Once in a Blue Moon (10 page)

More lengthy silence followed this statement. She was beginning to wonder if the black-backed gull had stolen his tongue. "You never told me how long you will remain in Cornwall."

"I must take ship to rejoin my regiment in the West Indies in three weeks."

The sun was tin bright, and it cast harsh shadows over the barren moors, made cruel with granite boulders and broken stones. The wind had a salty taste to it, like tears, and though the sun was warm, Jessalyn shivered. Three weeks... The silence drew long between them again, tense like his face.

"Do you know where Claret Pond is?" she asked.

"Of course. A good soldier always scouts the countryside.

One never knows what man-traps might be lying in wait for the unwary."

Jessalyn suspected that there was more than one meaning in what he said. She wondered if he thought of her as a man-trap. The idea brought a swift-flushing color to her cheeks... as if he had read the words that she had written in the green leather journal.

She squeezed her mare into a trot, pulling ahead, then wheeled around to face him. "I'll race you from here to the pond."

He walked his horse up to hers. There was a tautness to his face, and his eyes were hard and glittering, like chips of onyx. "We must have a wager on the outcome," he said. "And no chicken stakes either."

"But I've only a few shillings left. Gram and I lost all the rest at the Tiltwell faro tables." He had brought his horse so close her knee rubbed against his thigh. He leaned into her, and her belly began to flutter with a strange anticipation as his gloved finger came up to touch her mouth.

"Then you must stake something that you have a lot of." He ran his finger along her lower lip. The leather felt as soft as butter. "Such as a kiss."

She could feel the beat of her heart in her lip. "And— and if I win? What will you give me?"

"What would you like?"

What she wanted she could not even formulate as a thought, let alone put into words. His finger had stopped its stroking, leaving her mouth feeling naked. "I can't think," she said.

"Allow me to think for you then. Should you lose, you must grant me a kiss. Should you win, you may name my forfeit after the fact."

"What if I demand more than you can pay?"

"Why concern yourself with impossibilities?" He took the riding crop from his boot. His mouth twisted, looking a little mean. "I've never lost a bet with a woman yet."

"There is always a first time, Lieutenant." She wanted to beat him. She would beat him hollow. She thrust herself forward in the saddle and loosened the reins. She cast a quick glance in his direction, then dug her heels into Prudence's sides. "Go!" she shouted.

Prudence, who had galloped neck or nothing on this path many times before, was surefooted among the scrub and loose stones. She was bred to race and would have made a fine runner in her prime, except that she had a weakness in her blood vessels, which had a tendency to break under rigorous training. She was as honest as they came, though, and she ran to win.

Jessalyn could tell that he, too, was riding all out to win. His bay had the advantage in height and stride. But her reservations about the gelding were proving true. He had no bottom.

They dipped down into a small, weed-choked gill. Brambles and briars clutched at her legs, but she barely felt them. On the upward slope she and Prudence nudged ahead. They had perhaps two hundred yards to go to reach the pond; she could already see the wind-tortured elms and mallow grass that encircled its banks. There was a crumbling stone hedge, about three feet high, that would have to be jumped first, but Prudence was a champion fencer. The hedge rose up before them. It had primroses blooming on the top of it, and their yellow petals fluttered in the wind like butterflies. She was going to win... and suddenly that was the last thing Jessalyn really wanted.

What she wanted was that kiss, and the only way she would get it would be if he had the right to claim it of her.

It wasn't that hard to throw a race; jockeys did so all the time. She did it just before the hedge, a subtle check on the reins so that Prudence felt a pull in her mouth and couldn't stretch out her head. Instead of taking the jump cleanly, the mare popped over, going up in the air and landing on all four feet with a hard and jerky jolt that rattled Jessalyn's teeth. The bay sailed over the hedge, gaining at least three strides. It was all he needed.

Lieutenant Trelawny had already dismounted and was waiting for her, standing beneath the biggest of the elms. Jessalyn pulled up Prudence at the edge of the pond. Knotting off her reins, she slid from the saddle.

