A Season Beyond a Kiss (36 page)

Jeff cocked a brow above a lopsided grin as he peered askance at his young wife. “Guess Red Pete knew what he was doing when he made a fair-sized batch.”

“You have the next one,” Raelynn invited generously. Still, her eyes closely followed his progress as he broke off a portion and lifted it to his mouth. She licked her lips, relishing it for him, and was surprised when he reached out with a chuckle and popped it into her mouth. Giggling, she pressed her fingers to her lips and wiped away the spots of grease as she chewed. At length, she swallowed and smilingly complained, “You’re going to make me fat.”

“You were destined to face that fate ere I gave you the fritters, madam,” he teased, stepping back from the heat of the fire. As she turned to face him, he reached down a hand and smoothed the shirt over her stomach. “Just wait a few months. You’ll be waddling down the halls.”

Raelynn’s eyes lifted to his smiling face before they slipped downward over the length of him. Although she had been aware of the fact that her husband was tall, she had never really gotten a clear sense of his height until now. Perhaps the fact that he seemed as tall as a giant had much to do with the fact that his shadow stretched out behind him to the far side of the room and halfway up the vaulted ceiling.

Since they had been married in the heat of summer, she had never before had an occasion to observe him by the warm glow of a single hearth. His sun-bronzed skin seemed to glow with a radiance of its own as the bright flames highlighted the muscular expanse of his shoulders, the hard contour of his male breasts and the tautly fleshed ribs. As he loomed over her in all of his manly magnificence, it was somewhat like seeing a fabled god come to life.

Raelynn stepped away, troubled by the feelings he awakened within her even in the face of her suspicions. As he busied himself setting the food upon the table, she perused him with careful diligence, trying to discern some hint of the inner man. Although such manly perfection might well belong to a murderer, what of his character? Could a bright and noble temperament change with chameleon-like swiftness and, in a moment of rage, become something dark and tainted?

Jeff scooped up the last of the fritters and venison onto a platter and placed it on the table, announcing as he did so, “Dinner is ready, madam.”

Raelynn stepped near. “Tell me what happened the other night,” she pleaded in a whisper, finding it difficult to think of him as a depraved killer. “I mean, before I found you in the horse stall with Nell’s body.”

Jeff arched a dark eyebrow reprovingly. “Have you finally decided to give me a fair hearing, madam? Would it assuage your fears now that we’re alone if you could find something in my claims of innocence to which you could give credence?”

Raelynn clasped a trembling hand to her forehead as she stated desperately, “I only know what I saw in the stable frightened me beyond anything I had ever experienced and that you were there, at the very core of that bloody scene.”

“Our food is now hot, madam, but that fact won’t last if you insist upon hearing the facts,” her husband stated bluntly, pulling a chair out from the table for her. “And I, for one, am starved. If you aren’t, then I have no doubt our child is.”

Slipping into the proffered seat, she watched him move around to the opposite side of the table. “Are you going to tell me, Jeffrey?”

“Later perhaps. Right now, I don’t want to ruin my appetite by remembering that gore. I’m sure you haven’t yet considered the distress I suffered by being the one who discovered Nell. Believe it or not, madam, her murder bothered me, too. I can’t think back on it without wanting to retch.”

Raelynn understood completely and sought to find another topic. “Where are we going to sleep?”

“We’ll have to share my bedroll unless you want to snuggle down in Red Pete’s bed.”

“I’d rather not.” She abhorred the idea of sleeping in a strange man’s bed. “I don’t suppose you’d consider . . .”

“Not a chance. Red Pete swears there’s no place in the Bible where it says that cleanliness is next to godliness. The tub I fetched for your bath had at least a week’s worth of dust in it, and I’m not of a mind to bed down in another man’s filth. I’m sorry, madam, but it looks as if you’ll have to contend with my presence in the bedroll or roll yourself up in a wet blanket.”

“You’re not being very chivalrous,” she complained mutedly.

Jeff snorted in disgust. “I don’t suppose the fact that I let you dismiss me from your bed after I risked my life to rescue you from Gustav could be considered gallant,” he retorted. “But, know this, I’m not of a mind to let it happen again. That much I’ve decided. We’ll at least share a bed, madam, if nothing else.”

