Beloved Enemy (12 page)

Alex kissed the fast-beating pulse at her throat, raised each
wrist in turn to press his lips against the matching pulse, before moving down
her body, a finger playing in the shell of her navel as his eyes held hers. Her
body stirred beneath his touch, and he ran a long, lazy caress from hip to
ankle, still watching her eyes that held only a dreamy joy as she shifted with
languid pleasure.

He parted her thighs, and Ginny gasped, her eyes sparkling
not with fear but with excitement. His fingers pit-patted across the sensitive
satin of the inner skin before moving higher. All the while he watched her
face, holding his own rising excitation in check, wanting to ensure that he was
truly pleasuring her.

Ginny moaned softly as a strange tightness grew in her belly
— grew and coiled beneath the questing fingers that had found what they sought.
She opened like a flower under the morning sun, and the gentle probing became
insistent. How was he able to create this wonder? The thought came and went as
she felt a presence inside her, moving with
the
same speed as the fingers outside, and then the coil tightened beyond bearing and
burst apart. She heard her own sobbing cry from somewhere outside herself as
the muscles of her thighs and buttocks squeezed around the magic of his
fingers, and then released to leave her pulsing and heavy with relaxation.

Alex kissed her, his
mouth
hard as his own need became imperative. He stripped off his clothes and moved
over her as he slid his hands beneath her hips, lifting her to meet him. Ginny
cried out as he entered her, the exultant cry that he remembered she had
quenched before, when there were people who might hear, and her legs curled
around him, drawing him deep against the cleft of her body.

She was a woman made for loving, Alex thought again, made for
the giving and receiving. As he moved within, Ginny moaned, thrashing wildly
beneath him, her heels pressing into his buttocks demanding her own fulfillment
as she promised his. Her eyes were open, locked with his, and he saw the
wonderful flash of surprise as exquisite pleasure overpowered her, the
incredible translucence of her skin as she gazed at him in bewildered wonder,
cried out again, and held him tight as his own completion throbbed within the
tig
ht chamber of her being.

Ginny lay crushed beneath his weight, his fast-beating h
e
art pulsing in rhythm with her own, their skins
blended in
th
e salt mist of ecstacy. With a
reluctant groan, Alex rolled of
f
her and,
propping himself on one elbow, examined her lace. The shy smile she gave him
increased the radiance of her skin, the residue of wonder lurking still in the
gray eyes.

"I do not think
,
"
he said softly,
"
that I have ever had such a
loving."

"Since I have never experienced loving, I have nothing
to co
m
pare it with." She was teasing
him, and he chuckled.

"That, Mistress Courtney, deserves a dunking."

Ginny squealed as he sprang to his feet with a resurgence of
energy and hauled her upright, bending to put his shoulder against her stomach
as he tossed her over and ran with her to the sea.

"Don't!" she yelped as he made to throw her
backward
into
the waves.
"
I do not wish for my hair to become
all salty. It is but newly washed."

Alex laughed, standing waist high in the cold Atlantic
.
Mold it up, then, because you're
going in." He slid her down the length of his body, and she gasped as the
water s
hiv
ered her midriff.

"
It
's freezing, Alex!" Her teeth
chattered, and then she felt his hands parting her thighs beneath the waves,
cleansing her skin of the residue of their passion with seductive strokes that
made her shiver with something other than cold. Alex grinned wickedly, turning
her round to run his fingers in an
i
n
tim
ate knowing caress down the cleft of her buttocks.

"Off you go, now. I'm going to swim. This water
'
s too co
l
d
for
standing still." A playful smack accompanied the
instruc
ti
on, and Ginny leaped through the
water, holding her hair
high
until she reached the shallows. She
turned to watch him
i
s he cleaved the water with a
powerful overarm, the auburn h
e
ad a dark
splodge against the gray-green sea. Ginny co
nt
emplated
taking her revenge by drying herself on his s
hi
rt and then decided that he had not deserved such tr
e
at
m
ent. Instead,
she rubbed herself dry vigorously with
her
chemise
—the
one garment she could do without on
the way home. Her habit was wet from the mad ride, though
,
and sandy from her fall, and without a comb and the
wooden pins
that
Alex had removed, there was
little
she could do about her hair.

Ginny slipped into her drawers and surprised herself by an
involuntary giggle, something she hadn't done in years, but the thought of
riding through the camp in her disheveled condition was somehow deliciously
funny. And then the laughter died abruptly. It mattered not a whit if the whole
world knew of her shocking conduct. She had nothing to lose except a reputation
that now seemed quite irrelevant. Suddenly she wrapped her arms across her
breasts in an unconsciously protective movement. She did have something else to
lose—
the
man, Alex Marshall, and all that
went with the love and passion of man for woman and woman for man. But how
could she not lose it? There was no place in wartime for the consummated desire
between a colonel in Cromwell's New Model Army and the daughter of a Malignant.
No place for more than the ephemeral joy between two people opposed in every
way but that of bodily fit and contour.

"
Ow!"
Deep in her reverie, she hadn't heard Alex creep up the sand behind her. He
caught her around the waist and lifted her off her feet, her bare back pressed
against his cold wet
c
hest. "Put me down!" Her
legs flailed indignantly. "You've made me all wet again."

