"I stayed because my heart fell in love with you from the first moment I saw you, even though I did not know it at the time." She frowned and studied him closely. Was there something wrong? Was there something he was not telling her about? "Why do you ask such a silly question after all these years? Have I given you some indication that I am not happy with you?"
He shook his head. "No. I guess I just wanted to hear it. I thought perhaps I was just seeing what I wanted to see." He smiled ruefully. "Sometimes, love clouds the vision for a while."
"Oh?" She loosened the ties of the front of his shirt. Her fingers glided along his skin. Muscles, hard and sinewy, met her touch. She felt his heart hammering just beneath the material. "And how is your vision?"
She could reduce him to a mass of desire with just a look, a word. She was pure madness. And she was his. "Desperately clouded."
Hands against his shoulders, she pushed him back on their bed. "And well it should be." Lowering her head, she traced an arrow's imprint along his chest with her lips. Her target was his heart. "Forever."
Jason pulled Krystyna to him. Catching her off balance, she fell on top of him, laughing as she pretended to struggle. "Come here, you vixen."
She looked at him puzzled. "Why do you call me by the name of a female fox?" She tossed her head back. The tips of her hair tickled his bare skin like a light, spring breeze. "Does it mean something in your language I have not yet learned?"
As if there was something she didn't know or understand. "You've learned more than enough in any language."
With a swift movement, he reversed their positions and had her pinned under him. His body fit over hers as if they had been created for one another before time had ever begun.
He framed her face with his hands, looking down at the woman he loved more than life itself. And always would. If he had to live without her, he knew that he couldn't. She was everything to him. Everything.
His expression grew serious again. "I just thought that perhaps, sometimes, in the middle of the night, you might long for your lands or those peasants you loved so well." His voice dropped to a whisper and then faded away, like mist in the morning.
Krystyna wondered what brought this on and if it truly plagued him. Didn't he know that she loved him to distraction? That he was her world now, he and the children? He needed assurances. She gave him only the truth.
"I miss them. And yes, I worry about them. I worry if they are fed and warm and well. But to long for them? To long for my country? No." She shook her head, her eyes on his. "You are the only one I long for."
He dallied at the edge of her nightshirt for a moment before he pulled the string that loosened it. With great care, he drew the material aside and let his eyes roam along her body. He was hardly aware of answering. "Me?"
She could feel her body burning for his touch, for his caress. She moved ever so slowly, anticipating the magic that only he could create for her.
"Yes," she breathed. "Every moment I do not see you, I long for you."
His mouth grazed hers, taking what she so readily gave. Suddenly inflamed, he wanted to tear the rest of her nightshirt aside. With effort, he restrained himself, awed that after so many years of lovemaking, he was still enraptured, like a young boy doing it for the very first time.
As always, he had her senses careening from her. But tonight, she had a request. She struggled not to lose her thoughts, though they began to run through her hands like rainwater. "Jason?"
Jason drew his head away, her breath hot upon his lips. "Hmm?"
Krystyna splayed her hand over his chest. The beat of his heart was the most comforting sound she could imagine. "I need to ask a favor before you succeed in making my mind completely vanish."
She wanted to talk. So be it. They had all night. Gaining control over his ardor, Jason raised himself on his elbow. "As if I could say no to anything you asked right now."
She laughed, cupping his cheek. There was endless love in every gesture. "I want a party."
Jason looked at her, surprised. This wasn't what he expected.
"You?" He studied her, wondering what was going on in her mind. "I thought you didn't care for parties."
She had never lied before and she had no intentions of beginning now. "I do not."
"Then—?"
She smiled, pulling the shirt from him. She discarded it carelessly on the floor. She had always loved the way his chest looked. The way it felt. Strong and muscular. A haven for her.
"I want a party to honor our son's christening." Her eyes sparkled. "A party to which I can invite our friends."
There was more to the request and they both knew it. "And?"
She gave his lips a quick kiss, then laid down once more, her hair pooling about her face and shoulders. "You know me very well."
She looked like a goddess lying there, a beautiful, enchanting goddess. And she was his. He could feel his blood heating anew.
"I make a religion of it."
He pressed his palms over her soft, tender flesh, succeeding in thrilling them both. As he lowered his head, his breath skimmed over her breasts a moment before he ran his tongue lightly over the tempting peak. Jason watched in fascination as it instantly hardened. He restrained the urge to suckle.
"And?" he prodded once more, his breath incredibly warm against her skin.
The words were becoming increasingly more difficult to form. He made her lose the very substance of her thoughts as desire crowded everything from her mind but him. "And the new editor . . . and . . . his . . . sister."
He didn't want to talk, he wanted to make love to her. To have her make love to him. Wild, uninhibited love as only they could. "Why?"
Krystyna wove her fingers through his hair, pressing his face closer to her as lightning streaked the sky. She felt as if it had entered her body as well. His mouth was sure, his strokes true. She desperately wanted to run toward the plateau he always brought her to.
What—what was it he was asking? Oh yes. Why. "Because John likes her."
