Moonlight Lover (21 page)

He'd not been alone with her in the few weeks that had passed since that evening. She'd seen to that. It was as if she was attempting to foil any plan he had. It had become a game of chess, of moves and counter moves, but Rachel appeared to be enjoying it rather than undertaking it out of annoyance. That, he felt, was progress.

Yes, he thought with an air of contentment, the lady was definitely warming to him. And the time, he mused not for the first time as he looked at her over the rim of the mug of tea she had brought him, would come when she would be his entirely.

Heat rose from the mug, shimmering in the air before him, rendering her image that much softer. That much more desirable. Sin-Jin gripped his mug with both hands and knew that the time would have to be soon if he was to remain sane. There was only so long a man could go on pining and not having.

Rachel could feel his eyes on her as she took out type from the wooden case at her side and arranged them in the chase. A smile spread within her. She knew that she was betraying everything she had once sworn to adhere to by beginning each day longing to hear the sound of his footsteps as he walked through the doorway.

What would her mother have thought of her? And all the other women and men who had come before, who now laid in the Irish soil, their lives made that much harder and shortened by the will of English landlords? What would they all have thought of her? Surely they would have wept to see her like this, her heart beating faster at the mere sight of a former British officer.

She felt ashamed of herself. Angry with herself for being so weak, with him for doing this to her. And yet, she could not bring herself to push him away with any sort of conviction.

She was no longer that strong.

Rachel glanced over toward where he sat on the stool next to Riley. Riley was at the desk, absently blowing at the end of the quill as if it were some sort of a magic dandelion that would give him the right words he sought to finish his article.

Their eyes met and Rachel immediately lowered hers to her work, as if she had touched something hot that made her retreat. She covered her error with barbs. "It would seem to me, Sin-Jin, that your plantation must run itself, you spend so much time here, moving the air around with your words."

Riley looked up. "Ha! She should talk about moving the air around." His annoyance with the temporary impasse he had with his editorial was evident in his waspish tone. "There hasn't been a person born who could hold a candle to you and that mouth of yours and you know it, Rachel."

Rachel bristled. Why was he always taking Sin-Jin's side? Why wasn't he plagued with remorse and quandary over taking this Brit into the bosom of their home the way she was? Because he wasn't attracted to the man, that's why, she told herself. Ninny.

"We weren't discussing me," she informed Riley, "we were discussing Sin-Jin."

At least she had stopped referring to him as "the lieutenant," Sin-Jin thought, gratefully. And her tone had softened, though her tongue was still sharp at times. Victories, he consoled himself, often came in small increments rather than large triumphs.

It had been that way for him with the rest of the county as well. The ones who sided with the rebels had all viewed his actions with outright suspicion when he had come to live among them. Even with Morgan McKinley's support and the subsequent alliance with the man's household by marriage, it had not been an easy road to travel.

But he had managed to convince them all, albeit slowly and without pushing the matter, that he was one of them and worthy of their friendship. Over the years he had changed their minds about him and his loyalties.

He would change her mind as well. He only wished that it would not take so long. Though his blood had never run hot before, he didn't enjoy being kept at arms' length. After having sampled just the smallest bit of what there was in store for him, he wanted to have more, not less.

Rachel liked the fact that he was watching her, although it made her a bit flustered. And it certainly wouldn't do to let him know that she enjoyed it. There was nothing worse than a cocky man, unless it was a cocky man who was correct in his assumptions.

"Does it run itself?" she pressed. "Your plantation, does it run itself while you're here?"

She enjoyed engaging him in verbal warfare. It was as close as she allowed herself to approach the excitement which still churned within her. Anything more would bring about complete capitulation.

Sin-Jin smiled, seeing through her. "The work for the year is yet to be begun. And I've a more than capable overseer in any event."

Bronson
 
was
 
coming
 
along
 
very
 
nicely,
 
Sin-Jin thought. The man now read as well as any in the county, except for a handful of those who had been formally educated. It was Bronson who had brought him the letter the last time he had traveled to town to get supplies. The overseer had proudly informed him that it came from England before Sin-Jin had had a chance to look at the return address.

