Captivated

chapter 1

Rage.

It filled the storm, pounding and striking the night sky.

It filled the stranger, fueling and stoking a burning lust.

For a woman.

A woman who knew more of life than surviving one day at a time.

A woman with kindness and passion.

A woman who would share with him her soul as well as her body.

A woman who, perhaps, could give him back his own soul.

The man raised his face to the sky and cursed the icy rain. He cursed the wind that drove it into every pore of his body. He cursed the African Boer who had used his left leg for target practice, thus necessitating convalescence in the cold, drafty country that was England. He cursed the horse that had thrown him in such a godforsaken, isolated area. But most of all he cursed the need that had driven him from the warmth and comfort of his seaside cottage.

Need that a man like him, born on the streets of London, could not afford.

Need that, in a man like him, haunted by the nameless dead, could never be appeased.

A fork of jagged lightning split the sky; a warning shot of thunder echoed through the night.

The storm promised death, lost as he was with neither horse nor shelter.

The storm promised life, the dawning of a new day in the aftermath of pain and desire.

The stranger lowered his head. And saw the light.

"My desires were excited to the highest pitch. I depicted to her the pleasure she would experience when, after arriving at the chateau, I should deflower her of her virginity, and triumphantly carry off her maidenhead on the head of this, 'dear Laura,' I said, as I took one of her hands and "

Exploded.

A raging black wall of wind and rain turned candlelight into night, swallowing whole the illicit, newspaper-type print that was in that second the sum total of Abigail's existence.

Blindly, instinctively, she scooped up the forbidden journal she had been reading. Beside her, frenzied fingers rifled through the earlier installment of erotic literature, whipped it through the air. Behind her, china clicked and clattered in the cupboard. And before her

A dark silhouette, darker than the storm outside, filled the space where the cottage door should be. Where ithad been but a moment before.

Abigail's heart slammed against her ribs as she made the mental transition from the fictional Laura who was being initiated into the pleasures of sex to the flesh-and-blood spinster that was herself.

Another explosion resounded through the one-room cottage the door slamming shut. Barring the buffeting wind and the drumming rain. Barring what light the night provided.

Barring Abigail inside the cottage with an intruder.

An intruder who, judging by the height and breadth of the silhouette that had filled the doorway, could only be a man.

A very large man.

Lingering desire pulsed through her bodyand dawning horror.

She was all alone andshe had forgotten to bolt the door.

Abigail surged to her feetnaked feet, defenseless feet,where had she put her shoes? "Who are you?"

Her voice was loudtoo loud in the sudden quiet. Certainly it did not belong to the placid spinster everyone took her to be.

No more than it belonged to the wanton woman she had been but a moment before.

Hair rose on the back of her neck as she strained to see through the black abyss that was all that separated her and certain theft or death. "What do you want?"

Droplets of water pelted her in the faceas if some great animal shook itself dry.

"What do you think I want?" The low, masculine growl came from the vicinity of the door. "Lady, in case you haven't noticed, there's a storm outside. I want shelter."

Abigail's breath escaped in surprise at the blistering censure in the intruder's voice. His accent proclaimed that he was no local boy, but an educated man.

"I am fully aware that there is a storm outside, Mr…"

"Coally. Robert. Colonel," the disembodied voice curtly supplied.

White dots pricked the blackness in front of Abigail's eyes. "I am fully aware that there is a storm outside, Colonel Coally, but you can not possibly stay here. There is a"warmth flooded her cheeks at mentioning the unmentionable"a little house out back. You will find shelter there."

"Lady, I am soaked; I am cold; I am hungry. I amnot going to spend a night in a privy. Light that candle before one of us does ourselves an injury."

The order was abrupt, imperious and rude. As if Abigail was a soldiera rather dim-witted soldier at thatderelict in her duties.

A tide of shock washed over her; it was followed by rage.

She forgot that the colonel was an intruder. She forgot that gently bred ladies such as herself fainted in the face of danger and submitted to the voice of masculine authority. She forgot everything but the fact thatshe was not going to take orders, here, in this seaside cottage that she had rented far away from the dictates of society so that she could enjoy one precious month of freedom before she gave upeverything, and howdare

A dull clunk of boots on wood ripped through Abigail's fury the colonel was bridging the darkness that separated them. The clunk was interspersed by a dragging sound, as if he limpedor staggered.

Military men were notorious for their drinking habits.

Abigail hastily stepped back.

Only to collide with the chair she had just vacated. It skidded across the floor.

"Please stay where you are while I light the candle." Her voice in the darkness was just as sharp as the colonel's. "Are you injured?"

A grunt was her answer. And a flare of light.

Abigail stared at the intruder alias colonelfrom across the scarred wooden table instead of from across the room where he should be.

Her first thought was of how dark was his skinas dark as the gentlemen of her acquaintance were fair.

Her second thought was how ridiculously long his eyelashes were. They created jagged shadows on his cheeks as he concentrated on touching the head of the match to the wick of the candle.

Then he was entirely visible, illuminated in a widening circle of light.

Droplets of water trickled down off pitch-black hair. His face was lean, shaved clean of the sideburns or mustache that fashion dictated. The hand holding the match was as brown as his face. His fingers were long, strong, with square, blunt tips.

Far, far too large to fit inside a woman other than one at a time, surely, was her third and totally incongruous thought.

Shaking his hand to extinguish the match, the colonel abruptly straightened.

Unwittingly, Abigail's gaze followed his movements.

Standing five feet nine inches tall, there were few men Abigail did not top, but she had to tilt her head back to look at this man. Eyes the color of pewter locked with hers.

The one-room cottage shrank to the size of a closet.

She had never seen such stark eyes. There was nothing soft about them. And yet they were beautiful in their uncompromising masculinity.

The dark lashes flickered; she could feel the touch of the cold gray gaze on her lips, her throat, her breasts

Breasts, she suddenly remembered, that were confined by neither corset nor chemise.

Her fingers involuntarily clenchedabout damp, curling paper.

A hurried glance downward confirmed her suspicion.

The colonel wasn't staring at her breasts; he was staring atThePearl, A Journal of Facetiae and VoluptuousReading, NO. 12 June 1880. Which she clutched to her chest with the cover outward.

She whipped the journal behind her back.

Simultaneously, the colonel pivoted toward the iron bed against the right wall.

The covers were turned back in ready invitation.

Alarm leapt up her spine. "What are you doing?"

He bypassed the bed and limped to the smaller of the three trunks that sat at the foot of it.

Scalding blood filled Abigail's face. Just as quickly it drained.

For the first time in her life she thought she would faint.

She darted after the colonel. "Now, you wait just one minute"

Too late. He thrust open the trunk.

To reveal a jumbled collection of leather and paper. Books with unmistakable titles:Adventures of a Bedstead; The Story of a Dildoe; Tales of Twilight, or the Amorous Adventures of a company of Ladies before Marriage. And more copies ofThePearl.

No one had ever seen her collection of erotica.

Anger that this man,this colonel had barged into her private retreat and discovered her secret vice overrode fear and shame.

"I asked you a question, sirrah, and I expect to be answered! What are you doing?"

The colonel stared at the contents of the trunk for a long moment before he lifted his gaze to hers.

For a second there flared inside the gray eyes something that caused Abigail's nipples to harden. Then the eyes became cold and flat, like his voice. "I am looking for a towel. And a blanket."

"Well, you willnot find them there." Abigail threw the journal inside the trunk and slammed shut the lid. She glared up at him, daring him to comment on the literature that no lady was supposed to know about, let alone possess. "There is a towel by the pump in the corner near the stove. Why do you want a blanket?"

She must have been mistaken at the brief flare of heat in those eyes. They were as hard as the pewter they took their color from. "My clothes are soaked, Mrs.?"

"Miss." Abigail hesitated. She was not about to give this autocratic colonel her last name lest he know someone in society who was acquainted with her family. "Miss Abigail."

"My clothes are soaked, Miss Abigail. I want a blanket so that when I strip down I can cover my nakedness."

Abigail stared. The wordsstrip andnakedness momentarily drowned out the pelting rain and the relentless wind.

"Colonel Coally." She drew herself up to her full height. "I will give you shelter from the storm, but I will not allow you to to"

The gray eyes were implacable. "Miss Abigail, there is nothing you can do to stop me."

Abigail bristled, fully prepared to fightor flee.

A crack of thunder shook the cottage.

A warning that she had nowhere to run.

A reminder that she was behaving more like the juvenile Laura inThe Pearl than a mature spinster dressed in a faded green shirtwaist and who, furthermore, was already sprouting a few strands of gray in pale-brown hair that was straggling free of its bun.

Clothed or buck-naked, there was little likelihood of a man like him forcing his attentions on a woman like her. Especially chilled through and through as he no doubt was.

Dripping water formed a dark circle about his boots.

"I asked if you are injured."

The coldness in the gray eyes intensified. "No."

"Good," she said curtly. "Then you will have no trouble walking to the table and taking a chair. I shall procure you a towel and a blanket. But first let me stir up the fire in the stove"

"That won't be necessary."

"Colonel Coally"

"Miss Abigail, there is a full-fledged storm going on outside your door. You have a thatch roof. If the wind should remove your chimney, it will, if the stove is blazing, quite probably cause a fire. I would as soon suffer from a slight chill as roast to death."

Abigail took a calming breath. Even her elder brother, the Earl of Melford, was not as overbearing as the colonel.

"Very well." Tight-lipped with anger, she retrieved a towel. While he briskly dried off, she flounced toward the bed and yanked off the top blanket.

When she returned to the table, he had dried his hair and slicked it back from his forehead. It was not black as she had earlier thought it to be, but the color of burnt umber. The water, she noted, did not bead on it, which meant he did not pomade his hair like his contemporaries in London.

Abigail could not recall the last time she had seen a man who did not pomade his hair. His cleanly shaven skin, tanned from the sun, was extremelyvirile.

She dropped the blanket onto the table.

"I will wait over by the bed. Pray tell me when you have changed and I will hang your clothes up to dry."

The wailing of the storm did not hide the creak of the chair as he struggled to remove his boots, or the thunk they made when they dropped to the plank floor. Cloth, too, made a sound, she discovered. It whispered, the outer clothes a harsh one, the inner clothes softer, more beguiling.

She suddenly wondered if all of his body was as brown as his face. And fought the flare of heat the thought engendered.

"You may turn around."

He sat at the table with the blanket wrapped like a toga about his body. The stark gray gaze snared hers as he held out a wet bundle of clothing.

Quickly averting her eyesthe naked brown arm and shoulder sticking out of the gray blanket were indeed as brown as was his faceAbigail accepted the sodden mass of clothes.

They smelled of rain and damp wool and something indefinable. Spice. Or musk. Something strictly male.

Bending down, she grabbed the mud-caked boots.

Only to have a cat's-eye view of a pair of long, narrow feet. He had shapely, muscular ankles.

They were brown, too. And liberally sprinkled with fine dark hair.

Abigail had never before seen so much mannaked.

Cheeks burning, she straightened.

The gray eyes were waiting for hers.

"In the future, draw your curtains, Miss Abigail. Few men can resist a free peep show. And bolt your door. Some men might take more than you are willing to offer."

For a second Abigail thought she would burst with rage at the insinuation that she might welcome such attentions. Humiliation immediately followed, at the thought that perhaps unconsciously she had. Hostility was born, that the intruder should guess at her secret desires that were not at all ladylike.

"Colonel Coally, I have been at this cottage for an entire week and the only man I have encountered who was unable to resist a 'peep' is yourself. Furthermore, how dare you castigate me for not bolting my door when it is you, sir, who are the intruder"

The violence of her feelings erupted in a shatter of glass.

Pivoting, she stared in astonishment at the tree branch retreating through the window closest to the bed. Wind and rain tunneled into the jagged hole it left behind.

The candle flickered and flamed, creating a wild jig of shadow and light.

"Stay where you are!" The colonel's command was pistol sharp. "The floor is covered with broken glass. We need something to bar the windowthe cupboard will do. Hand me my boots, then douse the light."

Abigail gritted her teeth. The colonel had issued one too many orders.

Turning, she took deliberate aim and dropped the heavy, mud-caked boots.

Brown toes curled back in the nick of time.

"Do you move cupboards best in the dark, Colonel Coally?" she asked politely.

"Not at all, Miss Abigail." The gray eyes staring up at her were narrowed. "I thought only to spare your blushes."

He stood up and dropped the blanket.

Abigail dropped the sodden mass of clothes that was the only thing between them and dove for the candle.

The cottage plunged into swirling darkness. At the same time, something brushed against her hip.

She instinctively put out her handand grabbed naked flesh.

Hot, hard, naked flesh. It was shaped rather like a thick pump handle, half-cocked, with skin as smooth as silk. Underneath it was a throbbing vein

She jerked her hand back. "Colonel Coallyyou surprised me."

"Miss Abigail." The voice in the dark was colder than the wind shrilling through the broken window. "If you insist upon grabbing what you cannot see, you will someday suffer from more than surprise. Edge your way over to the bed and stay there. I don't want to have to worry about surprising you again."

Abigail stood her ground. "Nonsense, Colonel Coally. This is my cottage. I am quite capable of assisting you."

"Let me put it another way, Miss Abigail. I am not so much worried about surprising you as I am of being surprised myself. Use your wits, lady: You have no shoes on. I have no desire to minister to both a broken windowand bleeding feet."

Speechless with fury, Abigail stared up into the blackness.

Surely he could not have thought that she had grabbed him on purpose. It washe who had brushed against her!

And then, how dare he comment about her witsor her person! A gentlemandid not mention a lady's feet.

"Very well, Colonel Coally."

She stalked to the bed, skirting wide the area in front of the broken window.

The mattress sagged beneath her weight. Planting her bare feet firmly together on the cool plank floor, she wondered where the colonel planned to spend the night. Then she wondered what it would be like to sleep with a man. Naked. With his warm flesh curved around hers.

The grate of wood on wood interrupted thoughts that she had no business thinking. The colonel was pushing the cupboard across the floor, steadily, heavily. The gale whistling through the cottage abated to a dull moan.

"There. That should hold it."

Suddenly a hand weighted down the top of her head, slid down to her ear, her cheek. The fingers were cool, slightly damp from the rain. They rasped against the softness of her skin, against her breast

Fire shot through her body. "What do you think"

Her hand that reached up to push his away was clasped in a firm grasp.

A hard, calloused grasp.

He forcibly curled her fingers arounddog-eared paper.

"This was lying on top of the cupboard."

So that was where the wind had whipped the other journal.

She held her spine ramrod straight. "Thank you, Colonel Coally."

He released her hand. "My pleasure, Miss Abigail."

Heat dispersed the cold of the darknesshis body was mere inches away from her face.

She wondered if he had donned the blanket again. A particularly intriguing scene fromThe Pearl flashed before her eyes.

If she leaned forward, would she kiss wool or

"Are you all right?" he asked abruptly.

"Perfectly, thank you." She jerked her head back, wondering if she was losing her mind. "And you?"

The end of the mattress dipped. "I'm an old warhorsemoving a cupboard is hardly dangerous work."

Abigail rolled up the damp journal. The colonel was far from decrepitas he must very well know. There was not a single strand of gray in his hair. "Fishing, Colonel Coally?"

"Merely stating a truth." She jumped at the shock of a heavy thuda boot dropping onto the floor. Another thud followed. Then the entire bed shook. She sensed rather than saw him scoot across the mattress to sit with his back against the wall. "I am thirty-five years old. The last twenty-two years have been spent in the Army. What are you doing out here all by yourself?"

Abigail refused to be cheated of her anger. "What areyou doing here, Colonel Coally?"

There was a brief silence. "Convalescing."

She craned her head back in the direction where she knew he was sitting. All she could see was darkness. "There is another cottage near here?"

"No. Not nearby."

Straightening, she listened to the tempest outside the cabin for long seconds. "Twenty-two years ago you would have been thirteen, Colonel Coally. The age of consent for a no combative position is fifteen."

"You are correct, Miss Abigail." The voice in the darkness was dismissive. "I lied."

Lied? Twenty-two years ago or now?

"What are you convalescing for?"

Again that silence, followed by a reluctant, "A bullet wound."

She remembered his limp. And the sight of a well-shaped muscular ankle sprinkled with fine black hair. "In the left leg."

"Yes."

Abigail followed the war movement through the newspapers. "By a Boer?"

"Yes."

The seaside cottage was miles away from the nearest thoroughfare. She had deliberately chosen it for its isolation. "That still does not explain why you arehere, Colonel Coally."

The silence was longer this time. She concentrated on the cool damp of the journal rolled in her hands and not the throbbing warmth that came from the end of the bed where his legs stretched out.

"My horse threw me. I walked for a while, but there was no shelter to be found. Then I saw your light… and here I am."

"But why were you out in the storm?"

"Why do you read erotic literature?"

Abigail prepared to defend her choice of reading materialit was educational; it was amusing;it was none of his business. She surprised herself by baldly stating, "Because it is the only way a woman can learn about sex."

A current of electricity passed through the darkness, as if lightning had struck nearby.

"I could be mistaken, of course," the colonel's voice was gravelly, "but I believe there exists another method that a woman may discharge her curiosity."

"I never met a man who I was interested in 'discharging' my curiosity with, Colonel Coally," she said repressively.

Outside the cottage, the force of the storm rose. The wind howled around the cupboard. Waves pounded on the beach below. Thunder roared in the skies above.

It occurred to Abigail that a very real danger existed. The windcould take the thatch roof off. Wavescould swell up out of the ocean and swallow the tiny cottage. Lightningcould

"I wanted a woman."

The unexpected words jarred Abigail back to reality. "I beg your pardon?"

"You wanted to know what I was doing out here in the storm. I rode out, hoping to find a village. Or a tavern. And a willing woman."

The confession was abrupt.

Colonel Coally begrudged the need that had driven him out into the night. As Abigail begrudged the conventions that did not allow a lady the same privilege.

She should have felt shock at the admission no gentleman made to a lady; instead, she felt the lingering remnants of rancor evaporate. It was replaced by a strange sense of camaraderie.

This man had seen her trunk filled with erotica and he had not judged her. It was the height of hypocrisy to judge him now, when he obviously had his own needs.

"I envy you, Colonel Coally. Were I a man, I, too, would have ridden out in search of companionship."

"It wasn't companionship I rode out for, Miss Abigail."

"I know very well what you rode out for, Colonel Coally."

"Do you, Miss Abigail?" The voice in the dark was curiously passionless. "Do you know what it is like for your body to burn and throb until you want to throw aside everything you have ever believed in for just one moment of oblivion?"

Abigail closed her eyes against a lifetime of wanting things that could never be, gently reared as she was. Things she would never have, spinster that she now was. "Yes, Colonel Coally. I do."

The bed shifted. "Do you have fantasies, Miss Abigail?"

Unbidden images danced behind her eyelids. Forbidden images of a man's naked desire filling a woman's body. Sexual images of things she had never done. Things she had never seen. Things she had never even read about.

Yearnings that in the next three weeks she must somehow put aside.

"Yes." She opened her eyes and stared into the darkness. "I have fantasies."

"Tell me." The abrupt command was harsh.

"I…" How could she tell this man who was a virtual stranger what she had privately dreamed about for years? But the darkness provided a certain anonymity. It almost seemed as if she talked to herself… or a fantasy.

"I fantasize about what it is like to kiss. Not the small peck that I give and receive from my family and friends. But a real kiss… like they do in my books. With their… tongues." Before she could lose her courage, she blurted, "Do men and women really kiss that way, Colonel Coally?"

"Sometimes. What else do you fantasize about, Miss Abigail?"

Abigail transferred the journal to her left hand and scooted sideways across the mattress so that her back rested against the iron headboard. The sole of her right foot brushed against wool and a muscular leg.

Heat shot up her calf.

She curled her foot underneath her skirt. "I… fantasize about what a man looks like. I mean… I have little nephews and I… have changed their nappies. They are… not really very impressive. Yet in the books they describe a man as being… much larger.There. Are men as large in real life as they are in books?"

