Authors: Cat Lindler
One lone snag marred his perfect plan. He’d not considered his own response to those searing kisses. He could swear he saw damned skyrockets bursting in his head. What was that about? His lips curved with a wry twist, and he shook his head. Lust … pure and simple. The war had provided him with little opportunity to satisfy his needs. That easily explained his reaction to the tempting little wildcat. The experience had shaken the earth beneath his feet but was understandable.
After they crossed Clark’s Creek at a ford, he turned the horses north, across Britton’s Neck and toward the Little Pee Dee River. He would head into North Carolina through the Great White Marsh and then swing down to enter Georgetown by way of the Waccamaw River and Socastee Swamp. By the time they arrived at Willowbend, Willa would be his—body and heart.
Willa’s own thoughts occupied her as she rocked to Cherokee’s easy gait. She had voiced no protest this time to the blindfold, accepting its necessity. But when Aidan brought forward the rope to tie her arms, she fought back. For God’s sake, they were traveling to Willowbend. He was taking her home. Did he truly believe she would try to escape? Obviously he did, because her hands now lay bound in front of her and resting on the saddlebow. She owed Aidan for a great many unpleasant experiences. Tying her up again merely added to the lengthy list.
She still could not swallow the whole of his story. How could he spy on Marion without expecting the ruse to be discovered? He could not be Aidan Sinclair, her betrothed. Willa recalled a miniature of Montford. At the time she had thought it an abominable depiction. Still, the man in the picture, though a fair amount younger when posing for the painting, bore a definite resemblance to Captain Ford. Perhaps he
was
Aidan Sinclair. Were it not for that niggling feeling deep inside warning her his story lacked the ring of truth, he would have fully convinced her. Were she able to determine what logic his explanation lacked, she could solve the mystery to her satisfaction.
Aidan was an enigma. The foppish court jester had changed so gradually from their first meeting that she’d paid little notice. Like a snake, he had shed his outer skin, piece by lacy, bejeweled piece, to reveal the man beneath the costume, a ruggedly striking man, one who evoked feelings that scrambled her wits.
Her thoughts veered unbidden to his kisses in the orchard. She remembered what Jwana had said concerning fireworks, and soul mates, and “the one.” Were Aidan truly “the one,” she would be well advised to throw herself from Cherokee’s back at this very moment and crack open her head on a rock. She curled her lip when she recollected how she had moaned and leaned into his body, as though she would swoon without his support. She had acted scandalously when she should have punched him or kicked him, at the very least.
Willa shook her head to rid it of the disturbing images and compelled herself to attend to their journey. Clouds blocked the sun and mist touched her face. Her intuition and near infallible internal compass determined they were moving north. After being blindfolded and spun around until dizzy, she could still point out north, south, east, and west with uncanny accuracy and no clues, such as the sun’s position or moss on the trees. Plato called it her
“adonvdo adasehede,”
her Cherokee spirit guide. It had deserted her only once, when Aidan caught her in the swamp and took her to Marion’s camp. No doubt the lapse resulted from shock.
Cherokee’s hooves splashed through shallows, sending a spray of cold water onto her legs. When at least an hour passed and they failed to cross the water they had swum the day before, she concluded that Marion’s camp lay between a river or a lake and a smaller creek. They had entered the camp from one direction and were leaving by a different route. Aidan was trying to confound her.
She heaved a sigh at her own stupidity. In all probability, he took the same evasive actions after capturing her. Had her hands been free, she would have smacked herself alongside the head. She could have been sitting, quite literally, at Marion’s front door when she ran across Aidan. She was tempted to hail him and inform him his efforts were of no use. She had no intention, at this point, of seeking again the location of Marion’s camp. Not until she learned Aidan’s true identity … and, were he actually her fiancé, why the idea of marriage to him did not seem as repugnant as it had on first consideration.
The rain softened into mist, which dispersed as gloaming crept over the land. A brisk northwestern wind kicked up in its place, turning grassy fields into undulating seas, lifting and swirling dead leaves like tidal eddies. Ford was cold and wet and expected Willa was no better off. He turned up his collar and pulled the butternut jacket closer. When he peered over his left shoulder, dark clouds billowed on the western horizon and predicted a storm promising a more bone-chilling wet.
