"You think all maidens are hot for you." Fire Dancer slapped him lightly on his chest. "I told you. Stay away from Mack-en-zie."
"Ah , so you did. So I will." Okonsa winked. Long ago he had learned to say what others wanted him to. "Good night, brother. Sweet dreams."
"Good night," Fire Dancer answered. "Go carefully and do not get yourself into trouble that you cannot find your way out of."
"Me?" Okonsa grabbed the rope. "This man does not fear. You will rescue me, brother, should I stumble." His gaze hardened. "You always do."
Then he shimmied up the rope into the darkness and away from the man he wanted so desperately to be.
Mary pressed her hand to Lieutenant John Allen's bare, hairy chest as he rolled off her onto his back on the narrow cot. The only light in the kitchen came from the coals that still glowed in the stone fireplace. In the corner of the kitchen was where she slept, on this soldier's cot Major Albertson had given her.
Mary rolled onto her side and wiped the beads of sweat from her upper lip. It was hot inside the kitchen, too hot for sleeping or lovemaking, but John refused to go with her to the open forest. Something about privacy , he had said.
Mary draped her bare leg over John's legs and leaned to brush her breast against his arm.
He sighed and tucked his hand behind his head. "Ah, Mary, you're a sweet dear." He squeezed her breast. "As sweet as any dairy maid in Sussex."
She smiled, tracing a pattern with her finger on his sweaty chest. "You are stallion, John of my heart." She laughed huskily. Truth was, his man-stick was not particularly impressive, nor was his ability to please a woman on the sleeping mat. But that came with time in a relationship, didn't it? It had been so with her husband.
Mary rested her head on John's shoulder. She wished he would bathe more often. She had even tried to get him to swim in the stream one night with her, but he'd refused. She wrinkled her nose. All white men smelled, so she guessed she would get used to it, eventually. When she lived in England across the great ocean in a fine house she would be surrounded by smelly Englishmen and their women.
"John?"
He had closed his eyes. "Mary?"
"John, it is time we speak."
He didn't open his eyes. "Mmmhmmm."
"Soon the peace talks will be over. My brothers will go back to village." She waited for a response. She didn't get one. "John?" She pushed him with her hand.
He opened his eyes. They were as blue as the Father's sky. She liked his blue eyes.
"Did you hear this woman speak? I said, soon I will have to go."
"You don't think your brothers would allow you stay through my tour? I've only another six months in this Godforsaken wilderness and then it will be home I go. Home to Sussex and my mother's pudding."
"It would not be right for this woman to stay in the fort without her brothers. Not a woman unmarried."
He closed his eyes. "I'm sorry to hear that, love." He shifted in the bed, making himself more comfortable. "I'll miss you when you're gone."
The conversation was not going as Mary had hoped. She had hoped than when she told her soldier she had to leave, he would declare his eternal love for her and offer to wed her now. Tonight. Even a promise of hands would be enough to keep Okonsa and Fire Dancer from forcing her to return to their village.
She closed her eyes and then opened them again. "John."
His eyes were closed. "Mary, be a dear and allow me to sleep an hour, no more. My watch ends at two and it's necessary that I be on the palisade to turn over my duties to the next man."
"John." She punched his arm. "Did you hear what this woman said?"
When she punched him, his eyes flew open. "Ouch!" He rubbed his arm. "You said you were going back to your village. What else would you have me hear, wench?"
She lowered her gaze. "If you are going to wed this woman, it must be soon. Word must be sent to my mother."
He sat up instantly. "If I'm going to what?"
"W . . . wed this woman. Make to marry." She rose to her knees behind him and wrapped her arms around him. He jerked away from her and climbed off the bed.
"Marry you?" He picked up his dirty red uniform breeches from the floor and pulled them on with jerky movements. "Whatever gave you the notion I intended to wed you?"
The tone in his voice made Mary reach for the holey linen sheet on the edge of the camp cot and cover her nakedness. She wasn't ashamed of her body, but she was ashamed of herself. She realized she may have made a mistake. A terrible mistake. "You . . . you told this woman you love her. You say she is beautiful. You say she is your stars in your heaven."
