“Lilah, don’t you be late!” Granny cautioned.
She was hardly down the stairs when she spotted a tall man forging his way against the cold wind toward the cabin. Something stirred within her. Some old memory, old feeling, awakened.
“Steele?” she said, not believing her own eyes.
But it was. Steele Denegal!
She ran to meet him, and made no protest when he swept her off her feet and kissed her. He let her feet touch the ground again after several minutes.
“Oh, God, Lilah, you taste good! I was so afraid … but never mind that. You’re here! Let’s get out of this storm.”
Steele headed for the cabin, but Lilah said, “No! I know a better place… where we can talk.”
They clung to each other while Lilah led the way to the hunting lodge. The fire would still be going. They could be alone to discuss things in private, Lilah told herself As happy as she was to see him, she had to tell Steele that everything between them had been a mistake. She kept reinforcing this thought to herself all the way to the lodge Surely, after so long away and not a single letter to her, Steele couldn’t expect that she’d still be waiting and anticipating their marriage
The door of the lodge had hardly banged shut against the storm when Steele swept Lilah into his strong arms. She fought against his fervent assault, surprised by its suddenness and intensity. But as his lips commanded hers and she felt his muscular body mold itself to her own, her resistance gave way. Her arms tightened around his back, and she let her slender fingers caress the coarse curls at his neck.
“Lilah, darling,” he crooned between kisses. “You don’t know how long I’ve dreamed of this moment… how much I love you.”
His fingers worked at the frog closings of her jacket. Suddenly, she pulled free of his embrace.
“No, Steele! We mustn’t!” Tears of confusion clouded her vision in much the same way that indecision clouded her senses.
Steele misconstrued her reluctance. He stood away looking at her, smiling, and said, “Of course, darling. I’m acting like an oaf. I come charging back into your life without warning and expect you to be waiting with open arms. I’m sure you need some time to become accustomed to the idea. We’ll talk and then…”
Steele removed his wet cloak and helped Lilah off with hers. He felt her trembling, and threw two logs on the dying embers, then pulled her down to sit next to him on the bearskin rug before the hearth.
With careful deliberation Steele drew the long hatpin out of her chapeau and unfastened the black crocheted snood that imprisoned her long hair. He smoothed the silvery tresses down her back, fingering the strands with approving murmurs.
Lilah felt each touch of his hands a thousand times over. She sat rigid and silent next to him, gazing into the leaping flames, trying to control her embattled emotions.
Steele put one finger beneath her chin and turned her head to face him. She kept her eyes lowered for a time. When she looked up Steele possessed her with his passionate, storm-gray eyes, until she trembled uncontrollably from the impact of his gaze. He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, her lips—ever so tenderly.
“You’re even lovelier than I remembered, my Queen Delilah.”
Taking her hand in his, he pressed her palm to his lips. She jerked it away, and tears spilled down her cheeks. A troubled look passed over Steele’s face. For the first time, he realized something was truly wrong.
“Lilah, what kind of welcome is this?” he asked, deep hurt naked in his voice.
She continued to stare into the fire. “You never wrote, Steele. What was I to think? For all I knew, you were lost at sea on the trip to Key West.”
“Never wrote?” Steele was incredulous. “But I did—often!”
She went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “You made such grand promises. I believed everything you said to me. Do you have any idea what these long months have been like for me?”
“For me as well!” he answered. “I’ve been through a bit of hell myself, but never mind that. We’re together now. All those promises I made are about to be fulfilled, darling.”
He drew her down so that her head rested against his chest, her hair spread out like a glowing halo over his arm.
“No, Steele,” she cried weakly as he poised his lips close to hers.
But her protests were lost on him. His ardent kisses silenced everything but the howl of the wind, the crackling of the fire, and the wild beating of their hearts.
Steele removed her jacket and tossed it aside. Working at the closings of her heavy overskirt, he freed that too. At last she lay before him, still covered, neck to toe, by the linen underdress. But the heaving of her breasts beneath the fine fabric told Steele that she was as anxious as he.