He veered off the track to head toward an abandoned cabin located in several acres of pines, which lay slightly beyond the next rise. General Marion had twice retreated to North Carolina along this same path. The last time, Ford accompanied him. The cabin was small and lacked luxuries, but from what he recalled, it would provide sturdy shelter with an intact roof, a fireplace, and a lean-to for the horses. When the clouds scudded closer and the wind whipped up into a gale, he shouted to Willa to hang on and kicked the horses into a gallop.
The wind blew them into the pines, branches moaning and snapping over their heads as they plunged beneath the trees. Ford glanced back to assure himself that a gust of wind had not blown Willa off her horse’s back. Her white grin pierced the stormy twilight’s dim illumination. She had brought up her tethered hands and pulled down the blindfold. It draped around her throat like a necklace. Her hat slapped against her back, held captive only by its rawhide chinstrap. She looked pleased with herself and appealing in a disturbing way with her wild dark hair thrashing about her face and the fury of the elements reflected in her eyes.
Ford slowed Dancer and allowed the paint to come up beside him. He tossed Willa’s reins to her. “Here,” he said, returning her grin. “You might as well take custody of these now. I’ve grown exceedingly weary of towing you behind me like a packhorse.”
Thunder rolled overhead. A lightning spear hit a pine but yards away. Sparks exploded outward. Both horses jumped when the splintered treetop tumbled, falling and crashing into its neighbors and creating a chain reaction as boles snapped and toppled.
“Follow me,” Ford yelled above the boom of falling timber. He whipped Dancer with the reins into a sprint through the trees. Willa rode directly on his heels. They dodged around the pines at breakneck speed, clipping off low-hanging branches and trampling bushes underfoot. The crushed pine needles’ tarry smell blended with the scent of lightning and the sharp tang of pending rain carried on the wind. An isolated oak’s bare limbs clattered overhead with a sound like angels rapping on a celestial door.
Then the clouds opened up—rain gushed in torrents, painting the pine trunks black and limiting visibility to no more than a few yards. Sodden to the skin, his teeth chattering, Ford glimpsed the cabin ahead. It squatted in a clearing ringed by towering pine trees. Dancer slid to a stop in front of the sagging porch, and Ford leaped off his back. He grabbed the reins and led the horse into the small lean-to clinging against the cabin’s wall. Willa, her shoulders hunched under the weight of her saturated clothing, followed him into the shelter.
Ford ducked beneath Dancer’s neck. Willa had tied off her horse and was fumbling with the saddle cinch. The ropes binding her hands made her movements clumsy. “Go inside,” he said after wiping the rain from his face and releasing her wrists. “Start a fire and remove those wet clothes. I shall care for the horses.”
She hesitated for a moment. Then she nodded and slipped back out into the rain.
He unsaddled the horses and rubbed them down with straw he found in the back of the lean-to. A hay pile sat off to one side. He plucked a handful and inhaled. The fodder was old but clean of mold. After dropping an armful in front of each horse, he hefted the saddlebags and other possessions and darted across the short space to the cabin door. Wood smoke mingling with the clean odor of rain filled his nostrils. Fierce wind tugged at his coat and sought to snatch his hat from his head. Rain pelted the pinewood-shingle roof and streamed from the eaves. Ford flung open the door, burst inside on a blast of wind, and dumped the saddles at his feet. As he slammed the door shut, he paused to catch his breath.
The cabin was a one-room affair with a hard-packed dirt floor, fieldstone hearth, and two tiny windows covered with hide that snapped back and forth as the wind tore at them. A wood-and-rope frame bedstead stood against the wall opposite the hearth. In the center of the floor were a crudely hewn wooden table and two three-legged stools. A rude bench ran along one log wall. A wooden loom, listing to one side on a broken leg, sat in front of the fireplace. Beside the hearth lay a stack of seasoned oak and pine firewood. Pegs on the wall by the door held his rain-soaked greatcoat, which Willa had shed, and her floppy-brimmed felt hat. He stripped off his drenched jacket and hat and hung them beside hers.
Willa was bending over and using a long stick to stoke the fire into a blazing inferno. The rain had slicked down her hair, molding it to her skull and neck and turning it to sleek, shiny black. The deluge had soaked through the greatcoat to her shirt and trousers and transformed them into sheer cloth that clung to her curves. When she leaned over and straightened back up, the muscles in her buttocks and thighs flexed and beckoned to him like the siren song of Circe.
