“Yes. Upstairs, one bedroom has been swept, the bed remade with fresh linens found in a chest. I rested there earlier.”
She nodded, slipped from his hold, and started for the stairs.
Just then, the front door burst open, and Private Thackery entered the parlor. Raymond stiffened, reminded of his quest that night. “Colonel, sir, the men grow restless. They—”
“I will be right with them,” Raymond said with a sigh.
Silently, Tia swore to herself. She was losing him. She must not. Where she stood now, high against the wall of the stairway, only Raymond could see her. She loosened her long dark hair from the twist at her nape, her eyes meeting his. One by one, she began to unbutton the ceaseless closures on her bodice. She had done this too often, she thought a bit hysterically. She was becoming far too adept with buttons. She needed to slow down.
Ray was staring at her, then he looked from her back to his soldier. He was wavering. She almost had him.
“Sir!” Thackery said.
Thankfully, she had greatly reduced the amount of clothing she wore in the last years of privation. Ray started to turn away again. No. She slipped the bodice from her shoulders, her eyes riveted on his, and waited, bare-breasted, determined that he would not leave her.
Raymond looked back to Private Thackery.
“The time is not quite right. Thirty minutes; I will be with the men in thirty minutes. Tell them to be ready to ride at that time.” Thirty minutes! Would it be enough? If Ian had gotten her message, he would ride straight to Cimarron. He would have ridden across the state faster than she. Tia would delay the attack as long as she could.
Private Thackery exited.
“Yes, by God, privacy. You, alone ...” he said.
Tia continued up the steps, her heart slamming against her chest. A knife. She should have brought a knife. She could have executed him as he had intended to execute her father. But she didn’t think that she could kill a man in cold blood. Not this way. If she were facing a man with a gun while she stood on her father’s property, surely, she could shoot to kill. But murder, in this manner ... It didn’t matter anyway; she didn’t have a knife.
“To the right,” Raymond said. He was behind her, just inches away. She continued down the hallway, veering to the right as he had instructed.
She thought she heard a sound. Something. Movement in the house. Perhaps it was the whisper of the wind against the rattling, decaying old manse. Or perhaps she was at last losing her mind, fearing that God would strike her down for this act.
“The door there,” Raymond said. Apparently, he had heard nothing. Her imagination.
She entered a room. Moonlight, still that strange, unearthly shade of red, filtered through the open drapes. Once, this room had belonged to the master here. A handsome mantel stood against the left wall. A large bed faced the windows with their fluttering, now tattered draperies.
“The bed is clean, the sheets are fresh, tended by my men,” Raymond said softly.
“So you said,” Tia whispered. And suddenly, she could do nothing but stand there, watching the eerie color of the night spill upon the room. She felt very cold. She started to shake, Oh God, of all the things that she had done, this was the worst.
“My love ...” A whisper, and Raymond was behind her, swiftly. His hands moved upon her bare arms. He drew her against him. His lips touched her neck. She clenched down on her teeth, hating him. He shifted the fall of her hair, pressed his mouth to her shoulder. Then she felt his fingers on the tiny buttons that closed her skirt, felt it fall away, felt his fingers then entwine on the cord that held her pantalettes, and then they, too, had fallen, and the strange, bloodred dusting of moonbeams fell upon the length of her bare flesh. It had been all too easy for him. She needed more time!
“Come, my love ...”
Come. Good God, how could she endure his touch when she had known another ...
“Look at the moon!” she entreated, walking toward the window.
“Tia, the moon, like the war, will come again.”
“It’s a beautiful moon, yet shaded in red—”
“There’s no time for talk.”
His scabbard and sword were cast aside. His cavalry jacket and shirt were shed.
“I need another drink, Raymond. This is new to me.”
“Madam,” he said curtly, running his fingers through his hair. She had denied him too long in life, she realized. And now that she had offered him what he had so long wanted, he had no more patience. “I remind you—you invited me to this room. Shall I leave?”
“No! You mustn’t leave!”