“You would force me . . . ?”

“Hell and damnation, Raelynn, no!” he barked. “But neither am I going to let you throw me out of our bed or flee to another bedroom. I watched my brother agonize for months on end because he had distanced himself from Heather. I don’t intend to be so foolish. As long as you live under my roof, madam, you’ll share my bed.”

“How easily you forget the conditions I set forth for our marriage,” she retorted. “You agreed, then, to give me time . . .”

“That was
before
you yielded yourself to the idea of becoming intimate with me.” Canting his head slightly, Jeff met her gaze at an angle. “Just tell me one damn thing, madam. What am I to you? Your puppet on a string, that I should dance at your bidding, and then, when you’ve grown bored or vexed with me, allow myself to be tossed into a shadowed corner of your life, where I must wait patiently until the mood strikes your fancy and you take me up again and expect me to perform for your pleasure? By damned, I’ll not be at
any
woman’s beck and call, not even yours, my dear! You’ll either conform to this marriage or we will have no marriage at all.”

Raelynn lifted her chin obstinately. “I failed to tell you, sir, that I was heading for Charleston when you found me.”

The green eyes chilled as they met hers squarely. “You were heading for certain disaster in a sinkhole, madam. You’d have killed not only the mare but yourself as well.”

“I shall yet go,” she stubbornly declared.

“It’s too late to consider an annulment,” he rejoined tersely. “You’re pregnant with my child, and if you don’t want him . . . or her . . . then I sure as hell do!”

Raelynn clasped a trembling hand to her throat and stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment. “My-My baby will stay with me wherever I go, sir.”

“You forget, madam. You’re pregnant with
our
baby, not just yours. We’ll have another seven months to settle our differences about where he shall live if you truly want to leave my house. Until then, I will urge you to consider his welfare. You’re hardly able to make a living for yourself, much less support a child in a reasonable manner.”

“I could work for Farrell Ives, just as Nell did,” she protested. “I’m not without some skills in designing and making gowns.”

An icy hardness came into those luminous emerald orbs, making her draw back slightly. Perhaps, she thought wildly, this was what Nell had seen just before he had stabbed her, a coldness so intense she was sure it could slice through metal.

“If that is your wish, madam. I’ll not keep you married to me against your will.”

Raelynn’s jaw sagged another notch as she realized that she had been goaded into foolishly tweaking his temper. Indeed, she had cause now to think that this man, whom she had previously deemed so gentle and considerate, was definitely not the sort to antagonize. He had a mind and a will of his own and kowtowed to no one.

The handsome face was stoic as the cool green eyes flicked over her. “Until then, madam, you should try to eat something.”

Raelynn sought to swallow the hard lump that had welled up within her throat. When she had left Oakley untold hours ago, she had been confused and frightened by what she had seen in the stable. She was still confused and frightened, but now her fears were far more complicated. Strangely, at the heart of them, there seemed to be a niggling apprehension that Jeff could actually bring himself to set her aside in a legal separation.

Perhaps he would be better off alienating himself from her, she thought grimly. Thus far, he had been served a brimming platter of grief, all because of her, and she could only wonder what next would follow. Since marrying her, he had been attacked, shot, accused of fathering a child out of wedlock and recently suspected of murder, mainly by her.

The verse from the Bible came back to haunt her.
She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.

“. . . good and not evil . . .”

Raelynn started suddenly as she realized she had spoken aloud. In some chagrin she glanced up and found Jeff peering at her closely as if trying to discern her thoughts.

Her fingers trembled as she lifted a fork and broke apart a fritter. Dutifully she began to eat, but the silence between them had become a ponderous weight upon her heart. She hardly tasted her food, and if she could ascertain anything from the rigid muscles tensing in her husband’s lean cheeks, she seriously doubted that he did either.

Time dragged sluggishly past as they finished the meal. In stoic silence Jeff cleared the table while Raelynn washed the tin plates and utensils in a wooden bucket. The griddle was the last to be cleaned, but it was near enough the fire to cause her to cry out in anguish when she took hold of it. Jeff was immediately beside her, grabbing her hand and thrusting it into a pail of cold water. After a moment, he withdrew it and slapped soda upon her fingers. He tore a long strip off the bottom of his shirt, wet the makeshift bandage and wound it around the seared digits before tying it off across her palm.