It could have been the intake of his breath that she heard. Or perhaps it was hers. Because suddenly she realized exactly what it was that she had grabbed in the darkness, all silky sinew with pulsing veins.

And yes, it had been very large indeed.

"Some men are large, some men are small." The voice in the dark deepened. "Just as some women have large breasts, and some have small. Is it important to you?"

"Yes," she said softly, wondering what or evenif he had thought about her breasts during that fleeting touch, wondering how large were his measurements, wondering if all men were his size. Then she laughed self-consciously, embarrassed yet strangely exhilarated at discussing a man's anatomy. "I meanI suppose it would not matter as long as a man can give a woman satisfaction. Is it possible, Colonel Coally? Can a man give a woman satisfaction?"

"Do you doubt it, Miss Abigail?"

"Oh, yes, Colonel Coally. Every time I look at one of my pomaded, bewhiskered brothers-in-law I doubt it. I try to imagine them kissing with their tongue oror touching a woman's breast oror kissing a woman between her legs, and, quite frankly, I cannot. I cannot imagine them doing any of the things I read about. I cannot even imagine them begetting their own children. They have fat bottoms, Colonel Coally. I simply cannot imagine those fat bottoms pistoning up and down."

Fat bottoms pistoning up and down rang out over the muted frenzy of the storm.

Abigail clasped her right hand over her mouth in horror at the words that had come from it. At the same time, a shout of laughter burst from the other side of the bed. The mattress shook and shimmied.

"I am glad that you find my speech amusing, Colonel Coally," Abigail said stiffly.

The masculine laughter subsided. "I suddenly find this whole conversation amusing. Here you are, telling me your darkest fantasies, yet you address me as 'Colonel Coally.' And here am I, equally reprehensible, calling you 'Miss Abigail.' Let's call a truce, shall we? For the duration of the storm, let us be simply Abigail and Robert."

It was absurd, of course, but calling the intruder by his first name seemed more intimate than telling him her "darkest" fantasies. As long as he remained a colonel instead of a man, then he was a part of the storm and she remained a spinster lady merely engaged in safe, however illicit, conversation. But cross that barrier and

"Very well." Abigail took a deep breath to still the rapid acceleration of her heartbeat. "I find that I am sharing my fantasies, but you are withholding yours. What do you fantasize about… Robert?"

"A woman, Abigail. I fantasize about all the things I would like to do to a woman."

Abigail's breath caught in her throat. She envisioned his tanned hands caressing the pale skin of a woman's body. And wondered what they would feel like touchingher body.

Liquid desire pooled between her thighs.

"What about… size? Do you fantasize about the size of a woman's breasts?"

"No."

The short answer did not encourage further questioning. But this was the first manindeed, he was the first personwho had ever discussed sex other than in terms of polite platitudes andAbigail wanted to know more.

When she returned to London in three weeks' time she would have this memory, at least, to chase away the lonely nights.

"Well, then. What sort of things would you like to do… to a woman?" she asked casually, almost flippantly, while inside her chest her heart thudded against her ribs.

"Everything." The disembodied voice was a dark rasp. "Everything she has ever dreamed of. I want to ram my body into a woman until I lose myself insideher body, until her pleasure is my pleasure. I want to make her scream and beg for more. I want her to make me forget that I have spent the last twenty-two years of my life killing."

Abigail felt as if the air had been sucked out of her lungs.

Death was a part of war. The newspapers were filled with the tallies. Abigail read the accounts, mourned the victims, and had never once thought about the survivors, those soldiers who fought in the name of Her Majesty. Men who were not born to kill, but who did so nevertheless. Men who would suffer their actions for the rest of their lives.

As the autocratic colonel was obviously suffering.

For long seconds she clutched the cool, damp journal in her left hand, riveted by the raw need that radiated from the man at the foot of the bed.

As a soldier he had faced death; the only danger Abigail had ever experienced was that of exposure, should her erotica be discovered. As a man, he had endured physical pain; the only pain Abigail had ever borne was loneliness, pretending to be what she was not. Yet she felt the colonel's desire as keenly as she felt her ownhe forced to seek forgetfulness in the midst of a storm, she forced to bury her frustration between the pages of illicit books and journals.

She wondered what it would be like to forget the futurein the arms of this man. Just as he sought to forget the pastin the arms of a woman.

She was a woman, she thought on a leap of reckless desire. In the darkness she did not feel like an aging spinster. Surely her body would not feel old, either.

Suddenly a voice came from a long distance away, surely not hers, any more than the ache in her breasts and the throb between her thighs belonged to her, a spinster who should be beyond the desires of her youth, a lady who should never experience such desires no matter what her age. "I will help you forget, Robert, if you will help me forget."

chapter 2

"You're a virgin." The gravelly voice was flat.

Abigail's face flamed in the darkness. "Yes."

"And a lady."

No lady did the things Abigail did… or proposed to do. "No."

"What do you need to forget, Abigail?"

"In three weeks time I turn thirty years old."

And would forever leave behind her the vestiges of her youth.

"Turning thirty isn't the end of the world. You'll find that you won't feel any differently three weeks from now than you do tonight."

She stared into the bleakness that was her future."That is what I am afraid of, Robert."

"I haven't had a woman in over a year."

Abigail's heart thudded against her ribs. It sounded, incredibly, as if he was on the verge of accepting her offer. "All I ask is that you be gentle."

"And what if I can't?"

"Then I will no longer be a virgin," she said with a practicality she was far from feeling.

And she would at last know if there was anything beyond sleepless nights and endless frustration.

"Sex isn't fastidious." The disembodied voice was crude. "It's dirty and noisy and sweaty. Pain can become pleasure and pleasure can be painful. Once I start, I won't be able to stop. And I won't stop until I make you beg and cry for it."

A shaft of unadulterated desire stabbed through Abigail's stomach. It was chased by fear. And a blazing hope that what he said was true, that he could take her outside the realms of propriety and show her what her body cried out for.

She squeezed the rolled-up journal. "I sincerely hope not."

"Why?" he barked.

Abigail jumped at the sudden violence in his voice. And replied with quaint, totally incongruous logic. "Because you do not pomade your hair. And because I cannot imagine you insisting that a woman clothe a piano for fear the sight of its legs will overly excite her sensibilities."

She could sense his shock. Could feel the blood pumping through her veins and her heart pounding in her breast.

A shout of laughter cut through the darkness of desire. Beneath her, the bed shook and shimmied.

Suddenly all Abigail wanted to do was stop that laughter.

"Shall I disrobe?" she asked curtly.

The laughter abruptly died. There was a flurry of motion the mattress dipping, the bed creaking. She flung out her right hand to retain her balance, contacted hot, hard flesh. It was covered with wiry hair; there was bone underneath muscle, and a tiny, beaded nipple

She jerked her hand back just as long fingers closed over her hip. And held herself perfectly still as they skimmed her waist, her abdomen, a breasther heart gave a lurch beneath the touchthen curved around her neck. Calloused fingers forced her chin upward to the darkness.

"If I take your virginityif I touch your breastsif I kiss you between your legswhat will you give me, Abigail?"

"What do you want?" She was paralyzed by the starkness of his words and the closeness of his bodya body that was not wrapped up inside a blanket.

"Everything. You have to give me everything. Your body. Your needs. Your fantasies. Everything that you have."

Abigail sucked in scorching airhis breath. Then her lips were sucked inside liquid, velvet heat, and his tongue was inside her and Abigail's first fantasy was made into a reality.

Only to find that a French kiss had no bearing whatsoever to the anemic thing experienced in literature and fantasy.

Books did not describe the incredible intimacy of a man's breath fanning a woman's cheek while his tongue filled her mouth and his fingers cradled her chin as if she were infinitely desirable.

Fantasy did not conjure taste.

But Robert did. He tasted like brandy. And man. And hot, wet desire.

The journal slipped out from between her fingers the same time his tongue slipped out of her mouth.

"Let me be your fantasy man, Abigail." Hard skin whispered across her cheeka finger. "While the storm lasts, give me everything you give to him."

Abigail's breath caught in her chest.

He was accepting her offer.

His pain must indeed be great to bury it inside a thirty-year-old spinster.

She squared her shoulders.

The reason that he took her did not matter.

Shewanted him to be her fantasy man.

Shewanted to make him forget.

She wanted to forget… and for one night be the woman who he had made her feel like while he kissed her. Beautiful. Desirable. Young and full of hope.

She tilted her chin at a lifetime of denial. "My fantasy man undresses me."

"Think very carefully before you embark on this journey, Abigail. Because once we start, there is no turning back."

Abigail inhaled, breathing in the faint odor of brandyhis breath; breathing in the smell of rain and spicy muskhis body.

Tangible reality instead of bloodless fantasy.

"I have no desire to turn back, Robert."

The mattress dipped, shot up, leaving her alone on the bed. Then suddenly she was standing on the floor and the entire length of her body was bombarded by heat while intent fingers worked the row of buttons that lined the front of her dress.

She grabbed the invisible handshands that were nearly twice the size of hers. "But you have to live up to what you said, Robert."

The fingers stilled underneath hers.

"You have to make me beg and cry for it."

Burning fire enveloped her body: Embarrassment at her boldnessand a wave of incinerating lust that radiated from the man in front of her.

His hands slid out from underneath Abigail's. Her face was cupped between calloused palms, lifted upward.

"I will live up to what I said." Brandy-scented breath caressed her lips. "But remember this: As long as the storm lasts, your body, your needs, your fantasieseverything that you haveis mine. AndI will hold you to that, Abigail."

Abigail's heart skipped a beat. "Then I would say we have struck a bargain, Robert."

The voice in the darkness rang with finality. "Then let me undress you."

Chill air caressed her skin as one by one the buttons on her dress popped open. Instantly the chill of the night was replaced by heathard, hot hands slid inside her dress and peeled the faded cotton away from her breasts.

"You're not wearing a corset."

His breath was raggedas ragged as hers.

"No." It was inside a trunk, where she had packed it along with her chemise and petticoats immediately upon arriving at the isolated cottage.

The dress slid down over her shoulders, off her arms, a whisper of cool air and warm skin, to bunch around her feet. Then the hard, hot hands settled on her hips and gently pulled her forward. Equally hot, hard flesh prodded her stomach. "Do you always wear silk drawers?"

She hesitantly raised her hands and gripped his shoulders. The muscles were hardeverything about him was hardand hot. "Yes. I enjoy the feel of them."

"So do I." His voice was a husky murmur inside her right ear. Agile fingers sifted through the seamless vent in the back. He touched her in a place that made her knees buckle. "You're soft here."

Involuntarily she arched into his fingers as he repeated the caress, there at the top of her buttocks.

"And here…" He pushed deeper into the crevice, a tantalizing inch. "I never had time to learn a woman's body. But tonight, with you, Abigail, I am going to take that time. When the storm is over, I am going to know what every inch of your skin feels like."

She tensed underneath the unexpected invasion, his fingertips raspy hot against the tender flesh there. And determinedly smoothed her hands down the sleek, muscled flesh of his back to locate hair-roughened cheeks that were taut where hers were soft, concave where hers were plump.

She hovered over the place where his spine flowed into the crevice between his buttocks"When the storm is over, Robert, I am going to know what every inch ofyour body feels like, too"and lightly stroked him.

The flesh pulsing against her stomach jerked while the flesh beneath her hands stiffened.

"I do not need a woman to know my body, Abigail."

She had gone too far to back down now. "ButI need to know your body, Robert."

"Do you often fantasize about fondling a man's butt, Abigail?" The voice in the dark was caustic.

"Do you, Robert?" she asked tartly.

"I can assure you, I havenever thought about fondling a man's ass."

It took Abigail a second to realize that Robert was jesting to hide his embarrassment.

It emboldened her, to think that he was as new to this kind of intimacy as she was. And equally vulnerable.

She continued to stroke the soft vee of skin at the base of his spine. "Is that what men think about during battle, then, fondling the posterior of a woman?"

His entire body stiffened. Black tension filled the air. "Men in battle are too tired to think. Or too scared. It's before the battle that men think. Or while they lie dying."

Abigail bit her bottom lip, momentarily diverted by the cold hostility in his voice. And the pain that it hid. "Before battle what doyou think about?"

The calloused fingertip lightly strummed up the small of her back, down into the crevice between her buttocks another breathtaking inch. A hard weight pressed down on her foreheadhis forehead.

"I think about how to keep my men alive. If you are asking if I will kill again, Abigail, the answer is yes."

"Only in battle, Robert," she said firmly. "And you are supposed to forget about that now."

Suddenly the deliciously erotic finger was gone and her silk drawers slid down over her hipshe had untied the tapes. He stepped back and she was enveloped in darkness and cold air. "Then make me forget, Abigail. Tell me what your fantasy man does after he undresses you."

Uncertainty warred with desire, urgent little voices telling her to turn back: She was too old, too small, too plump, a thousand and one reasons why he would not find her attractive. Bringing her arms to her sides, she straightened her shoulders. "He touches my breasts."

Heat grazed the tips of her nipples. She locked her knees to keep from falling.

"You're hard." The relentless friction was part caress, part prod. "I can feel where you are made to discharge milklittle puckered indentations on the very tipshere. Does your fantasy man suckle you?"

The flesh between Abigail's thighs involuntarily clenched at the evocative words. "Do you fantasize about suckling a woman?"

"Yes. I fantasize about suckling her until I make her drip with cream. Give me sustenance, Abigail."

Suddenly the insistent rasp of his fingers against her left nipple was replaced by a hot, wet, voracious mouth.

For a second Abigail was frozen with shock. Then the breath was sucked out of her lungs as the intense pulling, tugging sensation caused her entire body to contract.

Without volition, her hands came up and sank into silky thick, damp hair. Seemingly in response to her touch, Robert cupped her bottom in his left hand and pressed hard on her stomach with the palm of his right hand, as if to feel the rhythmical drawing inside her womb that his suckling mouth was producing.

And perhaps he did. Abigail felt closer to Robert, cradling his head while he hungrily fed at her breast, than she had ever felt toward any other person.

Just when she thought that milk would indeed drip from her nipple, the black world of passion tilted. She was swung up into his armsher right breast caught between their bodiesand then she was lying on the bed with her head sinking into a soft pillow and the cold knotting of the quilt pricking her back.

"Cream, Abigail." Hard, hot fingers delved between her thighs. "You're dripping with it. Do you ever put your fingers inside of you when you fantasize?"

Lightning shot up through Abigail's body. "Of course not!"

"Our agreement, lady." Slowly, gently, he mapped out the soft folds of flesh between her legs, overruling modesty, overcoming resistance. "I want to know every erotic thought, every touch."

Abigail held herself rigidly.

Everything, he had said. And she had agreed. But Robert was taking controland she did not know if she liked that. It was what her fantasy man didbut this wasnot fantasy.

She felt wet and exposed and there was nothing to do but… enjoy it.

And add to her bank of memories.

"No," she reaffirmed on a soft intake of air. "I do not."

"Does your fantasy man?"

"Yes."

Oh, yes…

"How many fingers does he put inside you?"

She closed her eyes, blocking out the black silhouette that was more than fantasy. "Three. Do you fantasize about putting your fingers inside a woman?"

"Yes." His fingers swirled and swirled, there at the entrance to her body, gathering moisture, creating heat.

She could hear the wet play over the staccato sounds of the stormor was it her breathing that was so uneven? "How many fingers do you fantasize about putting inside of a woman?"

"Five. I fantasize about sticking my whole fist inside her."

Abigail's eyelids snapped open. She remembered the length of his fingers in the circle of candlelight. Remembered the size of his hands, clasped between hers. "That… Surely that is not possible."

"Perhaps. Certainly not with a virgin. Perhaps after a woman has had a child or two… You're so small here." Abigail involuntarily squirmed at the deepening pressure. "Hold still. I can feel your maidenhead; you're taut as a drum. It hardly seems possible that you could accept Take my finger, Abigail."

Abigail took the entire burning length. And gasped into the fury of the rain and the wind.

It was raw invasion. It was his body becoming a part of hers.

It was the substance that books and fantasy lacked.

The foot of the bed dipped; she drew her legs up to counteract the motion, opening herself wider, forcing the finger more deeply inside her. A gust of heat seared her stomach. "Talk to me. Tell me what it feels like to have a man's finger inside you."

Abigail threw her head back, concentrating on the sensations serrating her body instead of the dark silhouette poised over her. "Your finger feelshot. And rough. It burns. I feel open. And stretched."

"Not stretched enough. Is this what you feel like when your fantasy man puts his finger inside you?"

"No."

Oh, no…

The reality of having a man's finger inside her bore no resemblance at all to the fantasy.

This was heat and cold and bone and muscles with the knotting of the quilt underneath her and the knot of his knuckle inside her.

"Take another finger, Abigail."

The burning fullness that was more than fantasy abruptly turned to painful intrusion as one finger became two. "Stop"

"Lie still. Relax. You are a virgin, there's bound to be some pain. It will passlet it become pleasure."

Abigail forced herself to lie still. She felt uncertain and vulnerable and stretched beyond endurance. This wasnot fantasy. Yet… Yet her body pulsed and throbbed around the invading digits, telling Abigail there was indeed pleasure beyond pain. Telling her

"I think my fantasy man has smaller hands, Robert."

A feather-light kiss ruffled the damp hair at the apex of her thighs. "I think my hands are exactly the same size as those of your fantasy man. What does it feel like having two fingers inside you?"

"I feelinvaded."

"You are. What do you feel like when your fantasy man has two fingers inside you?"

"I feellike I want more."

Hot breath fanned her nether regions. "And you are going to get more, Abigail."

An electric surge of awareness overcame the burning discomfort between her legs. He could smell her, with his head down there like that, he could

"I'm going to kiss you between your legs now. Then I'm going to give you three fingers."

Abigail sucked in air to tell him that she could not possibly take three of his fingers. At the same time he sucked her inside his mouth and all thoughts of protest died. His lips and tongue were every bit as hot in this most intimate of kisses as they had been when he had French-kissed her.

She grabbed two handfuls of silky thick, damp hair and hung on to him as she had held on to the mane of a runaway pony when she was ten years old.

It had been frightening, plummeting across the countryside, and it had been uncomfortable with her bottom wildly bouncing on the saddle. But it had been exciting, too, with the world a blur of color and the wind whipping her cheeks.

Now the world was a blur of blackness and she had never before experienced such heat or an unrelenting drive for something to happen. His tongue circled her on the outside; inside her, there was more pressure, a stinging, popping sensation, and Abigail knew that he had added another finger, yet suddenly it did not matter because he was stabbing her with his tongue in such a rapid motion that she could not catch her breath. And then she did not need to, her body rose to catch it for her, bowing perfectly with the three fingers lodged impossibly deep inside her.

Abigail convulsed in a blinding spasm of raw, burning pleasure, lungs laboring, breasts heaving.

"What does it feel like now, Abigail?" Scorching breath there on her nether lips that were wet and pulsing and still swollen. The fingers deep inside her wriggled.

Abigail's breath caught in her throat. Hot blood rushed down from her cheeks and up from where his fingers gently agitated. It met in the center of her stomach and spread out over the rest of her body. She could not help bearing down on a fluttering contraction, opening herself wider.

A liquid trail of desire trickled from her body. "It feels"she gulped air, released his hair to clutch the more secure anchor of the quilt"like I have three fingers inside me."

"Shall I take them out?"

"Please do not."

"What does your fantasy man do next?"

"He comes into my body."

His fingers continued a silky flutter. "I do not have anything to protect you with."

The words rang a discordant bell of reason. Something was wrongbut then thought gave way to the sensation of her flesh pulsing around those three fingers.

They had gone beyond fantasy, beyond reality. This man had promised her everything, and for the first time in her life she was not worrying about breaking a code of etiquette or failing to make the prescribed marriage of money and title.Nothing was going to destroy this stormy interlude. Mentally she reviewed every erotic manuscript she had ever read.

"I havethere is a sponge by the sink."

The fingers made another gentle flutter before slowly easing out of her. She winced. With pain. With loss. Then she grabbed the bedcovers to keep from catapulting out of bed.

