Remembering that she had asked a question, he managed to say, "The show went well. Unfortunately, everyone wanted to buy me a drink afterward, and I couldn't avoid accepting several of them."
Her smile faded, and she studied his face with a hint of wariness. "You're three sheets to the wind?"
He pondered. "Only about one and a half. With luck I won't have a hangover, but I will certainly sleep like a hibernating bear and wake up with great reluctance. You're in charge of pouring cold water in my face to get me moving tomorrow morning."
She chuckled. "Sounds like fun. I suppose we'll have to rise about six if we're going to leave at seven."
"I'm afraid so." Released from his temporary paralysis, he went to the screened tub and poured in the hot water. This was not the sort of dandified establishment that believed perfectly good water should be thrown out merely because it had been used once. Warming it was good enough for guests at the Drover.
Standing behind the screen, he removed his brown coat and laid it over the top of the screen. "Expect a long day. Drovers move slowly, but they travel for twelve hours or so."
Maxie rose lithely to her feet and began plaiting her hair into a heavy ebony braid. "Then I had better go to bed now."
She seemed a little uneasy. Guessing why, he said casually, "Strange how different it is to be in a bedroom."
"You're right. We've slept together quite peacefully the last few nights, but for some reason sharing a bed in a real bedroom is different" She bit her lower lip- her lush, sensual, dusty rosecolored lip-as she considered. "Not quite proper, in a way that I didn't feel before."
If she had given him the least encouragement, any honorable doubts he had about the wisdom of lying with her would have been out the window. But obviously she was not trembling on the brink of uncontrollable passion. "A pity we don't have a bundling board." He unbuttoned his shirt and draped it across the top of the screen. "I'll sleep on the floor."
Her glance flickered to his bare shoulders and the portion of his chest visible above the screen, then quickly away. "Nonsense. We have this room because of your performing skills, and I would be a poor sort of person to condemn you to a hard floor because of missishness. You've behaved yourself so far, and I trust that you will continue to do so. Besides," she added practically, "it's a large bed."
She would be less trusting if she knew what he was thinking. It was an extremely mixed blessing that women did trust him, because that trust bound him as securely as fetters of steel. "I can't imagine you as missish."
She slid under the worn counterpane and closed her eyes. "I think missishness is a luxury for those females who have the money and leisure to indulge in it. A woman who has to make her own way in the world hasn't the time for such things."
He finished undressing, then lowered himself into the tin tub with a happy sigh. The older he got, the more he appreciated simple creature comforts. Amazing to remember some of the conditions he had endured in his adventuresome days. Youth had the damnedest ideas of what was amusing.
By the time he had finished, dried himself, and put on the other pair of drawers that Maxie had washed and dried for him, his companion was asleep, her breathing soft and even. She looked very young in the flickering firelight, her face unlined and innocent. Yet even asleep she had the quality of fierce independence that was so much a part of her.
He spent a few minutes washing the rest of his clothing and hanging it by the fire. Then he climbed into the bed, carefully keeping to his side. Hard to imagine how the Americans managed bundling. Even wearing as many layers as an Eskimo wouldn't have been enough to protect Maxie's virtue. What protected her was a fragile thing called trust____________________
He would have liked to roll over and put his arms around her as he had the last two nights, but she was right: Being in a bed was different from sleeping in a hedgerow, and much more dangerous. Beds were for making love in a way that barns were not, not that a pile of hay couldn't be a delightful spot to dally on occasion.
He forced himself to relax, to ignore the knowledge that an alluring female body was just inches away.
On the whole, it would have been easier to sleep with a scorpion.
Chapter 13
Maxie was not surprised to wake and find herself snuggled up against Robin. The room had cooled as the fire died, and her companion's warmth had attracted her like a lodestone.
In her travels to isolated New England farmsteads, she had sometimes shared a bed with children or spinsters of the household. Nights contending with elbows, knees, and semiconscious struggles for the bedcovers had taught her that most people were not easy to sleep with.
