Tempted at Christmas

by Kate Pearce

  And generally, it were best if he were on the same side of the canal as Tressa and the marsh. And while he knew without a doubt his current situation could not in any way be called a good plan, he was sanguine with the knowledge that had Tressa and the boat still been with him, they would have been shot out of the water.

  He might be still.

  It was getting harder to swim, harder to make his body move in the cold. Harder to think rationally—not that he had ever been any great shakes at rational thought. But he knew enough now in the small animal part of his brain that he needed to go to cover, to get out of the heat-sapping water and move his body to keep himself warm.

  He crawled beneath the embankment, clambering onto a slanted piling to get himself above the sucking mud, to hide in the dark, beyond the reach of the orange shimmer of light reflecting over the water. But even under the embankment, and only a hundred yards from a blazing hot fire, the wind seemed to slice through his wet wool clothing. If he didn’t get dry and out of the wind, he was going to have a bloody hard time of it.

  He listened for a time as the conflagration some small ways down the canal seemed to grow—he could hear the snapping and crackling of the flames, and smell the bitter stink of ash on the wind. He could also hear the cries and pounding of feet on the wooden planking above as men rushed to and fro.

  Out in the middle of the canal a raft of other smaller boats were attempting to make their way around the stern of the flaming lugger before the tide stranded them on the other side. Perhaps in the confusion he might be able to make it out to one of them, and hope they were an English crew.

  And then there was one boat, apart from the others sailing into the teeth of the exodus. A boat piloted by one long, tall, disobedient girl.

  “Tressa.” He croaked her name as he flung himself back into the icy water, and tried to make his way toward her. But she sailed on, and he had overdrawn his strength.

  “Teague.” He couldn’t follow her, and when he turned to go back under the pilings, feared he wouldn’t make it either.

  Devil take him if he were going to drown within eight feet of the damn bank. No matter if his legs felt leaden, and the wool of his clothing grew heavier and heavier, pulling him down. He would make it. He would take it slow and easy and float if he had to rest.

  And then his head was jerked back, his hair tangled in some unseen snag.

  He reached back—

  “Stop struggling,” a voice hissed, as it hauled him up by the hair. “Give me your hand.”

  It was his Tressa, thank the devil, white as a sheet, her face drawn and set as she dragged him over the counter of the little dory like a beached dolphin, flopping and gasping at her feet.

  “Stay down.” She threw a heavy woolen blanket over him. And he felt something else drape against his back—netting, he supposed from the pilchard harvest.

  And there was nothing he could do but gasp and shiver and curl around the skinny warmth of her legs and ankles and wait for her to take them to some sort of safety.

  And set himself to still be alive when she did.

  Oh, heaven help her, but his hands were ice cold where they tried to grasp her ankles. If Tressa had been frightened before, she was utterly terrified now. And she had never felt so alone, even with Matthew safely hidden in the bottom of the boat.

  She could feel his shivered convulsions, and was half afraid the men in the nearby boats making their escape up the canal could see the blanket move. She did what she could to camouflage the wet heap of man curled at her feet—shifting her cloak to fall a certain way, and pulling some of the netting from the sternsheets bench where it had been stowed.

  And thank heavens there had been an old woolen blanket under the pile of netting—the bulk of the provisions she had planned for the dories were in the boat still hopefully hidden in the dunes. Which was where they had best go—she had no confidence in her ability to pilot them across the channel in an open boat at this time of night. The wind had shifted, blowing cold out of the northeast—a frigid Baltic storm would soon be upon them.

  On second thought, the marsh would be more protected. The vast majority of the other boats scuttling about the canal were hauling up on the mud and sands on the opposite bank, well away from both the fire and any need to help fight it—each for their own safety under fire.

  Tressa kept her hood up to cover her blond head, and steered in the wake of a boat still bearing out of the canal, but as soon as they had passed beneath the scrutiny of the entry forts, she set the dory skimming across the shallows that wound through the tidal marsh, finding shelter and cover in the tall reeds.

  It grew harder to make her way as the storm clouds passed across the moon, so all she could do was aim up a narrow ribbon of water that cut through the reeds, leading to a dark thicket of scrub trees.

  “Matthew?” She touched the blanket at her feet. “You can come out now. We’ve made cover in the marsh.”

  “Good lass.” He sounded drunk or sleepy, fumbling a little as he came up from under the blanket. “I should help you.”

  “You can barely stand.” And no wonder—his fingers and skin where she touched him were white with the chill. Tressa had to prop herself under his arms to hoist him out of the boat.

  “Give me a minute, lass,” he said again as his exhausted exhalation curled in the cold air above his head. “Keep me moving for a bit to get me warmed up.”

  “Only to the thicket.” Her own breath came out in a stream of steam from the exertion of his weight as they made their way up to a thicket of scrub pine, long grass and brush. “I have to get the boat.”

  “Tide’s on the ebb. It’ll be fine,” he panted through wreaths of breath.