He soundlessly maneuvered through the darkness. The pulsations inside her body counted the seconds he was gone, gently contracting, relaxing, contracting… Harsh liquor fumes intruded on the delicious ripples of anticipation.

Abigail lifted herself up onto her elbows. "What are you doing?"

"I had a flask of brandy in my jacket. A sponge is more effective if soaked in something, usually vinegar, though this will do. But it's going to burn a little. Lie back and lift your knees up."

The mattress dipped, forcing her body downward. Something icy cold and wet brushed her most private parts. She instinctively closed her legs, but an arm was there, wedged between her knees, holding them wide.

Danger.

Desire.

For a second, Abigail could not differentiate between the two.

This man had killed.

This man was about to take her virginity.

She would never be the same after this.

"Have you ever done this before, Robert?" She gulped calming air, feeling old, feeling gauche, feeling terribly, terribly frightened. "Put a sponge inside a woman?"

"No. Does your fantasy man do this for you?"

"Of course not. Women donot get pregnant by fan"

The words caught in her throat as the sponge breached her opening. Then it was in and his fingers were gently prodding the unaccustomed fullness inside her and somewhere in the process the stinging discomfort blossomed into abject need.

She stared at the dark silhouette that knelt between her knees and clung to the self-control that was fast slipping away. "Robert."

"Abigail."

"You said you rode out into the storm looking for a woman."

The fingers prodding the sponge inside her stilled.

"I find it hard to believe you would make such a journey without bringing along certain… necessities."

"I have French letters." His voice in the darkness was flat again, emotionless, as if he had not just given her the most intimate pleasure a man can give a woman, as if he did not now have his fingers inside her.

"Why did you say you had nothing to protect me with?"

There was a harsh intake of air. "Because for once in my life I wanted to feel a woman's flesh wrapped around mine without benefit of a rubber galosh."

Her heart fluttered inside her breast. "What would you have done if I had not possessed a sponge?"

"Then I would have introduced you to a brandy douche."

Abigail wincedthe brandyhad burned. "I think I would prefer the rubber galosh, Robert."

"Shall I get one?"

The stillness and the darkness were absolute. Outside, the storm itself seemed to wait for her answer.

She was a substitute for another woman, a younger woman, the woman whom he had rode out into the storm to find. And yet…

He wanted to feelher flesh…as she wanted to feel his, every vein, every pulse, everything that he was.

For a second, she was overcome by the thought that perhaps he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

But of course that was impossible.

The storm would end and this was all she would ever have andshe was going to take everything he could give her.

"No. Will you come inside me now, please? I feelquite prepared, thank you."

"Quite prepared isn't good enough." The dark voice throbbed. "I want you wide open. I want you so wet that when I thrust inside you, there won't be anything you can do to stop me. Starting now. When I pull my fingers out of youlike thissqueeze as hard as you can."

There came a soft slurp as he slid from her body. Abigail squeezed, first to contain the long, calloused fingers, then to restrain them, there were too many, surely

"Relax, Abigail. Three fingers, you had them beforethere, just the tipsnow bear down." Warm lips nibbled her knee, an unexpected caress, her body opened with a will of its own, swallowing the three fingers in their entirety, first knuckles, second knuckles. "The first time was to stretch your maidenhead, but this is to stretch you. Now squeeze again… relax, bear down. I'm your fantasy man, Abigail. Don't fight it, open up, I will be far larger than thisthere.Squeeze… relax. It's a rhythm, a dance. Let me open you up, Abigail, let me make you so wet I'll drown inside of you."

It felt as ifshe was drowning, she was so wet, so stretched, squeezing as he instructed, opening for more.

It was unbearably intimate, what men and women did together. Better than fantasy, better than literature. The burning, churning sensation inside her and the harsh rasp of Robert's voice drew Abigail out of her pristine Victorian world into the place of forbidden sensuality that she had always dreamed of.

Throwing her head back, she let his fingers drive her, open her, become her, faster, harder, deeper, until she was gasping for air and

"How does your fantasy man take your virginity, Abigail?"

Robert's voice was a harsh intrusion. She dug her fingernails into the quilt to gain enough composure to speak. "He… He takes me while I lie on my back."

"Do my fingers still hurt you?"

"No." She lifted her hips to take him more deeply.

"What do you want, Abigail?"

Her response was one of mindless pleasure. "More!"

Suddenly his fingers were gone and the pillow on either side of her head sank down while hard, hairy legs pushed wide her thighs and she could feel him between her legs where his fingers had been, huge as a stump and hot as a poker and pulsing with life.

"Like this?" The voice above her was feral. "Is this how your fantasy man takes your virginity, Abigail? With his legs holding you open so he can get to you?"

"Yes." Abigail clutched at his shoulders; they were slick with sweat. Muscles rippled underneath her palmsreal, not fantasy. Hungrily she smoothed her hands over his back, tested muscles that women did not have, sank her fingernails into those small, taut buttocksmemorizing him for all the empty months and years ahead. And all the while, that male part of him pulsed and throbbed against the feminine part of her and she was wide open and completely accessibleand things were progressing far too fast. "You feel very large, Robert," she gasped. "Are you? In comparison to other men, I mean."

Moist breath fanned her cheeks, her lips. Callused fingertips soothed aside the tangled, damp hair that had escaped her bun they trembled against her skin, as if it was he who was about to lose his virginity and not her. Then his right hand slid down between their bodies. "You be the judge, Abigail."

Without warning, his mouth swallowed her breath and his tongue was inside her andoh, he was plunging inside her down there, too, and yes, he was large, far, far larger than his three fingers and there was nothing she could do to stop him as he plowed through the open, liquid heat that he had made of her body. Deeper and deeper he slid, stretching her wider and wider until he could not possibly go any deeper or stretch her any wider but he did and she had never imagined anything like it.

It felt as if he touched her soul.

She tore her mouth away from his. "You said sex was dirty."

"I lied."

She arched her back, momentarily overwhelmed by the heavy weight of his body pressing down on her. "Robert"

Instantly the hand between their bodies slid over and under her hip. He supported her there in the middle of her back where she arched. "Hmm?"

Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. "Nothing. I just… I feel… sofull."

Whisper-soft lips brushed her mouth. Again. And again. And again. "You are. Relax, Abigail. Hook your legs around my waist."

Abigail tried. She really did. But every movement made him slide deeper and deeper and he was bigger than a fence rail inside her and

"Robert, the limbs of a woman arenot made to"

He nipped her lip. "Butyou are not just any woman, Abigail. For the duration of the storm you aremy woman."

Suddenly her legs were locked around his hips and they were no longer two bodies but one.

"Stay open for me, Abigail."

Abigail strove to catch her breath. "I do not believe I have a choice, Robert."

She could feel a fleeting smile, there against her forehead; it was followed by a fleeting kiss, on the tip of her nose. "Then come for me."

"But you have yet to fulfill your part of the bargain."

That stillness again. "What is that?"

"You have yet to make me beg and cry."

Without warning, the body pinning her to the bed shifted. The thick shaft that filled her to capacity drew out and up, so that it sawed between her swollen nether lips. The angle stretched her unbearably as he slowly thrust back inside her, and again withdrew, thrust harder, withdrew, sawing back and forth, taunting and teasing the engorged bud at the top until suddenly

Raw heat replaced all traces of discomfort.

"Robert, please!" She dug her fingernails into his back.

"Please what, Abigail? Tell me. Shall I do it harder? Faster?" Robert matched words with action. "Slower? Deeper?"

Gritting her teeth in frustration, she churned her hips in a most unladylike manner. "No, no,do not slow down, harder, Robert, please, do it harder! Faster! Harder, Robert,harder!"

The breath whooshed from her lungs as he plunged inside herhard, fast, deep; harder, faster, deeper, a fantasy more compelling than any she had ever imagined.

"There! There!" She clawed at his slippery back and pumping buttocks to keep the necessary friction, the necessary speed, even as she wondered if she would ever be able to walk again. "Do not stop, Robert,please don't stop!"

"Open wider, Abigail. Beg me some more, cry for it.Make me forget that I have killed, damn you. Give memore. Let me know you want more. Come for menownownow!"

Rage. Pain. Desire.

Abigail should have been frightenedshe could not tell if the man inside her was the colonel who commanded obedience or the lover who wanted forgetfulness or the soldier who killed out of duty. Nor did she think that Robert could tell who he was in that second. But suddenly the black rage of the storm split apart under the pistoning pressure and Abigail screamed Robert's name as he demonstrated that a man can indeed give a woman pleasure.

Robert! carried through the night.

Just as she fell back inside her body, he ground his pelvis into hers. As if to become a part of her. Or perhaps he was trying to bury his past inside her. Then a scalding jet of liquid spurted into her and a strangled cry erupted from Robert's throat.

Her books mentioned a man's ejaculation; they failed utterly at describing the feel of it filling a woman's body.

A fantasy man did not drip with sweat or fall bonelessly atop a woman's body in the aftermath of passion while his breath gusted inside her ear like a bellows and his satisfaction echoed in the wind.

A fantasy man did not take away loneliness as well as give pleasure.

Abigail rubbed her hands down his slippery spine. "Thank you, Robert."

chapter 3

Before Robert had joined the Army he had been Robbie; once in the Army he had been Coally. Private Coally; Corporal Coally; Sergeant Coally; Lieutenant Coally; Captain Coally;sir. After a lifetime of doing other people's killing he had become Colonel Coally. Outside of battle with the occasional whore or even during battle with the occasional camp follower, he had remained anonymous. No one save Abigail had ever used his christened name.

No woman had ever screamed for him when reaching her pleasure.

No woman had ever thanked him for fucking her.

Small, firm breasts heaved against his chest. Tiny little contractions continued to ripple about his spent manhood.

Abigail's pleasure.

She was a ladythere was no doubting her accent or her mannerisms.

She was a twenty-nine-year-old spinsterwho had willingly sacrificed her virginity.

She had accepted his pain and his passion and given him the gift of her body.

Without her he would not have survived the storm.

And he knew, just as surely as he knew that he should get up and spend the rest of the night in the privy, that he would hold her to her promise. By the end of the storm there would be nothing that he did not know about her.

Including the reason she lied about her genteel status and hid herself in an isolated cabin with nothing but erotic literature for companionship.

Carefully levering himself onto his elbows to take the brunt of his weight off her, he pressed his mouth to her ear.

A bittersweet surge of pleasure washed over him.

It was such an innocent thinga woman's ear.

He suddenly wanted to know that ear, to taste each nook and cranny, to make it a part of himself.

He wanted to make Abigail a part of himself.

Her ear was shell-shapeddeceptively cool and delicate on the outside, like Abigail herself. He mapped the interior, slowly thrust the tip of his tongue into the hot, narrow channel.

The ripples in her vagina increased.

Shifting his weight onto one elbow, he swept his right hand down the length of her side, then burrowed between her and the quilt to grasp a soft cheek. The motion pushed him deeper inside her. "Did I hurt you?"

"A little." Her voice was husky in the night, the prickly formality mellowed by passion. "I think you hurt me more with your fingers than you did with the… other."

"That's because I used my fingers to stretch your maidenhead." He found her lips, swollen lips, sensitive lips that instinctively softened against the pressure of his. Lips that only he had kissed.

Gently he circled inside her, his tongue and his manhood.

Then, "What does your fantasy man do after he takes your virginity?"

"He… shares his body with me."

Impossibly, Robert felt his manhood stirring to life. Deliberately he flexed inside her. "How does he share his body with you?"

Her breath escaped in a small gasp. Short nails carved half-moons into his back. "He lets me touch him. And kiss him. And taste him. Everything you did to me."

Whores had kissed Robert and whores had taken him into their mouths, all for money. No woman had ever expressed a desire to do so out of pure pleasure.

Gently he disengaged his body from hers and rolled over onto his back.

He wasn't prepared for a woman like Abigail. His fantasy woman took his passion and his body and gave him only her pleasure. She did not seek to know his body as he did hers.

The mattress dipped. Cool fingers tentatively rested on his stomach, trailed up his chest. "Do men have feelings in their…" She lightly swept his chest in a searching motion, found him, and was instantly distracted. "You are smaller than I am."

He stared up into the darkness. "I am a man."

"But just as hard. When you touched my nipple, I felt it deep inside my womb. What does it feel like when I touch yours?"

She ran the pad of her thumb over his nipple. Again. And again. And again.

White fire shot straight to his groin. He grabbed her hand and held it flat against his chest, breathing in the scent of her body, of his body, of sex.

And wondered why a woman like Abigail, a woman who was filled with clean, innocent passion would take into herself a man like him, a man who had killed and confessed he would kill again.

"Does your fantasy woman suckle you, Robert?"

"All I need, Abigail, is a woman to give herself to me." His voice was even, remote. "I don't fantasize about giving myself to a woman."

"But you would?"

Not before tonight, he thought bleakly.

"Your fantasies, Abigail. Whatever you want."

"Then I want to suckle you, Robert."

Robert's chest swelled at the feel of her hot, wet mouth rooting through the coarse mat of his hair for his nipple. He was inexplicably overcome by a surge of vulnerability.

Women gave their breasts into the care of a man that he might nurture off her gentleness.

Men who killed did not nurture.

Men who killed had nothing to offer a lady.

Closing his eyes, he curved his hands around her head.

And realized that her hair was still caught up in the ugly bun that told the world she was a staid spinster, while inside her burned the same needs and wants that burned inside him, she caught up in a society that denied her womanhood, he caught up in a career that he had chosen when he was too young to know better.

He found a hairpinpulled it out.

The wet heat nuzzling his chest was abruptly replaced by cool air. A hand reached upgrabbed his that was searching for another pin.

"What are you doing?"

"Unveiling you."

Without warning Abigail scrambled up, mattress dipping, bed creaking. She gasped with dismay.

He opened his eyes, instantly alert, a soldier prepared for action.

"What is it?" he asked sharply.

"Nothing."

He reached outfound her knee. She was kneeling on the bed.

"Our bargain, Abigail." He tightened his grip. "Talk to me."

"It is just…" He could see her, a dark silhouette, head thrown back toward the black ceiling. "Oh, for heaven's sake, it is nothing, really. When I sat up, something…you… came out of me."

Robert's manhood leapt to full life.

Sitting up, he followed the line of Abigail's knee, soft and slender, growing softer, softer… Their fingers met on her thigh.

A cool, viscous fluid was smeared on it. Her fingertips rested on the outer parameters.

"My sperm." His voice was flat in the darkness.

"I know." Her voice sounded more like she was nine going on ten instead of twenty-nine going on thirty.

"There's still some inside you." He linked his fingers between hers and guided their hands between her legs. "Feel. Me. And you."

She gasped when he brought their joined fingers up to her hot, swollen lips.

There was more of him. And her.

The essence of a man and a woman.

He had never felt himself on a woman before. Had never felt himself inside her.

The combined sensation of the slick viscous fluids warmed by her body struck him with the force of a bullet.

When she would have jerked her hand away, he forced their fingers between her swollen, passion-slick lips, pushed upward until two fingers slid inside her flesh, one his and one hers.

"I never knew two people could be this close." Her voice was a sough of breath.

"Neither did I," he murmured hoarsely. "Why did you pull away from me when I started taking down your hair?"

"It gets tangled."

Robert recognized a lie when he heard one.

Another secret to unravel, another obstacle to overcome.

"I'll brush it for you tomorrow. Spread your legs wider."

Clumsily she acceded; her body dipped lower to the mattress, forcing their fingers further up inside her.

The muscles inside her vagina rippled. "Robert."

"What?"

"Did you really peep through the window?"

"You didn't open the door when I knocked."

She clenched her body, forcibly trapping their fingers inside her. "I was reading."

He wondered what sex act she had been reading about to put the sublime expression on her face that he had witnessed when looking through the window. "So I saw."

"What did you think I was reading?"

"Devotional literature."

He waited for her next question, could feel it trembling on the air.

When it didn't come, he answered her anyway. "I did not take you because I thought you were wanton, Abigail. I took you because I needed you. And you were right. What we shared tonight is not dirty."

The huskiness in her voice deepened. "Robert."

"What?"

"Lean forward."

"Why?"

"Because I want to kiss you."

Heart lurching inside his chesthe who killed without blinking an eyehe leaned forward, made her lean forward, too, for the pleasure of feeling her body adjust around their fingers.

Her lips missed his at first. She raised a cool hand and found his jaw, aligned her lips accordingly.

It was a virgin kiss.

A first kiss.

He let her learn his lips while inside her he could feel the myriad little convulsions the two of their fingers were causing. And then, suddenly, the wet heat that inundated his fingers covered his lips.

Abigail learned quickly. She rimmed the seam of his mouth with her tongue. Immediately he opened for her, allowed her to enter him as he entered her.

But he wanted more.

More of the storm.

More of Abigail.

He sucked her tongue more deeply inside him, then he suckled it as he had her clitoris and her nipple, suckled until the tiny ripples around their fingers became one large contraction, and with a little gasp she came into his mouth.

Gently he released her tongue and her hand. And found the remaining hairpins in her hair. They fell to the plank floor like a rain of firing pins. Carefully searching for more, but finding none, he plunged both hands into her hair and worked it loose until it hung wild and free down her back, a curtain of living silk.

He felt his penis grow another inch.

"Lie down."

"Why?"

"So I can crawl over your body."

"Not into it?"

"Later." Robert's lips twitchedhis prim and proper lady was game to the end. "First we need to get you cleaned up."

"I am quite capable of washing myself, Robert."

"That's not the bargain, Abigail. You agreed toeverything."

He ended the conflict by the simple expediency of scooping her up and lying her down. And ruefully wished that skirmishes were as easily won on the battlefield.

"If you wash me, I will wash you." Abigail's dignified threat was meant as a warning.

Robert grinned. In the next second it felt as if the wind had been knocked out of his lungs.

He had not been washed since he was a childa lifetime ago, before the killing had started and overnight he had grown into a man. "I'll hold you to that, Abigail."

The bucket was underneath the sinkhe primed the pump. Icy water splashed into the worn metal. He pumped twice more before grabbing the washcloth on the rack beside the sink.

Setting the bucket onto the floor by the bed, he dipped the washcloth into the water and wrung it dry before easing down onto the edge of the bed. He warmed the cloth inside his hands. "Doesn't your fantasy man ever do this for you, Abigail?"

"There is no need to wash after a fantasy man," she replied tartly.

Robert found himself smiling in the darkness.

He had smiled and laughed more with Abigail in the last few hours than he had in the last twenty-two years.

The two should not go togetherlaughter and passion. Then again, a man like him and a lady like her should not fit together, either.

But they did.

He was not going to let a belated sense of modesty interfere with their union.

She held perfectly still for his ministrations, as if she derived as much enjoyment from being touched by him as he did in touching her. He memorized her face through the rough, damp cloth, discovered a high, smooth forehead, a slender nose, a rounded jawand regretted only that he had not thought to light the candle so that he could see her as well as feel her.

She had brown eyes, he suddenly remembered. They had widened in outrage when he had opened the trunk and revealed her erotica. Then they had flamed with amber when she had glimpsed his unchecked passion.

Abigail arched her neck. She had a fragile neck, long and slender like those of the Egyptian busts he had seen when stationed in Egypt. Her right breast filled the palm of his handher nipple was hard. Slowly, so slowly, he eased the cloth over her stomach, a soft little mound that had rippled beneath his hand when he had suckled her, and then there was slick wetness that owed nothing to water.

With single-minded intensity he explored the changes he had wrought in her body. With heart-stopping trust, she allowed him.

Her flesh was swollen where he had entered her, the opening stretched, so that now he could easily penetrate her with one finger, two, not as easily with three, hampered by the cloth. Gently he swirled away the evidence of their passion.

Working down to her thighs, he cleansed away the stickiness there, unerringly returned to the mystery between her legs.

He washed Abigail slowly, thoroughly, lost in her heat and softness, here the skin crinkly with hair, there plump and smooth. Reaching further back, he found the top of the soft crevice and swirled the washcloth round and round, down and down, in tight little circular motions.

The washcloth was plucked out of his hand.

