He looked down at Lily’s compelling face, lit by the flickering fire and almost serene in its victory. Almost. And he spoke the first words he’d managed all evening.
“I gotta take a piss.”
Lily raised her eyebrows. “You’ve lost none of your charm, Quintin Tyler. Very well.” She turned toward the darkness of the trees that surrounded the camp.
“Not with you!” he nearly shouted.
Lily lifted their manacled wrists. “Not without me,” she said calmly. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep my back turned. Not that I’m likely to see anything I haven’t seen before.”
In the near black of the forest, Quint relieved himself while Lily kept her back to him. When he was finished, they left the shelter of the trees as Quint wondered if Lily had kidneys of iron.
Back in the circle of light, Lily walked directly to her uncle. “Did you bring me a change of clothing? I really must get out of this horrid, filthy dress.”
Quint didn’t say a word as Lily motioned for Sellers to join them, and Lily’s shackles were transferred, at her insistence, to her uncle’s wrist and ankle.
“You boys behave yourselves,” she ordered sweetly as she took the calico dress and soft brown boots Tommy had brought for her and disappeared into the shadows of the forest she and Quint had just come from.
Quint swore under his breath. He’d missed his opportunity. He should’ve grabbed Lily and run when they’d been hidden by those trees. Lily could have screamed all she wanted, but if he’d been fast enough, her crew would never have caught them. But he knew there was no way he could run that fast—not with Lily’s weight and his bad leg. “Dammit,” he muttered. “She’s the most difficult woman I’ve ever met. And I’ve never met a woman who wasn’t difficult.”
Quint glanced up to see Tommy glowering at him, hate in the older man’s eyes. In truth, Quint couldn’t blame him. The responsibility for Lily’s predicament fell on his shoulders, and no one knew better than he how protective Tommy Gibbon was of his niece.
Without warning, Tommy’s fist flew into Quint’s gut, and Quint doubled over. He held his free hand over his midsection and took a deep breath.
Slowly, Quint returned to an upright position, a grim smile on his face. That was all he needed. An excuse. He brought back his left fist and hammered it with all his might into Tommy Gibbon’s massive belly.
The older man doubled over as Quint had, but his years caused him to delay in rising. There was not a sound from the crew as they watched, standing well away from the shackled pair.
When Tommy did finally rise, it was with a scowl that Quint met with relish. His hand shot out and gripped Quint’s throat. “I could kill you right now, you blighter.”
“Please don’t,” Lily said calmly as she emerged from the shadow of the trees. She had combed her hair and washed her face, and changed into a calico dress of deep rose and pink with a scattering of tiny green leaves. Every man in the clearing turned to stare at her, and Quint realized as he noticed the stunned faces around him that none of these boys had ever seen their Captain in a simple dress. Never before had they seen her as lovely as she was right now, with her hair loose and waving down her back, and her figure undisguised. In the past, they’d seen Lily dressed in ruffles and lace and silk flowers or in clothing not much different from what they wore themselves. Quint knew he shouldn’t be standing there thinking how beautiful she was, but he couldn’t help it.
Lily positioned herself before him and Tommy and waited for Sellers to reattach the manacles. Tommy tried to stop her.
“Yer not intendin’ to spend the night shackled to the bastard, are ye?”
“Of course,” Lily answered calmly as Sellers returned the shackles to her wrist. “Which tent is ours?”
“Bloody hell, Lily Radford!” Tommy shouted. “I’ll not allow it!”
Lily smiled at her uncle calmly. “Actually, it’s Lily Tyler. Quint is my husband, and I’ll bloody well do with him as I like.”
She couldn’t have said anything to quiet the camp more quickly or thoroughly. Suddenly the crackling of the fire and the cool breeze through the trees was clearly audible. Brittle brown leaves brushed together as the wind pushed them across the campground, hissing around their feet.
