Wild legacy (42 page)

"Just listen," Dominique insisted. "I want Mother and Father to believe I'm still pining for Sean and that Etienne was no more than a momentary diversion. Please tell Falcon the truth. I intend to tell Etienne, but not until after your wedding. I don't want anyone to know I'm still seeing him.

"Please help me with this, Belle. I can't bear to have fetienne suffer for something his father did. If Father were to guess that I love him, then he would take steps to keep us apart. But if he believes I don't care, then I'll be free to come and go as I please. I'm not asking you to lie or make excuses for me. Just don't mention Etienne at all."

Belle didn't know which was worse, lying to their parents again, or knowing that Dominique had become her old manipulative self.

Etienne had not been hungry after the awful scene at the Barclays' so he had not missed supper. He had explored the Scott residence and found the empty house reminded him far too much of the one he had been forced to leave. Too sick at heart to search for another home that night, however, he decided to remain.

The bed Belle had offered was comfortable, but when he had lost the only woman he had ever wanted for his wife, he found it impossible to sleep. He lay stretched across the bed, staring up into the darkness and not caring if he saw the dawn. When he heard the back door open, his first thought was that Byron had either sent someone after him or come himself, and he grabbed his knife and waited on the landing. When he heard Dominique whisper his name,

i -*

he dropped the weapon on the hall table and ran down the stairs.

"Mon Dieu!" he cried. "What are you doing here?"

"I know it's after two, but I took the chance you'd find it as impossible to sleep as I have."

"Dominique," he sighed, and gathered her into his arms. He hugged her, then pulled her down beside him on the stairs. "I did not think you would ever come to me."

Dominique leaned across him and ran her hand up his inner thigh. His buckskins were very soft and her touch whisper-light. "Refusing to ask me to choose between my family and you was a wonderfully noble gesture, Etienne, but I already made my choice yesterday afternoon. Didn't you understand that?"

Etienne tried to still her hand, but she continued to knead his thigh with a knowing touch. His breath caught in his throat. "What are you saying?"

Dominique bit his lower lip, then kissed him. "That after I'd given myself to you, you can not give me back to my father." She raked the tip of her thumbnail across his crotch. He was already hard, and pleased she had such a potent affect upon him, she used her fingertips to stroke him lightly. "You asked me to marry you, and I'm going to insist that you keep your word."

£tienne could scarcely breathe, let alone think, with Dominique demanding he honor a promise that he wanted so badly to keep. When she reached for his belt buckle, he knew this was one argument he was never going to win. Then she slid her hand inside his buckskins and he had to lean back against the stairs. With his elbows braced on one step and his head resting on the one above, he was as comfortable as he had been on the grass.

Etienne's grateful moan inspired Dominique to grow even more bold. Her hair was loose, and she let it fall across his bare belly as she dipped her head. He slid his hands through her curls, his garbled French now unintelligible, but his ges-

ture was unmistakable and she swirled her tongue around the crown of his shaft. She had not expected it to be as soft as her breast when he was so hard. Her hands were small, and she could not wrap her fingers all the way around him.

She mimicked the motion he had used inside her while she continued to tease him with her mouth and tongue. "Did you really believe I would let you walk away?"

What Etienne could not believe was how glorious her heated kisses felt. Her mouth was a magical pool that lapped at his very soul and when he could stand no more, he knew he could never carry her upstairs to the bed, and instead pulled her down onto the floor. She was clad in a nightgown that he swept aside easily, entering her with a single, driving thrust; then he had to use all the willpower he possessed not to release his climax in that instant.

He grabbed thick handfuls of her hair and forced himself to speak. "Witch! Do you want to make a slave of me?"

Dominique raised up to lick his lips. "No. Only a husband." She drew him down into a slow, deep kiss, and then ground her hips against his to entice him into an ageless dance. He was what she had always hoped love would be, and even on a plank floor, she felt close to paradise. She kept him locked in her embrace until neither of them wanted, or could stand, more.

"I love you," she breathed against his ear.