"It was quite irresistible." He laughed, setting
her on her fre
t
"Th
e
sight of you in nothing but your drawers, withyour
hair hanging down your back, staring into space on a deserted beach. What were
you thinking?"

"Nothing at all," she declared, "except how
wonderful I feel."

"I'm not sure I believe you," Alex said quietly,
"but I will do so for the moment because I must."

"The colonel must return to his troops," Ginny
said, accepting his statement thankfully, handing him her chemise. "Use
this to dry yourself."

Alex frowned but said nothing as he dried himself roughly and
dressed.

Ginny shook the sand from her cloak before throwing the
garment around her shoulders and tucking her hair beneath
the hood.
"
How
much of a wanton do I look?" she asked with a tiny smile
that
did
little
to
dispel the strain that, while it took nothing away from the glory they had
shared, cast a shadow over the present and the nebulous future.

"
If
you remain swathed, you will pass muster," Alex said, tipping her chin to
drop a kiss on her nose. If she would play the game, then would he also.
"The only difficulty I see is how to hide one soaked undergarment from
sharp eyes
"
He wrung out the sodden shift with a
frown of mock puzzlement.

"
I
will conceal it beneath my cloak, together with the rest of the evidence of my
abandonment." She laughed lightly. "Let us put gloom behind us for
the moment, and I will guarantee to race you back with cunning rather than
speed."

She caught Jen's reins, hitched her skirts over one arm, and
put a foot in the stirrup. "Help me up, Colonel."

Alex boosted her into the saddle with one hand under her
bottom. "You were quite capable of remounting unaided," he told her
when she made laughing protestation at this undignified helping hand.

"Maybe so, sir," Ginny rejoined. "But you
could at least have made a pretense of chivalry."

"And forgo such an opportunity?" he questioned, one
eyebro
w
raised quizzically.

Ginny laughed.
"
I
will be first in the stableyard, Alex," She was away before he had mounted
Bucephalus. Alex thundered after her, but by the time he had reached the cliff
top both Ginny and her mount had vanished. Obviously she knew a shortcut, and
Alex resigned himself to following the path he knew.

She was waiting for him in the field adjoining the Redfern estate,
and said slyly, "It occurred to me that if I appeared without you, your
men might think that I had given you the slip, and then their commanding
officer might be obliged to demonstrate that his prisoner had broken her parole
and must face the consequences."

Alex scratched his nose, frowning thoughtfully.
"
I hate to disappoint you, chicken,
but that is another of your challenges I intend to refuse."

"Spoilsport," she threw at him, encouraging Jen
into a trot.

They reached the stableyard in sober decorum, to be met by an
anxious Diccon, who handed Alex a folded paper. The aide-de-camp was clearly
controlling his excitement only by the most supreme effort.

Alex read the missive, and the frown
that
Ginny now knew so well drew the thick eyebrows in a
bridge over his nose.
"
When did
t
his arrive?"

"
Two
hours ago, sir," Diccon responded.

Two hours ago, when Parliament's colonel was making love to
the enemy on a deserted beach. Ginny could hear Alex's thought as clearly as if
he had spoken it.

Alex swung from his horse and helped Ginny from hers. His
face was tight and closed, his hands impersonal. "I fear, Mistress
Courtney, that you must repair to your chamber. I regret the necessity to
confine you behind a locked door, but I have much to do and cannot spare a man
to guard you."

"And if I give you my word that a guard will not be
necessary?"

Alex hesitated, raising his eyebrows. He could not ask her
d
irect
l
y, in the
seething stableyard, if she was telling him
tha
t
for this
m
ome
n
t sh
e
would not use her freedom and the
advance
of
observation  for her own  purposes.

"Have you ever had reason to doubt my word?" she
asked

softly

"No." Alex shook his head. "But if you ever
give me cause to  do  so .  .  .  ."

"There is no need for threats."

"Very well. But stay close to the house." A gleam
appeared in the green-brown eyes, and his voice dropped. "I may have a
need to lay hands on you."

"I shall not stray, Colonel," Ginny murmured,
lowering her own gaze to hide the responsive spark.

Alex strode off without a further word to her, throwing
orders at Diccon, who followed his colonel like an eager puppy.

Ginny had no idea what had been in the message, but she found
herself in the midst of what, at first, appeared to be a maelstrom of confusion
and then, once she could make sense of the parts, became a hurried but orderly
business of departure. The bugle called incessantly, the orchard campsite was
dismantled, horses were saddled, supplies loaded onto carts. Soldiers and
officers scurried around her, commands were shouted and obeyed. No one appeared
to notice her as she watched, listened, and formed her own impression of the
efficiency of Alex Marshall's brigade.

It was late afternoon when a young ensign appeared at her
elbow. "The colonel wishes to see you, Mistress Courtney."

She nodded. "Is he in the dining room?"

"
Yes,
mistress."

"Then I have no need of escort." She said it gently
but nonetheless forcefully, and the youngster shuffled awkwardly.

Ginny crossed the hall where the oak floors bore the tracks
of muddy boots, but where no signs of the usual devastation of occupation were
visible. The invaders were clearly moving out; so what plans had been made for
Parliament's ward?