Lily stared at Tommy, waiting. Half a dozen young boys were mesmerized, their wide eyes turned to their Captain. And Quint studied them all with a stoic countenance that disguised his anger at the lot of them.
“Married?” Tommy finally said softly. “To ’im?”
Lily gave her uncle an easy smile. “Yes.”
Roger was the first of the crew to recover his senses. He stepped forward and slapped Quint on the back. “Congratulations, mate!” he said heartily. “So ye weren’t tellin’ a tale when you told the Yanks ye were wed to the Cap’n.” He nodded, evidently relieved to learn that his captain had not behaved inappropriately in the bed of the wagon that afternoon. “Why, yer just newlyweds.”
That bright smile faded as Roger’s eyes fell to the shackles that bound them together. He stepped back into the throng that surrounded Quint and Lily.
Lily turned her back on them all with a curt good night and stepped into the tent Tommy had grudgingly indicated was to be theirs. Quint was right behind her, bending over to step into their small shelter for the night. Without looking at him, she laid out the blankets that had been piled in one corner. Quint realized, as she fussed unnecessarily with the bedding, that she was nervous and quite diligently avoiding looking directly at his face. That realization brought a sardonic smile to his lips.
“That’s good enough, Lily,” he rasped. There was little light in the tent. A faint glow from the fire that continued to burn in the center of their campsite lit her face for him, and as she looked up from the bedding he felt a twinge of guilt. And she was the one who was holding him prisoner!
But she was scared. He could see it in the set of the lips he knew so well, in her wide eyes. Scared. Of him?
Lily lay on her back and stared at the black expanse above her. She couldn’t look at Quint. She’d seen him angry before, but not like his. He looked as though he really wanted to kill her with his bare hands.
Her intentions had been good. First, to keep Quint out of Tommy’s hands, to keep him alive. And then, damn her stubborn pride, as revenge for the weeks she had been a prisoner herself. She wanted him to know how humiliated she had felt, how furious she had been with him for his part in the scheme.
And now he was looking at her as if he could eat her alive. She turned her head to look him full in the face. He was lying on his side, watching her intently, his black eyes riveted on her face as if they might burn through her. He drummed his fingers slowly in the narrow space between their bodies—long brown fingers that were masculine and at the same time graceful.
“Well, Lily,” Quint finally said softly, his voice menacing in its dark silkiness. “What now? Am I to forever be your slave? Are you going to shanghai me and throw me in the brig? Lash me to the mast and whip me into submission? Do they keelhaul disobedient husbands in your world, Lily dear?”
“Quint, I… I…. ” Lily stammered. His stare was unnerving her, making her quake.
“Don’t go soft on me now, Lily. That’s not your style.” With slow calculation, Quint reached out and traced her face with a single finger, brushing her skin so lightly that she shivered in spite of her determination to show no reaction to his touch. That same finger traveled in a leisurely pattern across her throat and down to the edge of the scooped neckline of her calico dress, where it hooked possessively in the rose-colored fabric.
Lily almost expected a violent yank that would tear the fabric from her chest, but instead that indolent finger rocked back and forth, brushing against her tender skin.
“I suppose I could grab you and make a run for it.” Quint seemed to be thinking aloud rather than discussing a viable plan of action.
“You wouldn’t get far,” Lily snapped. There was a tremble in her voice that sh
e could not disguise.
Quint held her captive with his shadowy eyes, and she knew, in that moment, that he was not her prisoner. She was his. Perhaps it would always be so, even when they were hundreds of miles apart, separated by the war and their stubbornness and the vagaries of fate.
Outside the tent that separated them from the rest of the crew, a new sound joined the wind and the leaves and the soft murmur of lowered voices. A guitar strummed, expertly played, and the strains of a haunting melody reached through the chilly night air and wrapped itself around her, around Quint, as they faced each other with slowly melting hostility.
“Roger,” Lily said softly.
Quint’s finger was still hooked in the bodice of her calico dress, warm and alive against her skin. “Roger,” he repeated.