Etienne could remember being desperately unhappy only an hour ago, but with Dominique in his arms, he could not recall why. "We ought to go upstairs."

Too relaxed to move, Dominique couldn't agree. "I like it here."

Etienne nuzzled her throat. "I should have waited. It was too soon, and I hurt you again."

"It does not compare to the threat of losing you."

He covered her face with tender kisses. "I will not earn enough with the militia to buy your slippers," he revealed.

"I must own a dozen pairs. I won't need any new ones for years."

He licked her ears. "And your pretty gowns?" he asked. "It will take me more than a year to save enough to buy one."

"I've plenty of those, too." Dominique slid her hand up his arm, then across his shoulder. "I don't need fancy clothes to be happy, Etienne. I need only you."

While Etienne felt her love in her every touch, he could not quite accept his good fortune. "Beau is never going to believe this."

"I don't care whether he does or not. We'll have time to make plans later. For now, just hold me, and everything will be all right."

Also too content to move, Etienne was quiet for a long while, and then propped his head on his elbow. "I want you to know the truth."

Dominique raked her nails across his belly, and then moved her hand lower for a bold caress. "I can feel the truth," she swore.

fetienne caught her hand, and this time held her fast. "Listen to me!" he begged. "When I told my father I was sailing with Lafayette; he gave me your father's name, but it was your mother he wanted killed."

"Oh, my God," Dominique gasped. She felt sick, and escaped his embrace to sit up. She reached for her nightgown to cover her breasts even though their bodies were heavily veiled by shadows. "What made you change your mind? Or do you still plan to do it?" That he might also kill her was her next thought, but if she could not trust her heart, she did not care to live.

Etienne longed to hold her, but waited for her to return to him willingly. "I begged you not to blame me for my father's crimes. I have no quarrel with your parents, and they have nothing to fear from me, but I want you to know

everything. I would love to show you France, but I do not dare take you home while my father is alive."

Ashamed for doubting him if only for an instant, Dominique reached up to touch his silken curls. "And you can't stay here with me when my parents refuse to accept you, so we'll have to find someplace new, my love."

Etienne wanted to believe her, but couldn't. "How can you give up everything when you have so much?"

Dominique answered his question with a searing kiss. "I left home last summer because my life was so empty I couldn't bear it. This time, I'll leave because you have made my life so full. If my parents can't accept you, then their love comes at too high a price. As for everything my family's wealth provides, they are only things, after all, and don't compare to you."

Still not quite able to believe he had won the heart of such a dear young woman, Etienne carried Dominique up the stairs. He made love to her again in Ian Scott's feather bed, and while he did not make the promise aloud, he vowed for as long as he lived to make her proud to be his wife. As for Dominique, leaving him before dawn was the most difficult thing she had ever done.

She held Etienne's face in her hands and begged him to understand. "I can't come back here. The risk is simply too great that I'll be caught, and you'll be the one to suffer. I intend to give my parents a choice after the wedding. They can either allow us to wed that same afternoon, or I'll leave with you and not return."

"Dominique—"

"No. You must agree. I'll want you every minute, but I also want Belle and Falcon to wed without any anger or sorrow about us to spoil their happiness. If my parents are half as good as I believe them to be, then they'll put aside their old hatreds and welcome you as a son."

Etienne knew just how far he would get should he ask

his father to regard Dominique as a daughter, and felt utterly defeated. "I don't want you to be hurt."

Dominique kissed him tenderly. "Then you will not even think of leaving Williamsburg without me," she insisted. "We'll make such handsome children together, Etienne, but I don't want to have to raise the first alone."

The idea that they might have already made a child was staggering, but Etienne hoped that they had. "I wanted what was best for you," he explained. "Now I understand what is best for you is to be with me."

"Thank you. I'll see you at the wedding."

foienne walked her almost all the way home, then stood down by the river until he was certain she was in the house safely. He waited for a lamp to be lit or any sign someone had noted her absence, but all was still in the beautiful house. He walked back to Ian Scott's, and now considered it a fine place to live, but he did not think he could survive two weeks without making love to Dominique.

thus far, Etienne had been too distracted to offer any plans of his own. "You don't trust her, do you?"

