Patricia Rice (23 page)

She glanced toward Annette in the far paddock, trying to identify the signs of the mare’s quickening, but she was too ignorant.

The stallion had quite a harem, and a right to strut. Would Morgan be the same? How many bastards had he sired in his lifetime?

She had no right to think such thoughts. He had
offered marriage, and she had refused. He had found her a paying
position, and she had continued to share his bed. She wasn’t certain she
could have left had she tried, but she had never tried.

Wondering at the changes that had taken her from
starving innocent to highwayman’s bedmate, Faith entered the cottage to
start the evening meal. The changes weren’t all emotional or mental, but
physical as well. She had become a woman in Morgan’s hands, a woman who
needed a man to share her pleasures.

As she tied a clean apron around her neck, Faith
glanced down at her swelling breasts. They were still growing, and they
felt a bit sore at times. She had thought she would never have a figure
to entice a man, but it seemed it took a man to develop a figure. She
had curves now that she had never possessed before, and she felt
slightly awkward in the newness of it.

As she reached for the kettle, the dizziness struck
again. It wasn’t so severe this time, and she managed to remain standing
until the spell passed, but it left an uneasiness behind. The cottage
was warm, but not so heat-bound as the inn. Fresh air entered the open
door and window, and she hadn’t lit the fire yet.

Was she sickening for something? Remembering her mother’s illness, Faith clasped her hands in silent prayer.

Six months ago she had been prepared to die. Today she had a whole future before her. She didn’t want to die.

Chasing away these morbid thoughts, Faith set the
kettle on and started the fire. But as she chopped new onions and
carrots and crushed the fresh young leaves of herbs, she had plenty of
time to let her mind wander over other physical changes that might give
some clue to her illness.

She had never been regular. She had stopped her
monthly flux before. But counting back, it had been March when she’d had
her last bleeding. There had been none in April or May, and June was
almost over.

But Morgan had first taken her to his bed in early
April, and that seemed the most natural explanation for the flux to
stop. It would be much too embarrassing for a woman to tell a man she
couldn’t share his bed because of her monthly woman’s time. So it only
seemed natural that it would go away while she shared her bed with a
man.

Perhaps she had been working too hard. She would put
a simple stew on to cook with the beef she had bought from the inn,
then she would read more of her father’s manuscript.

She had the stew simmering and was just about to
take out the bread dough and knead it when she heard a horse in the
yard. Hurriedly Faith wiped her hands and untied her apron, patting her
hair to see if all was in place. There was scarce time to smooth her
skirts before Morgan threw open the door and strode across the floor.

Faith squealed as he swept her off her feet and
buried his lips against the uncovered skin at her throat. She clung to
his thick hair and bent her head back to allow him better access as the
thrill of his touch coursed through her.

But when Morgan’s mouth strayed lower and his
fingers began working the laces of her bodice, Faith gave his hair a tug
and she tried to wriggle away. “What do you think you’re doing, Morgan
de Lacy? ’Tis broad daylight. Now, put me down.”

“I’m a starving man, my dear. I just wanted a taste to tide me over. Can I not have just a taste?”

He wasn’t waiting for her permission. Already he had
her laces untied. The chemise tie was next, and then Faith felt the tug
of his lips at her breast, and there was no further fighting him. The
sensations he had taught her were swelling up inside, begging for
release, and her cry of pleasure only urged him on.

“’Tis shameless, Morgan,” she whispered in one final weak protest as his kisses grew bolder.

“Have I never taken you in day, then?” Morgan
murmured from between breasts. “Then it is time we corrected that error.
Undress me, my
cailin,
and let us show the sun a thing or two.”

Undress him. The thought was even more shameless
than seeing each other in daylight, but the need to touch him, to feel
him close, was even greater than shame. The lace of his jabot untied
easily. His shirt fell open to reveal the dark crisp hairs of his chest,
and as Morgan eased her feet to the floor, Faith daringly placed her
kisses at the V of his neckline.

But that wasn’t enough. She wanted to touch
all
of him. Morgan always came to their bed unclothed, and she was given
little chance to explore while he drove her to new, frantic heights of
desire. What he offered now was different, but she wasn’t certain how to
pursue it.