Steele laughed softly. “You wear more clothes than you used to, darling.”
Already he was expertly opening the bodice. Lilah tried to thrash away from him, but her escape was thwarted.
Part of her loved him more than ever. Another part screamed silently for Brandon to save her from her own longings.
And then it was done! Lilah lay with the firelight flickering over her body, Steele’s smoky eyes devouring his prize. He kissed a fiery trail from her neck to her shoulders, then on to her breasts, lingering there to torture her with tenderness. When she moaned and tossed in her need, he lowered his body to hers. As if savoring every instant of contact, Steele eased his way into her, holding perfectly still at the moment of full penetration.
Lilah opened her eyes and saw that his were focused on her face. Their gazes touched and caressed with tender violence. The expression on his face told her that he had long awaited this total ecstasy.
Lilah fought the desire she felt, and yet it was too sweet, too wonderful to deny. She felt whole for the first time since Steele left her. He filled her life as he now filled her body.
She surrendered to her longing. Her muscles contracted convulsively, and Steele gave a cry at her tightening on his body. Slowly at first, then with an ever-accelerating rhythm, he orchestrated their symphony of love.
When it was over, Lilah cried softly in Steele’s arms. She hadn’t been wrong. She still loved him. But it was too late. She’d given her word—not only to Brandon, but to Granny, to little Scottie, and to Saralyn.
“Lilah, darling, what’s wrong?” Steele asked gently.
“Everything!” she replied miserably. “I’m going to be married, Steele.”
“I know, my love. Why do you think I came backr he asked, bewildered by her reaction.
“No,” she sobbed. “You don’t understand. I’m going to be Mrs. Brandon Patrick in a few days.”
Steele bolted up. “The hell you say!”
She could only nod her reply.
“Lilah, look at me!” he ordered. “Look me straight in the eye and tell me you don’t love me—that you love that fop, Patrick!”
“Doesn’t matter,” she answered weakly, not meeting his gaze.
“It matters one hell of a lot to me!” Steele raged. “I love you, Lilah! I want you for my wife!”
Without answering, Ulah rose and began dressing. Her body ached for Steele. Her conscience ached because of Brandon. Either way there would be hell to pay for the rest of her life.
“So that’s it!” Steele turned cold anger on her. “It’s been nice knowing you, Mr. Denegal. Thanks, but no thanks! Come around and pleasure me occasionally, if you like, but I won’t be your wife!”
His vicious sarcasm wounded her deeply. She lashed back at him. “It’s not quite that simple, Mr. Denegal! You don’t know what we’ve all been through while you were away. You don’t know what I have to face on my wedding night. Because of you, I go to my husband’s bed with explanations to make. Whether he’ll accept them, I don’t know. I only know I’ve given my promise, and I don’t plan to go back on it! I never meant for this to happen this afternoon. I brought you here to explain things. But I’m weak. And you make me weaker.”<
br />
He tried tenderness. Going to caress her tear-streaked cheeks, he said, “Love makes you weak, darling. Can’t you see that? You love me, not Brandon. It’s crazy for you to throw away your life this way.”
“That’s my business, isn’t it?” she answered coldly. “I’ll leave you now. I hope you have a safe trip back to Key West or wherever you’re headed next. Goodbye, Steele.”
Her last words hit him like musket shot.
“A parting gift, Miss Fitzpatrick,” he said with a sneer. “Since I so rudely stole your virginity, I offer it back to you. Before your wedding night take a chicken’s craw and fill it with blood from the animal. Sew it into your nightdress. When Brandon penetrates, which I assume he hasn’t as yet, make a great show of pain, then at a convenient time when he’s asleep or not watching, break the casement of blood. Your sheets and nightdress will come out appropriately stained and be most convincing. You’ll be saved any embarrassment my love for you might cause. Whores have used this old device for centuries. I’m surprised you didn’t know it already.”
Lilah’s cheeks flamed at his effrontery. “I’m not as well versed in these things as most of your female friends, Mr. Denegal!”