Sin-Jin had accepted the letter, surprised. He never received mail. In the last three years, he had only gotten one letter. It had been a very short note from his brother, informing him that he no longer bore the stigma of deserter, thanks to the efforts of their distant cousin in Parliament. This letter had been sent from the same address, but it was from Vanessa.

As he opened the envelope and viewed her long, elegant hand over the page Sin-Jin had waited for a hint of the old feelings he had had for her to overtake him. Once he had believed himself impossibly in love with her. But there was nothing, not even the glimmer of old, treasured memories. What there had been, was gone.

Instead, he read her words with solemnity. Alfred was ill. Vanessa asked him to return for a visit, possibly a last one. Sin-Jin sighed and reread the words. As he folded the letter, he had no idea what he was going to do. There was no desire to return, yet Alfred was his brother, his only living relative. He was torn between two sets of responsibilities. The scale tipped from side to side as he pondered the question.

He had come to town to temporarily put aside his decision. He had come to spend some time with Rachel. The heaviness of his mood had lifted.

Sin-Jin smiled now, finishing his statement. "I thought that what takes place in these four walls was far too stimulating for me to ignore."

Rachel raised her chin, feigning indignation, though there was an undercurrent of excitement that refused to cease. He was teasing her, referring to the tension that
crackled between them, not the news she and her brother
worked so hard to put down on paper.

She groaned. "If you think I don't know the meaning of your fine words, Sin-Jin, you're mistaken."

"It has never been my intention to insult your intelligence, Rachel. I am well aware that you know the meaning of all my words." The glance they exchanged
was potent, laced with feelings that couldn't be vented, at
least not here, before a witness. "I find your newspaper stimulating, yours and Riley's."

It wasn't what she expected and he knew it. "My newspaper?" she echoed.

Riley chuckled. "I think my sister thought you meant something else." Riley ducked, afraid that she was about
to hurl the ink roller at him. "Hold off, woman. Ink costs
money."

She curled her fingers around the roller's handle, tempted. "Then mind your tongue before you wag it, brother, or I won't be having second thoughts the next time." She replaced the roller on the chase and selected the next typeset.

Riley picked up the quill again. "Your tongue's been
known to outrace your thoughts every time. It's your aim
I'm worried about."

Rachel turned from the printing press, ready to tell
them both to go to the devil when the door opened behind
her. Ever since the incident with Winthrop, Rachel
tensed each time she heard the door creak in that fashion.
Sin-Jin had told her that when he had gone to see the
loyalist the following day, Winthrop and his wife weren't
to be found. Apparently afraid of retaliation, Winthrop had fled, leaving behind the once-proud estate in ruins.
All the same, it was a difficult fear to banish. Enemies had
a way of surfacing.

But the man who stood in the doorway now, regarding her kindly, was miles removed from the smug, corpulent Winthrop. Rachel's mouth fell open as she rushed forward, her arms outstretched.

"Mr. Franklin!" she cried as Riley and Sin-Jin rose. "Is it really you?"

Benjamin Franklin leaned heavily upon his cane. He was still on the outer flanks of his struggle with gout, a familiar, perpetual war where only truces and not victories were declared. But for the moment, it was on the wane.

"It is the only version I know of," the old man chuckled. "Who else would wish to be an old man buffeted from one country to the other with no care as to his person? Only an old fool like Ben Franklin." He opened his arms to her. "Give me a hug, girl. I've just
been to sea with only men to talk to and need your hug to
remind myself that I am still alive."

Sin-Jin watched in silent awe as Rachel was enfolded in
the man's bearlike embrace. Franklin laughed with
pleasure, the tips of his iron-gray hair sweeping along his shoulders. He kept Rachel comfortably tucked at his side,
not ready to release this warm sensation of homecoming he was enjoying. Franklin looked into her face, enjoying the very sight of her. She was not much shorter than he.