He wasn't completely sure he had heard her. Pulses were throbbing everywhere and there was a rushing noise in his ears. Jason raised his head and stopped for a moment. "Likes her? He said she was a spitfire, opinionated and ill-tempered."
She laughed. Men were so literal, so childlike when it came to the subject of love. "It was not what he said, it was the way he said it."
He thought a moment. "As I remember it, he was spitting the words out."
Krystyna shook her head, then smoothed away the furrow that came between Jason's eyes as he frowned with impatience.
"His eyes, Jason," she prompted. With an indulgent smile, she stroked his cheek fondly. Men had eyes, but they could not see, she thought. Ears, but they did not hear. "Did you see his eyes?"
He shrugged. "They were where they always were, in his head."
She could not help the bubble of laughter that rose up. "You are handsome and kind, but so blind."
Seeing that his impatience had grown, she raised her head and ran her tongue along the outline of his lips. She smiled with triumph as she felt his desire for her become firm against her.
He drew her closer to him, fitting her to him so that there was not an inch of space between their bodies. He teased a ring of kisses along her throat until she moaned. "All right, what about his eyes?"
He wasn't fighting fair, but she didn't want a fair fight. She liked these prolonged romantic interludes. It was what kept life with him exciting. What kept her anticipation thriving.
"They softened when he said her name. And there was a flash to them. He likes her."
She saw things that he had not seen. If they were there. It you say so.
He was humoring her. She didn't like being humored. Krystyna shifted, but she was trapped between his body and the sheets. "I do say so. And I want him to be able to have an opportunity to say so himself. To her."
A woman's mind was a complete mystery to him. But at the moment, it wasn't Krystyna's mind he w
as interested in. He stroked her thighs slowly as he spoke, struggling to keep his mind on the topic. "And our having a celebration will help."
"Yes." The word was uttered breathlessly.
Jason shook his head. He didn't understand, but he didn't have to. Matters like this he left to Krystyna. It always astounded him that she was so versed in things that men were interested in—politics, wars, weapons.
Yet when it came to life itself, to the business of men and women and the way they thought, her path strayed miles from his. "You know, maybe you should have gone back to Poland."
This, out of the blue? She looked at him, startled. "Why?"
He rose over her, his body bracketing hers. "Because you probably would have wound up being queen and making them all bend to your will."
Love shone in her eyes as she looked up at his face. "I am only interested in having one man bend to my will."
He inclined his head, a smile playing on his lips. "My knee is bent, milady."
She laughed, taking his face between her hands. As she moved, she could feel the length of him, wanting her. "Your knee may be bent, but something else is very, very straight, my love. And that is just as I want it."
Anything else she might have said was lost as he brought his mouth down on hers. It was past the time for words. Only deed would do now. Deeds such as loving her the way she had never been loved before.
Each time was better than the last. It was something that Jason knew he intended to maintain as a tradition until death finally claimed him, hopefully many years from now.
Chapter Twelve
The storm had swept through Morgan's Creek like a petulant, spurned Southern belle. And when her anger had been spent, she slowly retreated.
After five days of rain, it was heartening to see a blue sky again. Tufts of clouds were white and wispy instead of dark and pregnant. Perhaps, Rachel mused as she worked in the office, it was finally time for nature to be at peace.
For man to be at peace.
The last large scale battle of the war, it appeared, had been fought in South Carolina two months ago in August. There had been no offensive launched since then, no reports of new skirmishes. Peace seemed to be breaking out at long last.
Still, they were a long way from a treaty, though she knew her mentor, Franklin, was even now in Paris, fashioning a preliminary agreement between the nations.
The Gazette was doing its part by backing the fledgling nation, but she felt frustrated. It wasn't enough, not nearly enough. She wanted to do more, and had no idea what.
Rachel looked at the printing press. She supposed that there were people who had no way of expressing themselves at all. She was fortunate. At least she could give voice to her views through the editorials, though both she and her brother signed them "R. O'Roarke" for a very obvious reason that irked her. The men in the county, the men anywhere, she thought bitterly, would never stand for reading opinions put forth by a woman. That too, frustrated her. But it could be worse. Riley could have stood in her way and not allowed her to express her sentiments at all. At least he understood when no one else would.
She smiled to herself as she arranged the letters. They had come a long way, she and Riley, from the two ragged orphans who had landed on the shores of Philadelphia with only a past and no future.
A noise caught her attention. She was alone in the office and more than aware that not everyone who passed through the town was friendly to the Gazette's stand on the war. Taking a reflexive step toward the musket she kept handy beside the desk, Rachel looked up to see who was entering the shop.
She was surprised to see a delicate, dark-haired woman standing there. The woman was young, slight, and very well dressed in a dark green velvet morning dress. But even if she had been wearing rags, Rachel would have detected the air of an aristocrat about her. She wore it like a mantel. It was there in the set of her shoulders, in the way her chin was slightly raised, as if she had just posed for a painting.
Rachel felt dowdy in her simple brown dress. With spirit that had been generations in the making, she raised her chin and returned the appraising gaze.
Two could play this game, whatever it was.
She was every bit as good as this woman who had been born to the lap of luxury. If for some reason the woman had come to lord it over her, she was going to be sorely disappointed.