  “No. I want it for a shelter—it looks to storm. You hunker down here.” She set him with his back to the dune, so he was out of the wind. “Rub your arms as best you can to get your blood flowing. We’ll get you dry as soon as we can.” But exactly how, when the only shelter they were like to get from the coming storm was an overturned dory wedged amongst the scrub, she wasn’t exactly sure.

  For her own part, Tressa was soon growing too warm beneath her clothes from the exertion of hauling the dory up the short incline to the thicket, and inverting it to form a crude shelter. “Here.” She wrapped her cloak around Matthew instead—it would do him more good. “With your ginger hair, you’ll look quite fetching in green.”

  His devil-may-care smile answered before his chattered words. “One tries one’s best.”

  “Try your best to crawl on in there, while I cover up our tracks.”

  “You do that. Though I can’t think,”—he was regaining his strength with every word— “anyone would trace us here. We’ve done well, Teague. I’m enjoying the view.”

  She followed his gaze far across the marsh and the widening sand of the beach to the low city where the flames could be seen leaping high into the night.

  “That sight warms me as well as any fireplace,” he lied on a happy, shivered sigh.

  It was all bravado of course, but Tressa wasn’t about to argue with him—she was too busy thinking and making contingencies, and gauging the moment when the storm might break. The air crackled with more than just the sounds of the fire—off to the northeast flashes of lightning lit the night sky.

  She broke off a branch of scrub pine to erase as best she could the line of the dory’s keel through the sand, though if the rain came as she feared, all traces of their passage would soon be mercifully obliterated.

  She returned up the short incline of the dune to find Matthew had clambered to his feet and was stripping off his soaking wet clothing.

  “Here,” she dropped the branch, and stood behind him, holding up the old wool blanket to shield him from the wind. “Give the wet things to me and take the blanket when you’re done.”

  “I will if it won’t offend your delicate missish sensibilities.”

  If he could laugh in the face of such peril, so could she. “Why don’t you do it a
nyway, Kent, and we’ll see just how delicate my sensibilities are.”

  Chapter 16

  He had often, in the past month, dreamed of Tressa Teague undressing him. But in those delightful imaginings he had not been pale white and shivering like a ginger topped icicle.

  The only thing to do in such an undignified position was laugh at himself, and hope she laughed along.

  Matthew clumsily toed off his boots and peeled down to his small clothes, before he chaffed himself dry with the rough wool blanket. Beside him, Teague never batted a lash, as efficient as a valet, wringing as much icy water as she could from his sopping coat, breeches and stockings.

  “I’d hang them out to dry for a bit in this wind, but I’ve no confidence that the rain will hold off for any more than a few minutes longer.” She gathered the clothes and picked up the branch of scrubby pine. “I’ll pull this in behind us to cover our way. Will that do, do you suppose?”

  “Aye.” He was already warmer without the chilling wet of his clothing—warm and steady enough put his nose to the wind. “I fear you’re right about the rain.”

  In an effort to preserve whatever dignity, or masculinity, remained to him, Matthew did the gentlemanly thing, and after he had covered himself with the blanket, he handed Tressa back her cloak. “Let us get out of this wind.” He gestured for her to precede him beneath the overturned dory.

  They had both crouched down to enter when voices came to them on the wind.

  Tressa froze, listening, and they turned together to see a dot of light—a lantern—bobbing, as if on a boat making its way through the murky marsh. “Soldiers.”

  “Get in,” he ordered, taking the branch from her hands. The instinct to act, to reach for the sword he seemed to have lost in the water, heated his blood more effectively than a bonfire. “Hand me out the gun that should be in the sternsheets.”

  He took the weapon she so efficiently found, but in his position, discretion was surely the better part of valor—better to hide and live to fight another day that to be taken near naked and shivering.

  Matthew inched his way under the cover backward, using the brush to hastily sweep their footprints from the sand. But just as he was positioning the piece of brush to better camouflage their hiding spot, he heard the distinctive patter of raindrops against the overturned hull of the dory.

  “Rain,” he whispered unnecessarily, into the dark of their little space.

  Or perhaps more necessarily than he thought—Tressa exhaled as if she had been holding her breath. “Thank God.”

  Matthew wasn’t quite ready to thank the deity. “It’ll put paid to the fire.” Still they had done as much as they could—they had sowed destruction and confusion amongst the enemy, and in so doing and accomplished what they had set out to do.

  Mostly.

  He said no more but listened, accustoming his tall spine to the space, squashed together with her under the sloping roof of the dory, straining to hear the snatches of the soldiers’ conversations carried to them on the wind, only to be drowned out by a crack of thunder that shook the boat, and made Tressa gasp and reach for him in the dark.

  He kept hold of her hand. “They’ll go back,” he assured her in a low murmur. “I’m sure they had much rather spend the night in a dry barracks than a wet shore.” He let his eager finger follow the line of her arm to her shoulder so he could gather her to him. “We will be saved by the selfish nature of men everywhere, who would rather see to their comfort than their duty.”

  His own comfort was greatly augmented by wrapping the blanket around the two of them together—he warmed by degrees with her lithe torso pressed against his.

  But just when he though his naturally hale animal imperviousness to weather had begun to reassert itself, Tressa began shivering. “I’m making you cold.” He started to slide his arm from her shoulder.