Robert's muscles coiled. "I saideverything, Abigail."

"You saidmy fantasies, Robert." The mattress dipped, then the bed was empty. "Lie down."

Robert found himself smilingagain. She knew him for what he was, yet she dared give him orders as if he was a normal man who had never experienced the horrors of war. He lay down.

Abigail rinsed and rinsed the cloth out.

He wondered what thoughts were going through her head. If she thought about what he had done to her. If she thought about what she was going to do to him. Or if she thought about what she had been reading before he had barged into the cottage.

Erotic acts she wanted to engage in but didn't dare.

Sexual acts her fantasy lover dared.

Sexual acts perhaps Robert was unaware of, steeped in war and death instead of erotica.

Sexual acts he would dare… before the storm was over.

Suddenly the cloth was on his face, cold, with the heat of her fingers penetrating underneath. Robert could feel the anger and despair of his past draining out of him, as if underneath his skin there still existed the innocent youth he had once been.

"Kiss me." His voice grated in the dark.

"Only if you tell me what you do to your fantasy woman."

He stared up at the dark silhouette hovering over him. And closed his eyes to the truth.

Abigailwas his fantasy woman.

"I kiss her."

"Like this, you mean?" Her lips teased him, more confident now, more taunting. She gently rubbed them against his. Until he felt like his lips would burst into flame. Then she tasted them, delicately, her tongue swirling into the corners of his lips, along the seam, before her mouth opened and covered his, gradually learning the art, sucking slightly to adhere their flesh, her tongue touching his, then mapping out his mouth, the roof of his mouth he exhaled sharply at the stab of desire that shot through his groinunderneath his tongue. Her breath fanned his cheek in little warm puffs while she smoothed his hair back from his forehead.

Robert had never realized how deeply a woman's tongue could penetrate a man's defenses. He fisted his hand in the warm curtain of her hair and took control of the kiss.

Only to find that when he dueled her tongue back into her mouth, she sucked on his like he had earlier sucked on hers until she wrung from him a groan.

"What else, Robert?" Her breath was a whisper of heat on his lips. "What else do you fantasize about?"

Bloodied faces flashed before his eyes. Men he had killed. Men he had sent out on missions to be killed. Innocent women and children caught in the crossfire of war.

And with the images came the need that had kept him alive.

But Abigail wanted fantasies, not a battle-scarred soldier's needs.

Before he could think of a lie, the cold, damp cloth trailed down his neck, his chest.

He groaned, knowing what was in store for him. And found that it was a fantasy of his. A fantasy that he had never known he possessed.

"You never answered my question, earlier," she said, the cloth circling and circling a hardened nipple. "Is it as sensitive for a man here as it is for a woman?"

"Yes," he growled.

"Good." The cool cloth lifted. Only to be replaced by a scalding mouth.

He could feel the pull of her lips and tongue all the way down to his testicles. My God, he hadnever felt like this. Had never known that the male body was capable of this much sensation.

He grabbed the back of her head when she freed his nipple. "Don't stop."

"I read that a woman can orgasm from a man suckling her breast. Do you think a man can orgasm from a woman suckling his?"

Robert almost orgasmed at the mere thought. "I don't know."

He gritted his teeth, prepared for Abigail's next move. Only to find out that he was not prepared at all.

He had just spent himself not more than thirty minutes earlier.

He should not even be hard, let alone on the verge of coming. She ran the now-warm cloth past his straining manhood and cupped his testicles.

"Abigail…"

She ignored his growl of warning.

He could sense her hesitance, could have told her the second that she made up her mind. The cloth slipped lower still, pressed into his perineum. Silky warm hair covered his groin at the same time that her mouth daintily gulped his manhood.

A jolt of heat flashed through his body.

Shame.

That he could not control himself.

Awe.

That she had brought him to this point.

"Jesus Christ.Abigail!" With a groan he jerked aside.

She grabbed on to him and swallowed him as deeply as she could while his flesh exploded inside her mouth.

When he could breathe again, he reached down and caressed her head, needing her close, needing to hold her. Needing her to hold him. "Come here."

She sat up. "Did I do it… properly?"

She was trembling. With desire? Disgust?

"No one, Abigail, has ever done it more properly. Did you enjoy yourself?" he asked warily.

"Yes, thank you. I have always wondered what a man tastes like."

"And what does a man taste like?"

Robert should have been warned by the hair that suddenly spilled around his face. But he wasn't.

"Taste for yourself."

He was momentarily paralyzed by shock, allowing her mouth to cover his and her tongue to thrust inside him. It was coated with his sperm.

He blindly grabbed her upper arms and hauled her back."Jesus."

"Have you ever done that before?"

He plunged his hands into the silky heat of her hair. "What? Tasted myself?Never."

"No. I mean… Have you ever kissed a woman between her legs before tonight?"

Her hair clung to his fingers; it was as soft as butterfly wings. He hesitated, "No."

"Why not?"

"Whores are not always the cleanest of people."

"Do you do it to your fantasy woman?"

Robert picked her up and sat her sideways across his stomach.

Abigail squealed.

Children squealed like that when they were shot. As did some women. And men.

Grabbing her right leg, he pulled it up and over his body so that she straddled his hips.

Her hands smacked against his chest. "What are you doing?"

He reached up and cupped her breasts. "Guess."

"Butcan you do it again?"

"Perhaps. If not, I can satisfy you in other ways."

Her nipples were rock hard. He rolled them between his thumbs and forefingers until she was squirming and pressing her hands over his.

Incredibly, he felt himself stir underneath her seductively soft bottom.

"Robert. Robert. Not there. Touch me somewhere else."

He continued rolling her nipples, wanting to push her to the limit. Wanting to push himself to the limit. Wanting to end once and for all the darkness of death. "Where, Abigail?"

"You know where, Robert."

"But I want to hear you say it, Abigail, I know you know the words."

"Robert"

"I won't stop teasing your nipples until you say it."

"I want you to touch myto touch mymy pearl!"

There was no question about what was or was not stirring underneath her bottom. Abigail, too, noticed the phenomenon. She ceased attempting to pry his fingers away from her nipples and reached behind her to grab his manhood.

Without guidance, she lifted up. Holding him tightly in her fist, she brought him to her vaginal lips, a wet, hot kiss of intimate desire. Only to tease him with herself. Or perhaps she teased herself with him.

"Do you mind?" she gasped.

Robert gasped when she slid him past her opening and up to the top of her clinging, swollen lips. He could feel the hard bud of her clitoris, could feel it throbbing. She rubbed the crown of his manhood against her there, round and round, slid it back down to tease her opening. Again. And again. On the forth pass he couldn't hold back a reflexive arch of his hips.

It wasn't going to take much for Abigail to gain satisfaction. Suddenly Robert minded very much that she should orgasm alone.

When next she brought the crown of him down to moisten it at her opening, his hand was there, too, holding his manhood steady while, with his left hand, he pulled her right thigh wider, forcibly bringing her body down closer.

This time the gasp belonged to her.

"Easy. Are you sore?"

"A little."

He pulled her thigh out furtherand sank further up inside her.

Her muscles clenched and tightened around him as if they could force him out.

He gripped her more tightly.

Hewould not let her reject him.

"Bear down, Abigail. Once I'm in, I won't hurt you anymore, I promise. Open up. Relax." Having breached her body, he slid his right hand down to her left thigh; using both hands, he steadily, relentlessly, pulled her thighs wider and wider apart until she had no choice but to "Take it. Take all of me, Abigail."

She did.

He knew he was causing her pain. He also knew how to take that pain away.

Lightly he soothed the taut muscles in her thighs. "Relax, sweetheart. Relax, Abigail." When her muscles eased, he slid his left hand up and rubbed her nipple. Bringing up his right hand, he touched her clitoris.

A pearl, she had called it.

FromThe Pearl, no doubt.

Below her swollen bud was a taut ring of wet, pulsing flesh her surrounding him.

Robert had never realized before how thin feminine skin stretched to hold a penis… or how fragile was the bonding of a man and a woman.

She quivered as he rimmed her clitoris with the pad of his thumb. Her inner muscles told him all that he needed to know. They told him how hard to press, how fast, until suddenly the taut band of flesh surrounding him relaxed utterly. In the next instant it clutched him so tightly it was almost painful.

Abigail cried out.

Robert cried out.

But he didn't move. He had promised her he would not bring her any more pain, only pleasure, and he meant to keep that promise.

Before she had time to catch her breath, he rubbed her swollen bud again. Until her inner muscles again gripped and milked him in climax.

He used her pleasure to bring about his own peak. It took six orgasms in all. When he arched up into her, she collapsed over him in a blanket of soft hair and damp flesh.

Mustering up energy he had never known he possessed, he jerked the bedcovers out from underneath his body and pulled them up around her.

Holding her tightly in his arms, his flesh snugly encased in hers, he prayed that the storm would last another night.

chapter 4

Rain was a steady drum of sensation; it pounded against the walls and the ceiling, impaling Abigail's body on a shaft of raw heat. She shifted to find a more comfortable positionher pillow was fuzzy and the bed bone-hard.

The feeling of being impaled grew. As did the raw heat inside her lower body.

Her eyes flew open.

A mat of wiry black hair greeted her gaze. It covered a very broad, naked chest.

Stifling a cry of alarm, Abigail lifted her head.

She stared into pewter-gray eyes framed by ridiculously thick, long black lashes.

Every muscle in her body clenched in recognition at what filled her to capacity.

She had taken a stranger into her bed. She had taken him into her mouth. And she had taken him into her body.

Where he was still lodged.

Pale-gray light illuminated the dark stubble lining the oddly tensed face of the man underneath her. "Good morning."

In the dark heat of night Abigail had been a woman; in the cold light of day she was once again an aging spinster.

An aging spinster who had propositioned a strangerand then had begged and cried for him not to stop.

Abigail stiffened her spine. "Good morning."

He folded down the covers from around her shoulders and eased her upright so that she sat across his hips. "Do you mind?"

Doyou mind ricocheted inside her headthe words she had asked before using his manhood to rub against her engorged flesh.

Flesh she had named.

Iwant you to touch myto touch mymy pearl!

Her muscles tightened in protest; she felt as if she sat on a fence post. His shoulders were brown against the white of the sheet and pillowtight little brown nipples peeped through black chest curls.

Which meant that her breasts were equally visible.

Breasts he had suckled like a starving infant.

She slapped her arms across her chest.

His hips surged upward with unmistakable intent.

Abigail gasped. At the sensation of him prodding the very depths of her body. At the realization that the intolerable pressure had nothing to do with what was inside her vagina and everything to do with what was inside her bladder.

Freeing her right arm, she braced her hand on the mat of wiry chest hairchest hair thatshe had rooted around in like a starving infant. "Actually, yes, I do mind. You see, I need toto"

Words failed her.

She closed her eyes at the loss of whatever dignity she still possessed.

There simply did not exist a polite formula for informing a man buried deep inside a woman that the dictates of nature preceded the urges of the flesh.

A boisterous laugh penetrated her mortification. The motion of his body combined with that of the bed caused her to jiggle up and down on the extremely solid flesh planted between her legs.

Opening her eyes in pained outrage, she anchored herself to his chest with both hands; her freed breasts swayed unimpeded. Hard, calloused fingers dug into her hips while pewter-gray glinted up at her.

"A lesson for the both of us. Men wake up with a hard-on. Whereas women, I take it, wake up merely needing to relieve themselves."

Gritting her teeth, Abigail attempted to scramble off him, only to find that her legs refused to movethey were numb from lack of circulation. "I beg your pardon, but I seem to require assistance in gettingdownup"

The tanned skin around his eyes crinkled. "My pleasure, but you reversed the order. First we lift you up" Strong hands circled her waist. "Then we help you down."

Robert jackknifed up in bed and onto his knees in one fluid motion. Abigail hardly had time to gasp before he was out of her body and she lay sprawled on the bed. He loomed over her with his manhood jutting in front of her face.

It was every bit as impressive in the pale light of day as it had been in the murky dark of night.

Grabbing the gray blanket at the foot of the bed, she pulled it around her naked body. "Thank you."

His grin widened. "It's still storming outside."

She was all too aware of the weather. "Yes."

"I take it you have a chamber pot."

She did. Under the bed.

Supremely unself-conscious in his nakedness, Robert climbed off the bed and leaned down. The monotonous patter of rain was interrupted by the drag of smooth porcelain over hard wood.

Robert straightened. "Shall I help you?"

The heat blazing in Abigail's face felt like it would burst into flame. "I think not."

"Abigail, there is no place for modesty inside a one-room cottage. Men and women share the same bodily functions. I have to make use of it, too. What is the difference, for God's sake?"

She refused to look away from him. "The difference, Colonel Coally, is that women squat and men do not."

His gray eyes widened momentarily; then he threw back his head and roared with laughter.

He had very white teeth.

The laughter stopped when Abigail scooted out of bed slowly, carefully; the flesh between her thighs stung as though she had been impaled on a shaft of nettles. Her legs were like two slabs of wood, with no feeling in them whatsoever. Standing, bracing herself so she would not fall flat on her face, she reached for the faded green dress that lay heaped on the floor.

"Don't be ridiculous, Abigail." It was the colonel's voice of last night, sharp and autocratic. "It's pouring down rain outside."

Firmly clasping the blanket across her breasts, she threw the dress over her headand got totally lost inside it. Her stilted reply was muffled. "You may dictate to your men, Colonel Coally. I, however, am not ruled by military law."

Long, hard fingers reached inside the dress, grabbed her left hand, thrust it into a sleeve. "You did not object last night, Miss Abigail."

They both knew they were not discussing military dictatorship.

"Last night, Colonel Coally, was an anomaly."

"It is not necessary to go outside." The muted voice was suddenly flat. Her right hand was forced into a sleeve. "I give you my word as an officer that I will not intrude on your privacy."

"Thank you, but no." Her head cleared the dress. "I am in need of fresh air."

"Very well." He whirled her around.

Abigail stared past his dark headhis hair was hardly mussed, while hers felt full of live rats. "I can button up my own dress, Colonel Coally."

"Can you, Miss Abigail?" he asked enigmatically. Reaching inside the open placket of her dress, he grabbed hold of the blanket and yanked it up and out. Before she could voice her objection, he pulled her dress together and commenced fastening the tiny buttons.

Abigail silently endured his ministrations. The colonel just as silently retrieved her drawers.

She grabbed the silk from his hands and turned her back to wriggle inside the flimsy underwear.

"Where are your shoes? Or do you make a habit of running about barefoot?"

Blushing, back ramrod straightwherehad she put her shoes?ah, yes she marched to the door and crammed her feet inside the half-boots there. She contemplated putting her hair up, but knew there was no time to waste.

The wind almost knocked her back inside the door. It was accompanied by a blast of memories.

I want a woman to make me forget that I have spent the last twenty-two years of my life killing.

He had thought she was reading devotional literature when he had peeped through the window. Matrons and spinsters read devotional literature, not a woman who a man would choose to help make him forget.

What a shock he must have experienced, seeingThe Pearl clutched to her chest.

What a whore he must have thought her when she had propositioned him.

How pitifully desperate she had been, an old maid unable to accept her virgin status.

Idid not take you because I thought you were wanton, Abigail. I took you because I needed you.

The rain was icy.

For a second Abigail's intent wavered.

He knew everything else about her body, what was so shameful about this aspect of it? But then reason prevailed.

The colonel knew the wanton she had been in the night; not the spinster she was in the day.

Bowing her head, she fought the wind to close the door, then fought the wind and the rain and the mud all the way to the backyard privy. Only to fight it all the way back again on the return trip.

The colonel met her at the door; a towel was wrapped around his lean hips. After one look at Abigail's sodden clothes and dripping hair, he unbuttoned her dress and peeled it and the silk drawers off her. Wrapping the blanket around her, then, he picked her up as if she weighed no more than a child and sat her down on the wooden chair at the table where the air was unaccountably warm.

Abigail should have been outraged at such cavalier treatment. Instead, she felt chastised… and oddly comforted.

Hunkering down in front of her, he matter-of-factly removed her shoes. "I fired the stove and put a bucket of water on to heat. All I could find in the cupboard was a tin of tea, half a loaf of bread, and a jar of strawberry jam. Would you like some toast now or would you rather wait for the water to heat up and have it with your tea?"

Abigail turned her head to look at the wood box behind the stove. It was missing a hefty portion of wood. The other chair was pulled up to the far side of the stove; it was draped with his clothes that she had dropped last night. Turning her head in the opposite direction, she surveyed the floor in front of the cupboard. There was no broken glass littered abouta broom leaned against the wall.

ThePearl, where she had dropped it by the bed last night, was gone, too. As were the hairpins he had taken from her hair.

She faced the man who waited at her feet. "I will wait for tea, thank you."

"You're a stubborn woman, Miss Abigail."

Abigail stared into the stark gray eyes that were on a level with her own and felt her heart skip a beat.

He lookedvulnerable. And intensely masculine.

Last nighthad been an anomaly.

It must have been.

He had gone out into the stormand had come upon her cottage. Once past the initial heat of lust, a man like him would not want a woman like her.

But you are not just any woman, Abigail. For the duration of the storm you are mywoman.

It still stormed.

Abigail braced herself against the rejection that was certain to come. "You lied, Colonel Coally."

The dark face grew shuttered. "In what, Miss Abigail?"

"You said you wanted everything."

"You said last night was an anomaly."

"ThenI lied."

For one endless second the steady rhythm of the rain ceased. Then tiny lines radiated out from the corners of Robert's gray eyes, and they were no longer stark but warm pewter.

"How does the sponge feel?"

Blushing, Abigail tilted her chin. "It feelsthere."

"I'll take it out for you."

The blush grew hotter.

"After I soak you in hot water to relieve the soreness."

She refused to look away from the pewter gaze. "And what then, Colonel Coally?"

"Then I'm going to put it back in."

Suddenly the damp, dreary rain was more pleasant than a sunny day.

"Perhaps I will have that toast now, Colonel Coally."

"We made a bargain, Abigail. Until the storm ends we call each other by our first names and you are free to indulge in any sexual urges that you wish."

The red-hot stove hissed as water boiled over onto it. Grabbing a towel, Robert picked up the handle of the bucket and poured the hot water into the little hip bath beside the sink. Steam roiled up to the ceiling. The remainder of the water he poured into a tea pot. Then he refilled the bucket and set it back on the stove.

"Are we on bread-and-water rations?"

"Only until Mrs. Thomas makes it through the storm. She and Mr. Thomas look after the cottage. For a few extra shillings a week she cooks and cleans and does my laundry."

"I doubt she'll make it today."

"No." A warm glow of anticipation grew inside Abigail's stomach. Another night with this man was well worth a little starvation.

Robert toasted bread to a fine turn. And spread strawberry jam lavishly.

She waved her cup toward the cupboard. "There's butter insidenot much, so unless you want to save it for later…"

His gray eyes darkened. He met her gaze, a half-brooding, half-searching look. "Why did you pull away last night?"

She squared her shoulders, fully prepared to lie. If he had not discovered her faults, who was she to point them out? Instead, she said, "You were taking my hair down."

"You have beautiful hair, Abigail."

"I have gray in my hair, Robert."

She did not expect evidence of her rapidly approaching old age to inspire laughter. But it did.

She tilted her chin and held up her cup of tea with her little finger sticking out at the required degree. "I am glad you find my age amusing, Robert."

"Abigail, I am five years older than you are. And if you had any gray hairs, I would not be laughing."

"But I do," she stubbornly insisted.

"Then I don't see them."

"A woman my age should not let her hair down."

"Perhaps that is why there are men like me, to take it down for them."

She lowered her eyelashes to block those pewter eyes before she started believing in the impossible.

"Is your leg well?"

"Which one?"

Abigail's gaze rose to the bait. "Your left one"

Only to be stopped by the glint in his eyes.

"You have a wicked sense of humor, ColonelRobert."

"And you have a sore bum to look after, MissAbigail."

"It is not my bum that is sore."

"I know what is sore. And I know how to make it better."

