“When will you ever think, Kendall? When will you ever learn? What the hell do you think will happen to you if the Yankees catch you? They’ll crucify you, Kendall. And Red Fox. If they catch an Indian sinking Federal ships . . . but Red Fox is a man, at least. And a warrior. He knows what might happen to him. But you, you little fool—”
“Don’t!” Kendall shrieked, unable to break his hold, but determined to be heard. “Don’t tell me about Red Fox being a man! And don’t tell me I don’t know. I was there, Brent! I was there when the Seminoles were all but eradicated! Do you think a woman can die any less than a man? Where do you get the right to risk your life constantly? Where does the difference lie? You are barely ever with me, and when you are, your mind leaves well before your body. You put me up on a shelf while you plan your warfare, then sail away. A woman is for entertainment only—expected to wait idly and anxiously for a man’s next return! Wrong, Brent! I cannot simply wait and worry.”
She wasn’t sure what impression her passionate speech made on him; he continued to glare at her. So many nights she had dreamed about his arms around her, and now that he held her, she was torn in two. The feel of him was good. The heat, the muscled vibrancy. Yet she wanted so badly to cast him from her, to prove that she was strong and capable and—equal.
“Kendall,” he said quietly, his lips coming close, his grip on her shoulders intensifying as he bent ever lower over her until his torso brushed hers, “pay attention to what I am saying. It’s all been pointed out to you before. If the Yankees catch you, they’ll return you to John Moore. But there’s a good chance they’ll consider you fair game first. They know you’ve been sleeping with a Rebel, and that you’ve been sabotaging their war efforts, whether you captain that ship or not. If you think life with John Moore was bad before, until you’re returned to him a second time—that is, if you have a mind left after the Yanks have finished with you.”
His words were so cold . . . like pellets of ice thrown on her one by one.
Did he care about her at all? It had been months since she had seen him. He had been in London where there was no war, where the ladies dressed in silks and maintained creamy complexions and a gentle, feminine demeanor. Had he been with another woman? With other women? She closed her eyes suddenly, wanting to touch him, wanting to feel that he was hers.
He wasn’t hers. He was the Night Hawk. Coming and then leaving her to darkness . . . always. Like the wind he whirled into her life, and when the tempest was gone, there was the funnel of emptiness.
Could he begin to understand how she felt?
“Brent,” she said softly, “did you know that women have donned uniforms and disguised themselves as men to join the front lines of battle? Harry got ahold of a Washington newspaper, and there was an article on the northern women, comparing them to their southern counterparts. Of course the author of the article admitted he had no southern statistics—”
“Kendall—”
“Listen to me, Brent. I swear it’s all true. The article was written because there was this tremendous battle at a place in Maryland called Sharpsburg and one of the Union wounded was a girl—”
“Stop it, Kendall!” Brent raged. “Just keep quiet! I don’t want to hear it, and none of it matters. If you can’t sit still by yourself, I swear I’ll turn you over to the Yanks myself. At least you’ll stay alive that way.”
“Alive! The female heart can stop a bullet as easily as the male—”
“Kendall, I swear to God, if you open your mouth again, I’ll close it for you.”
“You will not! You’ll listen—”
A sharp crack ended her sentence—his palm against her cheek. He saw the pain in her eyes, the reproach—and then the hostility. He wanted to apologize—but couldn’t bring himself to do so, and that tugged at his heart and the turmoil in his mind still further.
He tried to tell himself later that her mention of Sharpsburg had triggered his anger. He tried to find any number of other excuses.
But there was no excuse. And the guilt that plagued him even as she clawed out at him in a furious retaliation kept him fighting her.
“You see,” he taunted, the cruelty in his voice a hoarse cover for his longing to beg her forgiveness. He caught her flailing arms as she tried desperately to free herself from his hold. “You cannot escape. It’s a lesson we’ve been through before, but you can’t seem to get it right, can you? You can’t win, Kendall, so don’t fight me.”
