Law, Susan Kay (23 page)

And she knew they'd soon be fired on again.

Her knees wobbled; she could so easily crumple to the floor. She'd
broken down in front of her father only one time, when she'd been a child and a
boy at school had shoved her in the boy's privy, telling her that was obviously
where she belonged; no real girl ever looked like she did. After she'd escaped,
she'd run home to the Eel, only to have her father tell her that if she ever
again cried in front of others, he'd lock her in the privy himself.

Being a Jones meant being strong. It meant never leaning on anyone
else.

But for once, she wanted to be weak, just for a little while. It
would be so easy. She wanted to be able to cry on somebody's shoulder, wanted
to let someone else take care of her problems for a bit—wanted someone to at
least
want
to take care of them. Or, perhaps, take on a bit of the
burden, the worry. Maybe it wouldn't be so awful if it were shared.

Instead, she would deal with this the way a Jones always dealt
with fear, or sadness, or hurt.

Alone.

She squared her shoulders and forced a smile. "I'm glad
you're home, Da. I took care of everything for you."

He smiled proudly. "I knew you would, Bennie. We'll take care
of everything while the boys are gone, won't we?"

"Of course. Now, I think I'll go practice while I can. It
doesn't seem as if I'll have much time for a little while."

She made it through the door before she couldn't hold the smile
any longer.

***

It was going to storm.

Jon glanced up at the sky. It was as dark as tarnished silver, and
if he hadn't known it was late afternoon, he would have thought it was nearly
nightfall. The wild, bitter wind whipped his hair across his face, and he
shoved the strands out of his eyes.

The air smelled like rain, cool and metallic. He strode along
rapidly, hoping to reach shelter before the storm unleashed its fury, even as
he knew his destination was pure folly.

Any way he looked at it, he'd botched this job but good. He still
hadn't caught whoever was passing information through New Wexford, and though
he had a few ideas, well, ideas were cheap. Proving them was what was hard.

About all he'd managed to do here was get himself turned inside
out by a woman whose eyes brimmed with suppressed life and whose music sounded
answering chords in his soul. The first rule of espionage was to stay detached
and objective, and he'd been doing that nearly his entire life without even
trying. It came as naturally to him as the ability to walk through the woods
without making a sound.

Yet for weeks his objectivity had been blown away as easily as a
dandelion puff in the wind. Blown away by a woman whose loyalty mocked his, and
whose own formidable control he longed to shatter too. Even knowing all that,
even knowing it was wrong, useless, and downright stupid, he found himself
walking down this trail one more time.

The stables were built of stone that matched the ground. The sky
was even darker now, an unnatural lack of light that barely allowed him to make
out the closed stable doors.

One window, high under the peak of the thatched roof, was open,
and it was through this window the music came. Plaintive, low, streaming, it
was nearly indistinguishable from the wailing of the wind. It raised bumps
along the back of his neck and a rough ache in his chest.

Silently he opened the stable door and slipped inside, shutting it
tightly behind him. The absence of the breath-stealing wind was abrupt, and he
filled his lungs with the warm, steaming heat of horses.

In here, the call of the wind was muted, but the lure of the music
was stronger. It sang of fear and loneliness, and all those dark corners that
lurked in every human, corners most tried to deny. This music embraced them,
gave them life and breath, and its power resonated in deep, shadowy corners of
his own soul.

He could see nothing in the darkness. He brushed his hand along
the wall, searching for the ladder that led to the loft. The stone was cool and
rough under his palm.

It didn't take him long to find the ladder. One of his gifts was a
memory that allowed him to recall places and things with absolute precision.
The wood was smooth, polished from use, and he quickly climbed up to the source
of the music. To Beth.

He didn't know how long he stood there, wrapped in the darkness
and the song. He only knew that when the music became so beautiful it hurt, he
had to get closer to her.

A board creaked under his foot, a sign of his carelessness. The
music stopped.

"Who's there?"

"Just me."

Silence.

"Talk to me, Beth, so I can find you."

"I'm here, Jon." Her voice was a whisper, a seductive
thread twining through the darkness. He scuffled through the hay to her. She
was just under the window, a small opening that admitted no light, gave only a
glimpse of the bruised, roiling sky.

He dropped down beside her onto a blanket that was thick and
scratchy. The hay rustled and cracked with each motion.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Hush." He didn't want to tell her yet; he just wanted
to be there, to sense her closeness through the dark, to feel her warmth reach
out to him, to catch beguiling drifts of lavender mingling with the hay.

"Play for me, Beth."

She was quiet for such a long time he was afraid she would say no.

"All right," she said finally.

It didn't really matter why he was there, she found; it was enough
that he was. Before she had played of loneliness; now she played of fear, of
mud and blood and anger, of a freedom that could only be bought at unbearable
cost. Before she hadn't allowed herself to think of bodies lying, bleeding and
abandoned in the road, of the acrid smell of powder and the sickening cry of
pain.

And when she was done, she knew why he had come. "You're
leaving, aren't you?"

She heard him take a breath and slowly let it out through his
teeth. "Yes."

"Where are you going?"

"Sent to Boston. Company will rejoin regiment."

She groped for his hand; when she found it, he laced his fingers
with hers. His skin was callused, his touch infinitely tender, and she wondered
if the same hands which could touch her so gently could pick up a rifle and
fire on her countrymen, maybe even on her family.

"When?"

He slowly rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb.

"Tomorrow."