He tucked his flaccid stick into his breeches and yanked on the laces. "I never said I was going to marry you." He laughed. "I never said any such thing."
She watched him as he dropped his white shirt over his head. "No. You did not say marry, but you said love. You . . . you take this woman's body to be yours. In my village, among my people, if you say love, if you accept a woman's gift of her flesh, a man marries the woman."
"Well, this isn't the futtering village, and I am not one of your people." He stuffed his shirt into his breeches and reached for his redcoat, obviously in a hurry to get out. "I've already got a nag for a wife at home."
She lowered her gaze. He hadn't told her he was married. All she could think of was the grass-mat floor of her mother's wigwam. She wanted to walk on the polished floor boards John had described. She wanted to see his mother's painted china. She wanted to see the orangery, even though she didn't know what one was. "John, this woman . . . this woman would be second wife." It wasn't what she had hoped for, being a man's number two wife. The Lenape didn't usually even approve of multiple marriages, except when they were made necessary by war or famine. But it would be worth being a less important wife, if only she could live in a stone and glass house. If only she could taste butter cake.
He propped his leg on an overturned bucket and rolled up his wool stockings. He had the strangest look in his eyes. "Second wife? You think I'm some heathen that I would defy God's law? You ignorant savage. We Englishmen do not take second wives."
Savage. Heathen . She knew these words well. They were bad words. Hateful words. And they stung. "You do not take second wives?" There were tears in her eyes. "But you do make love to women when your wife waits for you in your home?" She wiped her runny nose with the back of her hand. "This woman thinks you are savage, John Allen."
The soldier slapped her hard across her face. Mary closed her eyes and lifted her palm to her cheek. His strike smarted, but the pain was not nearly as great as the pain in her heart.
Mary sat on her knees, her eyes closed. She waited until she heard him go and then she laid back on the lumpy cot. Tears welled in her eyes, but they did not flow. She would not cry for herself, only for the baby that grew inside her.
Barefooted, Mackenzie hopped from one flat rock to the next. She laughed as she splashed cool water on her legs. It was a beautiful, hot afternoon. The sun shone, but the thick foliage of the trees shaded her from the burning rays. The forest was filled with insect and bird song and Mackenzie felt truly happy.
Everything was going so well for her. The portrait of Fire Dancer was nearly complete and she knew it was the best work she'd ever done.
Each night he came to her and told her stories of his people and their land. Major DuBois would be here within two or three days. Then she would paint him. She refused to think about what would happen then. She'd not think about going home and ruin her joy.
Mackenzie lifted her blue sprigged skirt to her knees and skipped to the next rock. Having forgone her corset weeks ago, she felt carefree and cool wearing only her shift, her father's shirt, and her skirt. The women at home would have been mortified. Mrs. Faye and Mrs. Canter would probably have fainted at the sight of her dressed like this. But it was so hot and Mackenzie was so far from civilization that it didn't matter.
Fire Dancer said the women in his village wore no corset, nor any bodice or shirt at all
in the heat of the summer. Bare breasted, he said they were. What would Mrs. Faye and Mrs. Canter think of that? Compared to the Lenape woman, Mackenzie figured, she really wasn't so shocking, after all.
The sound of a musical note in the trees caught Mackenzie's attention. She saw nothing, but the sound of the sweet notes of a flute were unmistakable. Mackenzie smiled. She knew who played the pipe.
Fire Dancer was a romantic suitor beyond her expectations. He sang to her in his strange language. He played his bone flute for her. He brought gifts of shiny stones and bright feathers. Last night he had brought her a fistful of flowers he picked for her in the forest. Of course, he wasn't really a suitor. Mackenzie knew that, but it was fun to pretend.
She stood on her tiptoes on the rock and pirouetted in the direction of the sound of the music. "Fire Dancer?" She didn't call too loudly for fear one of the soldiers would hear her and come running. She sneaked out the back gate to come here, hoping Fire Dancer would follow her. Seeing him only in the wee hours of the night just wasn't enough anymore.
