Merline Lovelace (22 page)

“I did not think we would ever lie like this again,” she murmured, cradling her head on her bent elbow.

Nor had Daniel. During those dark days in prison and the agonizing nights after the flogging, the need to get her away from Wilkinson had almost eaten him alive. But until tonight, he hadn’t thought beyond that need.

Now he had her in his arms again and was too damned mauled to act like a man, much less a man who’d just taken a woman to wife.

He’d have just a taste of her. One taste. That much at least he’d give himself. Ignoring the scream of his back, he leaned forward and nuzzled the warm skin of her neck.

He should have known one taste wouldn’t be enough. All too soon, his groin ached almost as fiercely as his back. Sliding a palm down her hip, he found the edge of her tunic.

Her breath hitched. “What do you do?”

“I’m thinking if I don’t make too many sudden moves we could turn this into a wedding night after all.”

His hand found the warm flesh above her waist. When it closed around the soft swell of her breast, she stiffened.

“Easy, darling,” he murmured in her ear.

She made a low, throaty sound of exasperation. “Daniel, this is beyond anything foolish.”

“You’re right, it is. Just lie still.”

She doubted he had the strength to do more than
touch, but she couldn’t ignore the lance prodding at her backside. Or the hand he reached down some moments later to find the slit in her leggings. When his fingers slid inside her, she was already wet for him.

She told herself she was submitting merely to spare him more hurt to his back, but his skilled fingers soon made a mockery of that untruth.

“Easy,” he murmured again, his breath hot in her ear. “Just lie easy.”

It was a new experience for Louise to be pleasured without pleasuring in return. Henri had needed much work to bring him to hardness, and James— She shut her mind to his swift, clumsy mountings.

She couldn’t shut her mind to Daniel’s touch, though, or the words he whispered to her.

“I dreamed of you, Wah-shi-tu. Every night in that cesspool of a prison. Every day when I couldn’t think for the fire in my back.”

She held herself rigid, afraid to move for fear of hurting him, thrilled by this strange sensation. She did nothing but shiver to the sound of his voice and the sly, clever movement of his fingers.

“I wept for Elizabeth,” he confessed, easing his knee between hers, “but I dreamed of you.”

He entered her slowly, deliberately. Just as slowly, he withdrew. She felt every hard ridge, every smooth stretch of skin.

“I dreamed of you, as well,” she whispered. “And of this.”

Deliberately, she tightened her muscles. His breath left on a swift rush.

She would not have believed she could take—or give—so much with so little movement! One clench of her belly and heat began to swirl through her lower body. She made herself go slowly, so slowly, yet her breath came fast and hard. Clenching, unclenching, she drew Daniel into her a little more each time, until her blood pounded in her ears and he filled her completely.

They used no hands, no teeth, no tongue, just joined their bodies in a slow, sensual ritual older than time. Pleasure began to spiral, to swirl through her like a slowly gathering storm. Louise stiffened, locking her legs, her back, her belly and felt a groan rise up in her throat.

He moved then, cinching his arm around her waist, ramming his hips up, taking her with him in a swift, shuddering, straining climb to the peak.

Louise awoke to a hazy dawn and the chirp of crickets greeting the day. Daniel had already scouted out a marshy stream and hunkered down patiently on the bank while Louise washed her face and tended to her personal needs. Only then did he let her peel off his shirt and unwrap the stained bandages.

She’d thought herself prepared, but couldn’t hold back a gasp at the sight of his lacerated flesh. From his shoulders to the curve of his buttocks was nothing but a mass of livid, still-weeping cuts and half-
scabbed welts. When they healed, he’d be scarred forever.

If
they healed. Wishing fervently for the stock of dried herbs and medicines she’d always carried when running the trap lines with Henri, Louise washed the cuts as best she could and made Daniel sit unmoving while she searched for spiderwebs. Still dewed from the night before, they shone silver-bright in the morning sun. She found enough to form a stretchy, gauzelike skin for the worst, open cuts. The welts that had already started to scab she left alone.

“I will wash the blood from your shirt, but you should not put it on until the webs dry or they will stick to the linen instead of your cuts.”

“It won’t take long to dry in the sun.”

“I’ll walk behind you,” Louise told him, gathering her bundle and his shirt, “to keep the flies and gnats from your back.”