He lifted her, bore her down on the bed. He rose above her; his eyes met hers. Her heart hammered; she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t follow through with this. She was going to scream, to laugh, scream, beat against him ...
“My love!” he said again, and kissed her fingertips.
“My—love,” she whispered in return, but she choked on the words, fighting the tears that suddenly stung her eyes with a vengeance. She had to stop this; she could go no further. My love! She had heard those words before. Spoken in another man’s voice ...
“Oh, good God!”
The furious, mocking exclamation suddenly exploded from the shadows.
In another man’s voice!
A deep-timbred voice, husky and mocking, suddenly thundered out of the red-coated darkness in the room. Not just another man’s voice—his voice.
Yes, his. It couldn’t be! She was losing her mind; she had recalled that voice from memory, and brought with her memory the flesh-and-blood appearance of the man. Oh, God, her guilt had played havoc with her mind—he couldn’t possibly be here. But he was. And he had been here, following them through the shadowed house!
Yes, he was here. She saw only a shadow then, hovering above her, but she knew it was him. She knew his voice so well—knew it in laughter, taunting, as he taunted now. She’d known it gentle upon rare occasions, and sometimes, oh God, yes, sometimes she’d known it in fury, as furious as it was now, as dangerous as the portents of the bloodred color that danced upon the moon.
She froze. Her blood seemed to congeal, colder than ice. She felt Raymond atop her. Felt her own nakedness. Taylor’s deep voice struck her again like a whip.
“That’s it—I’ve had it with this charade!” Taylor announced. And then she saw his towering form more clearly, and she felt the fiery tension of his very presence. Felt! Oh, God, she couldn’t look his way!
“What in the name of the Almighty?” Raymond demanded. “Taylor! You!” he spat out.
But the sound of steel could suddenly be heard in the room, and in the eerie touch of moonlight, Tia saw a flash of silver—and the touch of a sword at Raymond’s throat.
“Stop. Stop right now!” Tia cried. The sword rested just at Raymond’s jugular. Taylor’s eyes remained riveted upon Tia as he gritted his teeth.
“Ah, good, I have your attention,” Taylor said.
She should die right now, Tia thought.
Because certainly, he would kill her later.
She closed her eyes, praying that the night itself would disappear. He was not supposed to be here; he was supposed to be in the North! Good God, if she’d imagined he was near, she would have swallowed all pride and thrown herself on his mercy, begging his assistance rather than chancing this desperate game she now played. She knew that he would have helped her father.
“I’m sorry,” Taylor said, “but this charming little domestic adventure has gone quite far enough. Colonel Weir, if you will please rise carefully.”
“Damn you, Taylor Douglas! You’ll die for this. I swear it! How did you get in?” Weir demanded, rising, swallowing down his fury at the interruption—by a hated enemy.
“I entered by the door, Captain.”
Thankfully, Tia thought, the scene was not as wretched as it might have been. Raymond Weir’s trousers were still in place. But then again ...
The point of Taylor’s sword suddenly
lay between Tia’s breasts.
“Tia, get up. And for the love of God, get some clothing on. I grow weary of finding you naked everywhere I go—other than in our marital bed, of course.”
“Marital bed!” Raymond repeated, stunned.
“Ah, poor fellow, you are indeed surprised. A fact that might spare your life, though I had thought of you before as something of an honorable man, just a fanatic. But yes, I did say marital bed. You hadn’t heard? Though it grieves me deeply to admit, the lady is a liar and a fraud. She can marry no one for she is already married. She is wily, indeed, a vixen from the day we met. All for the Southern Cause, of course. She will play her games! But what of that great cause now, Tia?”
Humiliated, Tia braced herself against the fury behind the sarcasm in his words. What would he do? She’d sworn not to play the role she’d managed to make quite famous when they’d first met. Well, tonight, she had not ridden as the Lady Godiva. She’d tested his temper before: Never like this. But he had sent her home, sent her away. And he hadn’t written, or even sent word.
And she’d had no choice in this!