"Fire Dancer?" She jumped to another rock, and stepped into the water to wade toward the bank. The cold water made gooseflesh on her bare legs. "If you don't show yourself," she said to the trees, "I'll go back to the fort."
She climbed up the bank and turned, resting her hands on her hips. She could still hear the magical flute music. Each note was hollow and resonant. It was one of those tunes that made a strange ache in one's heart. It had to be a love song.
"Fire Dancer," she whispered. He was so close. Where was he? Then she noticed his bare legs swinging from a tree limb on the far side of the stream, the rest of his body obscured by the leaves.
"There you are," she called.
The music stopped and in one smooth motion he leaped from the tree onto the mossy bank. "The water feels good, ah?"
She smiled. "Yes. Ah," she pronounced, proud that she was picking up a few words of Shawnee.
He pointed upstream. "Not far from this place is a pool. You would go with me?" He held out his hand.
"You mean swimming?"
"Bathing. Swimming. It is much the same to this man." He still held out his hand, beckoning her.
The notion was shocking. Tempting. It was so damned hot and sticky today. Mackenzie could imagine the cold water trickling down her back. She could imagine washing her hair in the free-flowing water instead of with a pitcher of water and a pan in the kitchen.
Then, there was another matter to consider. Alone, they could touch, they could kiss. Mackenzie spent a lot of time these days thinking of kissing . . . thinking of what it would be like to experience even more intimacy . . .
Before she could change her mind, Mackenzie grabbed her stockings and boots, dumped them into her dry water bucket and waded across the stream toward him. "You know, if my father catches us, he'll hang us both 'till we're dead, and that will be the end of the peace talks . . ."
"This man does not care to take his last breath at the end of a British manake rope." When they reached the far side of the stream, he took her hand in his. "But if this man must hang, then to hang beside you, Mackenzie, would make my heart sing."
She laughed. "You have a strange way with words, Fire Dancer. You compliment me by saying you'd like to share the noose with me." She laughed again, swinging her hand and his.
They walked along the stream bank for fifteen or twenty minutes. Mackenzie thought nothing of her father, or the fort, or even the portrait of Fire Dancer beneath her bed. She was living for the moment, today, and it was turning out to be one of the best days she'd ever had.
The terrain grew rockier as Fire Dancer led Mackenzie around a bend in the stream. The stream was wider here and the water ran deeper. She could tell by the movement on the surface of the water.
"This is the place this man likes to come when he wishes to leave the fort. This man rests here when he wishes not to think of fighting, or sickness, or the land he fears his people will lose."
Mackenzie set down her bucket and stared at the inviting swirl of water in the center of the stream. If she was going to do this, it had to be now. She couldn't be gone too long from the fort, or her father or Josh might realize she wasn't in her chamber.
Getting up her nerve to disrobe in front of Fire Dancer, Mackenzie unhooked her skirt and stepped out of it.
He stood behind her and said nothing.
She pulled her linen shirt over her head and let it float to the mossy ground. She knew he watched her. She knew how sheer her white shift must be in this bright sunlight. Slowly, she walked toward the water. She felt self-conscious, but not enough to cover herself. It seemed that their relationship had reached a point where ideas of right and wrong were no longer so easily defined. Swimming, half-naked with Fire Dancer seemed right. It was what he wanted, else why would he have brought her? It was what she wanted, else she'd not have come.
Mackenzie heard him follow behind her.
She grasped the trunk of a sapling and stepped off the grassy bank into the knee-deep water. She caught her breath as she adjusted to the shock of the cold. The water moved behind her, splashing her back as Fire Dancer approached. Nervous at the thought of him so near, and feeling vulnerable, she plunged in head-first.
Mackenzie came up for air in the center of the stream where the water was waist-deep. Soaking wet, her shift clung to her breasts. Her cold, hard nipples stuck out like raisins on an oatmeal cookie. They couldn't be missed by man or beast.