Interestingly, she and Robin were natural bed partners in the strictest sense of the term. Through the night they easily shifted and adjusted to each other's movements, always close, always comfortable. More than that, she always woke happy and well rested, even on the night when they had slept on the hard cold earth. Robin seemed to sleep equally well.
It was first light, the sun still below the horizon. They would have to rise soon, but for a few minutes more she could drowse with her head on Robin's shoulder and her arm across his bare midriff. Under the blanket he was wearing drawers, which was the absolute minimum permissible for bundling. In fact, she thought sleepily, it was undoubtedly less than the minimum.
She pushed her braid back, then stroked an idle hand down his chest. The light, springy hair felt pleasant against her palm. Though Robin gave the impression of being slightly built, he was surprisingly well muscled. Or perhaps not surprising when she recalled how efficiently he had dealt with Simmons.
Low on his left side, below the blanket, her fingertips found the puckered ridge of an old scar. She considered it gravely; from the roughness and shape, it appeared to have been made by a bullet. What had Robin been doing to get himself shot? Something nefarious, she feared. He was lucky to have survived. Like a cat, he must have multiple lives. Thank God.
Under her palm, his heart beat with a strong steady rhythm. The room was now light enough to see his perfectly carved profile, relaxed and almost boyish in the pearly dawn. He made her think of angels, beings from another realm of existence who were bright and terrible in their beauty.
She wondered if the fellowship of angels contained a few rogues. Not the evil, arrogant entities like Lucifer who had rebelled against God and become demons, but ones that were simply different, too mercurial and unconventional to be content singing in heavenly choirs. Perhaps one such angel rogue had looked down and seen an earthly female who needed protection on a long journey, and come to aid her on her way.
She smiled, wondering what it was about Robin that inspired such whimsy. When they met in the glade with the fairy ring, she'd thought of Oberon. But he was quite human, which made him all the more appealing. Acting from pure affection, she raised her head and brushed his lips with hers.
Robin stirred at her light touch and turned toward her, finding her lips to return the caress. His prediction about drinking so much ale that he would have trouble waking must have come true, for he was even more asleep than she. The knowledge gave her a delicious sense of naughtiness. She could kiss him and pretend that it didn't count because he wouldn't remember.
When his tongue touched her lips, she opened them. The kiss deepened, developing the languorous richness of roses baking in the summer sun. His hand drifted down her back and hip, as deft at caressing as at conjuring. The thin muslin of her shift was an insubstantial barrier, and she felt the slow, sensual pressure of each individual finger. If she had known how, she would have purred like a pleased cat.
When her arm went around his neck, she knew it was time to stop. Her simple enjoyment of closeness was changing to a serious wish to continue what they had begun. He was bound to become fully conscious soon, and it would hardly be fair to turn suddenly prudish when she had been cooperating wholeheartedly.
She steeled herself to move away, but she had waited too long. Before she could summon the resolve
to move away, he lifted his hand to cup her breast. She gasped as liquid fire flowed through her limbs. She needed more breath, yet could not bring herself to break off the endless, drugging kiss.
She was growing dizzy when he lifted his head away and murmured, "You are so lovely."
He had called her beautiful before, but that meant nothing compared to the husky passion in his voice now. As she drew a shuddering breath, he pressed his lips to her throat. The light rasp of his chin was a piquant contrast to his velvet tongue and the intimate touch of his breath.
He found the hollow at the base of her throat, then moved below the angle of her collarbone, over the swell of her breast He was like the sun, heated and powerful, bringing exuberant life to everything he touched.
Adrift in sensuality, she did not realize that he had nuzzled aside the shoulder of her shift until he drew her nipple into his mouth. She sucked in her breath, electrified. His tongue lapped the tip to aching hardness, moving in a rhythm that pounded in her blood. Arousing. Compelling. Intoxicating.