“Let go of me,” she said, miserably trying to fight her tears. She couldn’t believe that he had actually struck her. Or that it had meant nothing to him to do so. A gentleman never struck a lady . . . but then, Brent probably didn’t consider her a lady. She was a Yankee’s wife, and nothing that she ever had with Brent could be truly right. He had whispered beautiful, impassioned words of love, yet she wondered if he had whispered those words for expediency’s sake.
No! No, he did love her. She believed it, she had to believe it . . .
But he had slapped her, and now he taunted her, deliberately provoked her.
She ceased struggling and stared at him with cool, narrowed eyes. “Captain McClain, you’re not my father, and you’re not my husband. There are times when I truly doubt that you’re my friend. Let go of me. And take your lessons and opinions elsewhere. I don’t want to be slapped, abused, taught—or touched—by you.”
“You’re acting like a child, Kendall, a spoiled little girl.”
“Oh, God!” she groaned, her teeth gritting with fury and aggravation. “I mean it, Brent, I—”
“Do you?” he interrupted, suddenly rigidly still and tense as he stared at her. And as she returned his stormy gaze, she knew that she didn’t. She wanted to go back; she wanted to close her eyes and open them again and discover that their argument had been a dream and that Brent was smiling at her, offering her his embrace.
What did he want from her? she wondered, wishing fervently that she didn’t love him, didn’t feel cherished, warmed, and comforted by his muscular touch.
She closed her eyes. “No,” she whispered.
“Kendall . . .” he murmured.
She didn’t know if he uttered her name with love or with a fevered desire. But it didn’t matter, because just as she couldn’t deny him, she couldn’t deny the response of her flesh to his. Yet what she felt wasn’t desire; the tempest of their anger had left her feeling as if she had been battered against the rocks, and all she sought was a safe harbor.
Tenderness, a gentle touch, to feel that he did love her, even if love was only an illusion.
The arms that had forced her down suddenly embraced her. Lips that had been held taut in a bitter line softened to touch hers. Like a breeze at first, and then hungrily . . . in an ardor that left no room for tenderness.
Kendall clung to him, as if weathering a storm. She did not fight the winds, but rather rode with them. She reexperienced the taste and touch and sensation, the scent of him, the masculine feel of his commanding lips on hers . . .
Familiar, missed, longed for . . .
Kendall looped her arms around his neck, glad to hold him, to inhale the sun and sea and male strength of him. But even as she held him and felt the touch of his lips and teeth and tongue, the shivery brush of his mustache and beard, the warmth of his sinewed arms, she fought the raw power of his male strength.
She was tired of learning the lessons.
He deserved to learn a few. Brent McClain always called the shots. Anger on his terms; love on his terms . . .
He broke away from her at last, and she couldn’t read the expression in the smoke of his gaze. A slight trembling shook her; it was so hard to think when he was so close. The heady potency of his touch was like a drug that overwhelmed her senses, and hence her mind. But she had to hold her own, and she felt that for her sanity she must prove her point.
She offered him a dazzling smile. “I’ve missed you so much, Brent,” she whispered, and the husky tremor of her voice was real.
He didn’t speak, and she reached out a tremulous hand to touch his cheek, loving the soft touch of his beard and the smooth bronze flesh. Had there ever been anyone, she wondered, more the epitome of the cavalier than he? A gentleman always, heartbreakingly handsome, yet as rugged and determined as the ever-changing land.
A sadness touched her as she smiled. Perhaps Brent couldn’t understand, because she was fighting a part of the very ideal for which they waged war—southern womanhood. Ahh, but they were supposed to be sheltered ladies, gentle flowers for men to valiantly protect. The ideal was beautiful and courtly and truly a dream.
But the men had never understood that the South bred strong women; from the wives of the poor farmers to the belles who married and ran the great plantations, they were expected to handle a rugged lot.
Yet Brent would defend the honor of a woman to his dying breath. As he would defend her life, always above his own. The code, the ideal, the dream; it was a part of him.