He'd heard about them, even as he had journeyed into Morgan's Creek. The news pleased him. "They tell me that you and your brother are attempting to set the countryside on its ear with your gazette."

Riley was at Franklin's other side, a grin very nearly splitting his face. "Nothing more than you taught us, Mr. Franklin."

Franklin extended his hand to the young man he had taken in ten years ago. Paternal emotions flooded through him, like water over a beaver's dam. He let himself savor them a moment. At his advanced age, there were few things left to him that he could enjoy and he allowed this to be one of them. There were still too many demands on him, too many responsibilities to shoulder, and while he was both proud and humbled to be part of what he believed to be the birth of a great nation, there were times when he wished for the treasured moments of a private citizen. Someone who could smoke a pipe by the fire at night, surrounded by the fruits of his labor and his loins and have not a care that went beyond the room.

But that wasn't to be his lot and he knew it. Still, he could enjoy these precious moments when they presented themselves to him. That was why he had journeyed so far for what seemed to be so short a visit. A small respite from the cauldron of history that he forever found himself swimming in.

Riley released his hand and Franklin looked around the room. He had started his newspaper in a shop in Philadelphia that was far smaller than this. And look how far he had come. It would be the same with these two, he knew. They had the promise.

He raised a brow as he looked at Rachel. "It goes well with you?"

Rachel nodded. "We've had a little trouble," she confessed, "but nothing that wasn't handled properly in its time."

"With a little help from our friends," Riley put in, nodding toward Sin-Jin.

Franklin looked Sin-Jin over carefully as he released his hold on Rachel. "And this is?"

Sin-Jin grasped the venerable, wrinkled hand and felt as if he was touching history. "Sin-Jin Lawrence, Mr. Franklin, at your service."

They've made him into a monument, Franklin thought, amused as he looked into Sin-Jin's eyes. And he wasn't even dead yet.

"Ben, please." He gave Sin-Jin's hand a hearty shake. " 'Mr. Franklin' makes me feel old."

Unable to resist, Rachel kissed his cheek. "You'll never be old."

He laughed, tickled. "Ah, that's what I came to hear." He ran his hand over his lips as he glanced around the shop again. The journey had been long. "You wouldn't by chance have a little rum for an old friend, now would you?" he asked Rachel. "Strictly to take the chill from my bones, of course."

"At the house." Riley was already leading him to the door.

But Rachel wasn't so quick to turn and go. "And what is that cane for?"

She knew full well that it was physical evidence of yet another bout with his old nemesis. The gout had plagued him for a long time now. Inconveniently skirting in and out of his life like a mistress who bedeviled him and couldn't make up her mind whether to leave or to stay.

Ben looked down at it, then at Rachel's face, his eyes twinkling. "For beating young girls about the head and shoulders who don't serve me rum when I require it." He brandished it in the air to prove his point.

"Request it," Rachel corrected. "No one 'requires' spirits."

"Just as stubborn as ever, I see. Be a good girl and do what an old man asks." Franklin winked at her.

Rachel frowned, but turned and followed Riley out of the shop. She was too happy to see him to deny Franklin anything, even something she felt wasn't good for him.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw that Sin-Jin was
following her, engaged in earnest conversation with Franklin. She tried to ignore the warm pleasure that the scene caused to seep through her.

Chapter Twenty-two

Rachel sent Riley to the smokehouse and prepared a meal to make a man's mouth water. The work at the print shop was temporarily forgotten as they ate and Franklin brought the outer world into their lives.

Sin-Jin sat next to the elder statesman. Within his pocket his sister-in-law's letter leaned heavily against his breast. It seemed as if the hostilities between the two countries were really finally over. There was nothing to impede a return trip to England. Nothing but his new life here.

Nothing but Rachel.

He'd think of that later, he told himself. Now was not the time for making decisions. The opportunity to listen to someone of Franklin's stature and reputation didn't present itself every day or even every year. He focused his attention on what the man had to say and pushed his problems aside.