Every Time I Love You (15 page)

“He'd be so happy, Brent.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah. I know so.”

He whirled her around and around. “We dance well together, don't you think?” He asked.

“Beyond the shadow of a doubt.”

She hadn't had a drop to drink yet, but she couldn't help smiling like a silly drunkard. It was so beautiful. The lights were falling down upon them like sunrays, and she was dizzy and flushed and it seemed that her feet barely touched the floor. She could vaguely hear people whispering, and she knew what they were saying—that she and Brent were beautiful together, that it was magical—

“It will never last. It can't last.”

At the head table with Liz, Chad, Geoff, Gary McCauley, and his girlfriend Trish, Tina sighed and made the comment. Liz swallowed another sip of champagne, and shook her head woefully at Tina.

“What on earth are you talking about? They're gorgeous out there. I'm green with envy.” She sighed softly, resting her chin upon her hands and staring out at the floor. “Know what they remind me of? The end of
Sleeping Beauty
when Aurora and the Prince are just dancing and dancing and two of the good fairies keep zapping her gown from blue to pink. And she's just oblivious to it all because she's dancing with her prince...”

Geoff laughed at Liz and Liz flushed and Tina admitted that they were beautiful. “But it's too soon! They barely know each other.”

“I think they know each other very well,” Geoff stated firmly. “And Liz, you're either a great romantic or a complete nut case. Come on, let's dance.”

The floor began to fill with people. Jonathan McCauley cut in on his son, and Brent danced with his mother. The band played waltzes and ballads at first, then it showed its versatility by switching to numbers by the Police and Crowded House, before settling down to a series of Beatles tunes. Brent and Gayle danced and ate roast filet of beef and sautéed asparagus tips and wild rice and sipped champagne and laughed and talked with friends.

Suddenly Brent swept her dramatically off her feet. She laughed, staring into his eyes. “What's this?” she whispered.

“Your garter,” he said, shrugging with a lopsided smile. “We might as well do it up right.”

She was still laughing when he sat her down on a chair in the center of the room. The drummer let out a roll, and all eyes turned to them. Geoffrey called out something; then a riot of ribald shouts and wolf whistles followed.

Brent bowed and knelt down before her.

She had been laughing, right until that moment.

Then, as she stared down at his bowed head, it seemed that the room began to spin again.

No!
She cried in silent anguish.
No, not again...

Gayle gripped the rim of the chair. Behind her smile she clenched her teeth as tightly as she could.

But something was wrong; something was very wrong. She could have sworn that they had done this before. That she had been frightened, terribly frightened. And he had touched her like this. There had been no drumroll and there had been no laughter. But he had touched her. She had felt his fingers moving up her leg; she had heard his heated whispers...

The blackness was starting to surround her again. She closed her eyes briefly and prayed.
No, please God, no, please don't let me pass out again. This is my wedding day. Please...

“Gayle?”

She opened her eyes, and she swallowed. People were laughing. It seemed that Geoffrey had caught the garter with absolutely no effort. It had landed around his champagne glass.

“Gayle, are you all right?” Brent asked, holding both her hands.

“I'm fine.” No one else had seen it this time. He had spoken her name and he had drawn her back.

But Brent knew. Brent had seen her pallor, and he knew.

Knew what?
She wondered desperately. This was her wedding. This was the happiest day of her life.

She jumped to her feet, pulling him with her. She tried a radiant smile. “I have to throw my bouquet.”

Tina caught her bouquet—naturally, Gayle had tried to throw it to her, but over-the-shoulder aiming had never been one of her talents. By the time it was all accomplished, the eerie feeling of deja vu had left Gayle, and she laughed easily with the others as they posed Geoff and Tina together for a picture and then another with Gayle and Brent.

At last it was time to leave. Tears welled up inside of her all over again as she kissed Brent's family and then Tina and Liz and Geoff, but soon she was laughing through the tears because Brent had chosen to change into a pair of stone-washed jeans and a wild Maui T-shirt, and he just looked so very different!

