Moonlight Lover (11 page)

Sin-Jin's expression softened as he thought of the way
Rachel had looked that first night, with the firelight playing along her skin. "She's like a ruby when the sun first hits it, all sparkle and lights." Thoughts of the
woman could not be separated from her temper. "And all
sharp edges as well."

He was taken with this sharp-edged ruby, she would swear to it. "I think," Krystyna began slowly, watching Sin-Jin's expression, "that I would like to meet her."

Sin-Jin shrugged. "As long as you bring your own musket."

"Musket?" This was beginning to sound better and better, she thought.

Sin-Jin saw the startled look on Lucinda's face as she gasped. The others stared at him. "She tried to shoot me for bringing her brother home from the tavern." He
turned to Jason for sympathy, afraid of what he might see
in Krystyna's if he looked there. There were times Krystyna was far too intuitive for her own good. Or his. "The man almost poured himself at my feet. What was I to do with him?"

"Could have tried leaving him on the tavern floor," Morgan suggested with a lusty laugh. That's what he would have done.

"Exactly what you did, I am sure," Krystyna agreed. "Lucinda," she turned nonchalantly toward her sister-in-law, "are you up to a visit to the town tomorrow?"

"I—" Lucinda hesitated, looking to Aaron for permission.

Krystyna had no time for such foolish delays. "Fine," she pronounced, "it is done." Contented, she looked down at the plate that Sin-Jin had pushed away. "You have not had a bit of your roast hare yet, John," she pointed out sweetly. "You would not want to hurt Marwilda's feelings by sending it back untouched, now would you?" Delicately, she moved the plate before him again.

Sin-Jin exchanged a look with Jason and the latter only
shook his head. "I'd eat it if I were you, Sin-Jin, before she takes it into her head to feed you herself."

"Now that," Sin-Jin mused, "might not be something to avoid."

But he began to eat, knowing he could only flirt with Krystyna so far. He valued his friendship with her, and Jason as well.

What he needed, he thought, was a woman of his own. A woman with hair the color of flame. He added an amendment to that. One whose tongue was not as hot as her hair.

Chapter Eleven

The candlelight flickered in the bedroom, casting shadows that warmed the blood.

The thunder rattled the windows. It only served to make the large room that much cozier. A haven for the two of them. Down the hall, their two sons slept peacefully, watched over by a loving nurse, Leola, Jeremiah and Marwilda's daughter.

Jason pulled his white shirt free of his breeches. As it hung about his slim hips, he turned toward the vanity that he had carved for Krystyna with his own hands. She sat before it, brushing her hair. Swirling rivers of black fell well past her shoulders, tempting his fingers.

Unable to resist, Jason came up behind his wife and laid his hands on her shoulders. Her soft sigh aroused
him. Easily, he slipped his hands beneath the nightgown's
neckline, his fingers reaching for the reassuring feel of her soft, cool skin. When he touched her, contentment and excitement warred for possession of him.

It never ceased to amaze Jason how, after two children
and six years, he still couldn't seem to get his fill of her.

His father had sought his pleasures outside his marital
bonds time and again. Aaron and Jason had been raised to
believe that physical fulfillment and marriage were mutually exclusive. It was the singular reason why Jason
had resisted binding himself to a woman for so long. Why
marry just to have someone presentable at your side? He could well exist without a companion. He had no vain need to turn a false face to the world and pretend to be happy with a mate when he wasn't.

Marriage to Jason was not a matter undertaken because of lineage or heritage or to expand the family fortunes, the way it had been for Aaron. There was only one reason to marry. Love. And if that was absent from the marital state, then so would he be.

It was his belief that he would remain single until he died. Until Krystyna had entered his life, unwittingly filling every empty corner. And suddenly the man who wanted no part of marriage, no part of commitment, could think of nothing else but that.

Of nothing else but her.

