Defiant Impostor (39 page)

Arching against his lips, the sensation of his panting
breaths and relentlessly dueling tongue upon her flesh driving her to
distraction, she began to shake, her heels bumping against his back. Suddenly
she felt every wondrous sensation funneling to the point of his feverish
onslaught and converge deep inside her like a tightly coiled spring.

"Adam . . . I . . . I . . ."

"I know, my love, I know," she heard him
answer in her passionate delirium. Through half-closed eyes she saw him rise.
He climbed swiftly onto the bed and hauled her on top of him. In the next dazed
instant she was facing the headboard and straddling him, her body sinking onto
his glorious erection until he filled her completely.

"Kiss me," he demanded hoarsely, pulling her
to him and seizing her lips as he thrust powerfully inside her, burying himself
to the hilt, only to withdraw and plunge into her again and again. Each time,
she felt that coiled spring compress ever tighter . . . tighter . . . until
finally her fingers splayed spasmodically upon his sweat-slickened chest and
she could only whimper for the incredible rapture exploding within her.

"Kiss me!" Adam whispered against her softly
parted lips, feeling his release come upon him so suddenly that he grimaced as
if in excruciating pain.

Yet it wasn't pain that gripped him and caused him to
stiffen, his shaft throbbing in rhythm with his racing heartbeat within the
hot, wondrous tightness of her body, his breath tearing in great gasps from his
throat. It was ecstasy, pure, unbounded, and radiantly blinding . . .

***

How long Susanna had lain collapsed upon his chest he
could not say, but when Adam finally found it within himself to speak, he
thought she must have fallen asleep.

"Camille?"

She was so quiet, so still, only her breath stirring
the glistening hair that covered her face, that he began to believe she had
lost consciousness from the sheer intensity of her passion. Wiping her hair
from her flushed cheeks, he shook her gently.

"Camille?"

She lifted her head then, slowly, and looked at him
with an expression he could not fathom, although her eyes gazed almost
pleadingly into his.

"That's not my name, Adam."

His throat tightened, his heart brimming with so many
things he wanted to say to her, but he couldn't bring himself to utter a word.
If he declared his love for her again and she scorned him for it, he didn't
know what he would do.

"It
is
your name. It must be." He almost added that he was truly sorry, but he
remained silent, enfolding her in his arms and bringing her with him as he
rolled onto his side. As his relaxed body slid from hers, he felt strangely
bereft, as if he wished they could remain joined as one forever.

Passion was so damned fleeting. When it was over, love
should come into play, sustaining them until the next time desire overwhelmed
them. But between himself and this endlessly captivating woman there was only
passion, all-encompassing as it was, and he wondered with acute regret if
things would ever change and she would also come to accept his love.

Vain hope! On their wedding night she had said that she
detested him. Such were the things that he possessed: her desire, which he
truly wanted; her pity, which was the last emotion he wanted from her; and her
hatred, which he had earned by forcing her into marriage.

Wholly frustrated, Adam willed himself not to dwell
upon their seemingly insurmountable impasse. Especially not now, when she lay
snuggled so warm and satiated against him, her slim hand resting over his heart
and his cheek pressed against her soft, jasmine-scented hair.

Instead he would enjoy this moment, however fleeting.
When they were together like this, savoring the sweet harmony after their impassioned
lovemaking, it was so easy to imagine that things could be different between
them.

"Adam?"

She wasn't looking at him, but at some distant point.

"Yes?"

"Tell me about your life . . . before you came to
Virginia, I mean."

Startled by her request, he nonetheless didn't see any
harm in answering her. They were married, after all. It seemed that they held
few secrets from each other now, other than the one he kept locked so securely
in his heart.

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

"There isn't much, really," he replied,
raising himself on one elbow, while keeping the other arm securely around her.
"My father was a miner on the Newcastle coalfield and my mother a
seamstress. I worked in the mines, too, starting when I was seven, so I never
had much chance to go to school."

