A thought occurred to her. If Alex was safely occupied and
she had been given no orders to remain immured in this cupboard, she could go
in search of Jed and see if anyone had need of physicking.
Jed was to be found sitting on a stone bench outside the inn,
smoking a pipe and taking his ease in the early evening air. He greeted Ginny
and her medicine basket with a grunt.
"
If
ye're game, mistress, there's some who'd be glad to see you,
"
he said, getting to his feet.
"I’ll show you where the brigade's quartered. Best you don't go wanderin'
among the other regiments, though. Our own men
’ll
have a care for you, but I wouldn't bet on the others."
Ginny spent the next forty-five minutes lancing boils,
digging out a long splinter that had set up an infection in a corporal's thu
m
b, and prescribing treatment for foot rot. They were
far from serious ailments, but she knew the discomfort they could cause, and
also how little ills, left untreated, could lead to the major horrors of
septicemia and gangrene. It was a connection not generally understood, even by
the educated, and she did her best to explain this as she worked, but with
little hope that her audience would pay more than lip service to the lecture.
She regained the inn with just time to dispose of her
incriminating basket and tidy her hair before Diccon, in his customary role as
messenger, summoned her to the supper table. It was a pleasant enough meal at
which she did, indeed, preside, but when the table was cleared and packs of
cards and dice appeared, together with the brandy, Ginny excused herself
promptly. An officers' mess after a good dinner was no place for a woman,
colonel's mistress or no. She lay in bed, listening to the riotous noise from
the parlor below, wondering if Alex would come to her. After a while, in among
the male voices, rose unmistakably lighter, female tones. Roars of laughter
shook the rafters, there was an occasional crash as of a chair being upturned,
slurred voices from the garden below her window as the revelers emerged for a
few minutes of necessary relief.
She was just about to drop off to sleep, having given Alex up
as lost for the night, when the voices from below rose to new heights, a
roaring chant shook the flaking p
l
aster
on the wall of her cupboard, and booted feet bega
n
a rhythmic stamping. Curious beyond caution now, Ginny dipped from her
narrow cot, caught up her cloak, and cre
p
t
out onto the landing. The steep, narrow wooden staircase led down to the
stone-flagged hall below. Halfway down, she stopped. The' door to the parlor
was open, and she had a clear view The long refectory table had been completely
cleared
,
and on it stood a woman, swaying her
hips in time to the chanting and stamping feet as she fumbled drunkenly wit
h
the buttons on her chemise. Shouts of encouragement
accompanied a disrobing that Ginny could not help but fed was somewhat
inelegant. Diccon, his face flushed with brandy and excitement, could not take
his eyes off the woman, and when her petticoat rustled around her ankles, his
mouth fell open on an "ah
"
of
wonderment. Had he never seen a naked woman before, Ginny wondered. Poor baby,
he must be all of twenty. Surely he could not still be a virgin? Her
e
yes sought and found Alex among the slavering throng.
He was sitting slightly apart, one leg crossed negligently Over the other, a
pewter tankard in his hand, watching the proceedings with an air of sleepy
amusement.
Crossly, Ginny turned and went back upstairs. It was
positively insulting that he should prefer such a spectacle to the prospect of
a night of love-making in her arms
,
and so she would tell him in no uncertain terms as soon as she
had the chance. The noise continued unabated, becoming
wilder, if anything. Muted female giggles came from below her window; she heard
Diccon's voice, sounding half-pleading, half-assertive, men the unmistakable
sounds of someone retching miserably.
"
Come
on, lad, get your head down now
.”
Alex spoke
suddenly, his voice clear and commanding in the general cacophony, but with a
note both amused and understanding.
"
You've
had enough for one night, and I can promise you that you are not going to enjoy
the morning." Diccon groaned, there was another giggle, men Alex's voice
again, no longer amused, sending the giggler about her business.
Ginny smiled to herself in the darkness, listening to the
sounds of firm steps and stumbling ones outside her door. She crept to the
door, opening it a crack. Alex, with Diccon draped across his shoulders, was
kicking open the door to the room opposite Ginny
'
s cupboard. He tumbled the inert figure onto a bed on which reposed
another soldierly figure snoring stertorously, then bent and pulled off
Diccon's boots, before tossing a coverlet over him and leaving the room,
shaking his head in a gesture expressing the resigned acceptance of a sophisticate
for the youthful excesses of the naive.
Ginny almost whispered to him; then a better idea came to
her, and she stayed still, peering through the crack in her door to see where
he went. Alex disappeared behind a door at the end of the corridor, and Ginny
chewed her nails for a minute wondering if he had a bedfellow. If he had, it
would be one of the other colonels, since presumably rank counted even in such
domestic instances. Over the next half an hour, Colonels Richards and Chambers
came up the stairs separately, and both continued up to the second floor.
Silence fell at last, and no one had entered Colonel Marshall's chamber.
Ginny left her cupboard, closing the door behind her with
the utmost care. There was not a sound as she crept
toward Alex's door and lifted the latch noiselessly. Wraithlike, she flitted
across the dark room to the bed where a motionless hump could just be discerned
in the gloom. The next instant, the world seemed to turn upside down, and she
fought desperately against suffocating pressure filling her nose and
mouth
, an iron band clamped against her throat, hard,
hurtful hands pinning her like a butterfly in a display case.
"Sweet Jesus!" Alex exclaimed, as his hands
suddenly registered the familiarity of the body they were subduing.
"
You
little
fool, I nearly killed you!
Never, ever
try to take me
by surprise."
