Moonlight Lover (16 page)

She scowled. Testing him, she moved toward the closed terrace door. Though the temperature was even colder now than when she had first stepped out on the balcony, she was much warmer than before. "And just what is that supposed to mean?"

She knew. If not in her mind, then in her heart, Sin-Jin thought. She just was not ready to admit it yet. But she would. Someday. He hoped he had the patience to wait her out. The reward, he knew, would be great when that day arrived.

"Your brother informs me that you're very bright. Considered it a puzzle for your amusement."

For a ha'penny she'd scratch the smile from his impudent face.

She curled her fingers into her hands. The blood would
soil her new gown. Out of respect for Riley and his gift, she kept her hand at her sides. But there was no reason why she couldn't pepper him with a volley of curses, and pepper him she did.

The Gaelic words sounded like high-pitched music, something played on a flute. He grinned at her, knowing it only infuriated her all the more. "Someday, Rachel, you have to teach me your native tongue."

"I wouldn't be holding my breath for that to happen if I were you."

"It isn't that which I'm holding my breath for." He
didn't have to finish. The way his eyes slid over her body
told her all she needed to know.

With a strangled cry of frustration and disgust, she checked an urge to hit him again and stormed back into the house.

Chapter Sixteen

It was dark, with only a half moon lighting the path into town. On either side of the well-traveled road were hulking cypresses made almost black by the night. The wind whistled, the mournful sound filtering through them like a single eerie note played endlessly on a harmonica. It was the only sound to be heard besides the monotonous hoofbeats of the horse as the animal pulled the carriage Riley had rented for them from the blacksmith.

Riley slanted a look toward his sister, who sat beside
him as he guided the carriage to the outskirts of Morgan's
Creek. Krystyna had offered them lodging for the night or longer if they so chose to stay. The house was big, she told them, and she and Jason would welcome the company. They had all gotten on very well tonight and Riley had been sorely tempted to take them up on the offer.

But Rachel had demurred, saying they had a great deal of work to tend to at the shop. When Riley had started to correct her, Rachel had lowered her voice and in a hushed whisper she had asked him to take her home. It was the last thing she had said to him.

The silence made the journey that much longer. He wasn't used to her like this. Angry or happy, Rachel always talked. Except for once. He was concerned about her.

"Rachel, are you ill?"

She heard his voice, but not the words. It chipped away
at her thoughts like a man breaking a hole in the ice on a pond in order to fish. She roused herself.

"What?"

"Ill," he repeated, raising his voice in frustration. "Are you ill?"

Yes, she was ill, she thought. Very ill. And she hadn't
any idea what was wrong with her. Or why her mind kept
insisting on reliving every single tiny moment of the two occurrences that she deemed to be an insult to her womanhood and an insult to her very heritage.

But how could she put that into words? How could she
begin to explain to her brother what she couldn't explain to herself? Despair wracked her soul.

"Why do you ask?"

That she even had to ask why indicated just how wrong
things were. "You haven't said a word since we left the McKinleys. It isn't like you."

There had been just one other time in all their years together that she had been this quiet. The time they had lost their mother in the fire that had claimed their home as well. Then Rachel had remained silent for a week, nursing her pain until she had worked it through for herself. She hadn't allowed Riley or the others to help her bear her grief.

"He kissed me," she said in a whisper, as if to herself.

She said it as if she didn't quite believe that it had happened again.

Riley let the reins grow slack as he looked at Rachel. Had someone forced himself on her? "Who?"

The color rose to her cheeks even as she pulled her coat more tightly about her body. "That blasted man. That Redcoat. He kissed me. Again," she cried between clenched teeth.

Riley felt himself relaxing once more. For a moment,
he had thought her honor was at stake. But it seemed as if
it was only her heart. He had watched Sin-Jin tonight,
watched him when the man was around Rachel. Riley had
observed Rachel as well. She behaved oddly, unlike herself. But there was something in her eyes that gave
her away. A certain light when she looked at Sin-Jin when
she thought no one was watching.

There was a match here, Riley was sure of it. But he also knew the obstacles that were in the way. They all stemmed from the past.

"And?" he asked mildly, resuming the drive.

"And what?" she demanded indignantly. Did her brother want the man to actually ravage her before he allowed his ire to rise? "He kissed me," she reiterated, glaring at Riley.

"So you said." He slapped the reins against the horse's
rump, prodding him on faster. The house was in sight and
he was tired. "Would you like me to shoot him for you?" Riley suggested with a grin.

She clasped her hands together before her. "At the very least."

"I'll see what I can do." Humor lifted the corners of his mouth. He brought the carriage to a halt before the trim white picket fence.

Rachel grumbled and said something about the insensitivity of all men. Riley jumped down and rounded the back of the carriage. He put his hand out to help her
down. She slapped it away, then made her own way down.

"Now what is your problem?" he asked.

"If I took your hand, you'd probably be dragging me all
the way back to that heathen's house and unceremoniously give me away." Turning her back, she lifted her skirts and made her way to the front door.

"Now that you mention it," he called after her back, "that's not such a bad idea at that."

Rachel slammed the door in her wake.

"That woman can wake the dead, she can," Riley muttered under his breath as he got back into the carriage. He turned it in the direction of the blacksmith's establishment. The fee increased by a full day's charge if he didn't have it back by dawn. "That's some choice you've made for yourself, Sin-Jin," Riley muttered to the absent man. "I hope the hell you're up to it, because I certainly am not."

Winter painted the countryside with frosty strokes of white as the land went into hibernation. It was the first winter of peace. No skirmishes threatened to break out, no engagements took place on the high seas. At least, none that were noted.

There was precious little that needed doing on the plantation. Everything had been put away and made ready for the spring which was still more than a month away. Life took on a slow pace.

