Faithfully Yours (20 page)

He put his fingers to her cheek. In his eyes, she could see his regret, but also his unfailing determination to protect her and her sisters. She touched his hand, wishing she could tell him of the pain in her heart, yet knowing that he understood.

Suddenly the crashing halted, and Faith heard a familiar sound. No, it could not be possible! Raising her head, she looked with caution over the bushes.

Pigs! A quartet of pigs were in the middle of the road, looking for something to eat. These must be the last of the ones that had escaped when the rebels burned the barn.

Coming to her feet, she laughed. Her sisters squealed like piglets themselves as they ran to the animals, sending them crashing through the underbrush again. She called for her sisters not to follow.

“Pigs?” Sebastian asked in disgust. “We were hiding from pigs? If my colonel hears of this—”

“He will think you showed great restraint in not shooting them where they stood.” She laughed, then winced as more icy sleet struck her. “Let's hurry home.”

With his arm around her waist, he whispered, “I would rather find some remote place to be alone with you, sweet one. Our desire could turn even this ice to steam.”

When he kissed her she quivered with the yearning that had plagued her during the nights. She knew that he, too, was probably thrashing, sleepless, such a short distance away. His arms crushed her against him, but even that was not close enough. She wanted his skin on hers.

Wind tore them apart as the storm intensified. She gazed up at him. The same wild winds that had brought them together and now swirled through them, urging her to forget caution and her sisters and the war—and everything else—in his arms.

“'Tis not snow,” Nancy said in her most superior tone from the other side of the road, where the little girls were peering through the bushes. “You said Faith said it was going to snow.”

“She said it was going to storm.”

“
You
said—”

With a wistful chuckle, Sebastian called, “You two can argue more comfortably in front of your father's hearth. Let's go.”

When her sisters skipped back to them, Molly took Sebastian's hand. Nancy pouted as she accepted Faith's reluctantly, reminded that Sebastian needed to be able to reach for his gun in case they met something more dangerous than runaway pigs.

Faith bent her head into a wind that wanted to pull off her bonnet and threatened to trip her with her own cloak. The sleet seemed to be flying parallel to the ground, and the little girls faltered as the wind buffeted them nearly off their feet.

Sebastian bent and picked up Molly. “Can you carry Nancy?”

“Yes,” she replied, then repeated it as a shout. She had not guessed the storm wind would strip away the word as soon as it left her lips.

Gathering up her little sister, Faith took one step. The wind shoved her back, as if she had run into something solid. She tried again. The results were the same. Sebastian was able to push forward, but she could not. When he came back and put his other arm around her waist, she tried a third time.

She ignored the clatter of branches overhead until a violent crack sounded like winter thunder. A branch that was as thick as her sister's waist struck the road, not far from them. She cowered as bark and broken twigs struck them like cannon shot. When Sebastian jerked on her arm, she followed him beneath the trees.

“Won't it be more dangerous here?” she called over the wind.

“Not when we are inside.”

“Inside what?”

He hooked a thumb to the right. “In that.”

Faith stared the familiar sight of the tumbledown byre. This had to be some sort of absurd jest. She could not go in there with
Sebastian
. If her contact was huddling inside, out of the storm, everything would be revealed.

“No,” she gasped, turning back to the road.

“No?” He turned to look at her, then grimaced as pellets of sleet sliced into his face.

“This is not our property. We don't want to disturb any animals that might be within.” She knew she was babbling and making no sense, but could not halt herself. Lying to Sebastian was unbearable when she wanted to be holding him close. “We are not that far from home. We can get there.”

“Nonsense.” Taking her arm again, he pulled her through the low door and into the shadowed byre. He set Molly onto the dry ground and lifted Nancy from Faith's arms. As the two little girls scurried about, poking their noses into every corner, he asked, “Why are you arguing about something as senseless as not trespassing on a farmer's animals when the ice is quickly coating the branches and making them dangerous?”

“I did not want us to be ambushed.”

“By more pigs?” He sat on a log in the shadows on the other side of door from where she usually left her supplies. Again, he set his pistol on his knees.

“That was silly, I admit.”

“No, you had no idea who might be in the underbrush. Hiding like that was one of the wisest things I have ever seen you do.” He tugged her down to sit beside him. In a husky whisper, he added, “Except when you followed a string of yarn to my bed.”

His teasing kiss became demanding as she swept her arms up his back. When he drew back the high collar of her cloak to delight her neck, she held tightly to him. She did not dare to let her fingers explore, because she was not sure she could halt herself from pleading with him to make love with her again.
Here. Now
.

A sharp cry from one of her sisters compelled her to drag herself out of his embrace. Coming to her feet, she swayed, for her knees were unsteady due to the powerful passions he had aroused with his touch.

“Molly! Nancy! There is no need for this arguing.”

Nancy cried, “She won't let me look at it.”

“'Tis mine. I found it, and I need a new one.”

Sebastian stood. “What did you find?” He held out his hand.

“Don't get caught up in their childish games,” Faith said, putting her hand in his. She did not want to think what her sisters might have uncovered here. Others might use this as a cache.

“Faith, what is wrong?”

She wanted to tell him the truth, to be able to open her heart completely to him. She must not. But what could she say that would not sound completely stupid?

“Here it is, Sebastian,” announced Molly with a broad smile at Nancy. “I found it in the corner by the hay.”

Sebastian frowned as he took the glove from Molly. He turned it over and said, “This looks like your knitting, Faith.”

She took the glove from him. Hoping he could not see her fingers trembling in the dim light, she went to the corner. There, as she had expected, were a half dozen gloves atop a box of salt. These were not what she had brought to the woman, but the supplies she had carried here to Tom Rooke just before he was captured.

