Rachel's Choice (11 page)

“Neither me nor my parents.”

“That's that, then,” she murmured. He kept staring at her, making it difficult to think clearly. “The cow's been milked, and the horse is stabled,” she managed. “If you'll come to the house, Mr. Chancellor, I'll give you something to eat. I want to change that bandage and see if …”

“It's Mr. Chancellor now, is it?” He stood there as if he expected something more of her.

She was conscious of the chirp of crickets from the grass along the creek and the faint yellow blink of a lightning bug in the gathering dusk. The air felt soft on her cheeks, and the clover under her bare feet smelled as sweet as any store-bought perfume.

“Rachel …”

Chance was taller than James; she had to look up to meet his gaze. And woman's instinct told her that she should run—that she was risking more than her farm and her physical safety. Instead, she moistened her lips and took a step toward him.

His shirt fell soundlessly from his lean fingers and drifted to the grass. “Rachel,” he repeated huskily. “We shouldn't …” She could hear the unspoken longing in his voice.

“No, we can't,” she agreed. If things were different, if it wasn't for James and the war …

Chance reached out and touched her cheek. “You're shivering, Rachel. Don't be afraid of me. I'd not hurt you for all the world.”

But you will, she protested silently. Each time he said her name, something loosened deep inside her. She felt too weak to stand, helpless to do anything but lean ever so slowly into the circle of his arms.

His lips brushed the line of her lower lip, softly, so softly that tears welled up in her eyes.

“This is crazy,” he said. “I must be out of my head.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“But I've never done anything more right in my life,” he continued, and the rich timbre of his voice made her tremble even more.

She couldn't summon the strength to say anything more, but she made no effort to escape. Instead, she tilted her head to meet his warm lips and sighed as his mouth fitted perfectly to hers. His breath was sweet and clean; he tasted faintly of mint.

For long seconds he kissed her with exquisite tenderness, and she reveled in the joy of being held and cherished by a man. Sighing with contentment, lulled by the spirals of tingling sensation that ran through her veins, Rachel slipped her arms around his neck and pressed herself against the wide expanse of his bare chest. Then the simmering heat of their caress flared into a forest fire.

And lightning struck.

Not lightning from the sky, but the pent-up longing in her heart that Rachel had denied for so long. Heat flashed through her, and she parted her lips, desperately wanting more.

Chance didn't fail her.

His tongue touched hers, retreated, and met her seeking one again. He groaned deep in his throat, and desire stripped her of caution. Her head fell back, and he kissed her throat and the soft hollow below her ear.

“Rachel, Rachel,” he whispered.

He kissed her eyelids and the corners of her mouth then and skimmed the surface of her upper lip with his tongue. And when their mouths molded to each other's again, it was with greater passion.

She wove her fingers into his hair and felt the swelling proof of his need by his ragged breathing and the force of his touch. Still she did not care.

“It's been so long,” he murmured. “So long since I've held a woman …”

She could not get enough of his kisses or his touch. And when she twisted in his arms and felt him wince as she leaned her weight against his bad shoulder, it was Rachel who pulled him to the grass.

“I've never met anyone like you,” he said as they parted long enough to draw breath. “Never.”

“Shhh,” she murmured. “Don't talk, don't say anything.” She didn't want to hear his lies, didn't want to think where this was leading. She only wanted him to go on kissing her.

“I can't …” she started to say, and then broke off. “I'm too far along with the baby to …”

“It's all right,” he answered hoarsely. “I just want to touch you. Will you let me touch you, Rachel?” He cupped the swell of her breast, and her breath caught in her throat.

It was fully dark now, the night made even darker by
the thick canopy of oak leaves overhead. She could no longer see Chance's face or the color of his hair.

And his kisses were no longer enough.…

She wanted to feel his hands on her breasts, stroking her, caressing, easing the heavy ache that made her nipples hard and sensitive against the fabric of her worn linen shift.