“You’ve taken my ship,” she said softly. “What more trouble can I get into?”
“Why?” he responded to her question with another. “Why did you risk it, Kendall?”
“It is my war, too, Brent.”
He shook his head. “No, Kendall. You don’t understand war. You gambled everything in the wild hope that you might kill John Moore.”
“No. You’re wrong, Brent. And I never took unnecessary risks. Red Fox and Harry ran the Rebel’s Pride, and they took a number of ships. Red Fox did not seek revenge; he did not slaughter the Yanks. I was behind it all, yes, and I was aboard once when they sank a frigate. And yes, Brent, I felt a wonderful power, a great surge of victory. It felt good to fight. But I was never hoping to kill John. If I could ever forget the things that happened, I could pity John. He has been dead a long time—in his heart.” Kendall ran her fingers through his hair, and luxuriated in the touch of the tawny gold. She smiled again. His hair was growing well over his collar. Then her smile faded. “You look thin,” she commented softly.
He straightened, and freed from his restraint, Kendall slid from his lap and walked idly around the bed to sit on the other side and eye the tiny bedside table with its squat gate legs. In the drawer was the knife Red Fox had taught her to use after she came so close to disaster aboard the schooner. Deftly she opened the drawer, slid the knife out, and slipped it unobtrusively beneath her thigh.
“Did things go badly in London?” she queried.
“No. Everything went well.”
Then why are you like this? she wanted to shout. It seemed that an unbreachable wall was growing between them, and what she was about to do would make it worse.
“Have you . . . have you spoken with Red Fox?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“He knows you’ve taken the ship?”
“Of course.”
And no doubt, Kendall thought bitterly, Red Fox was glad to see the Rebel’s Pride go. Relieved to be freed from the responsibility of constantly worrying about her . . .
Kendall tensed as she heard Brent stand and slowly walk around the bed. He removed his scabbard and sword and idly opened the buttons of his frock coat, tossing it aside before standing in front of her and cupping her chin caressingly in his long fingers to bring her eyes to his.
“Kendall,” he said thickly. “The fighting is over for you. Please, listen to me, because I sincerely mean what I say. If I hear of any more of your exploits, I will find you. And I’ll take you forcibly to another country to wait out the war. Do you understand me?”
“Brent—”
She barely saw him move, heard only a whisper of air—but suddenly he had dropped to one knee and drawn his knife from its strap about his calf.
And he held his knife against her breast.
His mouth was a line against the hardness of his jaw as she stared at him in startled confusion.
“What if I were a Yank, Kendall? There wouldn’t be a thing that you could do. My blade is at your breast.”
He slid the blade so that it slipped between the buttons of her gown, kissing her flesh, teasing it with coldness, threatening it, but not drawing a scratch. Her eyes were melded to his, it was hypnotism, it was anger. She clenched her own jaw, saying nothing as he slit the buttons one by one. Her own blade was hidden beneath the fabric of her gown, yet she didn’t move for it. Timing was her weapon.
“What would you do if I were a Yankee, Kendall?” he repeated.
She held her chin high. “Not all Yanks are cruel rapists, Brent.”
“No, they’re not. Nor should you ever count on all southern men being the essence of gentility. Do you see your position, Kendall?”
“Yes,” she snapped bitterly.
He stood and sheathed his knife, then removed the band from about his calf and turned from her as he pulled the tails of his shirt from his breeches.
“I haven’t much time,” he told her with his back still turned to her.
“You never do,” she commented dryly.
He spun back around. “I can’t help that, Kendall.”
“Ummm,” she murmured, lowering her lashes. “The gallant male must rush to the line of the fire.”
“Stop it, Kendall.”
She sat perfectly still, listening to the slight rustle as he removed his clothing.
“It’s morning, you know,” she said hollowly.
“So?”
“So you walk in to toss me about, dictate your orders, and then hop into bed. And God help me, I still love you, still want you. But you’ll walk right out with the bed still warm and sail away to fight without another thought of me until you’re ready to return.”