“Playing the guitar,” Lily added. “He’s very good, don’t you think?” It seemed suddenly necessary to fill the air between them with words, spiritless words with little or no meaning. “His mother was an actress, you know. She must have been quite talented…. ”
Lily stammered to a halt. Quint was tugging at her dress with that damn finger, pulling her closer, shifting his own weight as he inched toward her.
“When I first saw Roger he was pulling a clever con in London, standing in front of a carriage and jumping away at the last minute. The poor blokes in the carriages would give him a coin or two, and he would limp away.” Quint was right beside her now, his heat reaching through her dress. “He’s quite agile, that’s why —”
“Shut up, Lily,” Quint said harshly, yet placidly, his lips so close to hers that they were almost touching.
Lily laid her palm on the side of Quint’s face. No matter what had happened, no matter what was yet to happen, when he touched her she lost all reason. That was her weakness, a scar on her soul, but she had come to accept it.
Roger’s music and the sheltering darkness of the night wrapped around them, and with a shared sigh they accepted the unalterable enchantment that brought them together. Their lips met with a fire that scorched them both, that burned their hearts and their souls and melded them together, until there was no distinction between Quint’s spirit and Lily’s.
Quint pressed his hand against Lily’s back and crushed her to him, felt her surrendering tremble as she grasped the back of his head and pulled his lips harder against hers, thrusting her tongue into his mouth and releasing a muffled cry from deep within her. Their mutual surrender was explosive, all-consuming, and as predictable as the stars.
The chains that bound them together clanked loudly as Quint pressed Lily to the blanket and towered above her. Lily didn’t seem to hear, or to care, as Quint shifted his weight onto his forearms. Those arms rested on either side of Lily’s head, as Quint lost himself in her kiss and led her into oblivion with him.
There was no hesitation in the way she offered her mouth to him, lips parted and hungry. Quint was lost in the soft surrender of a woman who could be so hard. Lily wound her fingers through the hair at the back of his head, pressing her lips to his and brushing the tip of her tongue against his. She could make him forget anything—everything—with those lips, and he knew as he looked into her passion-clouded eyes that he had the same effect on her.
Quint pushed her skirt up with his knee, refusing to release her mouth even for an instant. And then his hand was there, pushing the full and cumbersome skirt to Lily’s waist, touching her where she throbbed for him as he throbbed for her. Lily spread her legs wider, and he rested between her open thighs with the comfort and the pain of knowing that she was his wife, his soul-mate, and that he had no control where Lily was concerned. No control over his body or his soul.
Lily slid her hand between their bodies until she reached the buttons of his trousers, loosening them one at a time until his swollen shaft was free and grasped within her hand. He pulled his mouth away from her slightly, so that their lips barely touched, and he groaned as he closed his eyes.
Lily moaned into his mouth as he kissed her again and again, waiting until he was certain she was yearning as he was to be joined, body and soul.
She guided him to her, pressing the tip of his shaft against her wet center. Quint entered her in one swift movement, burying himself inside her with a groan that she caught with her mouth.
Lily lifted her hips, rested her hand against his back, and moved against him as he stroked her again and again, thrusting deep inside her until she shattered beneath him and he felt the spasms of her tight muscles. He sheathed himself inside her one last time, releasing his seed deep within her, clutching the hand that was chained to his as a convulsion rocked him to the core. With gradual reluctance, the world returned, gray and smoky, the only sound he heard the mournful strumming that continued outside their shelter.
And then another sound intruded—a sound close and yet hushed. Quint buried his face against Lily’s neck and located the source of the tender noise. Her throat quivered as she fought to control the tears that threatened, and her breath came ragged and broken.
Quint lifted his head. Silent tears ran freely down Lily’s cheeks, and when he frowned at those tears her resolve melted and she began to sob. Lily released long, heart-wrenching sobs that tore from her as if they’d been held prisoner for too long.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Quint whispered, wiping away warm tears with his thumb. He kissed her wet cheeks, tasting the salt of her tears on his lips and his tongue. “I’m sorry.”