“Perhaps not. Consider it my wedding gift to you and your unsuspecting husband, Miss Fitzpatrick.”
He strode to where she hesitated at the door and swept her into his arms for one last, scorching kiss. She fought desperately, but he held her with his fingers tangled in her hair.
Releasing her abruptly, he said, “Even wrinkled gowns and cast-off lovers deserve a final farewell. Goodbye, Queen Delilah!”
Lilah ran blindly through the woods. Her tears and the driving rain made it impossible for her to see where she was going. She took a wrong turn and found herself in the swamp. Darkness was coming on fast. The shapes of the bearded oaks and the twisted cypress knees jutting up out of murky water confused her sense of direction more. Each area looked identical to the one she left behind.
Strange creatures screamed warnings at her. Or were these the laughing spirits of the hinterland about to claim her for their own? She paused for a moment to catch her breath. Her lungs ached and she shivered in the cold.
Rising from a fallen log she’d rested on, she pushed her way through the tangled, clinging underbrush. Suddenly, before her loomed a rough-hewn wooden cross. Gazing through the mist at it, she stumbled on until her feet slipped into the marshy bog she hadn’t seen.
Her scream reverberated through the swamp. This was the place where Gerald, the first of the Fitzpatricks, had met his end. Would she, the last of the line, soon join her ancestor in his quicksand tomb?
She struggled frantically to free herself from the quagmire, but the numbness in her feet and ankles soon spread upward to her knees. Her shot-weighted riding skirt aided the bog in its attempt to swallow her up.
“Help!” she screamed. But who would hear her in this desolate place? “Help me, someone! Please, help…” Her cries drifted off into pitiful sobs.
The cold numbness soon took possession of her whole body. Black shadows closed her brain to her agony. Her fingers, which had been clutching at the solid earth, dug furrows in it as the unrelenting quicksand claimed her.
Chapter 18
“Lilah! For God’s sake!”
She couldn’t hear the voice—couldn’t feel anything any longer.
Steele Denegal struggled against time, cold, and the life-stealing bog to free her. Inch by inch he pulled at her, resting every few minutes—pausing only long enough to catch his breath. A weaker man would have surrendered. Half an hour later Lilah lay unconscious on the frozen ground beside the oozy pool of quicksand. Steele removed his cape and wrapped her in it.
Leaning close to feel the warm stir of her shallow breath on his cheek, he murmured, “Thank God you’re alive, Lilah!”
The rain had turned to icy pellets of sleet. No time could be lost. Steele hefted Lilah’s sodden weight in his arms and headed out of the swamp.
When he neared the cabin, Granny and Brandon rushed out of the front door.
“Steele, what in God’s name happened? Is Lilah all right?” Brandon asked.
“I’m not sure. All I know is, I heard someone calling from the swamp. I rushed in and found Lilah almost swallowed up in a bog.” He lied to save Lilah’s honor. “She’s breathing, but half frozen. Let’s get her inside fast.”
Granny eyed Steele Denegal suspiciously. She guessed that the two had had a rendezvous, quarreled over Lilah’s coming marriage, and Lilah had fled into the swamp to escape his unwanted advances. What she didn’t know was that Steele had gone after Lilah to return her hat, which she’d left in the hunting lodge in her haste to depart. He hadn’t wanted that incriminating bit of evidence found to cause her problems. So the funny little riding hat had saved her life.
Steele deposited Lilah’s still form on the floor in front of the fire.
“Come help me with this, will you, Steele?” Brandon called from the bedroom.
Steele went in and found Brandon struggling with a board dividing the bed.
“What on earth?” Steele asked.
“A quaint notion of Granny’s,” Brandon explained. “Lilah and I were supposed to bundle tonight.”
Had Steele not felt such deep concern for Lilah at the moment, he would have laughed out loud.
When the men returned to the main room, Granny had stripped the muddy garments from Lilah’s shivering body and wrapped her in a warm comforter. She was beginning to stir slightly.
“Granny, do you have any brandy about?” Brandon asked.
