Mood Indigo (26 page)

Her gaze drifted back to the tall, aristocratic-looking dancing master who had given up all to side with the American colonies. “How romantic and noble a gesture he made,” she murmured. “How romantic and noble a man.”

Yes, most certainly she would make sure that Martha was informed about the dancing master.

Later when the dancing master, Richard Carter, learned of Nancy Basset’s intentions, his lips curled in a lean smile. General Washington, he knew, had driven the British from Boston and was fortified
now in New York. And the general’s lady was in Philadelphia with his old friend’s family, the Hancocks.

The dancing master found it quite convenient that she would very soon be returning to Mount Vernon. There was nothing to stand in his way now.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

T
he cannons boomed on the green outside the governor’s palace, signaling that as of June 29, 1776, Virginia declared itself officially a free and independent commonwealth with Patrick Henry as its first governor. It was generally expected that the other colonies would declare their own independence the following week at the Constitutional Congress in Philadelphia, though the war with Britain had sputtered for fourteen months now.

Before the cannon’s smoke could drift over the green, the boats on the James River shot forward in the annual Tidewater Race. Sloops, yawls, shallop
s, ketches, and bateaux boiled the water. From the docks the ladies watched and cheered from beneath lacy pastel parasols, while the men and children loped along the river banks, trying to keep pace with the bobbing boats.

Jane strained to see Ethan’s gundalow, the very sailboat that had brought her to Mood Hill, tack with the sudden shift of breeze. Even after nearly two years in the colonies she still had not become acclimated to the heat of the Southern summers. The sultriness of the late afternoon brought a sheen of perspiration to her temples and upper lip. Certainly such an unladylike bodily function never overtook Margaret Peyton.

At the gala barbecue picnic earlier that afternoon the woman flirted outrageously with Ethan. Jane had returned from a stroll with Susan to a nearby quilting booth to find Margaret’s hand clasped about Ethan’s upper arm as she leaned into him, laughing saucily.

And that was another thing that bothered Jane—Ethan’s attitude. He had changed since that afternoon he took her on the banks of the Chickahominy. Those moments when their bodies blended togethe
r in incredibly beautiful lovemaking, she experienced his profound tenderness and that undefinable joining of their two spirits. She was close to him then. Yet mere hours later she had found his dark, luminous eyes watching her . . . watching her as if part of her displeased him in some inexplicable way.

Faith, she knew he desired her. But a caution lurked in those sulfuric eyes. Perhaps she too obviously enjoyed those moments when he made love to her; perhaps genteel ladies such as Susan did
not respond in such an uninhibited manner. But she could not help herself. She had sworn Ethan would never enslave her spirit, but he had done just that by mastering her through his lovemaking. She did not know if she loved him, but she did know that she wanted him with a desperation that equaled that illogical need she felt for Terence.

Even now she felt shamefully weak in her knees just thinking about Ethan. He merely had to look at her with those expressive eyes, and she found herself witless.

The boats reached the turn-about point far up the river, and were hauling about for the final leg downriver to the docks. Hand shading her eyes, Jane could make out Ethan’s gundalow two boats back from the fast-paced little catboat in the lead. Her heart raced with the gundalow. For those eternal moments he was her knight, his boat carrying her colors. Slowly the gundalow gained and passed the yellow-canvased sloop. The first two sailboats were close enough now for her to make out Ethan’s mahogany-red hair and his billowing black shirt. The catboat and gundalow were running stem and stem, and the cheers of the people about the docks were deafening. She found her hands locked about the parasol’s handle in a death grip.

Only at the red-flagged wharf did the gundalow nose out the catboat, and a roar went up from the crowd. Ethan was the winner of the regatta! He was hauled from the sailboat with a hero’s w
elcome. Several men pressed forward to pound his back, and Daniel and Bram offered their hands in a hearty shake. Susan stood on tiptoe to bestow a sisterly kiss on his cheek. Standing apart, Jane waited impatiently for Ethan’s eyes to acknowledge her.

Yet it was another who claimed him next. Margaret P
eyton, following Susan’s example, also bestowed on Ethan a congratulatory kiss, this one full on the mouth. In a reflexive motion, his hands caught the blond beauty’s waist. A few in the press of people turned sympathetic eyes on Jane, but she refused to show the pain that whipped clutching tentacles about her heart. Some of the people ducked their heads or shuffled away. At last, Ethan lifted his head, his eyes meeting her flashing ones. Sidestepping Margaret, he approached Jane and sheepishly made a leg. “Madam.”

“Sir, you have powder on your shirt,” she said with precisely articulated speech, and whirled away. She did not know where she was heading. Only far away from the embarrassing scene.

Ethan caught up with her along the thickly foliaged path that paralleled the bank of the James. His hands caught her shoulders and spun her to face him. She would not look at the dark eyes that beseeched her but rather turned her gaze on the tangled undergrowth on either side of the path. “Jane, the kiss was not of my doing.”

“You did not seem to repel it. It would seem that I cannot trust you.”

“And can I trust thee?”

Her gaze darted up to lock with his steady one. “I know not what you mean,” she stuttered. Just how much did he suspect about her covert activities?

A tirade, denunciation, disgust—any of those reactions she expected, except the mouth that ground down on hers in an angry kiss. Stunned, she stood passive for a moment beneath the lips that bruised hers and the tongue that demanded entry. But the hand that squeezed her breast possessively set off some primitive response in her. She leaned into him, making a soft little mewing moan when his finger and thumb extracted their punishing caress on the nipple that thrust against the soft lawn material.

Words were superfluous. He pressed her down upon the mossy black earth. Her fingers feverishly found his breeches’ buttons; his hands hastily hiked her skirts about her waist. Someone could chance upon them. She cared not, only desiring that he quench the yearning that boiled in her blood.

