“What the…” The hard fingers relaxed their grip immediately. “Lierin?”
Even with the covering of darkness she could feel his closely peering perusal. A blush warmed her cheeks as his gaze dipped to her bosom, and timidly she hugged her arms across her chest.
Ashton knew not what miracle had brought reality to his dream, and though he was most appreciative of her apparel, or the lack of it, there was a need for haste. “For whatever reason you’ve come, my love, I’m deeply grateful,” he murmured huskily, “but I think we should adjourn to my quarters, considering the man on watch will be making his rounds along this deck any moment now.”
Lenore was spurred to action at the idea of being caught in such disarray and made an abbreviated plea as she hurried toward his cabin. “My shirt…”
Ashton swept up the garments and followed, stepping close behind her when she halted at the door and fumbled with the knob. His arm came around in front of her to perform the service, and Lenore closed her eyes and shivered with suppressed longings as his hard, furred chest pressed against her bare back. The contact was no less explosive for Ashton. It sent the hot blood rushing into his loins, and somewhere between the opening and closing of the door, her coat and shirt left his other hand. Her pale shoulders gleamed in the golden glow of the cabin lamp, inflaming his mind with the sight. His arm curled about her, gathering her close, and a low moan slipped from Lenore as his hands began a questing search of her soft breasts. The cap tumbled to the floor as she leaned her head back against his shoulder and the loosely curling tresses spilled free, filling his head with a heady fragrance. The thin breeches gave her little protection from the burning heat of his arousal or the hand that stroked beneath them. This was not what she had come for, but every nerve and fiber of her being cried out for him to take her, to make her his own again. It was agony to think of denying him.
“We mustn’t…” she pleaded in a frail, weak whisper. “Ashton, please…we cannot do this thing now.”
“We must,” he breathed against her ear and pressed fevered kisses upon her throat. To have her close again fulfilled every notion of what was right for him. “We must…”
He bent and lifted her in his arms. In two long strides he was to the bed, that same haven wherein they had in times past enjoyed the full tide of rapturous bliss. He laid her down, and his burning gaze swept her in a longing caress; then he was there beside her, taking her in his arms again. Lenore placed a hand upon his naked chest and turned her face aside, trying to avoid his heady kisses before they besotted her mind. “I only came here to warn you, Ashton.” Her tone was one of desperation. “Malcolm will try to kill you if you come ashore. You must go away.”
Ashton lifted his head and stared down at her with hungering hazel eyes. Sometimes love could come and go like the errant winds that were wont to sweep the shore; then again, it could be a timeless thing that distance, years, and hardships could not defeat. For Ashton it had been around for more than a trio of years, and she was rooted at the very core of his life. The note she had left was meant to convince him that she was Lenore and that she was doing the right thing, but how could he agree when she had taken his heart with her? “Forget Malcolm and all he’s tried to tell you. Stay with me, Lierin, and I will leave here. If need be, I’ll take you to the ends of the earth.”
Tears began to course down her cheeks. “Oh, Ashton, can’t you see? You want her and not me.”
“I want you!”
“I’m not the woman you think I am, Ashton. I’m Lenore, not Lierin.”
“Your memory…” he began hesitantly, almost fearfully. “Has it returned?”
“No.” She did not dare meet his gaze. “But I must be Lenore. My own father has said I am.”
“Your father hated me, remember. He has cause to hold us apart if he can.”
“He wouldn’t go that far,” she argued.
Ashton let his breath out in a long sigh. “If you insist, I’ll call you Lenore, but it changes nothing. In my heart you’re still my wife…you’re still part of me.”
“You must leave here,” she urged anxiously. “You must go and save yourself.”
“Will you come with me?” he pressed.
“I can’t, Ashton.” Her voice was tiny. “I must go back. I must know the truth.”
“Then I will stay…and I will fight for you until this thing is settled.”
“Oh, please…please, Ashton,” she begged wearily. “I won’t be able to bear it if anything happens to you.”
“I can’t go back. I am bound to stay.”
She shook her head in exasperation. “You’re as stubborn as they say you are. Why don’t you accept the inevitable?”
“The inevitable?” He rolled on his back with a harsh laugh and stared up at the low ceiling above his bed. “For three years I searched, but I could find no woman to take your place. I was a man, and yet I could not settle back into the relaxed standards of a rutting bachelor. I had this burning hunger in my loins that haunted me, but I could find no release. Call me bedeviled. Call me mad. Call me hopelessly and completely in love with a dream that only you can fulfill.” Rolling his head on the pillow, he gazed at her. “I know what it was like without you, and I want no more of it. I have come to fight, my love, and fight I will.”
Lenore raised herself until she rested on his chest. She made no effort to pull the sheet between them, but allowed her naked breasts to press upon that bare and broad expanse. Her eyes were tender with devotion as they caressed his face, and her lips curved in a wistful smile. “We make a pair, the two of us, wanting what we cannot have. I must go back, and you are determined to stay. Yet if I could, I would persuade you differently.” She hesitated a moment; then somewhat ashamed of the proposal she was about to make, she continued without meeting his gaze: “If I give myself to you now, for the moment allowing that you may be right in thinking I am your wife, will you leave before some harm comes to you?”
Ashton lifted her until she lay full length upon him. There was no mistaking his ability to accept her offer, but he slowly shook his head. “I cannot make such a pact, my love, even though it would serve to ease my present desire. I love you too much to be satisfied with a parting gesture. I want all of you, and I will settle for nothing less.”
She heaved a weary sigh. “Then I must go.”
“There’s no need to leave now. Stay with me for a while. Let me love you.”
“It’s not right anymore, Ashton. I belong to Malcolm now.”