Raelynn winced as she clasped her bandaged fingers in her free hand. “I didn’t realize the griddle was still hot.”

“Obviously,” Jeff retorted and threw a thumb over his shoulder, indicating his bedroll as he strode toward the door. “You’ll be safe enough over there. I suggest you stay there and keep out of trouble.”

“But where are you going?”

“Outside to get some more water from the well. Then I intend to take a bath.” He settled a pointed stare upon her. “Any objections, madam?”

Raelynn closely inspected the frayed edge of his shirt. “I doubt that I’ll be unduly shocked by the sight.”

“You just might be if you stare hard enough,” Jeff quipped without a trace of humor. “I still consider myself a newly married man.”

Her voice was tiny. “I won’t look if it will make you uncomfortable.”

He grunted. “Uncomfortable is hardly the word for it, my dear. Aroused would better describe the way I’d be feeling.”

“Even when you’re angry with me?”

“I doubt that I’ll ever be angry enough to ignore your presence, madam. You need only beckon with a finger for me to rise to the occasion.”

“I’ll dry my hair and wait for you in the bedroll,” she replied quietly, seeing no other choice.

“No longer afraid of me?”

She wrung her hands, not daring to meet his gaze. “I’m still cautious.”

“Oh.”

The disappointment in his tone reluctantly drew a weak smile from her, but he had already turned away, and she found no need to do the same.

Seated upon the bedroll, Raelynn raked the tangles out of her hair, first with her fingers and then with his comb. Her bandaged hand made her attempts at grooming clumsy. Nevertheless, she made fairly good progress, at least until she happened to glance up at her husband. Then she forgot about her hair altogether. At the moment, he was silhouetted against the firelight with his back turned for the most part to her, with one knee drawn up nigh to his waist as he balanced on one foot. He had doffed his riding breeches except for one legging which he was presently in the process of tugging free. Never having observed him from this particular angle before, Raelynn felt her cheeks becoming inflamed with her own temerity as she eyed him surreptitiously. The sight was certainly more revealing than any she had yet seen, for the dancing flames vividly defined everything that was manly about him.

Upon ridding himself of the breeches, Jeff tossed them over a chair near the fire and faced her abruptly, naked as the day he had come into the world, in the process sending her eyes chasing elsewhere. Unconcerned with his lack of attire and oblivious to her gaze returning to him, he rummaged through his saddlebags once again, this time withdrawing a razor and a small, silvered glass.

“You have a mirror?” Raelynn cried in growing excitement. One day, she told herself, she’d just have to take a good, hard look at what he carried in those saddlebags of his; she just might be surprised at what she’d find.

“Some people venture into the woods better prepared than you did, my dear,” Jeff gently taunted. “You can have the mirror
after
I’ve finished shaving unless you don’t mind being scraped raw from my beard tonight. I was too anxious about you to even think of shaving.”

“Thank you, I’ll wait.” Emboldened by his casual disregard of his nakedness, she flicked a meaningful glance toward his loins. It took no more than a brief inspection to put him on full display. As a result, she was prompted to inquire, “May I ask what you’re going to wear tonight?”

When she finally lifted her gaze, his glowing eyes met hers unswervingly. “As usual, madam, nothing more than my skin.”

“Perhaps tonight you should wear your breeches.”

“Afraid of what I might do while naked?”

“Afraid of what you might do, period.”

Jeff snorted cantankerously. “Tie the tail of my shirt snugly between your thighs, madam. It’s the best chastity belt you’ll be able to get your hands on here in this place, because I’m certainly not going to wear my breeches to bed just to suit you.”

“Jeffrey!” she cried as he started to turn away.

Her husband threw up a hand impatiently. “Dammit, Raelynn, I’m not going to rape you,
if
indeed it can be called such a thing when it’s between a husband and his wife. Now comb your hair and go to sleep. I won’t bother you unless you invite my attentions.”

Irritated with his young wife, Jeff returned to the matter of shaving and bathing. The linen towels he had given Raelynn to use had been left before the hearth. The fire was hot enough to allow them to be used again in similar service when he finally stepped from the wooden tub. He approached her, rubbing his torso vigorously.