"You taught yourself to read and write here at
Briarwood, didn't you?" she asked, obviously having surmised that he had
been offered no formal education at Raven's Point.

"Mostly," Adam said, recalling his consuming
struggle to master those skills within his first year under James Cary's
employ, and how when he finally had, he had used most of the wages he had saved
to begin his own library. "Cleo managed to teach me a little—"

"Yes, Dominick told me that he'd had her
tutored," she broke in softly. "He said so she might help him run his
household."

"Whatever his reasons, it was an unusual thing for
a white master to do for a slave," Adam replied, finding the topic
unpleasant and wishing he hadn't brought it up. "But Dominick always had a
soft spot for Cleo, however twisted. When he found out about our lessons
together, we both got a beating, but that didn't stop her from writing a letter
for me to my uncle in England. She risked a lot to see that it got aboard a
ship in Yorktown, doing so practically under Dominick's nose when he took her
with him to meet another ship carrying goods he had ordered from London."

"Did you ever receive an answer from your
uncle?"

"No. Maybe he never got the letter. More likely he
didn't have the money I asked him to loan me so I could buy my way out of my
indenture, and was too embarrassed to write and tell me. He was a miner, too,
with five children to feed . . ." Adam sighed. "It was a good try,
but I didn't bother again."

"I'm sorry, Adam. We won't talk about this
anymore. I only asked because I saw your books on grammar and the art of
writing when I went to your office. Remember? You started to undress in front
of me . . ."

He smiled at his memory of how prettily flustered she
had become, but his lighter mood faded when he recalled the lateness of the
hour. If they kept talking all night, neither of them would want to get up in
the morning for the Byrds' summer ball. "Enough reminiscing. I think we
should go to sleep now—"

"No, Adam, I'd like to hear the rest of your
story," she insisted. "I won't interrupt again. I promise. Please go
on."

He couldn't refuse her when she looked at him so
expectantly.

"You said your father was a miner?" she
prompted him.

"Yes," Adam began again. "His health
began to suffer from breathing in coal dust, he was coughing up blood, and his
wages weren't getting any higher, so he decided to try and make us a better
life by emigrating to the colonies. He'd heard that America was a land of great
plenty, and that a man could become anything he wanted there if he worked hard
enough. We didn't have enough money for the sea passage from Liverpool, so we
indentured ourselves. The captain of our ship said he would do his best to make
sure we all ended up working together at the same plantation when we got to
Virginia . . . and he kept his promise." Adam sighed, not wanting to go
any further. "That's it."

Silence followed as Susanna pondered what he'd just
told her, then she murmured, "Your mother must have been a beautiful
woman."

"She was. With chestnut hair and laughing hazel
eyes. But I think I favored my father, except for his sense of humor. I've
always been a bit too serious for my own good." He drew her closer,
entwining a honey tendril around his finger. "I know your mother must have
been a beauty to have spawned you."

"Aye, she was pretty. My father used to curse me
up and down because I looked just like her, with the same eyes and hair."

Wondering if Susanna realized that she had lapsed back
into her London accent, Adam decided not to mention it to her. Perhaps her
recollections were drawing it from her, he reasoned. Anyway, he liked it.

"What did your father do . . . Daniel, wasn't
it?" he asked her gently, feeling her stiffen against him.

"Yes. He was a foundryman until he lost his job.
He never went back to find another. My mother died when I was three. When I
turned four my papa sent me out into the streets to beg for him. Sometimes I
even picked pockets, but that was only when I hadn't earned enough coins during
the day to save myself from a beating." She slowly exhaled.
"Sometimes he was so drunk that no amount of money made any
difference."

So that was the source of her vivid nightmares, Adam
thought, sickened by what she must have suffered at that man's brutal hands.
Yet he was also grateful that at least one thing she had told him when she was
masquerading as Camille was true.

"So you ran away from him when he wanted to sell
you to Keefer Dunn," he prodded, hoping not to upset her.