A deep scowl drew his brows down sharply, and he glanced away, tormented with jealousy. The muscles in his cheeks twitched as he resisted the urge to tell her how he had found the precise location of the house. A tour of the taverns in Biloxi had turned up not only a handful of Robert’s drinking cronies but an interesting array of strumpets as well. It seemed more than a few had serviced the libertine Sinclair. “I don’t like the thought of your going back to him.”
“I must,” she whispered. A light brush of her lips against his, and she slipped away from him. Smiling down into the eyes that watched her, she donned the torn shirt and jacket and gathered her hair beneath the cap.
“I’ll take you back,” he sighed, swinging his long legs over the side of the bed and rising to his feet.
The memory of the exhausting trip was fresh in Lenore’s mind, and she was not anxious to argue with him. “But how will you get back?”
“I’ll tie another dinghy behind and return in that.” He reached for a shirt and felt her hand glide admiringly over his flexing ribs as he slipped it on. The gentle caress made him tremble with longing, and he stared down at her, wanting to take her in his arms but knowing there would be no turning back if he yielded to the desire. His mouth moved to whisper the words that were aching to be said: “I love you.”
“I know,” she murmured quietly, “and I love you.”
“If I didn’t think you’d grow to hate me, I’d keep you here, but it’s a choice you’ll have to make. Until you do, I’ll be near enough to come to your aid if you should need me.” He placed a small derringer in her hand. “I’ve shown you how to use this. I can hear a shot from the house. Just keep out of harm’s way until I get there.”
He took her back to shore, and after a last parting kiss, Lenore made her way to the upper veranda. She leaned against the balustrade as she watched him row out, then entered her room, heaving a forlorn sigh. She was already lonely.
Chapter Eleven
THE muffled weeping became a reality that intruded into Lenore’s slumber with the same rude gall as the morning light that pierced the panes of the east windows. Both were annoying and equally difficult to dismiss as she sought to retreat to the sweet solace of sleep. After returning from the River Witch, she had drifted immediately into a peaceful bliss of dreams. She dearly longed to spend the morning in that same languid slumber, letting the rest of the world pass by. It was not to be. One hazard of having a room with numerous windows and wide french doors that faced the sea and sat at an angle to the southern hemisphere was its vulnerability to the rising sun. The dawning rays spread across her bed in a radiating brightness, while the sorrowful sobs relentlessly pursued her beneath her pillow. There, the realization finally penetrated that someone on the porch was grieving.
Coming fully awake, Lenore flung herself from the bed and snatched on her dressing gown as she flew to the french doors. She ran out onto the veranda and, casting her gaze along the porch, saw Meghan standing near the balustrade. Heavy sobs shook the woman’s shoulders as she stared teary-eyed toward the beach. In much bemusement Lenore followed the woman’s gaze and saw Malcolm and Robert near the dinghy. Two other men were peering under a piece of canvas that was spread across the boat, something which had not been present when she and Ashton left the craft. She was puzzled by their apparent interest in the boat and even more confused by the servant’s weeping.
“Meghan, what’s wrong?” Lenore went to the maid and laid a comforting arm about her trembling shoulders. “Whatever is the matter?”
The woman struggled to form the words to answer her mistress, but her efforts seemed in vain as tears continued to spill down her plump cheeks. “It’s Mary, mum,” the servant finally managed. “The chore boy was going out early this morning to see if he could catch some fish for tonight’s supper, and he found Mary dead and naked in the boat. The sheriff says she was murdered.”
“Murdered?” Lenore stared at the woman, too stunned to grasp the realization. Mary had seemed so sweet and eager to please; she could hardly believe that anyone would want to hurt her. She blinked at the moisture that welled in her own eyes and spoke in a tone of dismay: “But I took the dinghy myself and rowed out to the River Witch. Mr. Wingate brought me back about four this morning.”
“Oh, mum, ye’d better not tell the sheriff that. Mr. Sinclair is claimin’ that she was killed by someone on the River Witch, an’ if he finds out yer man was here on shore, he’s sure to accuse him.”
“But that’s nonsense! I saw Ashton row back to the steamer in his own boat. I had a better chance at murdering her than he did.”
Meghan shook her head dolefully. “She was raped, mum.”
“Raped?” Lenore repeated the word with a gasp. “But who would do such a thing?”
“I don’t know, mum. I was fast asleep meself, an’ it weren’t until the lad come screamin’ through the house that I had any inklin’ o’ what had been done to that poor, dear chil’. What of ye, mum? Did ye see anyone on the beach after Mr. Wingate left?”
“No, no one at all,” Lenore answered. Nor had she heard any sound out of the ordinary, only the muffled snores coming from her father’s room. Once within the comfort of her bed, she had been lulled into a sweet, dreamy oblivion, thinking of Ashton, and nothing had disturbed that peace. “What is the sheriff going to do?”
“Well, mum, I s’pose he’s goin’ to be questionin’ the lot o’ us an’ then yer Mr. Wingate an’ his crew. Mary an’ the coachman were sweet on each other, so Henry might be the one to really catch it. He seems like such a nice man, though.”
Lenore’s knees turned to jelly as invading impressions sought to push their horror upon her. The vision of the man being beaten by a poker was now familiar to her, but in a momentary glimpse she saw the darkly cloaked form of the murderer begin to whirl upon her with the iron still clasped in his hand. A cold sweat made her skin clammy as the illusion faded, but it was a full moment before she could clear her mind of the haunting fear and return her thoughts to the present moment. She took several deep breaths to slow her racing heart and made a belated observation: “The murderer doesn’t have to be any of the men around here, Meghan. If Mary was working in Biloxi before she came here, she could have attracted someone from town.”
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