He kissed her again with exquisite tenderness and slowly, tantalizingly, began to undo the buttons at the nape of her neck. “Rachel, Rachel,” he whispered.

She knew she had to stop this madness, but his scalding kiss made her giddy with wanting him, and she let their lovemaking go further.

Chance unfastened her buttons, one by one, until she wanted to scream at him to hurry. Between kisses he pushed her dress off one shoulder. Finally there was nothing between his hand and her naked breast but a thin layer of linen.

“So soft,” he murmured huskily. “So soft.”

And to her surprise he lowered his head and brushed her nipple with his lips.

“Oh,” she cried.

His breath was warm against her flesh. He teased the nub of her breast with his callused thumb until her nipple tightened and throbbed, then used his hot tongue to caress it.

She tugged at her shift and heard the cloth rip, but she didn't care. All that mattered was the feel of his mouth on her breast, and the sweet ribbons of bright pleasure that shimmered inside her.

She lay back in the thick clover and let him take freedoms that should have belonged only to a husband. And
Chance proved that he was no stranger to the ways of a woman, teaching her things that James never had.

“Darling Rachel,” Chance whispered. He drew first one nipple and then the other between his lips and suckled until she felt yearning curl in the apex of her thighs.

He's different from most men, she thought. He's not selfish. He cares about pleasing me as well as himself. Somehow that added to her own excitement.

She traced the line of his collarbone and caressed the curve of his shoulder, then trailed her fingertips across his muscular chest.

How long they kissed and fondled each other, Rachel could not have said. But when Chance slid an exploring hand beneath her skirts, a warning went off in her head and she forced herself to pull away. “No more,” she said. “Please, no more.”

“I'll not force you,” he rasped. “There are other ways to—”

“No.” Emotionally shaken, she rose unsteadily to her feet. “I know what you must think of me, and you have every right to name me slattern.”

“Rachel …”

She steeled herself against the need in his voice. “I don't ask you to believe me, but I've never done that with anyone but James.”

He stood up abruptly, unable to hide his disappointment or to quell the pain in his loins. “This is a dangerous game you play.”

“I will not risk my child for the sake of slap and tickle. I told you I couldn't … or I tried to tell you. If you thought—”

“I thought nothing,” he answered. “I accuse you of nothing. I'd hoped …”

She pulled up her shift and gathered it together over her breasts. “I made a mistake,” she said. “This will never happen again. Do you understand?”

“If you say so.”

He was hurt and she couldn't blame him. She had allowed him to think that she'd give him what he wanted. What they both wanted, she corrected herself. She swallowed. “I'm sorry, Chance. I've been so lonely, and—” She turned away from him. “If you are a gentleman, you'll not mention this again.” Swiftly she began to walk down the path toward the house.

She reached the back door and threw it open. Lady nosed through ahead of her. How could she have been so stupid?

But she knew how. She had only to think of Chance's lips on her breast to go all soft and woozy inside. “Bear!” As soon as the big dog's tail was safely inside, Rachel slammed the inner door and shot the bolt.

She didn't even pretend that she was locking Chance out. She knew better. She was locking herself in.

“If it wasn't for the baby …” she whispered.

Would she really have let Chance make love to her? It was a question she didn't want to answer.

She jerked closed the curtains and went to the cookstove. A reservoir on the side of the stove held warm water, and she dipped some out into a basin. She wanted to throw herself into her bed and pull the covers over her head, but she couldn't until she'd bathed away the day's grime.

What must Chance think of her?

“What does that matter?” she grumbled aloud.

He was a Johnny Reb. By rights, she should hate him. If she were a decent woman, she'd hate him.

But she couldn't.

Carrying this babe had surely sapped her brain that she could do such a thing, she thought as she fought back tears. She needed Chance Chancellor for the strength of his back, nothing more. Women often lost their good sense in the last months of their pregnancy. Once she was safely delivered, she'd remember who she was and what Chancellor was, she promised herself.