The bucket of water on the stove hissed. He added it to the hip bathand disappeared behind a fog of steam. Vigorous pumping sounds penetrated the gray mist; they were followed by the cascade of water pouring into water. The writhing steam thinned, revealing Robert leaning over the tub, checking the temperature with a seductive swish of liquid.

He straightened. "Your bath, madam."

Abigail approached the tub and boldly dropped the blanket. Robert just as boldly picked her up.

He kissed her.

His tongue was scalding hot. It was flavored with strawberry jam.

The bathwater was just as scalding hot, with none of the sweetness.

Disregarding dignity, Abigail threw a leg over each side of the tub and heaved herself up. Robert was equally determined to hold her down. And far more successful.

"Let me up! This is scalding!"

"Hold still, Abigail. The water is not going to do you any good unless it is hot."

"Only a lobster would benefit from water this hot!" Closing her eyes in pain and frustration, she tried a more civilized approach. "Please let me up."

"Did I tell you how beautiful you are?"

Abigail knew perfectly well that she wasn't beautiful. Her eyes snapped open. "You are fond of the color red, I take it?"

A low, masculine laugh filled the hot steam. "Abigail, you get much redder when you blush. I promise that after you've soaked for a while, you will feel much, much better."

"You mean that after I have soaked for a while, I will be well done."

"Done enough to eat."

The blistering heat that flooded her body had nothing to do with the water.

With a little sigh, Robert sat down on the floor at the head of the tub. "Lean back, Abigail."

With an answering sigh, Abigail leaned back. The hair on his chest made a wiry pillow. A sure hand came up and brushed the damp hair off her forehead. It repeated the soothing motion until the water and the caress became one and Abigail felt as if her bones were dissolving. She tilted her head back.

His head tilted forward to meet her gaze.

She felt her heart skip a beat.

He looked so alone.

No man, regardless of what he had done, deserved to bear that much pain.

"Tell me," she softly commanded.

The gray eyes grew opaque. Bending his head down, he rubbed his nose against hers. "Tell you what?"

"Tell me why you entered the Army at the age of thirteen."

"But you said that was illegal."

"And then tell me what you did in the Army."

He raised his head. Thick black lashes veiled his eyes.

"I enlisted in the Army because I was ambitious and I wanted to see the world. I was a big strapping boyno one questioned my age. No sooner did I sign on as a drummer boy than my dream came trueI was shipped to India."

Steam collected on his lashes, pearled on the black stubble covering his face.

" India is a diverse country," Abigail prodded. "What section were you stationed in?"

The thick black lashes lifted. He looked so terribly remote, staring at her out of eyes that were looking back twenty-two years. "Have you been there?"

"No."

"You are correct, Indiais a diverse country. It has jungles. It has deserts. And it has mountains. When the morning sun rises over the mountains, it turns the sand blood red."

"It sounds beautiful," Abigail said quietly, cautiously, wondering what could possibly have happened there to put that kind of expression on a man's face. "Were you there for the Sepoy Rebellion?"

The pewter-gray eyes filled with cynicism. "It's ironic, actually. The Sepoy Rebellion started because the Muslims and the Hindus objected to the British use of rifle cartridges greased with pig and cow fatwhereas the British infantrymen would have been perfectly happy to have some of that fat on their hardtack."

He shrugged, a fleeting scratch of hair and muscle against her back. "No, the rebellion was over by the time I arrived in India. My regiment was stationed at the foot of the mountains. I sneaked away to practice my drumming one morningit's easier to drum than to sew and cook, which were the duties assigned to me until I learned how to properly drum a march."

Robert paused, lifted his right arm. Long fingers gently stroked her throat.

She arched her neck, giving him access to her body, the only comfort, she suspected, that he would accept. "So that morning did you learn how to drum?"

"No. ASepoy a Bengal army mancame upon me where I was playing in the ravine. The rebellion wasn't over for him. He thought it sport to kill a drummer boyone less British soldier to deal with in the future. Not worth a bullet, but certainly I was worth the effort of skewering on a bayonet."

Abigail writhedinside. Outside, she calmly held his bleak gaze and accepted the gentleness of his touch while she tried to imagine her eldest nephewthirteen now, still playing with hoopsin the Army facing death.

"What happened?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yes." Her voice was firm.

"TheSepoy taunted me, rushing me with the bayonet, drawing blood, pulling back. After a while he got overconfident, thinking that the English boy with blood and sweat and snot and tears running down his face was no threat. He forgot about the drumsticks. They're tapered, you know, and made out of good, solid wood. I drove the first one into the soft part of his belly."

Abigail's breath caught in her chest, seeing the blood red sand, seeing theSepoy, seeing the child Robert had once been.

"Did it kill him?" she asked evenly.

"No. But it took him off guard."

The fingers thrumming her skin pressed down at the base of her neck where her pulse wildly drummed. "I drove the second drumstick into his throat. The moment I did it I wanted to take it back. I will never forget the look in his eyes. He pulled the stick out and stood there staring at it while blood and air gushed out of his throat and I thought,he's not going to die. But it was too late, there was no stopping it, the blood, it kept coming even when the wheezing breath stopped."

Hot, salty steam ran down Abigail's cheeks.

"When my commander saw what I had done, he gave me a rifle. The rebellion hadn't really ended; wars never do. We weren't there to establish peace, but to establish British rule. I killed my first man three months to the day of my enlistment, Abigail, and I have been killing ever since."

"You had no choice, Robert." The words that were meant to be a practical condolence were curiously thick.

Something flickered in his gray eyes. His chest moved against her headhis left arm came up. He cupped her face in both hands, thumbs smoothing her cheeks.

Abigail tensely waited, willing him to say it all.

"When my enlistment was over, I went back to England, quite prepared to take whatever work I could find. But it wasn't the same England. I wasn't the same man. I couldn't tell my family the horrors I had committed, fighting for their beloved country. I couldn't take the same pleasures they did in their simple day-to-day lives, knowing what so-called God-fearing men were capable of doing. So I reenlisted."

He bent his head. A whisper of a kiss closed Abigail's eyes; hot breath caressed her lashes.

"In hand-to-hand combat there is a certain closeness; you almost feel an affinity with the enemy. Black man, white man, brown man, yellow man, it makes no difference. When a man is stabbed, or shot, his eyes open wide in surprise. Surprise that the impossible is indeed possiblethat they should die while the enemy lives."

TearsAbigail distantly recognized the hot, salty substance that spilled down her face as tears, not steam. She was crying the tears that he was unable to.

"Four months ago, I didn't shootso I got shot." His thumbs continued smoothing her slippery cheeks. "They shipped me back to England. The leg healed and I knew I would go back to the Army. And I knew that the next time I looked into the eyes of a man, that the surprise would be in mine. And I found out something about myself while I was laid up, convalescing."

She had to strain to make out the rest of his words, feeling them rather than hearing them. "I found out that I did not want to die without knowing what it is like to lose myself inside a woman."

He raised his head and rested his chin on her forehead, a soft prick of stubbly beard. "I am not indulging you, Abigail. You are indulging me."

Dear God, she had wanted to know, and now she knew.

Abigail swallowed the lump in her throat. "Robert."

"Hmm?" His response was a low rumble in his chest.

"I think the sponge is growing."

The rumble grew, until it erupted full force into a shout of laughter.

Her head fell back from loss of support.

Robert leaned over the tub and extended long, brown fingers.

Without a moment's hesitation, she placed her hand in his. And was hauled up in a cascade of water.

"No. Don't stand. Squat down."

She stiffened, tears forgotten.

"Trust me."

The stark gray eyes were warm pewter.

She squatted.

"Spread your legs."

"In case you have failed to notice, Robert, this is a hip bath. There is no room to spread my legs."

Before she could divine his intentions, he bodily picked her up and faced her sideways in the tub.

"There is now. Lean back against me and spread wide, sweetheart."

Sweetheart. No man had ever called her by an endearment. Five-foot-nine-inch-tall women were not endearing. Yet this was the second time he had used the word. Once in the dark of night, and now in the light of day.

Excitement coiled in her stomachand spine-melting vulnerability. Spreading wide her legs, she pressed her back against his chest, trapping her hair between them. The small pain seemed insignificant in comparison to what was going to happen.

Very firmly, very gently, he reached between her legs.

"Relax," he whispered. He nuzzled aside a strand of damp hair and rimmed the tip of her ear with his tongue. "Bear down."

His tongue stabbed into her ear. At the same time, his fingers delved inside her, creating pain, giving pleasure. And then he had it, the sponge, and he was pulling it out and holding it up for her inspection.

It was engorged, as big and swollen asas if she had washed dishes with it.

Amusement was rife in Robert's voice. "A far better fate than to be scrubbing the back side of a pan, I would say."

Abigail threw her head back and laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

It was so totally ridiculous, that a common household item could be used for sexual protection.

It was so totally unexpected, that a man like Robert Coally would have a sense of humor.

He nipped her ear. "Still sore?"

"How can I tell?" she asked tartly. "My whole body is boiled."

"English meat, Abigail. Time to eat."

chapter 5

Abigail opened her body willingly when Robert pushed the brandy-soaked sponge inside her. And tangled her fingers into his hairunbelievably soft and warmwhen he commenced "eating."

The orgasms she had experienced last night faded in comparison with the sensations that spiraled higher and higher inside her body. Last night she had not known what to expecttoday she did.

She lifted her head up from the pillow and glanced down. The sight of his tanned fingers digging into her pale hips and his dark brown hair buried between her flexed thighs plummeted her over the edge.

When she opened her lashes he was there, leaning over her with pewter-gray eyes narrowed intently.

She smiled, equally intent. "My turn."

"I don't believe in waste. The sponge is ready."

"But you have the advantage over me."

Two hard, hot, hairy legs settled between hers. "In what respect?"

"You have seen my all, whereas I…"

"You saw my all before you decided to trek outside."

"But not like this." Abigail lifted her hand and touched his cheek. It was prickly with dark stubble. She wanted more than anything to examine this man, to record every inch of his body, every texture of his skin. She wanted to make herself as much a part of him as he had made himself a part of her. "In my books it says that a man changes color when he orgasms. I want to know, Robert. I want to know everything there is to know about you."

His gray eyes grew shuttered. Rolling off her, he lay down on his back and threw an arm over his eyes. "Then know me, Abigail… and let me know if I change color. The knowledge might come in useful on the battlefield. I could, armed with the information, astound and confound the enemy. Like a chameleon."

A reluctant laugh escaped Abigail. "You are mocking me, sir."

He lifted his arm and slanted a look at her. "Not at all. You will forgive a sudden sense of vulnerability on my part. It's not every day that a man bears his all for a lady's private schooling."

A twinge of reality intruded on her pleasure. "I am not a lady, Robert."

He reached out a long, tanned finger and flicked her nose. "You are a lady, Abigail, from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. And I am here to give you pleasure."

"What about your pleasure?" She trailed a hand down his chest, a muscled, contoured belly, and grabbed the root of their discussion.

"Get on with your studies, Miss Abigail, else you lose a student."

Abigail scooted down the bed. And was distracted by the sight of the angry red scar on his thigh. She lightly touched it with her left hand.

"Does it still hurt?"

His gray eyes were unreadable. "That's not part of the lesson plan, Miss Abigail."

"You were limping last night."

"Because I fell on it when the bloody horse threw me. Continue with your studies."

Abigail obligingly studied the swollen shaft that sprang out from a bed of black, curly hair. It seemed impossible that he had fit inside her. "Have you ever measured yourself?"

"You're putting me to blush."

"The head is purple." She ignored his sally. "It is very large, like a small fist. It has an eye." She captured the single drop of moisture that glistened on the tip and smeared it over the swollen glans. "And it weeps. Is it sad, Colonel Coally?"

"Very, Miss Abigail." Robert's voice was strained. "Why don't you kiss it and make it better?"

Abigail leaned down and touched her tongue to the purple-hued bulb. "You tastesalty, sir."

"You cannot judge the flavor by a single taste. Take it between your lips."

Robert knew exactly what he tasted likejust as Abigail did. Yet he was as entranced by this play between a man and a woman as was she.

Grasping the stalk of his penis in both hands, she pulled it taut so that she could take the crown of him fully in her mouth. And re-tasted him for flavor.

"You still taste salty, sir."

Robert's breathing quickened. "Perhaps you are mistaken you should try again. Taste made in haste is not a good method by which to judge."

"Perhaps. But only if you tell me if you have ever measured yourself."

"Never."

"Then I shall do so." She spanned the length of his manhood with her fingers. They fell short of the purple-hued crown. "My fingers spread six incheshere. If I take my other hand and spread it out, so, then I spannine inches, Colonel Coally. When next you go into battle, you can not only astound your enemy with your chameleon properties, but you can also intimidate him with the size of your great lance."

The mattress shook with Robert's laughter.

"But you have yet to determine whether it does indeed change color, Miss Abigail."

"How do you suggest I test that, Colonel Coally?"

His laughter stopped.

"By suckling me, Abigail. As hard and as deep as you can take me."

Abigail cradled him between her handsthe purple-hued crown throbbed. "But I did that last night, Colonel Coally. Today I want to do something else."

A half-smile formed on his lips. "Your fantasies, Miss Abigail."

She gently rubbed the thick shaft between her palmsand imagined him all alone on the eve of battle. "Do you ever touch yourself?"

"Do you?"

The rain echoed softly inside the cabin.

Abigail swallowed her fear and uncertainty at confessing what no respectable person did, let alone admit. "Yes."

"I think we all do. The only problem in the field is finding privacybut sometimes even that doesn't matter."

"Show me how you touch yourself."

It could have been a blush on Robert's cheeksthe light was too dim and his skin too dark to be certain. The thought that he could still be rendered as vulnerable as she warmed herand fired her determination. "You said everything, Robert."

Closing those dark eyelashes, he reached down and cupped his hands over hers. "Rub me between your handslike this."

Abigail's hands were sandwiched between heat and friction. She quickly learned the motion, varied the motion, until he took his hands away and he was all hers.

She could feel his readiness through his body, drawn as tautly as a pulley. See it in the stomach that corded and strained for release.

Suddenly the bulbous head grew a deep burgundy. Even as she watched, marveling at the change that was occurring, it throbbed and shot up a geyser of white fluid. At the same time, a groan worked its way past Robert's throat.

The sound drew Abigail's attention. Robert's eyelids were squeezed shut and his lips pulled back from his teeth as if he were in the throes of agony. Slowly his features relaxed into an expression of utter peace.

His black lashes lifted.

Abigail stared into the depths of those stark gray eyes that had seen too much death and pain and wanted to give this man…everything.

Reaching out a finger toward his stomach, she touched the mound of warm, white fluid there.

His essence.

Last night it had shot up inside her.

"So, do I change color, Miss Abigail?"

Abigail thought of him, inside her, doing all of the wonderful things she had just witnessed. And felt tears clog her sinuses.

"Oh, yes, Colonel Coally."

His gray eyes were too intense. Just when she thought she would laugh or cry or do something else entirely uncalled for if he continued to stare at her so, the skin around his eyes crinkled.

"Lance, Abigail?"

"Do you prefer a different name, Robert?"

"Prick."

Hot color flooded Abigail's face at the explicit word that she had only ever been exposed to in print. "Battering ram."

"Cock."

"Jacob staff."

Robert threw his head back and laughed in that purely masculine, uninhibited way of his. "Wherever did you learn such phrases? Never mind. Your erotica. You were quite enraptured when I peeked through the window last night. What were you reading about?"

Before Abigail could reply, Robert crawled over her and stood up on the floor.

She watched the sway of his testicles with interest as he leaned over the foot of the bed. They were rather hairyand oddly touching; man at his most vulnerable. And exposed.

He was all too aware of her interesthis gray eyes, when he turned around, glinted. He held up a copy ofThePearl.

"Is this the one you were reading?"

"What number is it?"

"Twelve. Do you have them all?"

She flipped the quilt over her naked body. "Yes."

He flipped the quilt away from her. "Come over to the window."

She gazed at the front of him. He had gone from limp to hard. "Why?"

"I want you to read to me."

Abigail's mouth dropped open. "Absolutely not."

"Ashamed, Abigail?"

She closed her eyes against the truth. Shewas ashamed. That she had desires. And pursued those desires.

She opened her eyes. "No, I am not ashamed. Merely feeling very vulnerable. It's not every day that a woman shares her secret life."

Robert's dark face hardenedshe could imagine that look on his face before he killed. Without warning, he reached down and grasped her hand in his, his skin hard where hers was soft, calloused where hers was smooth.

For a second she felt trapped. And knew that he, too, was trapped by the desires that, for however long the storm lasted, were neither his nor hers, but theirs.

He pulled her across the bed and up to her feet.

"Go stand by the window No, the other window."

Abigail skirted the cupboard and stood uncertainly in front of the surviving window on the opposite side of the door. The open curtains offered neither warmth nor concealment.

Robert deposited a chair in front of the window. "Sit down."

Abigail primly sat down with her back toward the light. The wood was cold and hard against skin that was flaming hot and achingly sensitive.

Robert dropped a pillow onto the floor, then dropped down on his knees in front of the chair. He held out the journal.

"Turn to the page you were reading when I walked in on you last night."

She flipped through the pages. The murky light penetrating the window blurred the print, as if the only thing real in the room was her… and him.

"Have you found it?"

"Yes."

"Start reading exactly where you left off. But first tell me what happened before, so I can follow the story."

She cleared her throat. "The story is called 'La Rose D'Amour; Or the Adventures of a Gentleman in search of Pleasure. Translated from the French.' The man, Louis, is forming aa harem of women, and he has kidnapped Laura, a virgin. When I stopped reading, he was in the process of persuading Laura of the pleasures to be had if she travels with him and allows him to deflower her."

Robert leaned closer, cocooning her in his body heat. A single drop of desire bridged her knee and his manhood. "How was Louis persuading Laura?"

Abigail inhaledsmelling him, smelling her. And stared into his stark gray eyes mere inches away from her own. "He had his finger in her cream jug."

The expected laughter did not appear, only a blazing heat that took her breath away. Holding her gaze, he grabbed her hips and pulled her forward in the chair until her buttocks were draped over the edge of the seat.

Gasping in surprise, she dropped the journal and grabbed the sides of the wooden seat.

He promptly picked up the journal. Prying her right hand free of the chair, he clasped her fingers around it. "Read, Abigail."

It was one thing for Robert to be aware of her collection of erotica; it was an entirely different thing to read it aloud.

"Robert. I really think I would preferyou to read."

"Not part of the bargain, Abigail." His voice was as intractable as his expression. "I want to hearyou."

"Is that all you want?" she asked tartly.

"No, Abigail, I want far more than thatI want you to share your secret life with me. Tell me when you end a paragraph."

Licking lips that were suddenly as dry as the paper she was holding, she found the appropriate page and raised the journal to best catch the light. Her breasts bobbed up and down on her stomach with each breath she took. She had a curious feeling of d é j à vu, looking at the black print.

"My desires were excited to the highest pitch. I depicted to her the pleasure she would experience when, after arriving at the chateau, I should deflower her of her virginity, and triumphantly carry off her maidenhead on the head of this, 'dear Laura,' I said, as I took one of her hands and clasped it round my"Abigail took a deep breath, uttered the forbidden word"prick. 'Then,' said I, 'you will know all the joys and pleasures of a real,' " she took another deep breath, " 'fuck.' '

Hard, hot, calloused thumbs dug into the tops of her thighs.

Abigail peered over the top of the journal. He was waiting for her.

"I finished the paragraph."

"Read on." His voice was dark and low and gravelly.

The fluttering inside her stomach traveled to her heart.

" 'You will then,' I continued," Abigail read on in a ragged voice that bore little resemblance to her own, " 'experience all the sweet confusion, far different from what you now feel, of stretching wide apart your thighs to receive man between them, to feel his warm, naked body joined to yours, the delicious preparatory toying with your breasts, the hot kisses lavished on them and on your lips, his roving tongue to force its way between your rosy lips in search of yours, the delicious meeting of them, their rolling about and tickling each other as mine now does yours,' at the same time thrusting my tongue to meet hers."