“If old Sim ain’t drank the last of it.” Granny went to a cupboard and came back with the bonle and a cup.
“Lift her up, Steele. I’ll see if I can get some of this into her,” Brandon said.
Steele felt heat rise in his body when his arms closed around Lilah.
She coughed when Brandon put the cup to her lips.
“That’s strong stuff,” Granny cautioned. “Reckon we ought to cut it with some water?”
“No,” Steele answered. “It will take strong stuff to bring her around.”
At the sound of Steele’s voice, Lilah’s eyes fluttered open. She looked confused, disoriented.
“What happened? Where am I? Steele?”
“I’m here, da—” He quickly cut off the word darling
and substituted Lilah’s name.
“You’ve had a dreadful time of it, my dear,” Brandon said. “Steele here saved your life. Whatever were you doing in the swamp?”
“I don’t know,” she answered feebly. “I must have gotten off the path.”
“Don’t press her, Patrick,” Steele snapped. “Can’t you see she’s been through hell?”
Lilah wondered vaguely which hell Steele meant—the time she’d spent with him or her near-death in the quicksand bog?
“I suppose it doesn’t matter anyway now that she’s safe,” Brandon answered. “We have you to thank for that, Steele. You do have a way of turning up when there’s a problem, my friend.”
Steele said nothing, but thought, Showing up and creating a problem is more like it!
Lilah only heard bits and snatches of the conversation going on around her. Her ordeal, the brandy, and the gradual return of feeling and warmth to her body had her drifting in and out of sieep.
“Well, Granny, I suppose this incident negates any thoughts of our bundling party tonight,” Brandon said apologetically.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Steele replied. “No, really. Don’t look at me as if I’ve lost my mind, Patrick. Lilah will need her rest tonight, but the one danger facing her now is cold. Her hands and feet must be kept warm. She’s also been through a nightmarish experience. Imagine yourself sinking into a freezing bog with no help in sight. She mustn’t be alone if she wakes up during the night.”
Brandon nodded, understanding what Steele meant.
“I’d even go so far as
to suggest that you have the bundling without that cursed board. That way, she’ll benefit from your body heat.” Every word he spoke cut Steele to the quick, but he had to think of Lilah’s welfare first.
“See here, Mr. Denegal, you ain’t suggesting that I allow these two to bed down together and them not tied the knot yet?” Granny fumed.
‘The suggestion was yours, Mrs. Fitzpatrick,” Steele reasoned. “I’m merely advising, for your granddaughter’s good, that you dispense with that stupid board.”
“Well, it is quite out of the ordinary,” Brandon said hesitantly.
“Out of the ordinary, my horse’s rear!” Steele exploded. “Do you want a wedding or a funeral, man? That’s what it comes down to! If you won’t keep her warm tonight, I will!”
Steele lifted Lilah gently and started toward the bedroom with her.
“Hold on there, Denegal! That would be out of the question!” Brandon protested.
Steele placed Lilah on the bed and glared at Brandon. “Then do your duty!”
Steele started to unwrap Lilah and tuck her into bed. A flash of white skin alerted him to the fact that she was naked inside the quilt.
“Mrs. Fitzpatrick, will you come help Lilah into her nightgown?” he called.
Granny shooed the two men out of the room while she slipped Lilah into a warm flannel gown and tucked the covers around her.
In the next room, the men waited in uncomfortable silence. At length, Brandon said, “You’ll be staying for the wedding, won’t you, Steele?”
Pain twisted Steele’s gut. “No. I have to get back to Savannah. I only came over to offer my congratulations and say hello to your family.”
“And a lucky thing for us you did! Thank you again for rescuing Lilah.”
Steele nodded his acceptance of Brandon’s gratitude. Would he be so free with it if he knew what caused Lilah’s flight to the swamp in the first place?
“She’s tucked in,” Granny announced, eyeing first one man and then the other with nervous uncertainty. “I ain’t never heard tell of bundling without a board though, and can’t say as I approve, Mr. Denegal.”
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