Patricia Potter (39 page)

“Don’t say that, Meredith. Not now. Not until you know…more.”

“I know you,” she said. “I don’t care about anything else.”

There was a painful silence. He moved her slightly and leaned down and pulled off his boots, and then dark stockings.

“Look, Meredith,” he said, his voice now hard as steel. “Look at my ankles.”

Warned by his voice, she did as he asked. His ankles were ridged with bands of scar tissue. One of her hands went to the left ankle, touching it softly. “Dear God,” she said.

“I’m a convicted murderer, Meredith. A convict. An escaped convict.” His voice was tense, harsh. “My back is scarred. From a whip. Like Cam’s. It’s why I haven’t wanted you to touch it. You would have wondered about it.”

“But where? How?” Meredith’s voice was unsteady as she tried to comprehend his words. They didn’t make sense.

“England. I killed the son of a nobleman and was sentenced to transportation for life. I was shipped to Australia where I served on iron gangs with chained convicts who carved out roads, and later in coal mines.”

The missing years. The missing years he never discussed. The passionless tone of his voice said so much more than fury or anger could. He sounded almost dead when he spoke. Her eyes went to the deep marks on his ankles, and she suddenly understood a great deal. “Then that’s why…”

“The Underground Railroad? Partly. I can’t tolerate seeing a man in chains. Or whipped. I see myself in every one of them. So you see it’s not compassion or mercy. It’s for my own survival.” There was a tone of desperation in his voice, an acute need for her to understand.

She took her fingers from his ankle and found one of his hands. It was balled in a fist, the sun-browned skin white with the strain of exertion. She bit her lip against the sympathy that wanted to pour out. She knew instinctively he didn’t want it, would never want it.

“How did you…escape?”

“My father and oldest brother never gave up trying to track me down. They spent a fortune doing it, finally hiring an adventurer to help me escape. He bribed some guards and smuggled me aboard an American-bound ship. I’m still wanted in England.”

“And here?”

“There were discreet inquiries made in Washington. The matter involved a duel, and American authorities are not prone to hand over an American citizen in such a matter. Canada, however, is a different matter.”

“But if it was a duel…?”

“Dueling is illegal in England. It’s customarily ignored, but I killed the son of a very powerful man. I had to confess to murder to escape hanging…but he had the last word. He said he would make my life hell, and he did. Eight years of it. I often thought hanging would have been merciful.”

“Can he…do anything now?”

“He’s dead,” Quinn said flatly. “Otherwise I think he would have tried to bring me back, one way or another. Now I’m not worth the special diplomatic problems to English authorities, although I’m sure they would be delighted to get me back were I to enter their territories. Escaped convicts were not looked upon kindly in Australia. They encouraged others to attempt it.”

There was a new note of bitterness in his voice, and she sensed he had not told her the whole story. Not yet. And she couldn’t ask; the warning signs were up again. She was still trying to sort out what he had told her, to comprehend the horror of the marks on his ankles, the lash marks he said were on his back. No wonder he was restless. No wonder he guarded his feelings so fiercely. Prison, captivity, for someone as vital, as proud, as Quinn must have been terrible beyond imagination.

Her hand went to his face where rigid muscles strained against his cheek.

“A convict,” he said bitterly. “Lower than any animal. We were treated worse than one. An animal has value. Even a slave has value. We had none. The one objective was to strip every vestige of humanity from us. And they did. There’s so damned little left, so damned little.” He hesitated, his arms touching her so tentatively that she wanted to scream at him. She longed for that arrogant assurance that had enraged her so many times. She didn’t know how she could bear the pain of this other man, for it now was equally hers. She waited for him to continue, for more words that she knew were bottled in him.

“Could you really love a convict, a murderer?” The words were said almost indifferently, as if he knew the answer.

“I love
you,”
she said in an even voice, made so by immense will. “I will always love you. There’s nothing you can tell me, nothing that you can do, that will change that.”

“I don’t want you to love me,” he said roughly. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want you to. I tried like hell to stay away from you. I thought if I told you—”

“That I would run and hide? Dear Lord, don’t you know me better than that…now?”

One side of his lips twitched unwillingly. “Perhaps,” he admitted, partially to himself. “You don’t run from much, do you?”

“I wouldn’t exactly say that,” she replied with an uncertain smile. “It seems I ran from you several times.”

“You should keep running,” he warned.

“No. I learned my lesson when I slipped into the Mississippi. I’ve never been quite as cold…or as frightened, except perhaps when I was with you and those cold eyes bore into me.”

He arched one of his eyebrows. “They are the same eyes.”

“But not so cold,” she teased. “Not quite.”

“You’re changing the subject, damn it. I’ve never seen anyone quite as adept at it as you.”

And she was. She wanted to drive the shadows from his face, the harsh memories from his mind. Part of her wanted to know more, but he had exorcised enough devils this one night. Her hands went to his shirt, and started unbuttoning it.

He wanted to stop her, and then shrugged. He couldn’t hide his back from her forever. But it wasn’t, he immediately discovered, his back she was interested in. Her tongue was already licking the dark hair on his chest, her hands caressing the back of his neck. With a groan of capitulation, he lowered her gently to the bed.

Hours later, warm and contented with love, they lay on the bed holding hands. Their lovemaking had never been quite as exquisite now that secrets were shared, confidence given and understood. The actual consummation was secondary to the comfort, the quiet joy they took in merely touching, of being truly together without fear or suspicion, without haunting pasts lurking in the shadow. There was a freedom this time in their love, a readiness to say what needed to be said, to whisper love words.