“It could be a long trek,” Daniel warned. “I’m not sure how far it is to a hostelry where we can buy horses and supplies. After that it will be a long, hard journey to Richmond. We’ll have to travel fast. Lieutenant Wilkinson may well come after us.”

“I have traveled with you before. Always I keep pace. So will I this time.”

Her utter nonchalance over the hardships ahead kicked up the corners of his mouth. He had a feeling he’d be the one hustling to keep pace.

August 9, 1807
Richmond, Virginia

D
aniel and Louise arrived in the bustling city on the James River just before dusk. They’d kept a constant watch for signs of pursuit. If Lieutenant Wilkinson had picked up their trail, they’d managed to outrun him.

As they discovered soon after riding into Richmond, thousands of people had poured into town to observe the sensational trial now in full swing. There wasn’t a hotel room, a boardinghouse bed or a pile of hay in a stable loft to be had. After being turned away for the fourth time, Daniel came out of a riverfront inn and almost bowled over a young man on his way in. He was a small man, delicate in appearance, wearing a gray frock coat, embroidered white vest and blue small clothes. He waved aside Daniel’s apology with a winsome smile.

“No apologies necessary, sir. One can hardly walk the streets of Richmond these days.”

His glance went to Louise, astride the dappled mare that had carried her from Louisiana. Like Daniel, she was wearing buckskins. He’d purchased his at the start of their journey. Hers were the same tunic and leggings she’d worn on the expedition down the Arkansaw. With her startling blue eyes and hip-length hair worn loose and rippling down her back in the way of the Osage, she made a striking picture.

“Are you just come from beyond the mountains?” the young man asked curiously.

“We rode up from New Orleans,” Daniel replied. “Before that we were in Osage Country.”

Interest leaped into his eyes. “I’ve but recently returned from a tour of Europe, which I found most enlightening. After reading the stirring accounts published by Captains Lewis and Clark, though, I now wish above all things to visit the lands beyond the Mississippi. May I take your direction and call upon you while you’re in Richmond to hear more about your journeys?”

“I’d give you our direction and gladly, if we had one. It appears there isn’t a room to be had in town.”

“Nor out of it, either, I’m afraid. Many folks have had to make do with pitching a tent or sleeping in the back of a wagon.”

“We saw the colonies of tents and wagons as we rode in,” Daniel admitted, rubbing a hand across his jaw. After weeks on the trail, his beard had come back and was itching like the devil in the summer
heat. He wanted nothing more than a bed, a bath and a shave. If he couldn’t manage the bed or the bath, he’d at least scrape away his whiskers. They’d begun to leave red patches on Louise’s cheeks and belly.

The mere thought of those patches spread a warmth through his veins. These weeks on the road had eased much of the sorrow that haunted them both. Gradually, he’d come to think he might be allowed some happiness despite his guilt and grief. She’d stopped insisting she brought disaster to those she loved and almost—
almost
—believed the silly words he whispered in her ear each night. If they hadn’t been pushing so hard to reach Richmond, they might have stopped earlier each night, slept later each morning.

Now they were here, and Daniel could only hope he’d done right dragging her over a thousand miles of narrow traces and dirt roads. Recalled to the urgency of his mission, he turned back to the young man.

“Are you here for the trial?”

“Yes. I’m reporting the events for the New York
Gazette.
” He thrust out a hand. “My name is Irving, by the way. Washington Irving. I’m a scribbler of stories when I’m not dabbling in the law or news-papering.”

Daniel folded his calloused hand around the younger man’s. “Can you tell me where we might find the one who’s collecting the evidence in this trial?”

“You mean George Hay, the lead prosecutor? Or Chief Justice John Marshall?”

“I’m not sure who I mean. We’ve got information we want to present.”

His eyes lighting up like a ship’s lanterns, Irving made haste to offer his assistance. “Why don’t you come into the tavern? I’ll buy you and your lady dinner, and you can tell me what information you want to present. I’ll be more able to direct you to the right man then.”

Daniel shook his head. “I’d best find George Hay. Do you have his direction?”

Reluctantly, Irving gestured to a broad avenue that led up a steep hill. “He has a plantation on the river, but the trial has so consumed him that he’s putting up with his cousin here in Richmond for the duration. Mrs. Charlotte Durham, I believe her name is. She and her husband have a home one block up, on Franklin Street.”

“I thank you.”