“Is it your knitting?” Sebastian asked to her back.

She struggled to put anger into her voice as she picked up a soggy glove. “So this is what happened to them!”

“Happened?”

Dropping both gloves back onto the others, she sat on the stool where she had so often sat before. She looked out at the storm so she could keep him from discerning the truth. “There have been thieves around here since summer. I had thought they would go away when you and your men arrived, but they have not. They have stolen from loyalist and rebel alike, so I doubt if they are soldiers.”

“Why would anyone want to steal gloves and socks?”

“Do you consider my work of such little value? It is clear that others do not.” She crossed her arms in front of her. “You and your men should be protecting us from these thieves.”

“We are not here to stop petty thieves.”

“You are here to uphold the law. To protect those like my father who remain loyal to the king when others would gladly turn their backs on the law and use this unrest to their advantage.”

“But you said these thieves have stolen from your neighbors who support the rebels, as well.”

“Yes.” She should have thought out her tale better before spouting it.

“I will take measures to make sure you are not robbed again, Faith.”

“Will you?”

She watched the light vanish from his eyes. How she longed to put her arms around him and whisper the truth! She did not want to steal his dreams of glory from him, but she must not let him suspect—even for a moment—that she had met both Tom Rooke and her new contact in this very byre.

“Yes, I will.” He went to the door and put his elbow on it as he gazed out at the branches that were slowly growing thick with ice. “Why do you doubt that?”

“Because, at night when I dream that I could be with you,” she said, going to stand beside him and leaning her face against the back of his shoulder, “I know how that dream could be dashed with a single order from your superiors in Philadelphia.”

“I must go where they send me.”

“So you can have your chance to satisfy your father's expectations that you will be a great hero?”

He faced her and gripped her arms. “I must obey the orders given to me.” He laughed tersely. “Otherwise I would have already had my opportunity to prove to my father that his heir is deserving of his title.”

“Is that the only way he will believe that? It does not matter to him that you have traveled thousands of miles from your home to fight in a battle you believe is right?”

“My father knows what he expects from his children.”

“As mine does.”

A smile eased across his lips as his fingertip touched hers. “We do have that in common.”

“And so much more.”

His finger eased down over her chin and along the front of her bodice. When she pulsed with the longing that was mirrored in his eyes, she whispered his name. She wanted so much more than this. A single night in his arms had not been enough. She wanted … She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.

Turning away, she went to where her sisters were huddled on the hay. She put her arms around them, drawing them to her. They put their heads on her lap. She stroked their hair.
This
was her life—her family and her friends and her neighbors, and the gentle turn of seasons from one to the next among these hills.

“Faith—” Sebastian began. Then he looked back over his shoulder. He shouted, “In here!”

As Molly and Nancy jumped up and rushed to greet their father, Faith accepted Sebastian's hand. He brought her to her feet, but said nothing. Whatever he had been about to say in front of her sisters, he did not want to say in her father's hearing. Curiosity taunted her. She tried to ignore it as they hurried out into the storm to the covered wagon her father had brought from the farm.

“Mrs. McEachern told me that Faith and the girls had left just before the storm. I knew they would seek shelter somewhere,” her father said as he tossed the little girls into the back and pulled the canvas down to protect them from the storm. “Climb in, Faith.”

She nodded, although she was amazed at the force of her irritation at her father's assumption that she would travel in the back—as if she were no older than the little girls. Sebastian lifted her into the back and gave her a smile before going with her father to the seat at the front.

Huddling under the canvas, Faith again put her arms around her sisters. She paid no attention to their chatter as she listened to the branches cracking all around the wagon. She hoped none of the debris would hit them.

Her mother met them at the door and herded the little girls up the stairs. “Faith?” she called back, pausing on the steps. “You shall surely be ill if you stay in those wet clothes.”

Faith reluctantly closed the door behind her. She wanted to be sure that Sebastian did not linger out in the storm any longer than he must. Following her mother up the stairs, she was glad for the crackling fire on the hearth in their room.

Slowly she undressed, pulling each soaked layer away from the next. She stared at the fire as her sisters rushed about and Mother tried to quiet them. At a knock on the door, she whirled, knowing she was being silly to hope Sebastian was on the far side.

Her mother spoke to one of the servants, then shooed the two little girls into bed. Crossing the room to where Faith had dressed in dry underclothes, she smiled.

“I suspect you will be glad to know,” her mother said, “that Major Kendrick is inside and safe.”

“Yes, I am.” She was so glad to speak the truth.

“You are quite taken with this English soldier.” Mistress Cromwell laughed as she shoved all the wet clothes into a pile. “I never thought I would say that. You have been less than hospitable to the others who have called here.”

“The others were different.”

“He is a well-favored man, I will agree. He has the respect of his men, and he does not shirk his duty.” She smiled as she sat. “However, it is more than his bravery that appeals to you, isn't it?”

Faith drew her clean petticoats over her head and tied them in place. That gave her a chance to compose herself before she could blurt out the truth—that she was drawn to Sebastian because of how his kisses had started a fire that had only grown stronger when they became lovers.

“He is very pleasant company.”

Mistress Cromwell laughed again. “That sounds as if you are damning him with faint praise when the glow in your eyes tells me that pleasant is a mild word for what you feel in his company.

“You are always perceptive, Mother.”

“You must be, too.” Her expression grew serious. “Your father went in search of you and your sisters because he has heard some talk that has unsettled him.”

“Talk about me?”

“You and Major Kendrick. Our neighbors have accepted your father's stance of remaining loyal to the crown, but we have seen that is changing. For you to fall in love with an English officer will be seen as a betrayal to those who declare themselves patriots. Their anger will be far stronger than what has been aimed at this family because they consider you a dear friend.”