Jason withdrew his hands from Krystyna's shoulders and plunged them into her hair, luxuriating in the silky sensation. The fragrance she used to wash it wafted seductively ta him. She still effortlessly filled his thoughts and his heart, arousing him with her very scent the way no other woman had ever come close to doing, though many had tried.

He looked at her reflection in the mirror before them. "So, Countess, are you sorry?"

Krystyna placed the hairbrush down. Her eyes met his
in the mirror. He was using her title, the one she still held
even through her lands in Poland had long since been lost. There was no one left in the distant country to defend them for her. It still vexed her that her precious home was now in the hands of an enemy who cared little or nothing for the people who lived and worked in the fields, people she had grown up knowing and loving.

But it wasn't her land that had her attention right now. It was her husband. When he used her rightful title, she knew Jason was being serious. It wasn't a state he usually assumed. She tried to think what he could be alluding to. She hadn't a clue.

Turning, she rose and took his hand. Without a word, she led him to their bed and sat down. She tugged on his hand to join her. He followed readily. It was a huge fourposter bed with a thick goose down mattress. Somehow, they always managed to huddle together in its center, needing only one another for warmth and comfort, even on the coldest of nights.

Krystyna trailed a finger along his cheek. "Sorry about what, my love?"

It was a question that had been gnawing at the edges of his conscience for some time now, like an insatiably hungry mouse. She seemed happy, but was she? Was she truly happy when once her life had contained so much more than he could offer her?

Jason took her hands in his. "That you married me. That you stayed on in this rough-hewed land when you could have taken Kosciuszko up on his offer and returned to Poland with him." He thought of the conversation at the table tonight and remembered what she had once told him. "Or allowed Sin-Jin to give you money for passage when he wanted to."

Both had occurred years in the past, but did she sometimes look up at the ceiling, late at night, while he slept next to her, and regret not going? Though the answer might tear him in two, he had to know.

Krystyna shook her head, her fingers wrapping around his. "After all this time, do you not know me at all?"

He knew her. He knew her inside out. And yet, he needed the words to tell him that he was right. "Yes, but—"

She placed a finger to his lips to silence him. "If I had wanted to go home, my love, really wanted to go home, I would have found a way to do so with or without their help. You know that."

As she said it, Jason knew it to be true. She had an indomitable spirit. It was one of the things he loved about her.

Krystyna smiled warmly at him, a jumble of memories crowding her mind, all equally precious.

"I stayed because my heart fell in love with you from the first moment I saw you, even though I did not know it at the time." She frowned and studied him closely. Was there something wrong? Was there something he was not telling her about? "Why do you ask such a silly question after all these years? Have I given you some indication that I am not happy with you?"

He shook his head. "No. I guess I just wanted to hear it. I thought perhaps I was just seeing what I wanted to see." He smiled ruefully. "Sometimes, love clouds the vision for a while."

"Oh?" She loosened the ties of the front of his shirt. Her fingers glided along his skin. Muscles, hard and sinewy, met her touch. She felt his heart hammering just beneath the material. "And how is your vision?"

She could reduce him to a mass of desire with just a look, a word. She was pure madness. And she was his. "Desperately clouded."

Hands against his shoulders, she pushed him back on their bed. "And well it should be." Lowering her head, she traced an arrow's imprint along his chest with her lips. Her target was his heart. "Forever."

Jason pulled Krystyna to him. Catching her off
balance, she fell on top of him, laughing as she pretended
to struggle. "Come here, you vixen."

She looked at him puzzled. "Why do you call me by the
name of a female fox?" She tossed her head back. The tips of her hair tickled his bare skin like a light, spring
breeze. "Does it mean something in your language I have
not yet learned?"

As if there was something she didn't know or understand. "You've learned more than enough in any language."

With a swift movement, he reversed their positions
and had her pinned under him. His body fit over hers as if
they had been created for one another before time had ever begun.

He framed her face with his hands, looking down at the woman he loved more than life itself. And always would.
If he had to live without her, he knew that he couldn't. She was everything to him. Everything.