As she did now. “I love you, Quinn.”

Only a remnant of his fears remained, nagging in the back of his mind.
People close to me die.
He tried to ignore it. For the first time since he was twenty-three, the sun was shining again. He could not give it up. He leaned over and nuzzled her mouth. “Would you marry me, Meredith?” The words came without intent, exploding from his heart.

She lifted her head and looked up, her eyes wide with surprise. But there was a sudden blazing joy in them too.

“I know you still want to find your sister, but if all goes well…” His voice trailed off. “There could be a child, Meredith.”

“That’s a lovely thought,” she said. “I believed I would never have children.”

“What about your Mr. MacIntosh?” he teased.

“I gave it a passing thought,” she retorted. “Especially after I met you. It seemed the only way to get rid of you.”

“That bad?” he asked.

“You were horrid.”

“I can still be horrid.” He grinned.

She nuzzled his chest some more. “I know,” she muttered. “But there are certain other abilities that…tend to outweigh some unfortunate character traits.”

He chuckled. “Would you like to enumerate them?”

“I like the way you laugh. When you mean it.”

“And when I don’t?”

She frowned. “It can be quite…chilling.”

“Good,” he said with satisfaction as one of his fingers played with the corner of her mouth. “What other things?”

She nibbled on him. “You taste good.”

“Hmmm. I like being tasted.”

“And you have an adorable dimple.”

He frowned at that. He had never liked that damned dimple, but then she lifted her head and licked it, and he started to reconsider.

When she finished, she looked up. “And then there’s that icy stare. You are very good at icy stares.”

“Not anymore,” he corrected her ruefully as he tried one and failed miserably. Quinn was amazed at himself. He had never felt so relaxed. He delighted in their light bantering, the soft warm companionship of it, the quiet but intense pleasure that flowed between them.

He leaned over and kissed the corners of her eyes in a wondering, disbelieving kind of way. “You didn’t answer me,” he finally said softly.

“Which particular question?” she whispered back.

“Will you marry me? You keep changing the subject.”

“Yes, oh yes,” she said slowly.

“Yes, you will marry me or yes, you keep changing the subject?”

“Yes, I will marry you.” This time she carefully pronounced each word.

“And you’ll tell me more about those things that outweigh my more ‘unfortunate traits’?”

She started to do just that, but then his tongue licked the nape of her neck until she could barely stand it. Tremors started rocking her body again.

And Meredith knew she didn’t have to say more as their bodies engaged in a very intimate conversation of their own.

C
hapter 21

MEREDITH AND QUINN
spent the rest of the night making plans. There were occasional interruptions as one started nibbling the other, and retaliation demanded a more substantial type of response.

Quinn couldn’t take his eyes off her. He had never expected such acceptance, such unquestioning belief after he told her things he had revealed to few others. Both Brett and Cam knew very little. Brett knew, of course, because he was part of the family’s search. And Cam knew about the scars on his body. But Quinn had never been able to speak of those years; the humiliations had been too deep, the misery too profound, the guilt too intense. Even now, remembering, recounting, had been excruciatingly difficult.

But he should have known from her paintings that she had extraordinary instincts about the world about her, and unjudgmental compassion for the beings that inhabited it. In her role as a giddy-headed fool, she had shielded that part of herself so very well. Just as he had shielded himself.

It would be an adventure, prying open each little window to her. He wondered how many more surprises were in store for him. And he wondered how he could bear the separations that would be necessary. She had become so much a part of him, everything that made him whole again, that filled the empty aching places caused by loss and grief and guilt…and hate.

The want went so much deeper than his loins. It was in his soul, so very deep in the core of him. His hand traced patterns in her cheek, his eyes watching the happiness blaze in her face. It was good to give joy, to see as he held her the pleasure in her eyes. These feelings were new to him, and so precious.

“It will be exceedingly difficult staying away from you,” he said after a long silence.

Her hand tightened on his arm. Even the thought of separation was painful. Yet they had agreed that, for now, it might be necessary.

Quinn realized that Lissa was the first concern. He knew Meredith would never be really happy until she had righted her own past. After Lissa, if things went well, there might still be separations while he found someone to take his place in the Underground Railroad.

Then, perhaps, they could go West. He had long turned his eyes in that direction in the event he were discovered and had to make a run for it.

But uncertainty hung between them. They had been together less than ten days, yet in that time she had become his life. Totally and unconditionally.

And, miraculously, he knew he had become hers. It didn’t even have to be said. He marveled at the communication that flowed between them without words. They were like two halves of a whole, finally together after a lifetime of seeking. He shoved aside any other thought, the insidious warning that would never quite go away but sat like a vulture, waiting.

They talked over plans to free Lissa. Murray, Kentucky, was approximately sixty miles from Cairo, according to Quinn, and they would ride there together. Meredith’s original thought was simply to approach Mr. Evans and offer a large sum for Lissa, but Quinn had discouraged that. If Meredith went there for the specific purpose of buying Lissa, and if Marshall Evans refused to sell, then a later escape would be traced back to her. Particularly, Quinn said, if the half sisters still resembled each other as much as Meredith believed they would.

It would be far better, he offered instead, if he posed as a horse breeder from Virginia who had been guided to the Evans farm. If Lissa was there, he would find her and make an offer. If it was not accepted, then he would help her escape. They would not leave Murray, he promised, without Meredith’s sister. But timing was important. The
Lucky Lady
would be in Cairo in one week on its way North. If all went well, she and Lissa could board the boat and travel upriver to St. Louis together while getting to know each other again. From there, Lissa would be helped to Canada.