And Sin-Jin had time to dwell upon his loneliness. And
upon Rachel. His visits to town had been less frequent in an attempt to cure this malady he found himself laboring under. It accomplished nothing. It didn't make him want her any less, but more.

The few times their paths did cross, it was plain that she had no use for him. She shunned him, spurned him and had little to say to him that did not have a sharp cutting edge to it.

He had to be crazy to care for her.

Yet as the days threaded themselves into one another and formed weeks that dribbled into months, Sin-Jin couldn't rid his mind of her.

There had been a time when he had drifted through life, allowing events to govern him instead of the other way around. It had been the lazy man's way out, to be sure. Perhaps even the coward's way. But he had shed that way when his conscience had forced him to turn his back on his uniform and the country that had placed him in it.

He had changed then, forever and irrevocably. And he wasn't about to return to that mode of life any more.

They were almost four months into the new year. It was time, he decided, pushing himself away from the small card table, to step back into life and take an active role again. As he moved his chair back, the chess pieces on the board shuddered as if they were caught up in a sudden windstorm. The white knight fell over.

Bronson looked up, surprised. He had been deliberating
over a move, but it couldn't have been long enough to prompt Sin-Jin to lose his patience. Nothing ever did that. "Where are you going?" he asked, bewildered.

Sin-Jin reached for his coat and slipped it over his waistcoat. "To town." He glanced at his tricorner hat and decided to leave it hanging where it was.

Bronson scowled. He picked up the piece that had fallen over and neatly set it in a square adjacent to the one it had previously occupied. "In the middle of a game.”

"Yes. To take up another game." He glanced at the transplanted chess piece. "This one will keep."

Bronson smirked. Now that his reading lessons were concluded, Sin-Jin had taken it upon himself to teach him parlor games. It was about time the man stopped haunting these walls and got himself a full-blooded woman. "You're just afraid I'll win."

Sin-Jin thought of pointing out the moving chess piece
and decided against it. "There's a first time for
everything, I would wager. Even miracles." He chuckled
as he left the room.

Bronson followed him out into the hall. "Can we expect you home for dinner?"

"No." He opened the front door and saw that Emily was peering down at him from the top of the stairs. Even
from this distance, he could see the satisfied smile on her dark face. Apparently everyone had known he was going
to break down sooner or later. "If my luck comes through, I'll be dining in town tonight."

Bronson hung back in the doorway. He watched as Sin-
Jin took the three steps down and began to walk to the stable. "And sleeping there as well?"

The hopeful note in Bronson's voice was not lost on Sin-Jin. "It's not that kind of luck I'm looking for. Yet," he added with a smile.

He had no idea where this would lead, he thought as he
mounted his stallion ten minutes later. Firmly, he guided the big animal out of the stable and onto the open road. The road that led into town.

He might not know where this would lead, but he knew
that he would never find out if he didn't take steps upon the path, whether she liked it or not. There was no denying the fact that she fascinated him: her look, her temper, her taste. Even the very air around her intrigued him. When he spoke to her, he felt vital, alive. Challenged. And what was life without a challenge? Nothing.

Like a man thirsting for water, Sin-Jin wanted another taste of her lips to quench himself.

He wanted, he knew, to have her in every sense of the word. He wanted to make love to her. He wanted her to want to make love to him. More than anything else, he wanted to hear her cry out his name a moment before rapture claimed them both.

The thought made him smile. If she could look into his
mind at this very moment, Rachel would probably cut his
heart out.

Rachel wiped her forehead. Though the fire had all but
gone out in the hearth at the shop, she had worked so furiously that she felt hot.

Done.

She smiled down in satisfaction at the fully assembled page in the chase before her. She had improved, placing the types down in the chase quickly. It became a game, forming lines of words faster and faster. Faster than Riley, to be sure. Though she was fiercely proud of him, she enjoyed competing with her brother.

But with Riley, it was his mind that was nimble, she thought affectionately, not his fingers. Sometimes so nimble that it got in the way of itself. That was all right.

She was there to correct his pieces and to help. They were a team and she was everlastingly grateful that her brother
wasn't the typical man she was acquainted with. He didn't get in the way of her desire to be someone of use.

More than that, he understood. She wasn't like other women. She wasn't content just to sit by and let life unfold, to darn socks and cook and clean and raise a family. She wasn't content to be just like her mother had
been. She wanted to be more. She wanted to leave a mark
behind her. She had a mind and she wanted to use it, not
pretend that the world beyond her own four walls was too
confusing for her to deal with.

She heard the door behind her open.

"You're back early," she said to Riley without looking up. "I've finished the page for you while you were on your errand."

She looked up and saw that the man in the shop was not her brother. She had never seen the man before, but there was a priggish look to him that she disliked instantly. His thick lips were pursed in a condescending sneer upon his rounded, puffy face. His stocky frame appeared to be straining the seams of his clothing to the very limit.

"May I help you?" she asked formally.

He jerked a pudgy thumb at the printing press. "Putting another piece of trash together?"

Her chin raised. A Tory. She might have known. They
looked alike. They smelled alike. Though he was far from
handsome, his bearing reminded her of Lancaster, their landlord in Ireland. The man, she had told her father, who had tried to ravish her mother.

She had been in the back of the house that day, gathering berries when she had heard her mother's screams and had come running to her aid. Rachel had tried to claw the man away from Molly O'Roarke. But Lancaster was a big man and she had been less troublesome to him than a flea.

Tossed to the ground, Rachel had scrambled up and grabbed a poker from the fireplace. With a cry, she had stabbed Lancaster in the leg. As the man hobbled away, shrieking, she had run to her mother and cradled the near-unconscious woman in her arms.