He slapped his riding crop against his boot. The loud thwacking sound sent a jackdaw bursting out of the reeds with a frightened squawk, and Jessalyn jumped. The tree's broad, cone-shaped leaves cast harsh shadows on his face. She couldn't meet his eyes.

She started for the pond, but he snagged her arm as she went by. Throwing the crop aside, he spun her around, slamming against her and pinning her to the trunk of the tree. He brought his face within inches of hers. She could see the flaring of his thin nostrils as he breathed, the creases at the corners of his mouth, the sunbursts of gold within the dark night of his eyes. He smelled of horse and leather and hot anger.

"You little cheat," he said.

She made a movement to get away from him, but his hard weight held her fast. His chest flattened her breasts; his stomach pressed against hers. One of his thighs was braced between her legs.

She drew in a breath of pure fear. "What a nasty, spiteful thing to say. I cannot imagine what you mean by it."

"You know damn well what I mean by it. You threw the race, and we both know why. So now, Miss Letty..." He brought his face even closer, so close that if either of them so much as breathed, their lips would touch. "Now you are going to get precisely what you deserve, and you are not going to like it."

She thought:
He is going to kiss me.

"I might like it," she started to say, but she never quite got the words out.

Because by then he was kissing her.

His mouth crushed down on hers, forcing her lips open, and panic slammed into her chest. She made a little gasping, mewling sound in the back of her throat and tried to twist her head away. His hand closed around her scalp, pulling her head back so that he could kiss her harder. His mouth plundered hers, and she gripped the front of his coat to keep from falling, for it felt as if all the bones had been sucked out of her legs. Her nostrils flared wide as she drew in a desperate breath, and her senses reeled from the hot, tangy smell of him. She heard nothing but the fierce rushing of her blood, knew nothing but that he was devouring her with his mouth.

He ended the kiss abruptly, tearing his lips from hers. His fist tightened in her hair, hurting her. His face was so close the moist heat of his harsh breaths was like steam against her skin. Her lips felt thick and hot. She touched them with her tongue and tasted him.

"Y-you are not a very nice person."

"I have never pretended to be a nice person." He let go of her hair, and his hand slid down around her neck to span her chin. His thumb rubbed her throbbing lips. "And you, Miss Letty, kiss like you have never done it before."

"I have so done it before."

He laughed. Jessalyn thought she probably hated him. "What you did with Clarence Tiltwell on Midsummer's Eve was not a kiss."

He was right; that brief brush of lips had not been a kiss. A kiss was a taking and a mating of mouths. A kiss tore through your belly and left your throat aching and your knees weak. A kiss sent your heart hovering somewhere between terror and bliss.

She jerked her head out of his grasp, and he stepped back, letting her go. She walked on shaky legs toward Prudence, barely aware of what she was doing. Her mouth hurt, and she felt strange inside, sort of hungry and empty.

She tried to make her voice sound nonchalant and thought she succeeded rather well. "If you are done with teaching me a lesson, we should cool down the horses. They're sweating."

They walked side by side along the tree-shaded bank, leading the horses. It was called Claret Pond because the streams that fed it had once run red from the waste water that came from washing tin ore. But the mines were all shut down now, and the pond lay gray and dull, like a tarnished pewter bowl. Clouds billowed like tossed sheets above their heads, but the wind was warm. It smelled of summer: of dust and dry grass and long, sunbaked days.

Jessalyn could feel the lingering heat of a blush on her cheeks, and she wished that he would say something. She thought that perhaps he had kissed her the way a man would kiss a woman he wanted—hard, rough, hungry. She thought of him kissing her in that way, and the memory of it was a burn on her lips.

"You know what I think?" she said, to end a quiet that had become too hot and heavy. "I think you are only angry because you know that I, a mere female, could have beaten you. Doubtless even the thought of such an odious possibility is a sore blow to your manly pride."