"You will not have need of that," Krystyna assured Rachel kindly.
"That?" Rachel echoed, confused.
"The musket." Krystyna had seen Rachel move toward it before she even looked up. Good, a woman who would not swoon at the first noise. She liked that. Sin-Jin needed someone with spirit. "I mean you no harm." She gestured around the small print shop. It faced the afternoon sun and was brightly lit, like a warm jewel absorbing the sunlight and casting it back playfully. "May I come in?"
Rachel thought she heard an accent, but it was like none she was acquainted with. She wiped the ink from her fingers with her apron. "It's a mistake I think you've made."
Krystyna remained where she was and cocked her head, puzzled as to the other woman's meaning. "I have?"
She was a beauty, Krystyna decided, this editor's sister. She could easily see why John was so taken with her. But beauty was not enough. There was a long road to travel before Krystyna thought the young woman good enough for her friend.
But, since he seemed to be smitten, Krystyna knew she had to do what she could to help him. "I do not think I have made a mistake."
Rachel crossed to her, trying hard not to stare. She'd seen women like this before, at a distance. They frequented Lancaster's house in Ireland. Highborn ladies who didn't have five seconds to spare for those who had to work the land in order to live.
Rachel squared her shoulders as she pointed out the front door and to the left. "You'll be finding the emporium two doors down. That way."
Krystyna didn't even bother to look. She wondered why the woman seemed to be so eager to be rid of her. She was new in town, and Krystyna would have thought that she would be eager to make friends. Perhaps her abruptness hid an inadequateness the young woman had not come to terms with. She had often seen that in others.
Krystyna smiled encouragingly at Rachel. "I know where the emporium is. This is where the Gazette is printed, is it not?"
"Yes." The reply was given defensively.
Krystyna recognized a bit of herself as she had been six years ago in this woman. Compassion tugged at her heart as she remembered what it had felt like to be a stranger in a brand new land. "And you are Rachel?"
"I'm Rachel." Rachel's expression remained guarded.
Who was this woman and why was she looking for her? Curiosity grew, linking arms with anxiety. No one ever sought her out unless there was some complaint to be aired, some grievance to be settled, real or imaginary. It was a fate she had endured more than once. Because she spoke her mind plainly in a world that valued its women silent, Rachel had garnered censure from men and women alike while she had lived in Philadelphia. Her circle of women friends had dwindled down to none by the time she and Riley had moved away. It was a price she had willingly paid.
Had this woman somehow suspected that the editorial about the last imprint of English rule that yet needed to be eradicated had been written by her and not Riley? Was she here to voice her disapproval, or worse, threaten her with some sort of reprisal by her husband?
Krystyna smiled at her warmly. "Then I have not made a mistake. I am Krystyna McKinley." Krystyna came forward, her hand extended toward Rachel.
As Rachel stared at her, dumbfound, she grasped the taller woman's hand and shook it. It wasn't a polite, distant gesture, the bare touching of fingers as with some, but a firm, hearty handshake, a prelude to forming a bond between two kindred spirits.
Still mystified as to why she was being sought out, Rachel gestured toward the lone chair behind the desk. Riley was out gathering material for their next edition. Though the town was growing, with two new men arriving just this week, there
was not much that seemed to be happening in a newsworthy sort of way.
Riley, she realized, was gone overly long in search of a story. Like as not, he had probably detoured by the tavern again.
Rachel dug deep for her manners, though she still reserved judgment about the woman. "Won't you sit down, please?"
Krystyna preferred to stand, but she knew that it was impolite to hover over the other woman. "Yes, thank you." Her dark dress pooled around her like a velvet cloud as she sat down in the chair. "But I cannot stay long." She placed her hands on the armrests and fixed Rachel with a studious gaze. "I have come to invite you and your brother," she added as she saw the light brown eyebrows rise, "to my son's christening."
Rachel slipped onto the stool and looked down at Krystyna, completely taken aback. She folded her arms before her chest. "Pardon me for asking, but just why would you be doing that?"
Suspicious, Krystyna thought. But so had she been once. "You speak plainly." Rachel opened her mouth to defend herself, but had no chance. There was no need, for Krystyna smiled in approval. "I like that."
That made no sense at all to Rachel. "You do?"
"But of course." Krystyna thought of her sister-in-law. Lucinda had a generous heart, but the soul of a timid mouse, even now. She rarely made a single move without consulting Aaron first. "It is wonderful to find a woman who does not feel she must scurry behind a man and have him ask the questions. And worse, make all the decisions."
Well, they seemed to be in agreement about that, but Rachel still had no idea who this woman really was and why she wanted her to attend a party. "Thank you, but you haven't answered my question. Why would you be wanting us to come to your party?"
That was easy enough, even if John had not been involved. "Because you are strangers, and strangers should be made welcome as quickly as possible so that they can become friends."
As Rachel watched, Krystyna abruptly rose and crossed toward the printing press. Rachel noticed that the young woman wasn't wearing gloves, as befitted a lady of her apparent station. Beyond the clothes and the bearing, she wasn't doing anything as befitted a woman of her station. A smile began to slip out over Rachel's lips.
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