So thinking, and finding refuge in anger herself, she caught the tip of his blade and cast the sword aside as she leapt from the bed. She wanted so desperately to find some dignity in this situation—difficult when she stumbled desperately in her search for all her clothing. She could feel her husband watching her. She was amazed he hadn’t simply killed her.
“Tia?” Raymond said, and the sudden streak of naked pain in his voice gave her so much pause that she had to remind herself that he had meant to kill her father. “You are married to him.”
“Yes.”
“But you came to me ... tonight!” he rasped out, wanting to believe that she had desired him.
“You were going to attack Cimarron,” she said, adding bitterly, “and kill my father.”
Raymond shook his head. “Your father ... no, Tia. I meant to seize the property, nothing more.”
“That’s not true! My father was to be killed—executed.”
Yes, it was true. The truth of it was in Weir’s eyes. He was, in his strange way, an honorable man, and found lying difficult. “I would have spared his life—for you!”
“How touching,” Taylor interrupted, his voice a drawl that didn’t hide his fury. “Tell me, Tia, was that explanation for him—or me?”
She moistened her lips to speak, but she was too hurt, angry, and ashamed to address Taylor. I would have come to you! she wanted to cry. But I didn’t know where you were, and there was no time! You must understand, my father’s life is at risk ...
She couldn’t explain. She lashed out instead. “Taylor, you’re being a truly wretched bastard. You don’t understand anything!” she screamed, her fingers trembling so hard she couldn’t get her buttons fastened. Both men were staring at her.
She’d made a mistake with her bitter words, she quickly realized, for Raymond suddenly made a split second decision to defend her honor.
Her honor. It was laughable, for she had none left.
But Raymond made a dive for the sword he had so hastily discarded in his eagerness to be with her. He barely drew it from the sheath before the sound of crashing steel erupted in the night. Raymond’s sword went flying across the room, and the tip of Taylor’s blade was once again pressed to the Rebel’s throat.
“Taylor!” Tia cried out, and at last dared look at her husband. “Don’t ... murder him. Please!”
No, she had never seen such anger, so barely controlled. They had met and clashed before, they had argued, indeed, the war had never burned more brightly than between them. But this ... fury that now compelled him was such that she longed to shrink away, to run, to flee. Indeed, death itself would be far easier than facing what she must. He was tall, standing an even inch above Raymond, so filled with tension that the constriction of his muscles seemed evident even beneath the cut of his blue cavalry frockcoat. His eyes, a striking, curious hazel seemed to burn tonight with a red-gold fire as deadly as the haze about the moon. His features, very strongly and handsomely formed, were taut with his efforts to control the sheer fire of his anger.
She wanted so badly to cry out to him again. She had no words, but she wanted the anguish in her voice to convey what had been in her heart.
“Please, don’t ...” she said simply.
Those eyes rested upon her. Fire in the night.
Then Taylor gazed back at Raymond. “I’ve no intention of doing murder, sir. We are all forced to kill in battle, but I’ll not be a cold-blooded murderer. I’ve yet to kill any man over a harlot, even if that harlot be my own wife.”
Tia felt as if she’d been slapped, struck with an icy hand. And yet it was at that precise moment that she realized their situation. Good God! The yard was filled with soldiers! Rebel soldiers, enemies who could take Taylor down, murder him, without a thought!
“Call me what you will,” she cried, “but your life is in danger here, and you fool, there is much more at stake! There are nearly a hundred men outside preparing to march on my father’s house—”
“No, Tia, no longer,” Taylor said, and his gaze focused upon her again. “The men below have been seized. Taken entirely by surprise. Quite a feat, if I do say so myself. Not a life lost, Colonel,” he informed Raymond.
“So you’ll not murder me. What then?” Raymond asked.
“I believe my men are coming for you now, if you would like to don your shirt and coat.”
Raymond nodded, reaching for his shirt and frockcoat. The latter was barely slipped over his shoulders before two men appeared in the doorway. Yankee soldiers.
“To the ship, Colonel?” asked one of the men, a bearded, blond-headed fellow of perhaps twenty-five.