As sure as the sun would come up tomorrow, she'd pretend this never happened. And if she couldn't, he'd have to go, and the farm be damned.

“This farm and Rachel Irons be damned!” Chance kicked at a dirt clod and swore the foulest French oath he could summon up from his winter in Paris.

The woman was impossible. She treated him as though he were a leper, then allowed him … He exhaled slowly and his mouth went dry as he thought of what liberties she'd permitted … and those he'd come close to tasting.

She was as dangerous as a jury of Southern Baptists.

Why? Why had she done it? And why had she let him go so far only to throw cold water on his lovemaking?

Men had a name for women who promised everything and then withheld the prize, but in honesty he couldn't taint Rachel with such a term. She'd been genuinely drawn to him as he was to her. Sensual, passionate … infuriating.

What a lucky man James Irons was. Or an unlucky one. If he was alive, then his wife had betrayed him in the worst possible way. And if he wasn't …

If James Irons was dead, then he—Chance—was in even more jeopardy. Rachel drew him in ways that were more than physical.

She claimed to be a married woman, the wife of a Yankee soldier—maybe even one who'd tried to kill him at Gettysburg. She was a barefoot country girl without family influence or wealth. If he'd brought her home to Chancellor Hall before the war, she would have been shunned by Richmond society and his business associates as well. And after the war … Win, lose, or draw, she'd be unwelcome in his world and as out of place as a tobacco cutter in a judge's chambers.

Rachel Irons, with her Indian blood, was a poor choice for a rich Catholic lawyer whose ancestors had helped to settle Jamestown. He'd have had to look high and low to find a worse match.

He'd become so involved with Rachel and her problems that he'd put her needs ahead of Travis's. The thought that his best friend might have survived the flying bullets and the dogs on the beach of Pea Patch Island only to die waiting for him was more than Chance wanted to face.

He kicked another furrow of plowed ground. Travis couldn't wait until Rachel's crop was harvested in the autumn. He'd promised Rachel that he would help, but what of the oath he'd made to Travis? What did a man do when one oath canceled out another? Or when a beautiful, courageous woman had risked her own freedom to save his life?

And how could he live with himself if he didn't rejoin his company—if he hid out here, safe from the war, while his comrades were facing musket balls and shot?

He had no choice. He was a soldier, and he had a duty to complete his mission at all cost. He'd stay a few days more, a week or two at most, until his shoulder was better, and then he'd steal Rachel's skiff and sail back to the
prison to rescue Travis. Hell, once he killed Coblentz, he'd likely never come out of Fort Delaware alive himself.

Even if he did love Rachel—which he sure as hell didn't—he had no future to offer her. Getting away from her was the best thing he could do to insure her safety and that of her baby.

He needn't worry about Rachel; she'd been none the worse for helping him. And she had friends. Hadn't they come and planted her crops for her? She could ask them to help work her fields, or she could let her father-in-law take her land. What did it matter to him? Delaware wasn't part of the Confederacy, and she wasn't his concern.

Rachel would be disappointed to lose her free labor, but that was his own fault for being so gullible. Any soldier would do the same thing.

Wouldn't he?

Chance tossed and turned on his mattress. Sleep would not come no matter how hard he tried. Travis's face hovered behind Chance's closed eyelids, and his friend's last words echoed in Chance's head.

“It's my turn to play hero,” Travis had said. “Leave me.”

And he had. He'd swum away from the accursed swamp that was Pea Patch Island and saved his own skin. What would he tell Mary? How could he face Travis's wife and tell her that Chance was cowardly enough to abandon her husband?

Oh, Mary, Mary … Once, Chance had thought she would be his wife and the mother of his future children. Freckle-faced Mary, with her laughing green eyes and quick wit, was just the sort of woman his mother had expected him to wed.

Mary's great-grandfather had been a war hero, and her father owned prime real estate in Richmond as well as hundreds of acres of rich farmland. Chance and Travis had known Mary since they all were babes in arms. She was pretty, Catholic, and independently wealthy.