  “Shared with bedbugs and drunken guests. The Cock’s Comb has no private chambers, and if they did, I’d fear ’twas only to murder us. This is better. There are no bugs, and the horses will keep watch for us. If anyone comes into the stable, they’ll sound an alarm.”

  “Provided you’re not too intoxicated to hear,” she said, reluctantly sitting down on the blanket beside him and taking off her moccasins. “I warn you, I sleep with a knife.”

  “You’d best take off those wet clothes. You’ll catch your death of the ague.”

  “Not on your life, Kincaid. My clothes stay on.”

  “Don’t whine to me when your nose is running and—”

  “Will you be still?” she said, curling up as far away from him as she could without getting off the blanket.

  “Here.” He spread the top blanket over her, and as he did, his hand brushed hers.

  Bess’s breath caught in her throat as a tingling sensation ran up her arm. His touch had been accidental, but it set her to shivering as the cold rain had not.

  “I’d nay have ye take sick,” he said.

  “I’m fine,” she lied. She wasn’t fine. The tingling had rippled down to the pit of her stomach, and it was all she could do to lie still. His nearness was unnerving. If she wasn’t used to anyone touching her, she surely wasn’t used to sharing her bed with a man.

  It had been a long time. And besides, what had happened between her and Richard couldn’t be called sharing a bed.

  Bess clenched her eyes shut and tried not to think of the man beside her, or the other one . . . the one who had made her decide never to marry . . . never to put herself under a man’s control again.

  Richard’s face formed in her mind and she tried to push the image away. It had been so long ago, she’d thought it was over and done with . . . a lot of fuss over a bit of skin and a few spots of blood.

  Her face grew warm in the darkness. If Kincaid thought her a frightened virgin, he was wrong. Richard Carter had taken that trophy when she was only sixteen.

  She’d trusted Richard. God in heaven, why not? The families had been neighbors and friends for more years than she’d been alive, and she’d had a crush on him since she was thirteen. She trusted him even though her witchy instinct told-her that he would bring her no happiness. Even though she saw him in shades of red and gray . . .

  He was older than she was, twenty-one or two, and handsome as the devil’s guard when he’d returned that summer from school in England. They’d met for the first time in two years at a horse race in Chestertown, and Richard had begun to court her in earnest. Even then she’d known that as a second son, Richard wouldn’t inherit his family’s plantation, and that Fortune’s Gift was a greater prize than she was. As an heiress, she could expect to be wooed by men who appreciated her fortune.

  But she’d liked the attention all the same. She’d liked the fancy balls and the parties. She’d liked being included in the social circles of girls who’d always excluded her before. She even liked Richard. But she wasn’t in love with him, and she didn’t want to marry or even promise to marry at sixteen.

  But one afternoon when they’d been fox hunting, they’d stopped at his family’s overseer’s cottage to take shelter from an afternoon shower. The door was unlocked and they’d gone inside, even after they’d found that no one was home. That was when Richard had begun kissing her and had touched her breasts.

  She’d slapped him, but instead of stopping, he had picked her up and carried her into the overseer’s bedroom. She’d fought him, but he had been stronger. He hadn’t been brutal, yet he had forced himself upon her. He’d raped her on top of a ragged quilt, and when he was done, he’d apologized and assured her that he’d do the right thing and make her his wife.

  She’d been too shocked to cry, and too ashamed to tell anyone what had happened. She’d known that her father would have challenged Richard to a duel if she’d revealed what he’d done. And only one of them would have walked away from the field of honor.

  She’d hated Richard then, but she hadn’t wanted him dead. And she couldn’t bear to think of her father lying dead with a bullet hole in his chest. So she’d kept her secret well and lived with the guilt.

  Kutii had known, of course. Kutii knew all her secrets. And he knew without her telling him that she’d ignored her own inner warnings when she’d gone with Richard. But he’d not condemned her.

  “Life is a series of lessons,” the Incan had said.

  Her lesson had been that her life was complete without a man. She hadn’t needed or wanted a husband after that. She still didn’t.

  She had never seen Richard again. After a few weeks of trying to speak with her and being refused, he’d gone to Boston to buy a ship with his father. There he’d met and courted a judge’s widow ten years his senior. Richard had married the woman and enjoyed her wealth for nine months before he’d slipped on an icy step and broken his neck.

  Bess had wept then, not for Richard, but for the girl she’d been. Then she’d put the incident behind her and gone on to a life in which Fortune’s Gift was what truly mattered.

  The sex act was vastly overrated, she thought with a sigh. She remembered Richard’s thrusting as damp and uncomfortable, but nothing nearly as painful as the time she’d been thrown from a bull and broken her arm. It had been the shame of his betrayal and her own foolishness that had hurt so badly.