“I realize I haven’t much of a reputation left, Brent, but Amy is probably still in the cabin.”
“Kendall,” he growled impatiently, kneeling on the bed beside her. “I have been away for a long, long time. Your reputation is hardly relevant here. Our circumstances are unique. I’m quite sure that the Armstrongs will expect us to want to be together.”
She didn’t want to feel the sensual pull of his naked body against hers. She didn’t dare raise her lashes, or turn to him. Her body was already thrilling to the touch of his, blood seeming to heat, limbs to weaken, heart to thud in sweet anticipation. He lifted her hair from her neck and pressed his lips to the nape, nipping the flesh gently, caressing it with his lips . . . and the tip of his tongue. Heat seeped through her, liquefying and intensifying with each tender, taunting touch.
She couldn’t give in . . .
She faced him at last as he placed his hands on her shoulders and pressed her down to the bed. His eyes held hers as his hands pushed aside the fabric split by his blade, baring her breasts. He brought his weight alongside her, and gazed at one firm mound while he cradled it and raised the nipple to a peak with a graze of his thumb. Then he lowered his head to allow his lips to savor the fullness.
Kendall threaded her fingers into his hair, trying not to think of the pain of wanting him. A fire of longing and aching need rose from a center deep within her.
His hand slipped beneath the hem of her gown and ran a course of exotic heat from her calf to her inner thigh where he began to tantalize her vulnerable flesh with lazy circles. He paused for a moment, murmuring against her breast as he tugged at the gown.
“Let’s get rid of this,” he said huskily.
She swallowed and stiffened. “Kiss me, Brent.”
“I am.”
“My lips, Brent. Please, kiss me.”
He shifted obligingly and slowly lowered his lips to hers.
She reached swiftly beneath her and brought forth her blade, flattening it against his throat with the blade threatening at the vein.
Surprise leapt into his eyes, then a fury that turned them from a smoldering gray to a shade of black.
She spoke quickly. “What do you do now, Brent? One move . . . the slightest movement, and I could sever your jugular.”
He swore softly, his tone dead and menacing. Kendall swallowed again
, forcing her eyes to stay on his without wavering.
“We are all vulnerable, Brent. We can all die. Your life means more to me than my own, yet you must risk it. And you don’t even ask if I understand.”
“That’s different, Kendall.”
“How so?” she edged the blade slightly closer, drawing a thin trickle of blood. “I am a woman. And yes, you are far stronger. Yet I could end your life here.”
He smiled at her. She kept her eyes wide upon his, yet when he subtly, smoothly moved his hand to hers, enveloping it and crushing it until she gasped and released her hold on the weapon, she could not move against him. He picked the knife up from the pillow and furiously tossed it across the room.
“I took your knife, Kendall.”
“Only because I allowed you.”
“You were able to bring it against my throat—only because I allowed you. And because you’re a woman, you allowed me to take it.”
“That had nothing to do with my being a woman! It had to do with the fact that I love you.”
“You have lost the argument, Kendall.”
“I lost when I fell in love with you,” she said bitterly.
“You love me—yet you pressed a knife against my throat?”
Kendall closed her eyes. They flew open again as his fingers wound tightly into her hair. He kissed her again, angrily, demanding and devouring. There were tears in her eyes, but she could not fight him, nor could she understand the depths of his heated fury.
He didn’t speak to her, didn’t whisper encouragement with loving tenderness. Powerful hands that trembled with impatience ripped the remainder of the gown’s seam; it landed in a discarded heap on the floor.
He made love to her voraciously, consuming, overwhelming, invading every part of her. Longing allowed her to match his passion, to burn in response to the devil that possessed him.
The morning passed in a blur of fevered tempest. Sweet satiation came, and the fires were kindled anew. And still no words passed between them; no promises of peace.
At last, physically exhausted despite the noon hour, Kendall fell into a restless doze beside him, her legs entwined with his, her slender hand and arm draped over his chest.
Tomorrow the Glory Page 29