Another shower of rice swept over them, and they raced out to the limousine that would take them to the airport.

Alone in the limo, they engaged in a long, leisurely kiss, until Brent pulled away from her.

“Are you really all right?” he asked her huskily.

“I am really all right,” she promised him softly, her eyes aglow as she studied the face she so adored. She stroked his cheek. “I have never been happier.”

He slipped his arm around her. “I love you more than anything in this world, more than I had ever imagined it possible to love. More than life...”

It was a special moment. One she would cherish all her life. It held at bay the strange fear that plagued her.

Until they were aboard their plane. Then Gayle drifted into a doze, and again, gray, disjointed pieces of dream and nightmare returned to haunt her.

CHAPTER 10

The Lovers

Williamsburg, Virginia July 1774

Dusk had fallen. He waited for her by the corral, hidden in the dying light by the leaves of an old shade elm. Curiously he fingered the note again and again. He smiled and he brought the fine vellum paper to his face to inhale the violet fragrance that scented her stationery.

Meet me at the corral. At dusk. Katrina.

That simple a message. No kind or tender words, no hesitation. It was almost abrupt. It didn't matter. He didn't know her game, but he would play it. Since he had touched her, he had known that he would move heaven and earth to have her. And though she could run from him, she could never flee from that which simmered and sizzled and flamed between them. A man could not love so quickly, he told himself; but he did. Everything else in his life had been child's play. The dances, the reels, the flirtations, the lessons learned from whores and the chambermaids, and even a refined but lonely widow or two. A touch, a kiss, a flirtation, an affair; nothing compared with this. Nothing had so taken his heart and mind, so distracted him from thought and reason.

James had warned him that it would be a trick. The British already had arrest warrants out for a number of men in Boston. This isn't Massachusetts, Percy argued. If and when the colonies chose the path of separation, Virginia would stand hard and firm—it would be the British who would run, the Tories who would be called traitors.

That time had not yet come, James had told him.

Percy idly crossed his ankles, and leaned back against the bark of the tree. A wistful smile touched his features, and the night breeze blew a lock of ebony-dark hair across his forehead.

None of it mattered, Percy knew. If she brought with her the sure promise of hell and damnation, he would be here still, waiting for her.

There seemed to be a sudden whisper in the wind, a rustling in the foliage. Percy quickly slipped beyond the tree and waited, his heart pounding. Someone in a dark cape and hood moved about in the darkness.

Katrina had not known that it would be quite so frightening. At night, with the darkness growing and the trees seeming to wave and weave ominously, the town itself seemed very far away. Moving from doorway to doorway, tree to tree, trying to blend with the darkness, she had thought again and again that she should leave. She should run. She should disappear.

There would be nowhere to run. Nowhere far enough away to run. She had wanted to come closer to Percy Ainsworth. She had wanted to touch him. Like a moth, she'd had to kiss the flame, and now she was doomed to pay. It was a bitter irony.

A night bird shrieked suddenly in the darkness, and she nearly cried out. She could barely distinguish the horses in the corral. She could hear the distant strains of conversation and laughter coming from the tavern. Inside, she knew, small bands of men met. They talked and they talked. They toiled, wrote, and planned. Rebellion. They were traitors. They were all traitors. And Percy was one of them. She had to remember that.

She could not see him. The sun had fallen completely; the moon—a half crescent—was making a slow ascent into the night sky. Katrina swallowed briefly, remembering all the old tales she had heard about Indian raids. There were no Indians around here now. They were long gone. She was still afraid of the darkness, of the whisper of the wind, of the skeletal fingers of the trees.

“Percy?”

She whispered his name and stepped into the clearing. A sound came from behind her and a hand clamped over her face. She tried to scream, but the hand was too tight, and she was dizzy and weak with the terror of it.

“Shh! It's me!” She heard his voice, quiet and commanding. He didn't release her though, not until he had taken her back into the shadow of the elms. When they were there, he tossed back the hood of her cape, and he stared down into her eyes.