  “No.” She rewrapped herself around his middle. “I’m not cold, really. Just…” Her shivered whisper vibrated with emotion in the dark. “Overwhelmed, I suppose.”

  He heard the fright behind the carefully chosen word, and he understood—he remembered his first brushes with the danger of battle far too well. Those memories, and others he could never hope to forget, would stay with him always.

  And she had been so calm, so steady, so resolute—not only this night, but that night at Black Cove in Bocka Morrow—that he could only admire her resolve in holding her feelings in check for so long.

  He found her forehead to kiss. “The terror can take some like that, after the danger has passed. You’ve done a fine job of keeping it all in, but it has all got to shake its way out. You just let it do so, and you’ll be fine in a moment.”

  “I didn’t think I was afraid. Not for myself. But I was terrified that I had lost you.”

  This he also understood—it was the whole of the reason he had so abruptly put her off the lugger.

  But he was also inordinately pleased that her thoughts had all been for him. “Me?” He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her tight against his side. “Don’t you know you never have to worry about me—for I’ve the devil’s own luck. Everyone says so.”

  “You nearly drowned. And you’re still as cold as a block of ice.”

  “Not quite—I’m warming. You’re warming me.” He let his hands explored the outlines of her head—her chin and face and soft, spilling hair.

  “You were under that freezing water for a horribly long time. And all the while the fire was blazing up, and someone started shooting and everyone ran in a hundred different directions. I’ve never seen the like in all my life.”

  She had to have been far nearer than he thought, to have seen all that. “You’re not very good at obeying orders.”

  She made a rude sound of objection. “How else was I to find you? If you are lucky, you’re lucky that I found you when I did.”

  “So I am.” His finger stroked the long line of her jaw. “And not a moment too soon.” He found her lips and kissed her in thanks.

  She instantly pressed herself to him, kissing him back.

  He was immediately suffused with heat—the heat of desire and want. The heat of life—in the face of danger they would celebrate being alive and together. “Tressa.”

  No matter that he had called her Teague, and talked to her as if she were his lieutenant. No matter that she done better for him than many a lieutenant could. She was not a lieutenant—she was a woman. His woman. “I want you. And I mean to have you now, if you’ll—”

  She cut off his words with her eager lips upon his.

  She gripped the edge of the blanket and levered herself against him, angling her mouth to his, offering him her body without preface. Without condition.

  She kissed him ardently, pressing her lips against his, then shifting to kiss her way along the rough line of his whiskered jaw. And then she came back with her lips upon his, kissing until she was opening her mouth and delving in to taste him.

  And then her hands were no longer on the blanket, but around his neck and in his hair, holding him still and near, so she could whisper in his ear. “Yes. Please.”

  Triumph surged anew through his blood. But he had been rash and impulsive enough for a lifetime—she was too important to rush. “Are you sure?”

  “I am,” was her immediate response. “I want to be with you. Please.” She kissed the very edge of his ear. “If I could have this one chance to be with you, it will be all I ask.”

  “Tressa.” As if she had to convince him. As if he weren’t already determined upon the very same thing. “I told you once before that my heart beats true. You’ve been true to me, and I will be true to you.”

  Chapter 17

  Matthew held her for such a long time, his bright eyes glittering but unfathomable in the velvet dark, roaming over her face as if she were a chart he might memorize. And then his finger followed the path of his gaze, carefully outlining each and every curve and plane, brushing lightly over her lashes, skimming along the outline of her lips
.

  Tressa couldn’t stand the tender scrutiny. “Please.” She pressed her mouth into the hollow of his throat where his pulse beat strong and steady beneath her lips.

  His arms tightened around her back to draw her hard against his chest. His kiss delved into her mouth, and let his hands roam over her back, until they came up to rake through her hair, cradling her jaw, and holding her still for a hot, heartfelt kiss.

  “Yes,” she gasped in encouragement. She wanted the blistering heat that began to pulse through her veins, warming her enough to drive out the chill of uncertainly.

  He pulled away to look down at her for another long moment, while his hand came back up to stroke her cheek and cradle her jaw, as if to tell her there was no rush. “We’ve all the time in the world.”

  He was wrong, of course. They had so little time—they were still in danger, hiding on an enemy shore, unsure of what the morrow might bring. But she placed her hands over his and tipped her head, leaning her cheek into his hand. Resting there, safe in his arms for a blissful moment, until he leaned away, letting go of her.

  He spread the woolen blanket over the sand before he took her into his arms carefully, reverently, as if she were as fragile as a tea cup, and not a tall tankard of a girl.

  But it was as if he could read her mind. “You are a tall drink of water, Tressa Teague. And I’m parched for the taste of you.”

  He tasted of brandy and warmth and strength. She gave herself up to the kiss, using her lips and tongue to explore the wonder of him, to become one with him, body and soul. To draw him ever nearer, so that even as they kissed, her fingers could explore the broad contours of his shoulders and chest.

  Matthew returned the service, loosening the tie of her cloak and tossing it aside before he took her by the upper arms and began to ease the sleeves of her plain woolen dress from her shoulders.