"Aye, when I was twelve. Lady Redmayne and Camille
saved me. If they hadn't come along—" She shuddered in his arms, then
quickly changed the subject. "I owe everything to Camille . . . Lady
Redmayne, too, but especially Camille because she never treated me like her
waiting-maid. I was her friend and she was mine, the kind you're lucky to find
once in your life." Her low-spoken words throbbed with emotion. "I
would have done anything for her. Anything. I owed her so much . . ."

As Susanna's voice faded into a poignant silence, Adam
realized with startling clarity how cruelly he had misjudged her. Until now, he
had never believed that she and Camille could have truly been close friends,
but there was no mistaking the fervent testimony she had just given him. He
recalled how Polly Blake had described Camille weeping so bitterly at her
waiting-maid's burial. Those had been Susanna's tears for a lost friend . . . a
friend whose dying wish she had sworn to honor.

"You know, Adam," she said, meeting his eyes,
"I haven't had a single nightmare since we were married. Not even during
the past two nights when you were gone." She looked abruptly away then, as
if afraid he would read some emotion in her gaze. "You said to me once
that you would help chase away my nightmares. I think you already have."

Adam froze against her, unable to believe what he had
just heard from her lips.

Why had she said that to him, and so sweetly? he
wondered, painfully recalling that evening in the library when he had sworn to
protect her with his life and then admitted how much he loved her. A familiar
mistrust crept like cold fingers through his mind and body, chilling him to the
marrow. Why would she refer to such a moment? Why?

To know that she hadn't masqueraded as Camille out of
her own selfish greed was one thing, but she had still purposely deceived him
because she had thought he wasn't good enough to marry. He didn't dare hope
that there was some affection behind her words, and open himself up for some
new treachery.

No, there had to be some other explanation for why she
was trying to make him believe her heart was softening toward him. There had to
be some dark motive behind her countless attempts to please him, and this
sudden, dangerously compelling flattery.

"We've talked enough, Camille," he said,
hearing the hard, bitter edge in his voice. "I want you to look your best
tomorrow and you won't if you have dark smudges under your eyes. Now go to
sleep."

Turning abruptly onto his other side with his back to
her, he could feel that she was staring at him in startled surprise, then she
sighed in resignation.

"Very well, Adam. Good night."

He didn't answer, closing his eyes and his heart
against her once more.

Chapter 22

"Smile, Mrs. Thornton, or no one will know you're
having a good time," Adam whispered in a low aside as they walked from the
crowded dance floor to the side of the brightly lit room. He gave her elbow a
sharp squeeze to emphasize his words. "I said, smile."

Susanna did her best, but her heart wasn't in it. How
could it be, when he had been treating her so callously all day?

She was such a fool, thinking her revelation last night
about her nightmares might please him. Instead it had made him so angry that he
had scarcely spoken to her until they had arrived at Westover this afternoon.
Then it was only to give her these brusque commands on how she was to behave at
the home of the most influential planter in the Tidewater, William Byrd, or
else to play the doting husband whenever anyone was around to see.

When was she going to realize that Adam didn't trust
her? she wondered, cursing her impatience. It would be months before he
believed anything she had to say, regardless of when he achieved his revenge
against Dominick. Heaven give her the strength to wait that long! When he used
such a cutting tone with her, it was all she could do to hold her tongue. Yet
if she vented her temper, she imagined it would only drive him that much
further away.

Overwhelmed with frustration, Susanna fanned her face
with vigor. She was grateful for the lull in the music so she might catch her
breath. The eight musicians had kept up an exuberant rhythm for almost an hour
now. She felt flushed from her scalp to her slippered toes, not only from the
spirited saraband they had just danced, but also from the stuffy warmth of the
large reception room that served as the Byrds' ballroom.

Longing to move nearer the wide-opened windows for some
fresh air, she glanced at Adam to find he was gazing at her in admiration.
Familiar excitement shot through her, the kind she always felt when he looked
at her in such a hungry manner.