They were cobalt by night, a tempest of emotion. He mustn't be fooled, he warned himself. “You are alone?” he asked her.

She nodded.

“What are you doing here? You ran rather briskly before, if I recall correctly. You swore that you hated me, and you ran.”

She tried to lower her head. He caught her chin and raised her eyes back to his. “I am alone!” she told him. “And—and I do not hate you.”

Her heart seemed to hammer and slam against her chest. She could not go through with this. Her brother and his loyalist friends were fools; they did not know him. They had not encountered ebony eyes that could sparkle with laughter and darken like the devil's own with suspicion and mistrust. He was young, with the passion and aggression of youth, yet full grown to power; and through the fascination, the fear remained.

“Why have you come, Katrina?” His voice was harsh, uncompromising. Tonight he was not the man who had whispered so eloquently of love.

“I wished to see you.”

“Why?”

She stared at him, then ran from him toward the fence where she stared out into the darkness of the corral. “Mr. Ainsworth,” she said softly, “surely you've room for some compassion and mercy in your heart!”

He came beside her. “Don't play the flirtatious little coquette with me anymore, Katrina. I am not one of your brother's fool lackeys in a red coat or high-court macaroni fashion. We have played this game too long. You know that I love you and you know that I want you. So tell, simply, why are you here?”

He caught her shoulders. He slowly turned her around. He ground his jaw down hard, fiercely reminding himself that she was the sister of Henry Seymour. She was a well-bred young lady from a sheltered home. He had moved too quickly with her. He could not bear her playing the flirt, but neither would he tread anything but gently with her. He would take care when he touched her. He would recall the innocence of her eyes and the angel's pale gold of her hair in order to stem the flow of urgency that came from the seductive feel of a woman's form within his arms. But still, he would have the truth from her now.

He lowered his voice but spoke still with a ruthless command. “Why, Katrina?”

“Because I am sorry!” she whispered.

He looked down at her for several long moments. He smoothed his thumbs over her cheeks tenderly. He thought that her skin was like silk. She was so very young and beautiful.

He looked from her to the darkness of the road beyond them; then he gazed across the corral and pasture to the door of the barn. He looked around them both again and saw nothing but the darkness of the night and the shapes and the forms of the horses and the trees and, in the far distance, the rolling landscape.

“Come on,” he told her. He slipped the hood back up about her head and face and set his arm around her shoulders. Quickly, he led her across the open space to the barn. Inside, he closed and bolted the door, then fumbled in the darkness to find the lantern. He lit it and raised it high, setting it into the bracket by the door. He wandered on into the barn. In the center of it he paused, drawing his frock coat from his shoulders, folding it neatly over the gate of a stall. He turned back to Katrina, who still hovered in the doorway.

He bowed to her. “May I take your cloak, milady?”

She shook her head nervously, remaining where she was. Percy did not come to her. He was different tonight. He taunted her, took what he wanted; but always he was eloquent and somehow gentle. Tonight he seemed to prowl with vibrant energy. The air was charged around them and she wondered at herself, incredulous that she had come here with him, alone.

She knew what he wanted of her. Once she had been so haughty, and now she doubted her own ability to resist him. His kisses were a narcotic that robbed her of strength; his touch was a drug that set fire to her very soul.

But he did not touch her then. Perhaps he knew her treachery. She feared him if he did.

He walked on farther, then sat against the high pile of hay stashed in the corner, stretching out his long legs, grinning to her as he selected a piece of the stuff to chew upon.

“The accommodations are not much, I must admit. But do have a seat.”

She smiled and he loved her smile. She was shy and nervous here, but it came so quickly to her lips. She stepped into the room, not far yet, but closer. At last she paused where he had done so, and she untied her hooded cloak at the throat. It fell gracefully from her, and she laid it with his coat upon the stall gate. She was so, so beautiful, he thought. Her hair was down, no ties to bind it this night. It was a golden wave that cascaded about her, and he could not help but imagine it spread beneath her or wound around his naked flesh.