It could have been no more than two or three seconds since
she had approached the bed, but they were seconds Ginny would never want to
relive. The smothering pillow left her face, and, stunned, she stared up at him
as he hung naked over her, and her eyes became fixed on the wickedly thin knife
blade poised over her throat.
"
Why don't
you wait to see who it is before you attack?" she croaked.
Alex shook his head in wordless exasperation and re-sheathed
the blade, pushing it under
the
bolster.
"
Chicken, I would not give a groat for
my chances of survival if I waited for an introduction to whoever is creeping
around my bed in the middle of the night. Anyone on innocent business would
know to announce himself loudly."
"I'll never make a good soldier
"
Ginny sighed. "It didn't even
occur to me, and, besides, I thought you were asleep."
"
I
was, until you put your hand on the latch,
"
he told her, swinging onto the bed beside her. "Don't ever do that again.
My reactions are automatic and
very
fast. You were very close to having
your throat cut."
"On the principle of act first and ask questions
later," Ginny said with a shiver. "I do not care for soldiering, I
have to tell you."
"But then you did not creep in here to be a soldier, did
you, my sweet?" Alex asked softly, turning on his side, propping himself
on one elbow. The green-brown eyes held a pensive look as he examined the face
on the pillow beside him. A residue of that fearful panic still lingered in her
eyes, in the tension of her skin over the high cheekbones
,
the set of the full mouth. With concentrated purpose,
he took her lips, tasting, exploring, softly at first, then wit
h
increased pressure as he felt her melt beneath the
gentle, insidious invasion, felt her fear and tension yield to th
e
wondrous langour of slow-building desire.
His hand slid down to cup the firm mound of her breast, his
thumb brushing over the soft linen covering the taut, straining peak. Ginny
moved involuntarily, pressing herself against the long, lean nakedness, and he
pulled her even closer so that she was made powerfully aware of the urgency of
his need, the heat and throb of him through her thin night rail. She was
boneless, pliant, and formless, an encompassing softness that he knew would
receive and nurture him.
Alex drew the hem of her nightgown upward, smoothing his hand
along the fine, supple line of her leg to her hip. His hand slid round to her
belly, palming the sharp points of her hip bones as his thumb played in her
navel before he lowered his head and flicked the soft cup with his tongue. The
slight stubble of his late-night beard grazed her tender skin, setting the
muscles of her abdomen fluttering, and her hands raked through the auburn hair
glowing bright against the whiteness of her belly as her hips lifted in wanton
invitation. With one hand, he freed the sash constricting her waist, then
pushed the gown upward, his lips following, nuzzling the gradually bared flesh,
tasting deeply of a rose-crested breast as it was uncovered.
Casting the nightgown aside, he gathered her to him, rolling
so that she came to rest above him, every curve and hollow of her body molded
to his length. Ginny smiled down at him a little uncertainly as she adapted to
this novel position. Understanding amusement flickered in the green-brown eyes,
and the sculpted firmness of his mouth curved as he ran his fingers though the
mass of chestnut hair, drawing it over her shoulders to enclose them both in a
silky, fragrant tent. The calloused, swordsman's hand cupped her face, drawing
her mouth down to his, and Ginny discovered the delight of initiation as her
tongue penetrated deeply, tasting the brandy sweetness, before venturing forth
on a voyage of exploration that left not a millimeter of his mouth and face
untouched.
Her tongue darted into the tight shell of his ear, flicking
in the whorls and contours, stroking as her teeth nibbled the sensitive lobe.
She could feel his heart beating faster against her breast where the hair on
his chest rubbed, faintly abrasive. The ridged muscles of his thighs pressed
upward, powerful against her own softness, and the slight roundness of her
belly fitted into the concavity of the one below.
His hands smoothed down her back, lingering over the tapering
waist before caressing the flare of her hips moving into the slender length of
thigh. The languid, seductive stroking brought Ginny a seething excitement, a
fluid fullness within as she pressed her body against him, encouraging the tightness
of his hold. Then he parted her thighs and with a slow twist of his hips thrust
into her welcoming body.
Ginny gasped with delight, moving with him as he thrust
deeper, and she wanted to take him into the very core of herself, to encompass
and hold him, indivisible in the ageless fusion. And as her body found its own
rhythms, found where pleasure was centered, she moved ever faster, finding
infinite delight as she strove to become a part of the man, to make him a part
of her. There was no thought now, no sense of self, only the white-hot
excitement of pure sensation rippling through her as he gripped her hips and
drove upward with a great cry of joy, and for one miraculous moment she hovered
on her own precipice, holding the throbbing power of his completion within her.
Then she fell herself, in a wild shattering of golden sparks that ravaged her
senses and left her in the quiet pool of surfeited joy.
She lay, stranded, beached upon him until the wild beating of
her heart had stilled and she returne
d
to
the world, to awareness of the salt taste of his skin on her lips pressed
against the hollow of his throat, to the sweaty slipperiness of their joined
bodies as the fire that had consumed them retreated.
His hands flattened against her back, and he gently rolled
her onto the bed beside him, moving with he
r
so
the moment of disengagement was prolonged and easy. "You are
miraculous," he whispered, kissing her eyelid
s
before collapsing with a groan of exhaustion onto the
pillow.
"More entertaining than harlots stripping on the
table?" Ginny inquired, even through her own exhaustion unable to resist
the mischievous question.
"Did you see that?" Alex sat up abruptly.
"M
m
mm,
"
Ginny murmured, closing her eyes as if on the verge of
sleep. "I could have done it better myself?
"