His expression grew serious again. "I just thought that perhaps, sometimes, in the middle of the night, you might long for your lands or those peasants you loved so well." His voice dropped to a whisper and then faded away, like mist in the morning.

Krystyna wondered what brought this on and if it truly
plagued him. Didn't he know that she loved him to distraction? That he was her world now, he and the children? He needed assurances. She gave him only the truth.

"I miss them. And yes, I worry about them. I worry if
they are fed and warm and well. But to long for them? To
long for my country? No." She shook her head, her eyes on his. "You are the only one I long for."

He dallied at the edge of her nightshirt for a moment before he pulled the string that loosened it. With great care, he drew the material aside and let his eyes roam along her body. He was hardly aware of answering. "Me?"

She could feel her body burning for his touch, for his caress. She moved ever so slowly, anticipating the magic that only he could create for her.

"Yes," she breathed. "Every moment I do not see you, I long for you."

His mouth grazed hers, taking what she so readily gave.
Suddenly inflamed, he wanted to tear the rest of her nightshirt aside. With effort, he restrained himself, awed that after so many years of lovemaking, he was still enraptured, like a young boy doing it for the very first time.

As always, he had her senses careening from her. But tonight, she had a request. She struggled not to lose her thoughts, though they began to run through her hands like rainwater. "Jason?"

Jason drew his head away, her breath hot upon his lips.
"Hmm?"

Krystyna splayed her hand over his chest. The beat of his heart was the most comforting sound she could imagine. "I need to ask a favor before you succeed in making my mind completely vanish."

She wanted to talk. So be it. They had all night. Gaining control over his ardor, Jason raised himself on his elbow. "As if I could say no to anything you asked right now."

She laughed, cupping his cheek. There was endless love in every gesture. "I want a party."

Jason looked at her, surprised. This wasn't what he expected.

"You?" He studied her, wondering what was going on in her mind. "I thought you didn't care for parties."

She had never lied before and she had no intentions of beginning now. "I do not."

"Then—?"

She smiled, pulling the shirt from him. She discarded it carelessly on the floor. She had always loved the way his chest looked. The way it felt. Strong and muscular. A haven for her.

"I want a party to honor our son's christening." Her eyes sparkled. "A party to which I can invite our friends."

There was more to the request and they both knew it. "And?"

She gave his lips a quick kiss, then laid down once more, her hair pooling about her face and shoulders. "You know me very well."

She looked like a goddess lying there, a beautiful, enchanting goddess. And she was his. He could feel his blood heating anew.

"I make a religion of it."

He pressed his palms over her soft, tender flesh, succeeding in thrilling them both. As he lowered his head, his breath skimmed over her breasts a moment before he ran his tongue lightly over the tempting peak. Jason watched in fascination as it instantly hardened. He restrained the urge to suckle.

"And?" he prodded once more, his breath incredibly warm against her skin.

The words were becoming increasingly more difficult to form. He made her lose the very substance of her
thoughts as desire crowded everything from her mind but
him. "And the new editor . . . and . . . his . . . sister."

He didn't want to talk, he wanted to make love to her. To have her make love to him. Wild, uninhibited love as only they could. "Why?"

Krystyna wove her fingers through his hair, pressing his face closer to her as lightning streaked the sky. She felt as if it had entered her body as well. His mouth was sure, his strokes true. She desperately wanted to run toward the plateau he always brought her to.

What—what was it he was asking? Oh yes. Why. "Because John likes her."

He wasn't completely sure he had heard her. Pulses
were throbbing everywhere and there was a rushing noise
in his ears. Jason raised his head and stopped for a moment. "Likes her? He said she was a spitfire, opinionated and ill-tempered."

She laughed. Men were so literal, so childlike when it came to the subject of love. "It was not what he said, it was the way he said it."

He thought a moment. "As I remember it, he was spitting the words out."