Fool, he warned himself, do not think such thoughts. He could imagine himself going to Lord Henry Seymour—and asking for his sister's hand in marriage. Lord Seymour might well have apoplexy.

He patted the hay beside him. “Come. Sit. I promise, I am no wolf. I will not bite you.”

“Ah, but dear sir, I believe that I have been bitten!” She grinned quickly, with a flash of sultry humor touching her eyes, and he wondered fleetingly what she was thinking. He was convinced of her innocence—but maybe all women were born with the ability to seduce.

Or maybe just a few...

She set a hand upon the structural pole and swirled around it. “It is dangerous to come too close.”

He shrugged, chewing idly on the hay, but watching her more carefully. “Dangerous, Katrina, for which one of us, I wonder?”

She stood silent, and he thought again that she was so beautiful. She was like a young doe that night. It seemed that she would bolt again, when she had only just come.

“Katrina!”

She turned to him.

“It is done,” he warned her. “The games are over. The teasing and the flirting—they are done. If you have come to taunt me again, I warn you, run now.”

She lowered her head. “If I have taunted you, I am sorry. But you, Percy, are as guilty as I, for you were first to drag me here.”

“Aye. But you see, I always knew that I loved you.”

She looked up, startled at the tenderness in his tone.

Percy stood, pushing himself up from the hay. He came over to her and took her hands in his own. He wanted to tell her that she must choose her side, and that her choice must lie with him, for he did love her. He looked at her, and all he saw was the liquid beauty of her eyes and the shining, rosy moisture of her slightly parted lips.

He kissed her.

He held her fragile chin in his hand, and he kissed her. Her lips were parted and she offered him no protest, and he filled her mouth more fully with the taste and texture of his own, sweeping each sweet crevice with the seduction of his tongue. Her arms were around him too. Hesitantly, she returned the kiss. Her hands fell upon his shoulders; then she grew bolder, and her fingertips raked through his hair. She darted the pink tip of her tongue against his lips and over his teeth.

He swept his arms around her hard, and he brought her to the hay, still kissing her. And when they fell there his lips continued to know her, to seek, to devour, to savor, and taste. He stroked her throat with the brush of his fingers, and he kissed it. Her breasts, high, young, firm, beautiful, were pressed full against her bodice, and he buried his face within their shadowed seduction. He felt her tremble, and he rose above her and saw that her breath came fast and shallow, that her eyes, wide and dilated, were upon him with the cornflower color of a cloudless day, innocent, and beautiful...

And trusting.

His own hands trembled.

He set them against her bodice, pulling upon the ribbons there and the ties and the bindings. Her breasts spilled free to him, and his caress upon them was the most tender touch he had ever dealt. And then tenderness was lost because a passion unlike any he had ever known seized hold of him, and he meant to seduce her quickly, and with no mercy.

Tease him,
Henry had ordered her.
Flirt and cajole, and play the haughty minx, my dear, as you are so very fond of doing. Laugh and smile and bat your lashes, for the fool is falling in love with you. Talk to him, and bring me names and dates and places.

Talk to him...

Her brother's words left her mind as quickly as they had come, for Henry was the fool. Percy was different.

And she was the fool, for she was falling in love with him. She could not flirt; she could not cajole. Henry did not understand; this was no boy, but a man. She could do nothing but follow his lead, and where he led, she ached to go.

She moistened her lips, staring up at him. She had to stop this now. “Percy!” Her voice was breathless. “No! We mustn't—”

“Why did you come?” he demanded harshly, his eyes nearly black.

“Because—”

“Why?” The single word was snapped so abruptly she felt as if she had been physically struck.

“Not for this—”

“So you do play the tart, the tease, the whore—”

She slapped him with all her strength. Startled, he brought his hand to his face. Katrina shoved against him, struggling from beneath him. “Don't you ever—”

“No!” She was upon her knees. He caught her wrists. He dragged her back to him, holding her close. “Damn you, Katrina Seymour! It is over, haven't you understood? If you come to me as a woman, then so help me, I will have you as one!”