“Aye, Lieutenant Riley. Have Captain Maxwell take the lot of them north. Meet me with the horses below when the prisoners have been secured.”
“Sir?” the lieutenant said politely to Raymond.
Raymond looked at Tia. He bowed deeply to her. She dared do nothing but look back. The perfect soldier, Raymond accepted the situation—and the metal restraints slipped on his wrists by his Yankee captors. They departed the room.
She remained dead still, waiting. She couldn’t face Taylor. She wanted to cry out again, burst into tears, throw herself into his arms ...
If he were to kill her, would anyone blame him? She had put his life in danger often enough, willingly at first—he was, after all, the enemy.
Or had been.
And he would never believe that she hadn’t wanted to do what she’d done tonight, that the ties he had bound around her had been there, invisible but strong, a web he had woven that held her with far greater strength than the piece of paper that proclaimed them man and wife. She had fought him so often. Now, when she wanted peace, to pray for his forgiveness, he stared at her with no mercy.
But could that matter now? she asked herself. She had prayed that Ian would come, her brother the enemy, with his Yankee troops, and he might have been the one to fight and save his inheritance. Ian hadn’t come; Taylor had, and he would make her father safe. Cimarron would be saved. She had been willing to pay any price ...
And this, it seemed, was the price.
So she braced herself. Waiting, at least, for a blow to fall. For him to touch her with some violence. She could feel it in him, feel it in the air, the way he must long to hurt her!
He came to her. Powerful hands gripped her shoulders, his fingers biting into her flesh. She met his eyes. His arm moved, as if he would strike her with all the force of his fury.
No blow fell. He pushed her from him. She closed her eyes, shaking, looking for the right words to tell him that she hadn’t wanted to come here, that she would have come to him ...
She heard him turn from her, walk away, head for the stairs.
She didn’t know what foolhardy demon stirred her then, but she found herself flying after him.
She caught him upon the stairs, stumbling to get ahead of him, t
o force him to face her. And then she couldn’t speak, she stuttered, faltered, and tried again. “Taylor, I—I—they said he meant to kill my father.”
“Step aside, Tia,” he said simply.
“Taylor, damn you! I had to come here, I had to do what I could to stop him. Can’t you see that, don’t you understand?”
He stood dead still then, staring at her with eyes still seeming to burn with the red-gold blaze of the ghostly, blood-haunted night. She had lost him, she thought. Lost him. Just when she had begun to realize ...
“I understand, my love, that you were ready, willing, and able to sleep with another man. But then, Weir is a good Southern soldier, is he not? A proper planter, a fitting beau for the belle of Cimarron, indeed, someone you have loved just a little for a very long time. How convenient.”
“No, I—”
“No?” His voice alone seemed to make her the most despicable liar.
“Yes, you know that—once we were friends. But I ...” She broke off, fighting the wave of tears that rushed to her eyes now. What was it? He was the enemy! And yet, staring into the gold steel of his eyes, feeling him there above her, knowing his anger, knowing how he leashed it now, knowing the scent of him ... and remembering ... the touch of his fingertips on her skin ...
And she knew then, quite startlingly, clearly, despite the circumstance, just how very much she loved him. Had, for quite some time. Neither duty, debt, nor honor had given her pause tonight. It had been the way she felt about him, loved him, him, only him.
“Please!” she whispered.
He slowly arched a dark brow. And then he reached out, touching her cheek. “Please? Please what? Are you sorry, afraid? Or would you seduce me, too? Perhaps I’m not such easy prey, for I am, at least, familiar with the treasure offered, and I have played the game to a great price already. When I saw you tonight ... do you know what I first intended to do? Throttle you, you may be thinking! Beat you black and blue. Well that, yes. Where pride and emotions are involved, men do think of violence. But I thought to do more. Clip your feathers, my love. Cut off those ebony locks and leave you shorn and costumeless, as it were—naked would not be the right word. But what if I were to sheer away these lustrous tresses? Would you still be about seducing men—friend and foe—to save your precious family and state? Not again, for until this war of ours is finished, I will have you hobbled—until your fate can be decided.”
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