He hadn’t meant to make love to her, to lose all reason as he seemed to when she was near. Obviously, she hadn’t meant to either, and now she was regretting what had happened. He didn’t. He couldn’t. It was too right, too perfect to hold Lily in his arms and forget everything that stood between them.
Lily didn’t push away from him, but let him hold her, let him cuddle her as she wept.
“I’m sorry,” she said when she lifted her head to look at him, tears falling like rain from her turquoise eyes. “I don’t know why…. ” She stopped, and Quint drew her against his chest. He rocked her in his arms and murmured into her ear, long into the night, even after the tears had stopped and she settled into a bout of sporadic gasps for breath, hiccup-like catches that seemed to take her by surprise as she buried her head against him.
He held her long after she fell asleep, listening to her even breathing and holding her with all the tenderness he felt for her.
His woman. His wife. She was so much a part of him that it seemed she had always been there, deep inside. When he finally drifted off to sleep, it was with Lily snuggled against him, her tears damp on his uniform, his heart in her delicate hand.
Twenty-Two
Lily woke slowly, becoming aware first that Quint’s warm and deeply even breath was in her hair and that his unbound hand was at her back. His body protected her from the chilly morning air, with his arm and one leg thrown over her.
She was momentarily content, in spite of the manacles that bound her to her husband. Perhaps because of them. And then it hit her—a roiling, unpleasant churning of her stomach. And she hadn’t even moved yet!
“Quint,” she whispered, tugging at his sleeve. “Wake up, Quint.”
Her husband only growled sleepily and held her tighter, rubbing his leg up and down hers in a drowsy motion.
“Quint!”
He opened his eyes one at a time, and then he smiled at her sleepily, planting a kiss on her forehead.
“Good morning, sweet —”
“Get up,” she ordered uneasily, pulling herself and Quint into an upright position. As she stood, the tent seemed to tilt and spin, and she slapped her hand over her mouth.
Lily ran from the tent, dragging a half-drowsing Quint with her. With her hand clamped over her mouth and her stomach rebelling, she rounded the tent and stopped only when they were out of sight, away from the rest of the camp.
She emptied her stomach onto the ground, retching until there was nothing left. She stood very still until the waves of nausea had passed, and only
then was she aware that Quint was holding her up with the arm that was bound to hers and holding her hair away from her face with the other.
“Are you all right?” he whispered huskily into her ear.
Lily turned her head. She was mortified that Quint had been there when she’d gotten sick and terrified that he might guess the reason for her infirmity.
“I’m fine,” she said weakly. “It must have been the stew. I… I shouldn’t eat pork,” she lied.
He accepted her explanation easily, much to Lily’s relief, and they walked back into camp. All eyes turned to them as Quint placed a tin cup of water to her lips, but no one dared to stare. Not even when she and Quint began to walk around the camp in a comfortable sort of symmetry, the clanking of the heavy chains between them. Lily didn’t view the manacles as a burden any longer, and Quint didn’t seem to either. There were harder possibilities to contemplate—harsher fates than being chained to the man she loved.
Lily stopped in the middle of the camp and signaled silently to Sellers. The crewman jumped from his task of taking down the tents to rush to her side, ready to do whatever she asked.
Quint remembered Tommy’s words of warning. The men of Lily’s crew really would kill or die for her. He could see that reality on the young man’s face.
Lily lifted her manacled hand, and Sellers fished the key out of his pocket, releasing his Captain.
“You’re not chaining me to that uncle of yours again, are you?” Quint asked, frowning as Lily was released, wrist and ankle.
Lily’s answer was to turn and call for her uncle, and Tommy grudgingly approached his niece, leaving the chore of packing and saddling the horses to the crew.
“You’re not fastening me to that bloody bloke again!” Tommy insisted.
In Enemy Hands Page 23