"Robin, Robin…" Her last, faint resistance crumbled, for she could no longer remember why she had any doubts. Her hands kneaded his bare back, moving restlessly over his ribs and under the edge of his drawers. He was lying half across her, and the hard heat of his arousal pressed the outside of her knee. She moved her leg, deliberately rubbing that throbbing maleness.
He made a choked, yearning sound. Catching the hem of her shift in his left hand, he raised it to her hips. His palm skimmed the tender flesh inside her thighs with long, smooth strokes. Then he touched her intimately with his long, magician's fingers, probing the slick, hot folds. Chaotic waves of sensation surged through her and she moaned, her whole being a scarlet blaze of need.
His breath rough and hot, he whispered in her ear, "Ah, God, Maggie, it's been so long, so dreadfully long…"
Desire splintered, leaving Maxie stunned. Desperately she wondered if she might have heard wrong, but even in the tempest of passion, she couldn't lie to herself about something that mattered so much. "Not Maggie," she said with iceedged precision. "Maxie."
Robin's eyes snapped open, so close that she could see shock and something that was almost horror in the azure depths.
After a paralyzed instant, he flung away from her, throwing off the blanket and sliding from the bed. He staggered when he tried to stand, almost falling. Uncharacteristically clumsy, he sagged onto the edge of the mattress, bracing his elbows on his knees and burying his head in his hands. "Christ, I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. "I never meant for that to happen."
He was shaking violently. Lord only knew what torment filled his mind, but she sensed that it went far beyond frustrated desire.
Cold and bereft, she sat up as she struggled to find composure in the chaotic midst of confusion and thwarted passion. Dear God, but she had been a fool.
When she had mastered her instinctive, irrational rage, she managed to say, "It wasn't your fault. Blame it on the bed." Hating herself for her jealousy, she added caustically, "You wish that I was this Maggie?"
The muscles of Robin's back went rigid with strain, the hard planes sharply defined under his fair skin. After an excruciating silence, he said from behind his hands, "Some questions shouldn't be asked. And if they are, they shouldn't be answered."
Slow, humiliating heat rose in her face at the knowledge that she'd been a fool again. Yet she could not stop herself from asking, "Shouldn't be, or can't be?"
His hands dropped away from his face. All his dazzling, concealing frivolity had been stripped away, leaving the bare bones of anguish. "Can't be, I suppose."
He stood and walked to the window to stare out at the misty hills. Though he was leanly built, taut muscles flowed smoothly beneath his fair skin, like the languid power of an Adirondack mountain lion.
If he had been awake enough to know who she was-if it had been her whom he had really wanted- all of that male beauty would still be in her arms. They would be naked together, making love in the muted light of dawn.
Trying to bury her aching sense of loss, she asked quietly, "Is Maggie the woman you wanted to marry?"
"Yes." He exhaled wearily. "We were friends, lovers, partners in crime for many years."
Partners in crime? Maxie did not want to think of that now. "She died?"
He shook his head. "On the contrary. She is happily married to a man who can give her a great deal more than I."
Maxie felt a spasm of rage at the absent Maggie. A woman who could abandon a man like Robin for another of greater fortune was not worth such misery.
She would have said as much if words would have cured Robin of his grief, but logic held no sway in matters of the heart. Besides, Maggie's choice might have been made more for security than wealth. As a woman who longed for stability herself, Maxie could understand that. Life with Robin might be stimulating, but it would surely lack security.
The light was a little stronger, revealing faint parallel lines across his back. It took her'a moment to realize that they were the result of a savage whipping. Her heart twisted as she wondered what untold story lay behind those wicked marks.
She couldn't do anything about longhealed scars, but she could stop the goose bumps produced by the chilly air. She rose and took Robin's shirt from the chair where it had dried.
As she draped it around his shoulders, she said succinctly, "Your Maggie is a damned fool."