  No, she didn’t want a husband. And she didn’t suffer the pangs of sexual desire that seemed to plague the lower classes.

  Or she hadn’t, until this rough-hewn Scot had leaped out of a tree into her life . . .

  Bess rolled into an ever-tighter ball and listened to Kincaid’s steady breathing and to the rain hitting the roof. And when he turned over in his sleep and carelessly tossed an arm across her shoulder, she lay still and let the arm stay, feeling oddly comforted by his warm, hard touch.

  Chapter 9

/>   It was just light enough to see and still raining when Bess opened her eyes. For a moment she couldn’t remember where she was. The musty smells of hay and horses were familiar, but she didn’t recognize the roof overhead or the piecemeal barn with its missing boards and sagging loft door. She lay there still only half awake, staring bleary-eyed up at the cobwebs and listening to the cooing pigeons as they strutted along a beam overhead. Then Kincaid mumbled a woman’s name in his sleep, and Bess snapped out of her stupor and tried to sit up.

  With her first conscious movement, she became instantly cognizant of last night’s events. “Oh,” she murmured in dismay. Heat scalded her face and washed over her as she realized she was curled intimately against Kincaid, so intimately that she could feel the hard proof of his arousal against her buttocks. Her riding skirt and shift were hiked up around her bare thighs, and her stockings were scandalously low. Both of his arms were around her, and one big hand rested intimately on her breast.

  For a half-dozen heartbeats, panic seized her. Holding her breath, she lay frozen in place, trying to decide if Kincaid was awake or sleeping.

  His face was nestled into her hair, and his long, muscular legs were tangled in hers. Sweet Lord! Had he taken advantage of her in the night without her realizing it?

  Cautiously, she tried to wiggle loose from his embrace, but he only groaned and clasped her tighter. She couldn’t remember him undressing in the night, but his chest and arms were bare, and the brawny leg over hers was certainly unclothed. She thought perhaps her chances of escaping by sliding down would be better, but she reconsidered once she reasoned that if she attempted that move, she would come in direct contact with his swollen male member.

  Gathering her courage, she whispered his name. “Kincaid.” Her voice sounded scared and breathy. “Kincaid,” she repeated. “Roll over.”

  He sighed and nestled closer. His lips brushed the back of her neck, sending a shiver of delight through her veins. At the same instant, he began to caress her breast lazily with his fingers. To her horror, that not only felt good, but her nipple swelled to a tight bud beneath her stays and linen bodice. “Kincaid!” she hissed. “What are you doing?”

  He sat up so quickly that he yanked her with him. She rolled away into the hay as he came to his feet, pistol in hand, stark naked, in the dim morning light.

  Bess knew she should look away for modesty’s sake, but she couldn’t. Wide-eyed, and with her lips parted in surprise, she gazed at him. Her throat thickened and her angry words died unspoken.

  By the sweet eyes of God! He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. His nearly hairless chest was broad and corded with sinew; his thewy arms bulged with muscle, and his stomach was board-flat and brown as old honey. His waist tapered to narrow hips, and a sprinkling of gold-dust hair formed a triangle that led to an upright shaft, thicker around and longer than Bess had ever seen. Unconsciously, she moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue and sighed softly.

  Kincaid’s thighs were like young trees; the one exposed buttock that was visible was as lean and hard as the rest of him. His bronzed skin bore the scars of many battles, but they only added to his beauty rather than detracted from it. His knees were well formed, his ankles trim, and his feet large and high-arched. Even the nails on his toes were as clean and close-trimmed as his fingernails.

  “Have ye never seen a man before?” he asked boldly. The burr in his deep voice was so thick that she could hardly make out the words, but there was no need for her to try.

  “I have,” she admitted. It was true. No country girl was ignorant of a man’s physique. She’d gone with her grandmother to administer to the sick and wounded since she was a child. Human or beast, when a life hung in the balance, Mama Lacy believed that there was no place for false modesty in herself or in her granddaughter. “I’ve seen many,” Bess continued thickly, “but none to match you.”

  He laughed. “A compliment?”

  She forced herself to look into those penetrating ginger-colored eyes. “It was.” Her voice was so low that the patter of rain on the roof nearly drowned her answer.

  He lowered the pistol and took a step toward her. “Woman, I—”

  Fear lanced through her as she realized what he must think. Air hissed through her clenched teeth. Marry, come up! she cried inwardly. She sounded like a common slattern! What ailed her that such words could come from her mouth? Excitement bubbled up from the pit of her stomach to make her wits giddy and her mouth dry.

  “If ye’d like a closer look—”

  “Cover yourself,” she said sharply. “Have you no manners?”

  His mouth tightened. “What is it ye want of me?”