Without a word between them, she spread her legs to enfold his massive body and accepted the plunging thrust with an arching of her hips. His hands pinned her shoulders against the spongy ground. Time and again he slammed into her, as if to rid himself of his desire for her once and for all. Her legs entwined about his buttocks, seeking the leverage to meet and hold him within her.

All the while his eyes burned into hers. She would not turn from that scalding gaze, would not let him dominate her in that wild ride of passion. Yet at that last moment, when she was afraid he would halt the furious pounding, her lids closed and a great climactic shuddering claimed her body. At the same time he cried out in a hoarse rasp.

Silently they lay side by side, panting, neither wanting to acknowledge the devastating effect their lovemaking had on one another. With great dignity she sat up and smoothed down her skirts. She could only feel a fury at herself for giving herself so wantonly to him. It was done. She was satiated. She would no longer have that damnable aching need for him.

“Tell me about him.”

Her shoulders stiffened, but she did not turn around. “Who?”

“The man you are seeking—this Terence.”

“What do you want to know?” she hedged.

“What he means to you.”

“I don’t know if I can convey what he means to me,” she said in a dry, flat voice. “My first memory of him is the sight of him riding up to Wychwood like some knight on a white steed. He bowed to me and plucked a rose from our arbor, placing it behind my ear. ‘You shall grow into a beautiful young woman,’ he told me.”

She looked over her shoulder at Ethan, who lay now with his arms crossed behind his head. His instrument of pleasure was flaccid now, yet still enormous in size.

She dragged her gaze away, saying, “At that time I was ungainly, tall, thin . . . and very ugly. At least I felt so. But he saw beauty in me, Ethan. I think he was half in love with my mother. But he always took time with me. After she died, he became my companion, my friend . . . my very heart. He talked to me of things I hadn’t seen and didn’t know, he listened to my prattle—I was so desperate for attention then with my mother dead and my father off in London.”

She paused. Overhead the fireworks display was already beginning. “And?” Ethan prompted.

“Then when Terence went off to serve in India, my whole world seemed to—”

Ethan’s eyes flared. “You said India?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Nothing, Jane. Only tell me what it is that binds you to him still.”

“There is some bond between us I can’t explain. A bond as tenuous and yet as strong as a cobweb. When we would sit in the garden or read to each other from my father’s books, I often found him watching me. And I caught a glimpse in his eyes of a wretchedness that was— it would catch my breath, it was so powerful, as if some tormented secret writhed in his soul. Whatever the bond, Terence MacKenzie has beguiled me.”

“But I have bought thee—and I have married thee. I shall not relinquish thee.”

He said the words with such a calm assurance that no power on earth could alter the fact; but then, she thought sadly, he did not know Terence, who was as obstinate and determined as he was. She knew the day would come when Terence would find her and take her away with him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

E
than Gordon was irresistible to the ladies, and it surprised Jane that he was unconscious of his raw masculine appeal, that he was innocent of all conceit or self-importance.

She sat beside him in Williamsburg’s theater, the first theater in English America, but gave li
ttle heed to Shakespeare’s
The Merchant of Venice
, invariably the opening play for the Assembly’s session.

During intermission, while French horns and trumpets played, she could see the f
lirtatious glances cast from behind the swaying fans of ladies seated both on the pewlike benches below and in the boxes opposite her. Yet she behaved like some silly ninny, shyly looking at her husband when he spoke, blushing when he gently teased her before the others. What had happened to her? And how ridiculous was her assumption that that one act of passion the day of the Tidewater Race would quench for all time her desire for her husband.

God help her, was she falling in love with him?

She moved through the days of Assembly performing the proper tasks—running the rented Paradise house with consummate skill, gracing the dinners they attended with intrinsic polish and charm. But at night—at night in Ethan’s arms all dignity and decorum were abandoned. His tenderness, his total attention to her intimate responses, awoke a wild strain in her she had not suspected.

When the play resumed, the theater darkened but for the candles at the foot of the stage. The third act began, yet still she was aware only of her husband, who sat mere inches away. She heard the rustle of his program as he leaned toward her, then fel
t his hand cup her thigh, exerting gentle pressure on the inside, despite the welter of skirts. Recalling the kiss
a la cannible
that he had planted high inside her thigh only that afternoon, she felt the treacherous desire welling in her again.

Her innate shyness collapsed beneath the excitement he stirred in her. In the darkness her fingers reached out to rest lightly on that coiled bulge at the fork of his powerful thighs. She was rewarded by his husky intake of breath, and her fingers gathered
courage to initiate a gentle manipulation.

His hand
captured hers. “Madam,” he whispered at her ear, “does thee realize the havoc thy lovely fingers are inflicting?”

“I can’t help myself,” she murmured wickedly. “You make me lose all sense of restraint.”

“Please . . . don’t restrain yourself now.”

She gratified his request by cupping the heavy orbs and gently rolling them in her palm. His smothered groan and the recapture of her han
d ended her foreplay. “Later tonight, madam, I shall teach you the various acts of pleasure which the tongue is capable of bestowing.”

A quiver of anticipation
raced up her spine as the theater’s candles flickered to life. Whatever strict ideas Ethan Gordon entertained about religion, he certainly did not let them inhibit his sexual prowess.

Afterward a dinner party was to be held at the home of George Wythe, in whose office Thomas Jefferson first practiced law. Ethan was
detained near the foyer by Governor Henry, who spoke of the first invasion of the Southern colonies, in Charleston. “Britain’s Sir Peter Parker was defeated, but it was a close scare, my friend.”