“I’d still like to talk with you about Osage Country,” the young man said hopefully as Daniel gathered his reins. “Perhaps after you’ve met with Mr. Hay?”

“Perhaps.”

Louise spoke up for the first time. “Before I meet with anyone, I must wash my face and change my dress.”

Daniel glanced over at her. “Why? You look fine to me.”

More than fine. She’d grown more beautiful to his
eyes with each dawn that had shed its light over her face and lithe, slender body.

“The one you seek is more likely to listen if we don’t stink of mud and horse,” she said with a wry smile.

Daniel suspected all the attorney would need was one glimpse of those letters to sit up and listen to anything they had to say, but he understood her need to scrape off the road dirt. So, apparently, did young Irving.

“I say, you’re welcome to use my room here at the inn to refresh yourselves. I’m sharing with two other fellows, but they’re off dining with friends tonight.”

Faced with his open, eager generosity, Daniel accepted graciously. While Louise swung down, he untied their saddle packs, slung them over one shoulder and retrieved his musket from its perch atop the rolled blanket. A few copper pennies pressed into the grubby palm of the boy who served as the inn’s stable hand won instant assurances the horses would be watered and fed and brought around again whenever Daniel sent word.

The taproom was dark and hot and smelled of sawdust, sweat and the rack of lamb sizzling on the spit in the fireplace at the far end of the room. Daniel’s stomach rumbled at the tantalizing scent. He placed orders with the tavern keeper for two dinners and seats at the long pine plank table when he and his wife had finished washing.

“Will you join us?” he asked Irving, as much to
repay his kindness as to gain a better understanding of the trial they’d heard about only in snatches as they’d traveled these past weeks.

“I will,” the newspaperman said eagerly. “I’ll show you to the room, shall I, and have the kitchen maid bring hot water, then wait for you here.”

Daniel stood aside to let Louise follow Irving’s willowy form down the narrow hall that led off the taproom. Her easy smile had disappeared, he noted. Frowning, she chewed down on her lower lip. Wondering what troubled her, he scanned the room, but saw nothing suspicious or untoward.

Her frown had deepened to a scowl by the time Irving lifted the latch to his room and executed a little bow. The chamber was small and crowded, with an extra mattress laid out on the floor beside the bed. Shirts and neck cloths spilled haphazardly out of satchels. Shaving mugs littered the pine dressing table.

Louise brushed by Irving with barely a word of thanks. Daniel followed with the saddle packs, closing the door behind him. His stomach clenched when his wife came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the room, wrapped both arms around her waist and moaned.

“What is it?” he asked, the skin prickling on his arms. “Who did you see in the taproom to alarm you?”

“No one,” she managed to say through clenched teeth. “It was the smell. That meat roasting on the spit— Oh!”

Shoulders heaving, she sank to her knees and began to retch. Daniel dropped the saddle packs and grabbed the chamber pot from beside the bed. Louise snatched it out of his hands. He could do nothing but wait as she emptied her stomach of their meager noon meal of coffee, corn cakes and smoked venison.

Finally, she shoved the chamber pot aside. Daniel found a strip of linen toweling beside the water pitcher and dampened it. Hunkering down, he offered her the towel. She took it gratefully, scrubbed her face and sat back on her heels. Her expression was grave as she met his gaze.

“Three times this past week I have been sick.”

“I know.”

“After the second time, I begin to— I wonder—” Her brow creased. She twisted the strip of damp linen. “I have not had my woman’s flow since before we left New Orleans. I think perhaps I carry a child.”

“I think so, too.” Daniel spoke quietly, gently, keeping a tight rein on the welter of conflicting emotions that had gripped him since he’d begun to suspect Louise was pregnant.

His first reaction had been the instinctive joy of a man who’d long wanted a son to carry his name or a daughter to warm his heart.

His second, the suffocating fear that Louise would suffer as Elizabeth had. Each miscarriage had added to his first wife’s sorrow. The last, final stillbirth had sent her into the shadows. The memory of her silent agony brought back Daniel’s familiar, swamping sense of guilt and regret.

But only for a moment. Even as he ached for Elizabeth, he took fierce joy in the woman who was now his wife. Louise was so strong, so courageous. She walked in shadows of her own—that damned legend haunted her still. Yet she refused to succumb, refused to retreat before her fears. She faced them now, squarely, as he’d anticipated she would.