One corner of his mouth creased, a flash of a smile that was there and then gone. "So that is why my manly pride has been feeling tender of late. And here I was about to do it further damage by conceding that you sit ahorse rather well. For a mere female."

He was talking flummery again, but she also suspected that he was offering her a compliment in his own backhanded fashion. She did ride well; it was her singular talent. "And I concede that on a worthy mount you would be a most formidable opponent, Lieutenant"—she whirled, flashing a sudden and brilliant smile—"but I'll wager you can't do this."

"More wagers? I wonder that you dare."

She only laughed, for a devil had seized her. Leaning against a tree trunk, she pulled off her boots, then gave a tug on Prudence's reins. The mare came reluctantly, for she'd been enjoying a snack of reed grass. Jessalyn removed the saddle and bridle and, with a smart slap on the rump, sent the mare cantering away from the pond and into a field of greensward and scrub. She caught hold of her mane and ran alongside for a few strides. Springing forward and up on both stocking feet, she raised her right leg high over the horse's back, landing smoothly astride.

He applauded, but she shook her head and laughed again, for that was only the beginning of the trick. She cantered in a circle, legs hanging straight along the mare's sides, her seat sure and graceful. She took a deep breath now, centering herself, becoming part of the fluid, rocking motion of the horse. She tried to ignore the man who watched, for she would impress him only if she succeeded. Yet he was there, at the edge of her vision. Seeing him, dark and tall against the vivid green of the trees and the sward, reminded her of the Gypsy boy who had filled her days last summer.

It had been the Gypsy boy who had taught her a whole repertoire of circus equestrian feats. His band had camped in the shelter of a coppice of pines near the little fishing village of Mousehole, and she had met him almost every morning for lessons. One day, while showing her a trick called the Mill, he had accidentally touched her breast. Then he touched her there again, deliberately, and she had let him. She had spent that night praying on her knees, sure that her soul was going to burn in hell's all-consuming fire, and even more terrified that Gram would learn of her sin and give her mortal flesh a well-deserved birching. But the next morning she had hurried out to the pines, eager for more lessons in trick riding, and other things, only to find the Gypsy camp deserted.

One of the most spectacular tricks the Gypsy boy had taught her was the Standing Somersault. Jessalyn wondered if she dared do it now, because it had been weeks since she'd practiced. But then, as Lady Letty always said, it was better to die game than to die chicken.

Pushing on the horse's withers, she swung her legs forward and lifted her knees onto its back. She straightened into a kneeling position, stretching her arms out from her sides. Then, before she could lose her nerve, she thrust upward with her thighs and jumped to her feet. Consciously she relaxed her knees, to absorb the shock of the mare's pounding hooves. She was standing upright on the horse's back now, a mile in the air or so it seemed. The wind rushed in her ears and flattened her hair. The world whirled, images flickering before her eyes: gray water, green trees, blue sky and him... him... him....

Sucking in a deep breath and releasing it, she flexed her legs, leaped high, and turned a complete somersault in the air to land on the mare's broad back, standing and with her arms raised above her head in triumph.

Short-lived triumph.

As she tried to explain afterward, it was the wretched rabbit's fault for digging a hole in the precise spot where Prudence planted her left forefoot. Prudence stumbled, and Jessalyn lost her precarious balance, flipping cat in the pan over the mare's tail.

But that was not the worst of it. For Prudence had been running close to the pond, which was in a deep bowl scoured out of the earth. Jessalyn hit the lip of the steep bank and rolled over the edge of it. She slid down the sharp incline, her grasping hands pulling up reeds and mallow and ferns by the roots, and continued on her inevitable course into the placidly waiting water.

She didn't scream—but only because the water was so cold it snatched the breath from her lungs. Her head went under for a brief second, then bobbed back up. Her jerkin buoyed out around her like a fishing float, helping to counteract the dragging weight on her legs from her heavy whipcord trousers. Water swirled and bubbled up around her. It came from an underground spring, which kept the pond perishingly cold even in the middle of summer.