Robin turned his head and looked down at her, a faint smile on his face. His blond hair was more silver than gold in the half light. He pulled the shirt over his head, men wrapped his arm around her shoulders and tucked her close against his side. "She isn't, but I appreciate your partisanship."
Since Maxie's shift provided little protection against the cold, she slipped her arm around Robin's waist and leaned against him. Wherever they touched, there was warmth. The accidental passion of the bed had vanished, but there was still a spark of physical awareness between them. She supposed there always would be, even if they never acted on it.
There was also an odd kind of closeness. It must be rather like the feeling of soldiers who have survived a battle together. Thinking it might be good for him to talk, she asked, "What is Maggie like?"
He hesitated, weighing his answer. "Strong. Intelligent. Brave. Integrity to the bone. Rather like you, Kanawiosta, even though you look nothing alike." His arm tightened around her shoulders. "Except that you are both beautiful."
They fell silent, watching the sun inch above the horizon. She supposed that she should feel honored by his comparison, though it was not enough to eradicate the pain of knowing that he had been making love to her by accident, his drowsy mind filled with dreams of another woman. No wonder he had been ambivalent about the desire he felt for her.
She thought of the complicated mental landscape that she had dimly sensed when trying to teach him to listen to the wind. Some of the black places in his soul must be the agony of loss felt by a man who would not give his love often, but would give it wholeheartedly when he did.
She remembered also his bedrock core of honor. Though he loved another woman, he was also genuinely fond of herself, at least enough that he would not want to hurt her. That explained his restraint; an affair where her heart was available and his wasn't would definitely cause harm.
Her own ambivalence had not been eased. She felt a sudden, debilitating wave of bitterness at the way she was caught between two very different cultures, understanding both but belonging to neither. Among her mother's people, an unmarried woman could lie with a man without censure. If she were a true daughter of the Six Nations, living in her own home among her kin, she would have been proud to take a lover.
But she was not her mother; she was a halfbreed.
True, she was no sheltered English miss, raised to bestow her body only on a man who would pay the price of marriage for the privilege of bedding her. But she was enough a product of her father's culture that she feared to express desire freely. To lie with a man without marriage
would make her a wanton in the eyes of white society.
Yet there was no prospect of marriage with Robin. Life with her father had taught her that it was impossible to coax a restless man to settle down, a mistake to even try.
Even if Robin's loneliness had led him to make another quixotic offer, as when he had suggested going to Gretna Green, their backgrounds were too different to allow a permanent union. She would be a fool to hope for promises of love eternal, and a fool to settle for less. That did not mean there could be nothing honest and true between them, but giving in to passion would damage her heart and her future, possibly beyond hope of repair.
Refusing to let herself weep, she turned her face into Robin's shoulder. His other arm came around her.
"You must be sorry that we met," he said soberly. "I seem to be causing more trouble than I'm preventing."
Voice muffled against his fresh scented shirt, she replied, "I'm not sorry if you're not sorry."
He pressed his cheek against her hair. "No, Kanawiosta, I'm not sorry."
Her throat tightened. Yes, there was something very real between them. But it would never be love.
She resolved that from now until they parted in London, she would behave logically. She would accept and enjoy his wit and his friendship, and she would not allow herself to wish for greater intimacy.
Yet in the privacy of her mind, she acknowledged that logic would make for cold memories when Robin was gone.
Chapter 14
The carriage pitched and swayed in the rutted track. As Desdemona Ross braced herself wearily, avoiding the longsuffering expression of her maid and hoping the vehicle wouldn't break an axle before they reached their destination, an isolated inn called the Drover. It was a regular stop for traveling herds, and more easily reached on hooves than wheels.
With a final lurch, the carriage halted. Desdemona let herself out without waiting for her coachman to open the door For a moment she stood in the afternoon sunshine and savored the absence of rocking. The wind blew restlessly over the barren hilltop, rippling the grasses and twisting the clouds overhead. From the aroma, a herd had been through recently.
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