Caught off guard, Etienne grew defensive. "Don't trust who?"

Feeling more relaxed, Falcon propped his hands behind his head. "Dominique, of course. Who else? You'll be getting married on Saturday, too. Your suit is being tailored, and you'll have everything else you require. You ought to buy her ring yourself, though. Do you have any money?"

"Some." Etienne swallowed hard and began to pace beside Falcon's bed. "I know I should have a ring, but if Dominique changes her mind, it would be a sad keepsake."

"Look at you!" Falcon exclaimed. "You're almost as handsome as me, and nearly as clever. Why would she change her mind?"

Etienne laughed easily at Falcon's joke, for it was not his appearance or intelligence that troubled him. He went to the window and looked out. Falcon's room faced the fields, and for as far as his eye could see, this was Barclay land. That Etienne owned nothing except his good name, which Byron refused to accept, still troubled him. "Is there really good land in the Ohio Valley?" he asked.

"Yes. That's why the French fought so hard to keep it. You and Dominique ought to come with us, Etienne. We get along well together, and Belle and Dominique would have each other as best friends. Did you hope to return to sea and leave Dominique languishing in port for months at a time?"

Etienne laughed at the ridiculousness of that thought. "Dominique is not the type to languish," he replied.

Falcon nodded to concede the point. "No. She would undoubtedly begin selling herbal remedies, or designing fine gowns, or open an academy for girls, but she would not be unfaithful to you. Why don't you trust her?"

Etienne could have explained in French, but it was a difficult concept to relate in English to a man who never held

any doubts. "Perhaps it is because my father could not win her mother's love. It may not be our fate to be together, either."

"My God! Where do you get your ideas?" Falcon cried. "Sit down and I'll tell you a couple of love stories that are so tangled you won't believe your ears." He definitely had Etienne's attention then, and when the Frenchman was comfortably seated, Falcon began with his own parents' tale. "Did you realize that while Christian and I are brothers, his mother was my Uncle Byron's sister, while my mother is Byron's cousin? If you feel out of place here, can you imagine my father, a Seneca brave right out of the woods, walking into this mansion and taking not one beautiful Barclay woman, but two?"

Etienne's mouth fell agape. "I had no idea."

"The Seneca view the world differently than white men do," Falcon explained. "A Seneca brave owns nothing other than his buckskins, moccasins, and his hunting implements. The women own everything else—the fields where they grow their food, and the longhouses in which whole families live. It's the women who select the chief, and remove him if his decisions don't benefit the tribe. When a man marries, he goes to live in his wife's house, with her family. They believe it is a fine way to organize things, so my father has never cared that this was not his house or his land. He is complete in himself, Etienne, which is a good way for a man to think."

Etienne did not have to ponder that idea to appreciate its value. "So we could go to the Ohio Valley, build houses for our wives, clear land for them, and then hunt and fish and simply be men?"

Falcon responded with a ready grin. "The Seneca way has always held great appeal for me, and I can see that it does for you, too. Now let me tell you about the rest of this fine family."

More than an hour passed before Etienne understood

what trials the Barclays had overcome to become the harmonious family he had met. What amused him most was that Christian could call Ian Scott father, and yet had pursued Ian's daughter and made her his wife. He liked that enormously. "Audacity is the right word, is it not?" he asked.

Falcon nodded. "If we had a family crest, that would definitely be in the motto. You belong with us, Etienne. Bring Dominique to the Ohio Valley, and we'll begin a dynasty that will put the Barclays of Virginia to shame."

It had been the wild streak in Falcon that Etienne had first admired, and striking out on their own was incredibly appealing. He nodded, and decided no matter what Dominique had asked, he had been alone too long. He was smiling as he left, and the autumn sky was suddenly a brighter blue. He had kept the horse Falcon had given him and rode him into Williamsburg that afternoon to buy Dominique a wedding ring. Falcon had told him where to go and what size to purchase, and he bought the prettiest one he could afford.