Abigail's voice died away on a moan of wind. Heat flooded her body: A mingling of embarrassment and desire.

Without warning, Robert stretched wide her thighs. Cold air invaded her most private parts. It was immediately replaced by heatthe touch of a finger.

"You're wet, Abigail. Is this what happens when you read to yourself?"

She shivered, feeling more exposed than she ever had in her life. "Yes."

The hard, naked strength of his body pressed into the vee of her thighs. "Move the journal."

She loweredThePearl.

His mouth swooped down on her right breast, scorching hot and wet. It felt as though he was trying to swallow her whole. Hard, hot fingers closed around the soft mound, squeezed it to fit more deeply inside his mouth, while his other hand found her left nipple, a raspy touch of pure fire.

Pain was a sharp intrusion.

Even as Abigail opened her mouth to protest the not quite gentle biting of her nipple, the teeth were gone and his mouth covered hers, still scorching hot, flavored with strawberry jam, brandy, and her.

She inhaled sharply, in response to the gentle twisting of her nipples; in response to the stroke of his tongue against the roof of her mouth.

She forgot aboutThePearl. She forgot about shame. She wrapped her arms around Robert's neck and pulled him closer,closer…

He kissed her and pinched her nipples until she panted and squirmed, on fire for more. When she reached between their bodies to take more, he pulled back.

His lips were shiny wet. "Read."

Abigail suddenly realized that whatever Louis said or did to Laura, Robert was going to do to Abigail.

She rapidly scanned the page, found where she had left off.

" 'And then to feel him take his prick, and with the tips of his fingers part the lips of the flesh sheath into which he intends to shove it, putting the head of it between the lips, and gently shoving it in at first, stretching the poor little thing to its utmost extent, till, not without some pain to you, the head is effectually lodged in it. Then, after laying a kiss on your lips, he commences the attack by gently but firmly and steadily shoving into you, increasing his shoves harder and harder, till he thrusts with all his force, causing you to sigh and cry out, he thrusts hard, he gains a little at every move, he forces the barriers, he tears and roots up all your virginal defenses, you cry out for mercy but receive none. His passions are aroused into madness, fire flashes from his eyes, concentrating all his energies for one tremendous thrust, he lunges forward, carries everything before him, and enters the fort by storm, reeking with the blood of his fair enemy, who with a scream of agony yields up her maidenhead to the conqueror, who, having put his victimhor de combat, proceeds to reap the reward of his hard fought and bloody battle.' '

The journal was plucked out of Abigail's nerveless fingers. Eyes wide, she stared down between their bodies.

Robert held his swollen manhood in his right hand. He leaned forward, until she couldn't see it at all, could only feel his calloused fingertips delicately parting her nether lips. Then it was there, the bulbous head, as smooth as a plum and burning hot. Slowly, gently, he rocked forward, prodding her, stretching her, drawing back just before he breached the opening and gained admission. Again. And again. He teased and taunted, prodded and retreated until Abigail could feel her wetness leaking out of her body onto the wooden seat beneath her.

Just when she decided that the game had gone far enough, that he was not Louis and she most decidedly was not Laura, there was a popping sensation and he was inside her, just the head. It felt as big as the fist she had compared it to earlier.

He leaned down and dropped a hard, openmouthed kiss on her lips. Then his lips were gone and he was no deeper inside her than he had been a moment before.

"Robert"

He smiled, a crooked smile. "You can sigh, Abigail. Or you can cry."

He slowly sank into her, another inch, not enough, two inches, still not enough, three inches, not nearly enough. Then he pulled all the way out, teased and prodded her with the engorged head, never quite entering her, never quite leaving her.

Just when she thought she would scream with frustration, he smiled that crooked smile again.

"Or you can scream."

And lunged forward.

Abigail screamed.

She could feel their pubic hair meshing, he was so deep inside her,and it still was not enough.

A wall of paper blocked Robert's face. She blinked at the black print.

"Read."

The outspread journal shook and shimmied in her hands she was trembling. Or perhaps it was he who trembled, buried inside her body so deeply that she could not tell where he ended and she began.

She took a calming breath and read.

" 'Now he again draws himself out to the head, and slowly enters again. Again he draws out, and again enters, till the friction caused by the luscious tightness of the rich flesh which clasps tightly his foaming pego causes such delicious sensations that he is no longer master of himself.' "

It was Abigail who lowered the journal at the end of the paragraph. He would finish this, or by God, she would.

His gaze locked with hers. Still wearing that crooked smile, he dug his fingers into her hips and drew himself out, slowly, so slowly she could count the inches. And then he was easing back inside her, an inch at a time. Nine inches, all the way in. Nine inches, all the way out. Smoothly, rhythmically, until she was so wet and open it did indeed feel as if he was foaming inside her and she was coming, coming,coming

Sweat beaded on Robert's forehead, trickled down his temple. He threw his head back toward the rafters while his body thrust into hers, almost hard enough, almost fast enough. The muscles in his neck and shoulders bulged as he fought to keep the self-imposed rhythm.

A pace that he would keep, Abigail suddenly realized, until one of them died or she finished the literary sequence of events.

She pushed up the journal.

" 'He lunges with fierceness into her,' " she panted, body contracting, opening and closing, seeking its own release even as she forced out the words that would gain it for her, " 'the crisis of pleasure approaches; he feels it coming, he drives it home to her deeper, deeper. At last it comes' "

Abigail closed her eyes and cried out as her body arched under its own volition.

The journal flew out of her hands. She could not have heard what she thought she heardit sounded like the snarl of an animal tormented beyond endurance. Blindly she grabbed at a muscular arm, a shoulder, a neckand knew that, like the description in "La Rose D'Amour," the man pumping and grinding himself into her body was no longer the master of himself.

The wooden chair rocked and creaked in time to his lunges. Dimly she wondered if she would get a splinter in her behind. No sooner did the thought enter her head than her entire world exploded and Robert exploded with her, his flesh inside her spasming while it spurted liquid fire and she was falling, falling

Onto the cold plank floor. Pulled there by Robert. He locked his arms about her as they labored for air.

A rumble started up inside his chest. Abigail dazedly wondered how he could laugh when she was dying.

He plunged his hands into her hair and held her face up to his. Hot breath filled her nose, her mouth. "That's one hell of a secret life you live, Miss Abigail."

Abigail suddenly felt renewed. The shame that had tainted her entire adult life dissipated.

She opened her eyes and stared at his naked chest that continued to heave up and down for air. "Let's walk on the beach."

"In a storm?"

"I love storms. I want to walk naked on the beach. I want to feel the rain kiss my breasts. I want to see what color your pego turns when it's immersed in the ocean."

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she was on her feet and, together, they opened the door to the rented cottage and walked naked into the storm.

The rain was no colder than the showers she had been routinely subjected to when growing up. Waves washed the shore. Distant thunder rumbled in the sky.

The storm was wet and beautiful and wildthe way Robert made her feel.

Breasts bobbing, giggling like one of her small nieces, Abigail raced down the path to the beach, enjoying the mud squishing between her toes and the rain pelting her naked skin. Robert sped after her, a not-so-little boy with a blue, pitifully shriveled manhood.

She triumphantly reached the foaming froth that was the English Channel. It was too much to resist. Bending over, she plunged her hands into the water that curled around her knees

"That's one hell of a mighty lance you have there, Colonel Coally. It is blueand must be all of two inches long. You might be able to spear a minnow, but I do not think you will be parting any seas with it."

and splashed him.

Robert leapt after her into the roiling ocean

"I have always fantasized about giving a woman a saltwater douche, Abigail."

and proceeded to wrestle her down into the waves.

It was a gamehad Robert exerted himself, Abigail would have been flat on her back at the edge of the ocean in one second flatand they both knew it. Instead, their water-slickened bodies slipped and rubbed together until suddenly it did not matter what he put inside her. Just when she reached for him as a lover instead of a playmate, he put a leg behind hers and tripped her. Only to catch her and arch her backward over the water.

"You were saying something about parting seas, Abigail?" he growled playfully.

It was ridiculous. It was exciting. It was as if twenty-two years of Robert's life had been erased and they were two not-so-innocent children frolicking on the beach.

Her laughter rang out over the crests of the waves and the spray of the surf and the steady patter of the rain. It almost drowned out the sound of a neighing horse and a frantic shout.

"Miss Abigail! Miss Abigail! Where are ye? Miss Abigail!"

Abigail covered her mouth with her hands. Then she wriggled free and covered more prestigious spots.

"Robert! It is Mr. Thomas! Robert! Our clothes are in the cottage. Robert,we are naked!"

chapter 6

Abigail's left arm shielded her breasts while her right hand cupped her womanhood. She looked as tempting as a sea nymph. And as frigid as a virgin debutante.

Robert wanted to strike down the man called Mr. Thomas for turning the wildly sensuous woman who had shared with him her body and her fantasies into this woman who looked as if she had never needed or desired a man in her life.

It was too soon. He needed more time. He needed more

"Miss Abigail!" The man started down the path leading from the cottage to the beachan elderly man, judging by his stooped shoulders and halting gait. "Be that ye down there? Miss Abigail-"

Robert caught Abigail as she turned to run into the dangerous waves behind them. "Stay. I'll take care of him."

Quickly, before she did something silly like drown herself in the name of modesty, he maneuvered the muddy path to block the landlord's descent.

"Ho, there. You've caught my missus and I in a rather embarrassing situation. Abigail"

"How do I know that be Miss Abigail?" Small, birdlike eyes stared suspiciously past Robert's shoulder. "Ye could ha' done her a danger, ye and yer doxy down there."

Anger blazed a trail down Robert's spine at hearing Abigail referred to as a doxy.

He forgot about the rain pelting his body.

He forgot that he was standing naked in front of a man old enough to be his grandfather.

He forgot everything but the insult this man had issued.

"I have said it is Miss Abigail," Robert snapped icily, "and it will be the worse for you if you do not level your eyes elsewhere."

The aged caretaker guiltily hunched his head between his shoulders. Water streamed down his slicker. "Miss Abigail didnt' mention no man."

"I am on leave from the Army; my… wife did not expect me. You are interrupting our reunion, so make sharp, man!"

"She didnt' say nothin' 'bout no husband, neither." Thomas glanced at the stormy sky over Robert's left shoulder, then over his right, anywhere but at his naked body. "Said it be just her"

"I have explained the circumstances. We will reimburse you for your efforts, if that is what troubles you."

"M' wife only agreed to cook an' clean fer one." The small eyes glinted in greed at the mention of payment. "I put a basket of victuals in the cabin. She didnt' make no food fer two"

"Give my regards to your wife. I am sure whatever she prepared is enough for the two of us. Now I bid you good day, sir!"

The old man took the hint. Robert breathed a sigh of relief when Mr. Thomas jumped into his trap and set off. Turning around, Robert caught sight of Abigail.

And felt as if he had been kicked in the gut.

Her hair adhered to her back like the skin of an otter. Below it he could make out the white globes of her buttocks.

The storm still lastednothing was going to deprive him of the coming night.

Purposefully he stalked her. When he cupped her buttocks in his hands, she yelped and jumped around. When he cupped her face and lifted it up to his, she sighed and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Slowly, softly, he savored the cool slickness of her rain-washed lips and the eagerness with which they parted. Her mouth on the inside was as hot as the rain beating down on them was cold.

"Cold?" he murmured, nuzzling her cheek, smelling the fresh rain on her skin mixed with the salt of the ocean and the lingering traces of sweat and sex.

"Hmm," she returned.

He pressed the hardening length of his manhood into her stomach and murmured, "Ride me."

She jerked her head back, brown eyes wide with shock. "What?"

Robert silently cursed Mr. Thomas again. There would have been no shock at his suggestion had the old man not appeared.

"To the cabin." Turning, he bent his legs and offered her his back. "Hop on."

He waited with bated breaththis was the deciding moment. Reality had intrudedwould she choose it over the fantasy world they had created together?

A tentative hand rested on his shoulderfollowed by the hitch of a soft, warm leg.

His heart skipped a beatswelled with exultation. Before she had time to think about just how awkward and vulnerable the position rendered her, he grasped her underneath her knee and hoisted her higher onto his back.

Surprisingly strong arms clasped him about the neck while her left leg tried to gain purchase. Reaching back with his left hand, he grabbed it, spread her wide so that both knees were locked against his hips.

The soft flesh between her thighs pressed into his buttocks. She was hot and slick against his rain-drenched skin, from her, from him.

For a second, he thought he would orgasm right there on the spot. Then he thought about dropping her and taking her on the beach in the mud and the rain.

A smart smack on his hip brought him round. She was shivering with coldnot desire. "My ride, sir."

Digging her heels into the tops of his thighs, she hitched herself higherJesus,her open vulva ground into the small of his back and shouted, "Tally ho!"

Then the gray sky rang with her laughter, and Abigail was once again the little girl who had given back to him his childhood.

He didn't remember the climb to the cabin, only the feel of her rubbing and grinding into his back, his buttocks, the sudden thrust of a heel against his "lance" when she brought both legs around him and tried to lock her feet over his groin.

When she wriggled down his back, he groaned in pure agony and collapsed against the safety that the cabin door represented, eyes squeezed shut, his manhood so hard, it thrust straight out from his body.

A soft, cool hand touched the bunched muscles in his forearm. "Robert? Are you all right? Did you hurt your leg?"

Robert didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the concern in her voice. He needed her passion now, not her kindness that had taken away the agony of his first kill.

"Abigail, look down and tell me what you see."

"A basket of food," was the too innocent reply. "Are you hungry?"

He opened his eyes in pained amusement. "Did the stroll on the beach meet up to your expectations?"

"I will never forget it, Robert."

His lips twitched. "Neither will Mr. Thomas."

The brown eyes staring up at him were solemntoo solemn. Her eyelashes were spiked from the rain. "What did you tell him?"

"I told him we were man and wife."

"But I specifically stated in the lease"

"And that you were not anticipating my arrival because my leave of absence from the Army came unexpectedly."

"You did not have to say that we were married, Robert."

"But we are. Joined at the hip."

Laughter glimmered in her brown eyes, a spark of amber where before there had been none. "It was not my hip that was joined to you, Colonel Coally."

"I know very well what was joined to me, Miss Abigail."

Her spiked lashes lowered. "Your feet are muddy. You need a bath."

"Only if you wash me."

"But I am hungry, Robert." She raised her eyelashes; behind the amber laughter was warm desire. "If I wash you we will not eat. And I have a particular fantasy that I want to act out."

The water in the small tub was as cold as the rain outside. Robert experienced a strange contentment, watching Abigail's small, plump breasts elongate when she leaned over to clean the floor. When she turned around and scrubbed her way backward toward the tub, Robert thought his heart would stop.

"You have a round bottom, Miss Abigail. And between your legs you have dainty pink lips surrounded by wet brown curls."

That got her attention.

Straightening, she turned and stepped around the tub. Her face, before she swirled around, was as pink as the lips he had mentioned. "You have a concave bottom, Colonel Coally. And hairybullocks."

"Shall we compare tit for tat, Miss Abigail?"

Turning, she offered him a towel. "Not at all, Colonel Coally. You have a tit and I have a twat."

Eyes glinting with laughter, he took the towel that she offered, stepped one foot at a time out of the tub as he dried off. Then he blotted dry her hair, her shoulders, her breasts, her hips, worked his way down to a pair of elegant, narrow feet.

"Time to eat," he murmured into the jointure of her thighs, deliberately breathing into the soft nest of damp brown curls there.

Her legs quivered.

Grinning, he jumped up. "Real food this time, Miss Abigail. If I am to satisfy more fantasies, I have to keep up my strength."

Used as he was to field rations, the basket contained a veritable feast. Cold mutton. Cheese. Hard-boiled eggs. A loaf of bread still warm from the oven.

There was more than enough for two.

Abigail ate daintily but with a definite appetite. When her eyelids drooped, he repacked the food and carried her to bed.

He had never before slept with a woman until Abigail. Had never before experienced the simple joy of having a woman's spine curve to fit his abdomen and her butt snuggle into the flatness of his groin. Had never imagined this closeness that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the woman in his arms.

The reality of Abigail far surpassed his fantasies.

Sighing, he buried his face into her damp hair.

A blast of cannon fire woke him.

Jesus God, he had fallen asleep during battle. Boneless flesh curved to fit his bodya corpse, already stripped by the natives, body still warm.

Heart pounding, his fingers tightened around the butt of his rifleonly to sink into giving flesh.

And he remembered.

The storm. The burning need that had driven him out into it. The light in the cottage and the woman named Abigail.

He gently soothed the breast he had abused.

Abigail stirred. "Robert?"

"Why are you here, Abigail?"

The boneless spine stiffened.

He refused to let her go, pressing her more firmly into the curve of his body while he braced his chin on the top of her head. "Tell me."

"I told you." Her heart pounded against the palm of his hand. "In three weeks I turn thirty."

"Every secondsomewhere in the worlda woman turns thirty."

"But not every woman is a spinster."

"By your choice, Abigail."

"But Idon't want to be a spinster, Robert." He strained to hear her over the steady drum of rain. "Idon't want to be passed between my brother and sisters. Idon't want to bealone."

Robert braced himself against the pain in her voice.

"So why are you here, then, with only your books for company?" he persisted, determined to solve the mystery that was Abigail.

For long seconds he didn't think she was going to reply, then

She sighed. "I came to say good-bye."

Fear pumped though his veins. Along with images of death her death now instead of his. Immediately he thrust the images away. "Who did you come to say good-bye to?"

"My dreams, Robert. I got tired of wanting things that could never be. I brought my books and journals with me here because I planned on leaving them behind. In the hope that without them, perhaps I could find… a little peace."

Peace.

Hardened soldiers like himself sought peace, not gently bred ladies who had never faced death and chosen life. But the same loneliness was there, the utter aloneness that was the price paid for stepping outside the rules that bind societies together. Robert had killedin duty; Abigail had indulged her desires with forbid den eroticain secrecy. And had been passed from brother to sister

"What about your parents?"

"Dead. I have one brother and three sisters of whom I am very fond. But I am still the spinster sister. And I am the youngest, so of course they know what is best for me."

He rubbed her nipple in gentle consolation. "Not this."

"No." A hint of laughter lightened her voice. "I think William would die of an apoplectic fit if he ever discovered my chest of books."

"Tell me about your brother and sisters."

Abigail cupped her hand over his. "My brother and sisters have kindly provided me with twenty-one nieces and nephews. They are convinced that a woman's happiness lies in marriage. Or I should say, in having a familythe husband, or wife, whichever the case may be, is a trial one must endure in order to have children. And you are correctIam a spinster by choice. But I found myself wondering if my brother and sisters do not have the right of it. That perhaps life with one of the eminently eligible but dreadfully boring men they are constantly surprising me with might just possibly be preferable tobeing alone."

Robert had no reason to be jealous. But he wasfuriously.

"You'd marry a fat-bottomed man with side-whiskers?" he growled. "A man who would have you dress a piano for fear he would excite"he pinched her nipple"this?"

She caught his fingers and laughed softly. "Cease, Colonel Coally, you have convinced me of the error of my thoughts. What about you? Do you have a family?"

Perhaps it was relief that prompted Robert's response. Perhaps it was the way her body bonelessly melded to his and her laughter chased away the darkness. Or perhaps it was merely that he did not mind sharing his past with this woman who was so willing to share her body.

"Four brothers and five sisters."

"Are your brothers in the Army?"

"No." He cautioned himself to stopshe was a lady, it was one thing to accept the fact that he killed in the name of duty. She would not want to know that her fantasy man came from low origins. But the words came unbidden. "They followed in the footsteps of my father."

"Is he still alive?"

"Very much so."

"Why did he not stop you from enlisting in the Army?"

Robert smiled at the indignation in her voice. "One less mouth to feed. But your blame is misplaced. Very few people can stop me when I make up my mind."

"What does he do, this father of yours?"

Robert tensed, but knew he had come too far to lie now. "He's a street vendor. He sells ices."

Abigail's response at learning his pedigree was as unpredictable as her response to his lovemaking.