  “I want you to act like a gentleman,” she said, stepping back from the abyss that had opened before her. “You curled around me so tightly in your sleep that you nearly squeezed the life from me.” Unfamiliar sensations were still washing over her, and the heat that had started in her neck and face had settled in her loins, making her as jumpy as an untrained filly.

  He spread his broad, scarred hands, palms up. “Bess—” he began.

  Her hands knotted into fists at her side. “Did you . . . did we . . . Last night, did we do—”

  He stared at her in surprise for a moment, then began to chuckle as he turned away to pull on his breeches. “If we had, woman, ye’d not need to ask. I’m nay a boasting man, but when I make love to a woman, she doesna forget so quickly.”

  To her shame, she could not tear her eyes away. Bent over as he was, his, bare bottom was comely enough to make a spinster weep.

  Bess swallowed hard, trying to dissolve the knot in her throat. I’m a spinster, she realized. No one dares to call me so to my face, but many must think so.

  But looking at Kincaid’s virile body didn’t make her weep. It made her think forbidden thoughts that a lady would die before admitting. She could still feel the weight of his arm over her . . . the heat of his manhood against her—No! She’d not allow herself to imagine such wickedness. “You had no right to take advantage of me,” she protested, but he cut her short as he turned back and flashed her a devilish grin.

  “Nay,” he countered. “Who’s being taken advantage of? Was I staring at ye like I wanted to eat ye for breakfast? ‘Twas ye, hinney. And many a man would take that as a ‘come hither and do what ye will’ look.”

  She backed away from him, trying to smooth down her skirt and pull up her stockings all at the same time. “You were the one with your arms wrapped around me,” she accused. “And you as bare as a new-hatched egg. I trusted you. And when I went to sleep, you had clothes on!”

  “Hist, now. Keep your voice down. There may be someone in the yard. I admit it’s early for that pack of hounds we saw drinkin’. in the tavern to be abroad, but ye never can tell. They think you’re my woman, and ‘twould seem mighty strange did they hear ye canting about my bare ass.”

  “What happened to your clothes?”

  “I got up in the night. I heard someone prowlin’ around and I—”

  “Like as not, you went outside to relieve yourself, as much whiskey as you slopped down.”

  “As I said, I heard a noise and I went to see what it was. Another rider arrived in the middle of the night, a farmer from one of the islands in the bay. He’s here to meet his brother coming in by boat this morning. He was wetter than a drowned skunk, but chirping merry with drink. I had to help him up to the tavern door. When I came back, I realized I’d scolded ye about sleepin’ in wet clothes and here was I doin’ the same. So I took them off. Ye canna tell me that it’s normal for a man in Maryland to sleep in all his clothes.”

  “You’ll sleep in your clothes when you sleep next to me, or I’ll have the blankets and you’ll be up a tree,” she warned. “I never agreed to whore for you on this trip.”

  “I told ye, I am no wild boar that ruts with every female he sees. ‘Twas you sittin’ on my lap when I woke up. Like as not, you got scared of a mouse in the night and crawled into my arms.�
��

  “I never did.”

  He pulled his leather vest on, flexing first one arm and then the other to taunt her. “But ye stared, ye canna deny that, can ye?”

  “It was a shock.”

  “And a shock to me to be peered at so. A man has his principles, ye ken. I like to choose my own women.”

  “And I’m not your type,” she finished for him. “You’ve said that. But I needn’t tell you that you’re not my type. I want no man, but if I did, it wouldn’t be a mangy Scot without a chamber pot to call his own or an acre of land to empty it on.”

  The barb drew blood. He blanched beneath his tan, but covered it with a quick retort. “We’re in a sweet mood this morning, aren’t we?”

  “And shouldn’t I be, after what I was forced to be part of last night? I’m not accustomed to witnessing tavern brawls.”

  “Bess.” His tone deepened. “If I am to protect ye, ye must let me do it as I see fit.”

  “There was no need for you to start that fight. The man was rude, no more. You needn’t have hit him for—”

  “Ye are wrong. I know him.”

  “You can’t know him. You’re a stranger here.”

  “I’ve known his kind from Edinburgh to Stockholm. He was a fool and a bully, and he would have stirred up more trouble than I could have handled if I hadn’t stopped him.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said. “I think you’re the bully. You kicked him when he was down. That’s dirty—”

  “There are two kinds of fighting men,” he told her softly, “the live and the dead. If I hadn’t beaten him senseless, I could have ended up dead and you . . .” He trailed off. “Ye wishin’ you were.”

  She shook her head, still not willing to believe him. “I hope your head feels the size of a coach wheel. It should.”

  “My head is my own affair, thank you, lady,” he said grimly. He ran his fingers through his long hair, snapped a leather fringe off his vest, and tied his unruly yellow mane behind his neck. “Ye’ve straw sticking out of yours,” he observed.