Ford stood mesmerized. His erection pulsed at the erotic images in his mind. When Willa pivoted around, alerted by his sudden silence, she must have identified the heat in his gaze. Her eyes widened, and her expression turned wary. She took a step away from him.
“Why are you looking at me in that manner?” Her voice trembled. Raising her arms, she crossed them over her chest, covering the pointed nipples standing out against the wet fabric.
His heart beat in his throat, but he settled his features into passive disinterest. “In what manner?”
“As if you were a hungry dog who has stumbled across a juicy bone.”
Ford blinked and swallowed his reply.
“What are you thinking?”
He turned away from her tempting body, bent and scooped up a bedroll. “Simply that you must be cold and hungry as well as wet.” He tossed the bedroll to her. “Lay this over that loom to dry.” To his ears, his voice sounded tight with wanting. Ford reflected on their situation as lust screamed through him.
Alone. Alone in a cabin in the woods. Stuck in the wilderness with a storm raging outside. No chance for visitors to drop by. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. Alone. Alone with Willa.
He had only to bide his time. His plan to bind Willa to him would begin tonight. He could have planned the situation no better. He merely had to sneak in past her picket lines and take her by surprise. Thunder rattled the roof shingles. It seemed the gods were in accord.
He moved away, picked up the other bedroll, and flipped it to land beside her where she stood by the loom. Then he hefted the saddles onto the shaky table. The saddle blankets he spread over the stools. Striding to the fire with the saddlebags, he let them fall beside the hearth. On the pretext of warming himself at the flames, he slowly came about to face Willa again. A frown creased her face as she unrolled and hung up the bedrolls. Tension radiated from her shoulders and back. She lowered her gaze, and silky lashes swept her cold-reddened cheeks.
Willa knew. He could see she did. It showed in her face and body, every movement slow and careful, as though she shared the cabin with a bear. A bear with a sore paw. And she was making an effort to remain invisible, nonthreatening, fearing any sudden move would goad him into attack.
A corner of his lip lifted. Rather than warning him off, Willa’s awareness of his condition egged him on and fanned his desire higher. He moved toward her, his footsteps thudding quietly on the dirt floor. She raised her chin and met his hunger with challenge in her eyes. His faint smile stretched into a grin, causing a flicker of fear to surface behind her set expression. Ford stopped before he lost control and lowered Willa to the floor to ravish her. Reining in the spiraling heat in his loins, he gestured to her clothes. “Strip off those wet things, or I shall be obliged to nurse you for the next few days.”
Willa shook her head. Droplets flung outward from the strings of her hair. “I shall be fine. I’m warm now and have a strong constitution. The fire will soon dry my clothes.”
He unbuttoned his shirt. “I find myself unwilling to take that chance. Have you a change of clothes in your saddlebags? Those in mine should be dry. Now disrobe.” Pulling off the shirt, he hung it on the loom with the blankets.
She circled around him to her saddlebags and fished inside them, coming up with a thick, woolen shirt and a pair of worn trousers. She looked inside the other bags and pulled out his dragoon breeches.
“Throw those pants over here,” he said as he peeled his wet trousers off his hips and down his legs.
Willa sucked in a breath as she watched Aidan from the edge of her eye. He still wore his woolen undergarment, but when he slipped it off his shoulders and began to push it down, she turned her head and threw the breeches in his general direction. Her hands started to shake.
“You should not have removed your blindfold.” His chiding voice stung her as sharply as a lash. “'Twas a reckless action.”
She sent him a heated glance. “More reckless than running blind, neck-for-nothing through the forest and taking the chance of tumbling headfirst into a pine tree?” She spun back to the fire and stabbed at the logs. “Do not concern yourself, Lord Montford. I have no notion where we were, where we are now, or where you are taking me. I’m in no danger of spilling the rebel leader’s location to my father and the British army.” He need not know she suspected Marion’s camp was very near the spot where Aidan captured her. She kept that secret safely tucked away. With the shirt and trousers clutched in her hands, she swallowed and searched the room for a private corner beyond the fire’s glow. She would
not
undress in front of Aidan. When his hands landed on her shoulders, she jumped.