"Oh, I love ices!" she enthused, as if she was still the little girl who had played in the ocean. "Strawberry is my favorite."

"Take my advice, Abigail. Eat lemon ice or cream ices. But stay away from strawberry."

"Why?"

"There are no strawberries in strawberry ice."

"Yes, there are." Her voice in the darkness was endearingly earnest. "Not whole ones, of course. They are all mixed up in little pieces."

"They're not strawberries, Abigail," he murmured wryly.

"Then what are they, pray?" she asked tartly.

"Cochineals."

"You mean…bugs?"

"I meanbugs."

He could feel her coming to terms with the fact that she had eaten bugsthe initial stiffening of her body, the slow relaxation when she realized there was not going to occur some sort of delayed reaction. Finally, "Is that why you joined the Army when you were thirteen?"

He smiled in cynical amusement. "Eating insects is hardly the worst thing that happens on London streets. Aside from the constant threat of being killed or robbed of your profits, making and selling ices is hard labor. You work from four in the morning until seven at night.That is why I joined the Army."

And had ended up working far longer days surrounded by far more danger than that met on a London street.

"Would you do it over if you could?"

And miss Abigail and the storm?

"I don't know."

"Are you going to go back?"

He gently squeezed her breast. "I don't know."

The rain was a comforting play of sound and motion. He had never thought to have a throbbing erection and be content to merely hold a woman. No more than he had ever thought that there would come a day when he prayed that the rain not stop. On the battlefield the cold wet and the slippery mud was a harbinger of death. Here, in England, it had brought him Abigailand life.

"Robert."

"Hmm?"

"I want to fulfill a fantasy of yours."

He inhaled the warmth of her hair. "You already have."

"Nonsense."

"You allowed me to fulfillyour fantasies."

"But I want to beyour fantasy woman, Robert." She delved behind her and grabbed his turgid flesh. "I want you to give me everything you give her."

Robert grabbed her hand, deliberately curt. "I told youI don't fantasize about what a woman does to me."

Abigail was not to be denied. "Then what do you do to her? You said that you fantasized about doing everything. What is everything, Robert?"

Robert closed his eyes as the old need came over him. "You'd be shocked, Abigail."

"No, I would not.How could I? Tell me… Tell me what you want, Robert. Let me be your fantasy woman. Tell me what we do before a battle."

Robert desperately resisted. "You said, before we ate, that you had another fantasy, Abigail."

"Thisis that fantasy, Robert. To be your fantasy."

God help him, it was his fantasy, too.

Heart suddenly pounding, he molded his body more firmly against hers, chest against her back, her rounded buttocks pressed against the flatness of his stomach, and cupped the silky nest of hair at the apex of her thighs. "I do this."

Her body tensed expectantly. "What else?"

He sifted through the silky hair, found the indescribably soft flesh hidden inside. "Open up your legs."

Robert smiled in pained satisfaction against her hair, noting how quickly she complied with his request, and worked his finger between the seam of her lips. Inside the tight little valley she was hot and wet. Her soft lips curled around him as he gently slid back and forth, lingering at the head of her clitoris, sliding back down, pausing infinitesimally at the small opening there that he had created, then sliding back up again to her clitoral hood.

"When I am alone at night, exhausted by death and dying," he murmured gruffly into her hair, "I fantasize that I have a woman who feels what I feel. And that I can feel what she feels."

He slid his hand back up, over her moist mound, through the triangle of soft hair there and across her stomach.

Abigail wriggled in disappointment. "Robert, I assure you,you were feeling her."

He laughed shortly, gaining confidence at her ready acceptance. Nipping her shoulder, he slid his hand over her hip, between their bodies, down her buttocks, between her plump cheeks.

Her legs clamped down.

He fluttered his fingertips against the wet heat of her. "I want to feel her again, Abigail. Open your legswide. Put your right foot flat on the bed" He followed the line of her thigh, arranged her leg. "There. Now you are wide open for me."

"Is that what you fantasize about, Robert? That a woman is wide open for you?"

"Yes." He petted and stroked her wet, clinging lips, preparing her. "Wide open. Give me your hand."

"Why?"

"I told youI want my fantasy woman to feel what I feel. Give me your hand."

But she did not give him her hand. So he took it.

She struggled feebly when he guided it down between her thighs.

Her ribs rose and fell underneath his arm. "We did this last night, Robert."

"Not like tonight, Abigail." God help them both,not like tonight, he thought. "You wanted to know what my fantasy woman and I do before battlethis is part of it. Be her. Feel yourself as I feel you. The silky wetness here" He rubbed their joined hands against her petal-soft lips until they were slick with her essence. "The tight sheath of flesh inside."

Gently he parted her slick lips with their intertwined fingers. Slowly, so slowly, her flesh stretched to accommodate them.

Her breath caught. "Robert"

"What do you feel, Abigail?"

"I feel youyour fingers"

"Your fingers, too." He tamped down the mounting desire. "Our fingers. Your skin is soft inside, like wet silk. I have never touched another woman like I am now touching you. Feel that? That is your sheath contracting around us. Further backthere you can feel the spongebehind that is the entrance to your womb."

He prodded the sponge, soft and springy, forced her to prod it, too, knowing that the minute movements were rubbing her wrist against her clitoris. Her sheath sucked and nipped at their fingers.

"That is what you feel like when I am inside you. When I push our fingers into you, like this, relax your muscles and bear down, just as if my manhood filled you. Now when we pull out, grip our fingers, tighter, as tight as you can…" He sucked in silky strands of hair, feeling the safety of the cottage and the warmth of the bed dissolving into a muddy field and a wet, dirty sleeping roll. "I need you to feel what I feel, Abigail. I need you to feel how hot and wet and tight you are."

Ineed you to feel my pain.

I need to share it with someone, else I don't think I can live with it.

Abigail's hair tangled around his chin. "What about the other part of your fantasy, Robert? I feel whatyou feel, but how can you feel what I feel?"

Robert protectively curled his body around her. "Promise me that if what I am about to do is repugnant you will say so."

"You said that once we embarked on this journey there would be no turning back. I want you to feel what I feel, Robert… If it is possible."

"More than possible, Abigail."

"But how"

Robert released her fingers, gently withdrew from her body. Planting a kiss on the nape of her neck, he turned over and slid out of bed.

"Where are you going?" The husky arousal in her voice was laced with impatience.

Robert took a deep breath. "To get the butter."

The silence was electrifying.

Robert waited for the rejection that must surely come, of him, of this fantasy, of the life he had lived, dreaming about this moment. He could sense her shock, her uncertainty, and then, finally

"It's in the cupboard."

For a second he thought his knees would collapse from the unadulterated surge of relief. It was followed by the primitive need to possess.

No man would ever do to her what he was about to do.

He grabbed the damp washcloth draped over the sink, then found the small crock of butter in the cupboard.

She was sitting up in bed, a dark silhouette against a slash of pale linen. "What should I do?"

"Lie down on your stomach. Then lift yourself up onto your knees and put your head down on the pillow."

"Have you… ever done this before?"

He reached out, found her nose, her chin, smoothed tangled hair back from her face.

His handshands that aimed a rifle with deadly precision were trembling.

"Never. You don't have to do this, you know."

"But I want to. I want you to feel what I feel. I want to be your fantasy woman, Robert.Iwant you to give me everything you give to her."

Robert threw his head back to study the darkness.

If he did this, he didn't know if he could ever go back to a life of killing.

If he did this, he didn't know if he could die, knowing what he was leaving behind.

If he did this, he didn't know if he could let go of Abigail when the storm ended.

The sound of the mattress shifting told him she had positioned herself.

He looked down at the dark silhouette, buttocks arched in the air, and knew that it didn't matter what the repercussions were he was going to have her.

The bargain had been everything, and everything was what he was going to take.

Leaning over the dark silhouette that was Abigail, he found the iron headboard, draped the wet washcloth over it. Then, reaching into the crock, he scooped up butter and smeared it along the length of his penis. Nine inches, she had said during her mock measurementhe felt like he was twelve inches long going on twenty, hard and powerful and never more aware of his masculinity. Scooping up more butter, he set the crock down onto the floor and knelt on the bed behind her.

He touched her lightly, reverently.

Abigail tensed.

"Relax, Abigail. This is part of the fantasy. To touch you everywhere." Gently he worked the butter around and around her tight opening, rimming it over and over and over until unwittingly she thrust back toward him.

His middle finger slipped inside her.

She gasped.

He gasped.

She was unbelievably tight.

And hot.

Everything and more that he had imagined a woman to be.

Deep inside her the flesh ballooned out. He wriggled his finger. "Does that hurt?"

"No."

His voice was hoarse with desire. "Do you take me, Abigail?"

Her voice, when she responded, was equally hoarse. "I take you, Robert."

Leaning down, he planted a kiss onto her upraised buttocks, her skin taut and cool on the outside, soft and hot on the inside, then slowly withdrew his finger. Carefully he cleansed it with the wet washcloth.

"I'll try not to hurt you." Kneeling on the bed between her legs, he rubbed himself round and round her tightly puckered flesh, pressing inward, harder and harder with each circle until he felt it blossoming open, and then suddenly he was inside her and Abigail was crying out in the darkness.

He sucked in a deep breath and held still. Her flesh nipped and milked him. The soft mounds of her buttocks quivered against his groin.

Robert felt an emotion so strong that for a moment he thought he would be unmanned.

Lust. Tenderness.

He wanted to ram her so hard and deep that she screamed. He wanted to hold her until the tears passed and she never felt loneliness again.

Reaching out, he followed the trail of her spine until it merged into the nape of her neck, then reversed the trail, bringing his fingers back to the place where he was buried to the hilt.

She arched her back, drawing him deeper inside her.

Leaning over her, he cupped her breast with his left hand while, with his other hand, he found her right fist balling the pillow. "Feel the two of us, Abigail."

Threading her fingers with his, he relentlessly brought their joined hands to the apex of her thighs. "Spread your legs."

The motion brought him even deeper inside her. "No, don't pull back. Here." He found her slick, pouting nether lips, nudged them apart, rubbed their joined fingers back and forth until they were slick with her essence, until her body opened and accepted the first tentative thrust.

"RobertRobertI can feel you"

"Jesus." He could feel himself, through the thin membrane separating the two channels. He could feel her flesh milking his fingers, her fingers, feel her other flesh milking his manhood.

Carefully, inexorably, he pushed their middle and forefingers more deeply inside her, prodding the sponge, wanting to feel her womb, wanting her to feel him inside her womb. And all the while that he pushed and pulled inside her vagina, he gently pushed and pulled in that other place, too, until finally they established a rhythm, their fingers pushing in, passing the hard ridge of his penis pulling out, then the fingers pulling out, rubbing the engorged bulb of his crown as he thrust into her other opening.

The pleasure of having her like this, of feeling her body at the same time that he felt his own body, was more than he could have imagined. Thoughts and images flashed before his eyes as if he was a dying man.

The Indian sun rising over the mountain and turning the sand blood red. Crimson-stained drumsticks quivering inside thesepoy's body. Abigail's tears as he recounted to her the twenty-two-year-old story. His own voice,Ifound out that I did not want to die without knowing what it is like to lose myselfinside a woman. Abigail's voice,Icame to say good-bye.

Who did you come to say good-bye to?

My dreams, Robert.

Without warning, Abigail's body tightened, locking fingers and manhood inside her. "Oh, God, Robert. Robert, I can't stand it." Her voice was agonized. "Robert, please, God, take it out, do something, more, Robert,Robert "

"Promise me, Abigail." Robert barely recognized his voice in the darknessit was a savage snarl punctuated with labored gasps and the slap of his skin against hers while thesepoy's whistling breath echoed in the ravine.

"Robert, please"

"Without your fantasies and your erotica you will be just like any other lady. And we would never have had last night and today. We would not be doing this, now. Would you give that up, too?"

"No, never!" she gasped, with pain, with pleasure, it no longer mattered, she was his and she was here to give up everything that had made his life bearable and hewas not going to let her do it.

"Promise me you won't give up your dreams!"

"Oh, God, God, Ipromise, Robert"

"Then let go." Robert gritted his teeth. "This is what kept me alive, Abigail,this dream. Come for me. I want you to feel what I feel when you come for me. I want you to take the pain and turn it into pleasure. I want you to comenow."

In a quick motion he reversed the synchronization of their fingers and his penis, filling her simultaneously, faster, harder, deeper until there was no Abigail or Robert, only one body, one heartbeat, and it all centered there where their flesh was joined. Suddenly Abigail's entire body opened, taking their fingers and his manhood inside her more deeply than he would have thought humanly possible before clamping down in orgasm. Her muscles contracted around them, around him, until, with a muffled groan, he buried his face into the nape of her neck and came and came and came.

And knew that the storm had irrevocably changed his life.

Abigail had taken his pain and turned it into heart-rending pleasure.

Abigail had given back to him his soul.

chapter 7

Abigail awoke to a warm flood of memories.

Robert kissing her between her legs. Robert buried so deeply inside her that they were one body. The taste of Robert on her tongue; the sound of his shock when she had shared that taste with him. Robert kneeling before her while she read to him fromThePearl. Robert's manhood pulsing against their entwined fingers while all around them her own flesh pulsed with the same aching need.

They should invoke shame, those memories. After all, she was a modern nineteenth-century woman raised to have a healthy aversion to human sexuality. At the very least, those memories should invoke embarrassment.

But they did not.

They reminded her that, whether she be a staid spinster or a genteel lady or a wanton seductress, she was first and foremost a woman.

Do you take me, Abigail?

I take you, Robert.

For the first time in her life she was thankful for her erotica. She would need every bit of knowledge she could gain if she was going to spend the rest of her life making Robert forget.

Smiling, she reached out a hand.

Only to encounter cold sheets, slightly rumpled where Robert had lain beside her.

Abigail's eyelids shot open… to sunshine. And the shriek of a gull.

The storm was over.

Reality was sharp, invasive, words Robert had said in passion, words he had said in passing.

For the duration of the storm, let us simply be Abigail and Robert.

As long as the storm lasts, your body, your needs, your fantasieseverything you haveis mine.

For the duration of the storm you are mywoman.

She scrambled up in bed, ridiculously hoping that perhaps Robert was in the hip bath or kneeling in front of the stove, putting wood into it, anything,but please, God, don't let him be gone.

But there was no place to hidethe cottage was empty. His clothes, which had been draped over the chair by the stove, were gone. In their place hung her faded green cotton dress and white silk drawers.

Abigail closed her eyes against the sunshine filling the cottage.

Like the storm, Robert was gone.

Suddenly Abigail could not bear the sheets that smelled of him and of her. She scrambled out of bed, wincing at the feel of the engorged sponge inside her and the greasy traces of butter between her buttocks.

She hurt. Between the legs. Her bottom. Her breasts. Her lips. Everywhere he had touched her, she hurt.

Yet everywhere she looked, the cabin carried a part of him.

The fire in the stove. The hip bath on the floor by the sink. The cupboard barring the window.ThePearl, lying on the floor.

How could he leave her?

She had promised him! Promised him that she would not give up

Her dreams.

Outside the cabin, a horse neighed; it was accompanied by the jingle of reins.

Robert.

Abigail raced to the door, heart pounding.

It did not matter that her hair hung wild and tangled down her back. It did not matter that she was two weeks and five days shy of turning thirty.

The only thing that mattered was that Robert had not left.

His horse had thrown him, he had said yesterday. Duty-bound soldier that he was, he had left the cottage to find his horse, and having found it

"Be ye decent, Miss Abigail? I've come to clean fer ye. And I've brought more food fer ye and yer mister."

Abigail felt as if she had been shot by a bullet.

Or stabbed by a pair of drumsticks.

Robert said he had killed. That he would kill again.

And he had.

He just had not stayed around this time to see the look of surprise in the victim's eyes.

Through the door she could hear the ocean waves gently washing the beach. The lonely sea gull shrilled in the sky above.

Straightening her shoulders, she called out, "Give me a few minutes, Mrs. Thomas. I need to"

She closed her eyes against the truth.

She had had her two nights of passion and she would have no more.

Ineed to cleanse from myself the old life and step into the new.

Hurriedly she laid out the clothes she had arrived inbustle, corset, chemise, petticoats, stockings, garters, dress.Tears.

They dripped onto the bed like fat droplets of rain.

She wiped her cheeksthere would be no tears; one did not mourn stormy fantasiesthen she pumped a bucket full of cold water and set about removing the remains of Robert Coally.

Only to end up in the ignoble position of squatting and desperately reaching into tender flesh for a sponge that would not come out.

It struck her how ridiculous she must look, perched on her toes with her tangled hairhair that he had promised to brush flowing between her outstretched thighs. The absurdity of it was the final straw, somehow.

Once the tears started, Abigail thought she would drown in them, fishing around where a lady's fingers should never be while silently bawling as if she had a right to.

As if he had promised her more than a stormy union.

A union thatshe had proposed.

To make him forget his past. To make her forget the future.

But now the storm was over and it was time for him to rejoin his regiment.

And it was time for her to put aside fanciful fantasies.

The cottage door opened just as her fingers gained purchase. The sponge came out in the same moment that Abigail came up.

Mrs. Thomas stood framed in the door in a spill of sunlight and dancing dust motes. "It be all right, dearie. Men be forever takin' advantage of us women. I told my mister he shouldn' 'ave left you alone in the storm. We'll watch o'er ye now, me an' Mr. Thomas."

Ignoring the sponge in her hand and the tears that refused to stop, Abigail grabbed the towel by the sink and wrapped it about her as if nothing more untoward had occurred than a maid inadvertently walking in on her bathing mistress. "Thank you, Mrs. Thomas. There is no need to worry. I have decided to return to London. My family needs me, you see. I would appreciate it if you would assist me with packing, however. You may then drive me to the train station."

"There's a train that leaves in two 'ours time." Mrs. Thomas's face was full of pitya far, far more devastating emotion than the shock or disapproval that a spinster lady who strays from the straight and narrow path would expect to see in the eyes of a virtuous married woman. She retrieved Abigail's chemise from the rumpled bed. "Plenty of time, we got. I got a nice pan of Cross buns, just baked 'em, and a fresh crock of butter"

"I am not hungry," Abigail interrupted abruptly, wondering if she would ever be able to eat butter again. Or tolerate the odor of brandy. "But thank you."

She accepted the chemise with quaint dignity. Mrs. Thomas turned her back when Abigail had to perforce drop the towel.

"Of course I will pay you for your trouble." Abigail's head cleared the neck of the chemise. "No!" Her voice whipped the dust motes surrounding Mrs. Thomas. "Leave it!"

Mrs. Thomas looked up from where she bent over the journal that Robert in his passion had ripped out of Abigail's hands and flung across the room.

"It is merely something that I purchased for my vacation." She hurriedly spanned the distance that separated them. "Here, let me have it."

Abigail grabbed the journal from the befuddled woman. Walking across the room to the foot of the bed, she lifted the lid of the smallest trunk and tossed inside itThePearl, edition number twelve. The brandy-soaked sponge followed. Opening the largest trunk, she retrieved her reticule, rummaged inside it until she located the small key she stored there for safekeeping. Then she locked the small trunk, returned the key to her reticule and wiped her cheeks before turning to Mrs. Thomas with a formal smile. "Would you help me with my corset, please?"

Mrs. Thomas was as good as her word. Abigail was dressed and packed in plenty of time to catch the train. While Abigail laced up her half-boots, Mrs. Thomas took care of the chamber pot and stripped the linen off the bed. Together they emptied the hip bath, then together they lifted up two trunks onto the back of the worn gig. Dusting her fingers with a handkerchief, Abigail lifted her skirts and stepped high to reach the metal step. There was pain between her legs when she settled onto the worn leather seat, yet it was strangely distant, as if it did not belong to her but to someone else.

Mrs. Thomas stood by the side of the gig. "Ye be forgettin' a trunk, Miss."

"No." Abigail stared at the rhythmical swishing of the horse's tailit was not bobbed, as were those of the horses her brother kept. A brutal operation, she had always thought, involving as it did the removal of several vertebrae. "There is nothing more for me in the cottage."