“I do not know who fathered this babe, Daniel. You or James.”

Curling a knuckle, he brushed it along the curve of her cheek. “It doesn’t matter who fathered it. All I hope is that it has its mother’s heart and bright, beautiful eyes.”

“Oh, husband, do you truly feel so?”

“Yes, wife, I do. Any child born of your body will have my name and my love.”

A sigh feathered out of her lips. Shoulders slumping, she leaned forward and rested her forehead against chin. They remained thus for a few moments, each lost in their separate dreams.

Daniel’s dream was of a distant place where he could keep Louise safe and watch the babe she carried grow strong and tall. A place far from intrigue, where they could lift their faces to the sun and walk proud among friends.

The dream hovered in Daniel’s mind for long, tantalizing moments. Then harsh reality forced him to tip Louise’s face to his once again. His face grave, he issued a cautious warning. “We’d best not let it out you’re with child while we’re here in Richmond.
I wouldn’t want General Wilkinson to get wind of it.”

Louise grasped his meaning instantly. “Do you think he would say the babe was his son’s? Use our child in these so-grand schemes of his?” Louise’s eyes flashed. “Pah! Let him but try.”

Let him, indeed. Daniel suspected a snarling grizzly defending her cub would strike less terror in a man’s heart than Louise protecting her own. Nor would she stand alone. Daniel would allow no one, be he general or private, to harm his wife and child. Hiding the utter implacability of his determination behind a smile, he dropped a kiss on Louise’s nose.

“I’ll scrub up and stand Mr. Irving to an ale in the taproom. Join us when you’re ready.”

Irving shared not only a round of ale with Daniel, but a wealth of information on the trial he’d been writing about for the past few months.

“It’s a very complicated affair, more about politics than treason, I would say. Burr has hated Jefferson since they both ran for president back in ’01 and tied for votes in the Electoral College. The issue went to the House of Representatives, where Jefferson won the presidency due to Alexander Hamilton’s vigorous efforts on his behalf. Burr was then forced to serve as vice president for four years to a man he despised.”

“I’d say Burr got a measure of revenge when he killed Hamilton in that duel a few years back,” Daniel drawled. “Not enough, it would seem.”

“Not nearly enough. Burr railed against Jefferson’s Republican tendencies all the while he served with the man. His arguments struck a chord with many, including our Supreme Court chief justice, who’s a staunch Federalist—has been since his days in the Virginia legislature.”

“You’re speaking of John Marshall, the judge who’s presiding over Burr’s trial?”

“I am. He and Jefferson have been at odds for years. More to the point, Burr and the chief justice are old friends. They dined together at the home of a mutual acquaintance here in Richmond only last week. Rumor has it George Hay nearly went into a fit of apoplexy when he heard about it. You know Hay is son-in-law to our current vice president James Monroe.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“With both Jefferson and Monroe involved, you can imagine how much direction poor Hay has been getting from Washington on the conduct of this trial. Jefferson is determined to bring down his nemesis once and for all. For that reason, some speculate, the president sold his soul to that wily old devil Wilkinson, and agreed not to prosecute him if he’d testify against Burr.”

His mind racing with the implications of what he’d just heard, Daniel eased back in his chair and gave the young journalist a hooded glance. “Has the general done so?”

“Loudly and at length! He’s the personification of outrage, mortally wounded that anyone could think
him a traitor to his country. He insists he merely pretended to go along with Burr’s schemes to gain information about the plot.”

“What do you think?”

“I?” Irving snorted. “That the man’s a scoundrel of the first order. I doubt we’ll see that proved in court, though. He’s gotten away with more than—” He broke off, his eyes widening. “I declare! Is that your lady?”

Daniel threw a glance at the woman weaving her way through the taproom. Her lilac gown was sadly wrinkled from being crammed into a saddle pack and a wreath of stray tendrils escaped from her hastily pinned-up hair, but she moved with a lithe grace that caught the eye of every man in the room.

“Yes,” he murmured, his voice rough with pride. “That’s my wife.”

“She’s quite astonishingly beautiful. I thought so when I first saw her outside. Do you think she’d allow me to sketch her?”

The tight line to Louise’s mouth as she approached told Daniel she had no desire to risk her uncertain stomach once again to the heat and heavy odors of the crowded taproom.