Her fingers tightened. "It's so soon."

"Yes."

Outside, the wind whirled in a world that was violent and
frightening; inside, there was only the dark and a hand to hold.

"Teach me to play, Beth."

His voice seemed disembodied, a rumble that surrounded her and
shimmered down her back. She nodded, knowing that, even if he couldn't see her,
he would know her assent.

She found her way to him by touch alone and knelt behind him, her
breasts nestled against his back, and braced the violin against his shoulder.
She allowed her cheek to rest against the fine silk of his hair.

This time, she made no attempt to instruct him. His hands rested
on hers, so lightly they didn't impede her playing. He merely followed the
motion of her fingers, feeling them call the music from the instrument.

The loneliness was back. And this time, when she conjured up
images of bodies lying in the mud, the body she saw was his, with dark,
spreading stains spoiling the brilliant crimson of his coat. His rich, shiny
hair was caked with mud and tangled around his pale face, his eyelids forever
closed over those extraordinary pale eyes. All around him, the army marched,
their steps sure and steady, undeterred by the body that lay in their path.

A flash of brilliant, piercing light; the sharp, ear-shattering
crack of a musket fired at close range.

Bennie shrieked, dropped the violin, and collapsed against Jon's
back, trembling. Her heart was pounding so hard she was sure he could feel it.

He turned and lifted her, settling her in his lap, and tucked her
head firmly against his neck.

"Shh," he said. "Shh. It's only the storm."

The sky unleashed. She heard sheets of rain pouring down outside,
pounding against the roof, running down the side of the stable. She burrowed
closer to Jon, his big warm frame a bulwark against her fears.

He was stroking her back; up, down, easy, slow, the sensuous
caresses turning her shivers of fear into shivers of something else entirely.
She needed to touch him, needed to know that, at least for now, he was still
safe and whole and alive. Her hands crept to his back, testing the solid muscle
underneath the wool.

It was torture. She was kneading his back with a cautious
thoroughness that made him want to beg her to explore other regions. With her
head nestled underneath his chin, he could feel her breath flowing over his
neck, a warm caress of air that was somehow more exciting than skin.

It was temptation. His neck was hot and smooth against her cheek,
and warm, male musk filled her nostrils. And she knew she had only to reach out
her tongue to taste the skin so tantalizingly close.

It was the smallest stroke; moist, textured tongue in the hollow
of his neck. He groaned, knowing that even that bare touch was more than he
could take.

And suddenly he was tired of it all. Tired of spending so much
time pretending to be someone else that he no longer had any idea who he really
was. Tired of watching every word, expression, and action. Tired of living so
close to the edge of death.

Tired of being utterly alone.

She hadn't thought; she had only known that dreaming of the taste
of his skin was so much better than being tortured by images of death. She
hadn't even realized she'd acted on her fantasy until she heard him moan.

She moved her mouth up, blindly searching, tracing her lips along
the sharp line of his stubble-shadowed jaw. She knew so well what his features
looked like in the bright, clean light of day. How much more interesting to
discover what they felt like in the deep, intense blackness.

He grabbed her upper arms and held her away, his fingers biting
painfully into her flesh.

"Beth," he said, his voice a harsh rumble. "You
can't."

She went rigid, sure she had frightened him again. "Why
not?"

"You don't know..."

She waited, holding her breath, for him to leave her again.

He didn't. "There are... some things... that I remember
well," he said.

Lightning flashed a brief, brilliant instant that gave her a
glimpse of his face, white in the brightness, his features bold and stunning.
He was looking down at her with an almost violent yearning that so closely
mirrored her own. Thunder rolled, a deep, baritone tremor that rippled down her
spine.

"Good," she whispered.

"Beth—"

"I don't care anymore, Jon. I don't want to think anymore. I
can't
think anymore. I just want to feel."

He kissed her then, his mouth coming down with a hard force that
pushed aside everything but the feel of his lips. Gone was the gentleness of
every other time he had touched her, swept away by a greedy desperation that
left no room for anything else.

He wasn't kind. He wound his hand in her hair to hold her head
still, and the instant she leaned against him his tongue swept inside her
mouth, demanding she give him everything. And she did.

When his tongue skated along the edge of her teeth, she prodded
back. When he plundered the deepest recesses of her mouth, she forced her way
into the darkest, sweetest corners of his. And when he swept his tongue along
the inside of her lower lip, she sucked on it, hard, bringing it deeper.

Dimly, she knew this was wrong, knew she was using sensation,
passion—
him
—to block out the fear. But she couldn't stop; the hot
enchantment beat in her blood and lured her on, a seduction she didn't know how
to deny.

He knew it was wrong, unforgivable, to take this from her when
there were so many lies between them. But the pounding reality of war was too
close, looming over his shoulder and waiting for the opportunity to strike. If
he was to die, struck down in a barrage of gunpowder and blood on some nameless
field, he needed it to be with her image burning clearly in his mind.

The scent of lavender and the warmth of her lips clouded his
thoughts. He released her hair; she needed no encouragement to stay. He
smoothed his hands down her back, exploring the clothing he couldn't see.

A blouse, buttoned down the back. Easy. The buttons popped open as
easily as ripe summer berries dropping off a vine. He stopped only to squeeze
her shoulders before shoving the clothes—her blouse, her chemise, one
movement—down to her waist.

He drew back, intending to find somehow, some way, to slow down.
Nature defeated him.