"But"

Abigail pulled out a gold sovereign from her reticule. She looked down into Mrs. Thomas's wrinkled, worried face. "I would consider it a favor, Mrs. Thomas, if you and your husband would destroy the trunk. Its contents are no longer of any value to me."

"Of course, Miss."

Mrs. Thomas turned and entered the cottage. She returned just minutes later carrying the basket Mr. Thomas had left yesterday.

Fleetingly she wondered what Robert had done to the crock of butterif he had put it back into the cupboard or if he had stuck it inside the basket. Just as fleetingly she wondered if Mr. Thomas had told his wife of finding Miss Abigail and her "mister" frolicking naked in the rain.

But of course Mr. Thomas would have told her.

The mortification that Abigail should feel would not come.

The road to the station meandered around the ocean. At one spot a slip of the carriage wheel would plummet the vehicle over the cliff and into the water below.

"Stop!"

Mrs. Thomas nervously sawed on the reigns to stop the horse. Abigail reached into her reticule and grabbed the key to the trunk that carried her every fantasy.

How ironical that it should be dreams that had kept Robert alive these last twenty-two years.

They had given Abigail nothing but pain, isolating her from those she should emulate.

Before she could think about what she was doing, about what she was leaving behind, she stood up in the carriage and threw the key as far as she could.

It sparkled for a second, arcing over the water, then it disappeared. Into the air. Into the ocean.

It mattered not.

From this day forward Abigail had no dreams.

It was, after all, why she had chosen the isolated cottage, to say good-bye to the erotica that fueled impossible desires.

She closed her eyes against the sparkling clarity of the sea and made the decision she had been unable to make a week ago.

When she returned to London, she would accept the hand of the first man who her meddling siblings presented her with.

"You bloody horse, I should sell you to the glue factory."

Softly whickering, the horse looked over its shoulder.

And allowed Robert to grab its halter.

After a two-hour chaseand a three-hour hunt.

Robert stared into the horse's soft brown eyes and felt a melting sensation all the way down to his toes.

Toes that now sported a set of blisters, thanks to this great beast.

He had indeed lost his mind if every pair of brown eyes reminded him of Abigail, he thought in disgust.

Grabbing the pommel, he swung up into the saddle.

The sun was brilliant, the sky a cloudless blue as it can only be in the aftermath of a storm.

The melting sensation flowed from Robert's spine to his testicles at the thought of the storm… and Abigail. And of how they would spend the rest of the day.

She would read from her erotica while he soaked his feet. Afterward, he would brush her hair as he had earlier promised. Then he would lick her and suckle her until she begged for mercy. And then…

Then he would propose to her. She wouldn't dare refuse him, hanging on to the edge of release.

It was well after noon by the time Robert returned to the cottage.

He should have been warned by the lack of smoke trailing out of the chimney pipe in the thatched roof. He should have known that a cottage that appeared so utterly alone and desolate was just that. Being a military man, he should have noticed the fresh wagon tracks outside the cottage.

And he did. He merely attributed the lack of smoke coming out of the chimney to Abigail's exhaustion. And the wagon tracks only incited his hungerfor food. He had had nothing to eat since yesterday evening.

Stomach roiling, he burst inside the cottage.

Only to find emptiness.

The bedding had been ripped off the mattress. The floor near the sink was bereft of the hip bath.

For a second he wondered if he had gotten the wrong cottage.

One coastal cottage looked much like another. He could have gotten the wrong one…

But of course there was the cupboard barring the window. And the small trunk at the foot of the bed.

Abigail was gone.

Pain filled his chest; it took his breath away. For a second he wondered if he had caught pneumonia from the storm.

But then the pain was washed away in a flood of rage.

Damn her. She had planned it this way, from the moment he had introduced himself. While he had told her his full name, she had said her name was merely "Miss Abigail."She had known then that with the end of the storm she would be gone.

How could she walk away from him after what they had shared last night?

He had felt her pleasure.

She had felthis pleasure.

Damn her to hell, she had accepted him,all of him, his body, his past, his fantasy.

She had taken his pain and turned it into pleasure.

For the first time since Robert had killed theSepoy with a pair of drumsticks twenty-two years earlier, he felt like crying. Bawling like the gullible thirteen-year-old boy he had once been, forever searching for an easier way to live.

Fool that he was, he had allowed Abigail to become more than his fantasy woman. She had become a part of his soul.

Whilehe had given her the weapon that she needed to sever the union. Ladies might dally with men raised on the streets of London, but they didnot marry them.

No wonder she had fled. Last night he had asked her if she accepted himand she had said yes. No doubt when she had awakened alone, she had expected him to return with a preacher.

Angrily he jerked at the lid of the trunk.

It was locked.

He kicked it.

Only to burst a blister on his toe.

He hopped up and down.

Damn, damn, damn!

His hopping led him to the sink.

The hip tub was empty, propped up against the wall beside it. The water bucket sat in the sink. And the sponge…

Was gone.

He distinctly recalled placing that sponge inside Abigail.

Either she wore it still… or she had taken it with her.

And with the incongruous thought came reason.

He had left her at the crack of dawn to hunt down the cursed horse that had thrown him two nights ago. She had been curled against him, soft and replete.

He had thought to find the damned horse by the time she was awake. Instead, it had taken half the day.

The bargain had beeneverything for as long as the storm lasted.

If he had been Abigail, what would he have thought if he had awakened, alone, in a cold bed with sunshine pouring through the window?

Damn. Why hadn't he asked for her last name? Or even more importantly, where she lived?

But the old caretakers would know.

It took Robert three hours to locate the Thomass. He was met with stoic silence.

"Her didn' leave no address." Mrs. Thomas's weathered eyes were full of hostility. "I drove 'er to the train station an' that be that."

Robert clung to his patience. "Then give me her family name. You must have that information."

"It 'pears to me, ye bein' 'er mister, ye should know that yerself," Mr. Thomas said craftily.

Short of beating the information out of the old man and woman, there was nothing Robert could do. Except try the train station.

Which was closed.

He returned to the cottage by the sea.

There were candles in the cupboardbut no butter; Mrs. Thomas's doing, clearing out the perishables. Lighting a candle, he contemplated the stripped bed and the trunk at the foot of it. Then, calmly, methodically, he retrieved the pistol from his saddlebag and blew the lock off.

The sponge lay on top ofThe Pearl, edition number twelve.

Blistering pain enveloped Robert's chest.

Grimly he picked up the sponge. It still smelled of brandy and hot, wet woman.

How does the sponge feel?

It feelsthere.

I'll take it out for you… After I soak you in hot water to relieve the soreness.

Bottomless brown eyes alight with amber fires stared out of the sponge.And what then, Colonel Coally?

Then I'll put it back in for you.

A wave of exhaustion rolled over him.

It was immediately followed by a rush of rage.

By leaving behind the trunk and the sponge Abigail had made clear her decision.

He should let her walk away. He should let her have her cold, passionless reality.

But he wasn't going to allow that.

Abigail would not get away from him that easily. He was a soldiera damned good oneused to tracking down far more wily quarry than a genteel lady.

He would find her. If not tomorrow, then the next day. Or the next.

Robert picked up the journal. It was marked by a dark wet circle.

And when he found her… he would know every sexual act that she had ever read about. That she had ever fantasized about.

The next morning found Robert a thoroughly educated man. Acting on impulse, he packed the twelve copies ofThe Pearl into his saddlebag.

Old man Thomas was tending a pig and a dozen squealing piglets when Robert reined in his horse.

"Miss Abigail left a trunk inside the cottage. Store itI'll arrange to send it to her later. Meanwhile, I will give you a sovereign if you will take me to the train station and feed and care for my horse until I return."

Old man Thomas upturned a bucket of slops into the sty. "Miss Abigail said we wus to throw that trunk away. Ain't no need to store it. 'Less you care to buy it, of course…"

Robert grimly dug out another sovereign.

"I don't suppose Mrs. Thomas remembers what town Miss Abigail was getting off at?"

The birdlike eyes fastened onto the gold. "We don't keep track of renters. In an' out like flies, they are."

"And of course you don't know the name or address of the owner of the cottage," Robert remarked cynically.

Thomas licked his lips. "We just does what we're told."

The old man stuck to his story all the way to the station.

The ticket seller was more helpful. He remembered selling a ticket to a lady"going to London Station. She didn't look too happy going there, neither. Her eyes were all redlike she'd been crying. You her husband?"

Robert hardened his heart at the image the ticket seller painted.

Abigail had given him everythingand had left him with nothing. Tears seemed a cheap price for the pain she had caused.

He purchased a ticket without answering.

In London a cab drove Robert to an affordable hotel on a quiet street like the ones on which he used to work when helping his father sell ices. After visiting a tailor, he commenced his search.

The thought of Abigail turning thirty without him there to celebrate with her spurred him on.

Unfortunately, he was not of the upper ten thousand. Nor had he ever made friends with commissioned officers who belonged to that prestigious club.

After three weeks in London, Robert was no closer to finding Abigail than he had been when questioning the Thomass. Until he picked up a newspaper.

There was her face, in the society section.

Underneath it hailed the news that Lady Abigail Wynfred, sister of the Earl of Melford, was marrying Sir Andrew Tymes, eldest son of Baron Charles Tymes and Lady Clarisse Denby-Tymes.

The wedding was to be a small family affair, the article went on, that would take place on the twenty-seventh of June at the Earl of Melford's London town house.

Robert could feel the color draining out of his face.

Abigail was the sister of an earltheWilliam who would die of an apoplectic fit should her trunk of erotica be discovered.

No wonder she had not offered Robert her last namea liaison with a common colonel would rock society.

Had she been simply a woman born into gentility, Robert could afford the simple luxuries due to her station in life. But she was of the aristocracy.

There was nothing a man like him could offer a woman like her.

He studied the picture of her fiancé.

Sir Andrew Tymes had side-whiskers framing plump, round cheeks.

No doubt he and Abigail would own several pianos.

And every one of them would be draped with ruffles.

Ikilled my first man three months to the day of my enlistment, Abigail, and I have been killing ever since.

You had no choice, Robert.

He crumpled the paper between his fingers.

Perhaps hehad had no choice twenty-two years ago. But he did now.

Abigail did not deserve ruffled pianos.

Today was the twenty-fifth of June.

Robert hoped the earl's town house could accommodate one more guest.

chapter 8

contents

Abigail stared into the full-length mirror and knew that she had accomplished her goal.

The pale, brown-eyed lady with her hair pulled back in an elaborate French bun did not read erotic literature. She did not have forbidden fantasies.

She had no dreams other than to be what she wasthe daughterand now the sisterof an earl who was aligning the House of Melford monies to the House of Tymes money.

For the first time in her life she was content.

There was no pain in that pale, expressionless face. No lust. No loneliness.

Abigail liked that.

It was everything and more she had ever wanted to be.

A sharp knock interrupted her complacent perusal. There was a genteel fussher sisters. Elizabeth, the middle one, twitched Abigail's heavy, dove-gray skirt over a fashionably full bustle; Mary, the youngest next to Abigail, daintily wiped a tear out of the corner of her eye with a lace handkerchief. Victoria, the eldest, waited by the door to give Abigail into the hands of their brother, who would then give Abigail into the hands of the man who was waiting to become her husband.

Abigail liked the fact that there were no raw emotions intruding on the serenity of the occasion.

It was a beautiful day, a perfect day.

One of those rare London mornings where all the soot had settled with the morning dew and the sun shone out of a blue sky with picturesque clouds that a less pristine lady might mistake for a face with stark gray eyes or a cottage with a thatch roof or some other silly pipe dream, when really clouds were merely particles of dust and moisture marring the horizon.

Victoria opened the door and shooed out Mary and Elizabeth. Faint piano chords drifted into the bedchamber.

Abigail smiled at her sister's whispered instruction to lie back and think of England when her husband did his duty. Then her brother stepped through the doorway and took her gloved hand.

"This is an extremely important day for you, Abigail. Sir Tymes is a fine man; you will want for nothing. We trust that you will not do anything to disgrace our family name."

Abigail smiled.

Of course she would not do anything to disgrace the family name.

She was happy in her new life.

She wanted this marriage.

She wanted to be the Lady Abigail Tymes.

Abigail Wynfred had died three weeks and two days ago; it was time that she be buried.

Robert waited long minutes after the last carriage pulled away from the tall, narrow town house before mounting the cobblestone steps. Faint music penetrated the closed double doors.

He gained entrance by the simple maneuver of elbowing aside the butler when he opened the door in response to a brisk knock. Robert's scarlet dress uniform complete with a sword that was not ornamental prevented retaliation.

The butler clearly knew his duty; it was equally clear he was reluctant to carry it through. "May I help you, sir?"

"I am a friend of the groom's," Robert said grimly.

"I am afraid the wedding is for family members only, sir." The butler stared warily at Robert's dark-brown hair that was overlong and not pomaded, then at his tanned face that was shaved clean and spoke of climates and practices more barbaric than those belonging to England. "If you will give me the package, you can be assured that I will"

Robert hoisted high the silk-and-ribbon-wrapped box. "I will deliver the package personally, thank you. Carry on with your duties. There's no need to show me the way."

His heels clicked along the length of the elegant black-and-white marble floor. He followed piano music and the low murmur of voices to a dark salon filled with vases of flowers and a ruffled grand piano. Rows of chairs were positioned so that an aisle led to a white marble fireplace. The chairs were occupied by over bustled women in subdued colors and too tightly collared men in funeral black with slicked-back hair tamed with grease and side-whiskers that bristled like wire brushes. A crow of a minister and a plump cherub of a man, both with the same pomaded hair and bushy side-whiskers, flanked the marble fireplace.

Robert had timed it perfectly. No sooner did he enter the room than a hush fell over the crowd of politely expectant faces and the pianist ended the recital in a soft crash of chords. He stepped aside at the sound of rustling silk.

Abigail.

She wore a dove-gray dress with a tent-size bustle and she had never looked worse, he was sure, he thought with a stab of vicious satisfaction. Her face was chalk white with dark circles underneath her eyes. The man leading herher brother, the earl, no doubt was the same height but at least fifty pounds heavier. He, too, had pomaded hair and side-whiskers.

Abigail's back was ramrod straight as she faced the minister to take her vows. The groom, Robert noted, had a fat bottom. And he was two inches shorter than the bride.

The minister's voice was a pompous drone. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God…"

Robert leaned against the wall and waited for his cue.

"… Therefore if any man can shew any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace."

Robert stepped away from the wall into the aisle. "I have just cause."

The slender back underneath the dove-gray silk grew even more stiff; suddenly Abigail pivoted, caught on the train of her gown. She floundered for a second before catching her balance.

Brown eyes were snared by pewter gray.

If it was possible, she turned even paler. Then bright crimson flooded her cheeks.

Shocked murmurs filled the dark room.

The minister lowered his spectacles. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said I have just cause to stop this wedding." He held up the beribboned silk package. "Twelve reasons, to be exact."

Abigail knew what was inside the pretty white-and-silver box. She had left behind her twelve issues ofThePearl.

The bright red color drained from her face. "Robert"

It had been three weeks since he had heard her voice. Not one single person had used his christened name since she had left him.

He didn't want to hear her sayRobert with that cold, polite ring of command. As if they had never been as close as it was possible for two people to be.

He wanted to hear his name husky with her passion. Or on a scream when she found release.

"Twelve reasons," he repeated. "If you can accept this gift, Abigail, and marry that man, then I will accept the fact that what meant more to me than life itself was nothing more to you than ananomaly caused by a storm. And I will heartily beg your pardon for this intrusion."

"Who is this man?" The groom raised a monocle and stared at Robert from an eye the size of a saucer.

Robert ignored him.

"On the other hand, Abigail, I have in my pocket two other gifts. One goes on the ring finger. The other gift is a favorite device of Lady Pokingham."

Shocked masculine gasps carried on the tide of feminine whispersso-called respectable gentlemen who recognized the name taken fromThePearl. Robert could feel the male attention swivel from him toward Abigail, cold eyes no doubt filled with hot speculation.

Crimson color flared anew in Abigail's cheeks. Her head jerked back as if she had received a slap in the face.

"Sir." It was the butler's voice. "Sir, if you will follow me, please."

Robert's gaze did not waver. "And last but not least, Abigail, I have edition number thirteen."

Three footmen joined the butler. The silk-wrapped package slithered to the floor as Robert struggled to free himself.

Abigail silently watched.

Damn her. She wasn't going to accept either him… or his gift.

She stood there, pristine and remote like the lady she had confessed she wanted to become.

He should be content that he had accomplished one goal, at least.

Her secret was out.

Sir Andrew Tymes would not marry a woman whose name was whispered in the same breath as the name of a heroine out ofThePearl.

But Robert did not feel relief at saving Abigail from a lifetime of ruffled pianos.

For a searing second he hated her.

Hated her with all the passion in the soul that she had given back to him.

She had given him everything;she was his.

He had resigned from active duty… so that he might live.With her.

Fury gave Robert the strength of two men… but not the strength of three.

He refused to look away from Abigail's eyes, losing the battle, both with her and the footmen. He struggled to look back at her over his shoulder as they hustled him out of the funeral-dark salon. Then he struggled to stand up on the cobble stoned sidewalk as pain arched along the entire left side of his body and the sharp closure of the town house doors echoed through the street.

Damn.

Hewould land on his bum leg.

"Ye need 'elp, guv'nor? Cost ye a ha'pence."

Robert stared down at the three-foot-tall street urchin whose age could range anywhere from five to fifteen. A kaleidoscope of activity burst around himhorses trotting, carriage wheels rolling, a man hawking his waresthe vivid awareness that only comes before death.

"No," Robert said shortly. He pulled out a shilling and tossed it to the boy.

Hell, it didn't matter if he gave out all of his money.

Dead men didn't need it.

He dug into his pocket and pulled out everything he had on him.

The boy's too-old face lit up with greedy life. Before the military mort with the scary gray eyes could change his mind, the street urchin grabbed the money and ran.

Without warning, the door to the town house slammed open.

As if in slow motion, Robert turned.

Abigail raced down the steps in a jiggle of silk and bustle. She carried in gloved hands the silk-wrapped package, her dreams, his life.

She was breathless. "You forgot your package, Colonel Coally."

Death did not harbor so much pain.

Neither should life, Robert thought bleakly.

"The package is for you, Lady Wynfred."

"That cannot be, Colonel Coally," she said briskly. "You offered me three gifts, not one."

"I am afraid I am at a loss, Lady Wynfred," he said stonily, imagining her with Sir Andrew Tymes, imagining him pistoning up and downinside Abigail. "Does this mean you are rejecting or accepting the package?"

"It means, Colonel Coally, that I am accepting… all three gifts."

For the first time that day, Robert noticed how very warm the sunshine was and how clear the sky was when free of fog and soot.

"I take it you know what Lady Pokingham's favorite toy is."

Face flooding with bright color, Abigail reached out, lightly touched the front of his scarlet trousers with white-gloved fingers before hurriedly withdrawing her hand. "Oh, yes, Colonel Coally. I know what Lady Pokingham's favorite toy is."

"I am not a gentleman," he warned her stiffly. "Nor am I wealthy. Though I have enough to live in comfort."

"Colonel Coally." The brown eyes staring up at him glowed with amber. "What you have is far more important than wealth or a title."

"And what is that, Lady Wynfred?"

Robert held his breath, not daring to hope, afraid he could not bear the pain if she rejected him now.

A curse rang out on the streeta coachman soothed the lead horse that a lady's parasol had frightened.

Abigail smiled, the smile he had come to love, wild and free as the storm."ThePearl, Colonel Coally."

"Do you take me, Abigail?" The sound issuing from his throat was stark and raw.

"I take you, Robert."

Suddenly the streets of London disappeared and there were only the two of them, a man and a woman.

Laughing, oblivious of the curious, shocked stares, Robert picked Abigail up and swung her over his head. "You are quite wrong, Miss Abigail. Lady Pokingham has another favorite toy, one that can be gift-wrapped without requiring amputation. But you can only have it after we are married. And if I insert it."