Fire Dancer waded toward her, the muscles of his bare chest rippling as he walked. He was a small, compact man compared to many Englishmen she knew, but he gave off a sense of power and confidence unlike any man she had ever known. As she stared at his bare torso, she tried not to think about whether or not he still wore his loin cloth.
She placed her hands over her breasts with a latent sense of modesty and watched him wade through the water. He was so graceful. He had such a presence about him. He truly was a prince.
At two arms' length from her, he dove under the water with a splash. Mackenzie covered her face and gave a squeal of laughter. The water was so cold that it made her teeth chatter.
A second later he came up behind her. She was ready for him. "Not so close." She splashed water at him playfully.
He tipped his head back and ran his hands from his forehead back, over his hair. The water ran in rivulets from his sleek black hair, over his shoulders, down his powerful arms.
"It is a good place?" He smiled.
She smiled back. "Ah."
They stood in the water, face to face and studied each other. The same electricity that Mackenzie had felt in her room the other night was here. It was so strong that she could feel it, smell it, taste it.
She wanted to taste him. She wanted to feel his wet skin beneath her fingertips. A part of her wanted to hide her nearly naked breasts from him, yet a part of her wanted to share them with him.
"Well, are you going to kiss me or not?" The words popped out of her mouth before she had time to weigh the consequences. This was why she had really come, wasn't it? To make love, at least in some capacity.
He waded toward her. "Only if you wish it, Mackenzie. This man would not take advantage of you. You are an innocent in the ways of men and women. Innocent of your own desires."
She felt her cheeks color at his bluntness on this subject, although she didn't know why. He was blunt about the things that proper English men and women didn't speak of. Why should this be any different?
He brought his hands through the water and rested them on her hips. She leaned forward; her arms still covered her chest. When his lips touched hers, she raised her hands and slid them over his shoulders. The water was so cold. He was so warm.
Mackenzie kissed him once, twice, three times. Her tongue tangled with his in a frenzy of passion they equally shared. When he lifted his hand from her hip to move higher, she didn't stop him. This was what she wanted. It was what she had thought of when she lay alone on her cot at night, her ow
n hands on her breasts. She had thought of his hands down there , even.
The wet material of her shirt was rough on her nipples. She could feel her breasts responding, even before he cupped one with his warm hand.
"Oh," she sighed. She closed her eyes and pressed her mouth to his collar bone.
Fire Dancer kissed her neck and nibbled at her earlobe. He stroked her nipple with the pad of his thumb. She didn't understand how it was connected to her breasts, but between her legs she felt a pulsing warmth.
Mackenzie smoothed her hands over his shoulders, his chest. She loved the way his hard muscles felt beneath her hands. The cold water emphasized the heat of his sun-kissed skin beneath her fingertips.
She relaxed muscle by muscle. The caress of his hands made her sigh, made her moan. His touch made her want more. It made her want the world to be different. It made her wish that somehow she could be with this man forever. Mackenzie brushed her mouth against his and squeezed her eyes shut. She kissed him again and darted her tongue out to touch his.
Fire Dancer abruptly pulled away. He pressed a quick kiss to her mouth.
She opened her eyes to see the back of his head as he swam away. "Where are you going?" she called after him with disappointment. Her heart was pounding, her pulse still throbbing. "Is something wrong? Didn't you like it?
"I brought you to this place to swim, not to kiss. This man swims."
Understanding his meaning, she took a deep breath to calm herself. She was beginning to understand his Indian logic. He meant that he was afraid they were getting carried away with their emotion . . . with their feelings for each other.
He was right. Maybe it was time they cooled off, before they did something they might regret later. Mackenzie had enjoyed the touching and kissing, but she wasn't sure she was ready for anything more. To take that final step . . . to actually make love to Fire Dancer . . . there would be no way to turn back from that.
She dove into the water and joined him on the far side of the bank. They swam under water and above. They splashed each other. Once he lifted her and threw her high in the air. She landed in the center of the stream with a great splash and didn't surface until she had him firmly by the ankle and pulled him under.
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