Morgan was already unhooking her bodice and pulling
it off her shoulders without separating it from the skirt. His big hands
were amazingly swift and nimble, and they stroked and teased until she
forgot all the day’s concerns and concentrated on only one thing: the
man in front of her.

In the June warmth he had doffed coat and waistcoat
long ago. He stood there now in wide-sleeved shirt, breeches, and boots,
defying her to bring them closer. The long tails of the shirt were
tucked into the tight waist of his breeches, and there would be no
removing the one without unfastening the other. Beneath Morgan’s amused
gaze, Faith bit her bottom lip and twisted her fingers into the
fastenings of his breeches.

When they were released, she tugged at his shirt
until she could, at last, run her hands up his bare chest. Morgan gave a
gasp of pleasure as she tweaked his nipples as he did hers, and then
his kiss was moist and hot against her mouth again.

Faith felt her skirt and petticoat fall loose from
her waist; then strong hands pushed them to the floor until she stood
there in only her stockings and chemise. The air felt warm and good
against her bare skin, and Morgan’s fingers caressed and stroked until
she ached for what was to come.

“’Tis not fair, I cannot reach to take yours off,”
she murmured, pushing his shirt upward so she could explore more fully
the firm planes of his chest. “You have all the advantages.”

Morgan’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he swept
the shirt off. He grinned as she determinedly focused on his face and
not the expanse of flesh he uncovered as he obligingly dropped his shirt
to the floor.

“Fair, is it, now? Is it equal you would be? Undress me, lass, and I will show you equality.”

Faith knew Morgan’s charm to be dangerous to a fatal
degree, but the challenge was thrown and she must accept it. She
glanced down at his knee-high boots and frowned. His clothing posed too
many obstacles.

Morgan bent a kiss to her breasts beneath the open
chemise, then sat down on the chair and held up his leg. “Off with the
boots, wench.”

She had seen him do it innumerable times, but it
still did not appear easy. Straddling the leg he held out, she began to
tug. The boot slid loose and Morgan helped her with the other one, not
without catching Faith by surprise and riding her briefly on his knee,
rubbing her woman’s place until her desire kindled even more. Then he
stood, and she was faced with the feat of rolling his breeches down over
his narrow hips.

“It’s all right to touch me, my sweet. I’ll not break. Well you should know that by now,” Morgan chuckled as she hesitated.

Faith’s cheeks colored, but she needed what he hid
beneath that cloth to satisfy the itch he had aroused. Setting her jaw
in determination, she rolled the cloth down over lean hips, releasing
the hardened length of his maleness.

She tried not to stare, but she had never seen him
in daylight. He was so magnificent, so marvelously made, that she could
scarce keep her eyes away. Wide chest and shoulders, lean flanks, narrow
hips, and flat belly, all tightly muscled and shaped to move with
careless grace, as he did now.

“Now, my Faith, I’ll show you equality.” Morgan slid
the chemise off her shoulders and to the ground, until they were both
naked in the puddle of sunlight from the window. Then he lifted her in
his arms and carried her to the bed, but instead of laying her down on
it, he sat down and left her in his lap.

Faith stared at him in disbelief. They were full
naked, with his manhood jutting awkwardly between them, and he was
sitting down as if to table. Spread wide by his muscular thighs, her
legs dangled awkwardly over his, and the ache in her belly began to
swell with demands she could scarcely suppress.

“Equality, Faith.” Morgan pulled the pins from her
hair until it tumbled down between them. Then he sought her mouth with
his lips and her breasts with his hands until she was moaning with the
need he kept barely under control.

When she felt him hot and heavy against her belly,
Faith finally understood what he meant for her to do. It seemed
impossible. He was much too large, almost fearsome in the light of day.
How could he enter her? But she had spent nearly three months in his bed
and knew the length of him filled her with remarkable ease.

Morgan lifted her, and then he was there, right
where she needed him, and it was but a moment’s work to guide him
inside, to take him more fully than she ever remembered. Half kneeling
on the bed, she found her place and moved cautiously at first, then with
increasing vigor. Morgan responded wildly to her movement, and she
learned the joy of giving him pleasure as well as finding her own.

She could do it. She could drive him to the same
wanton abandonment as he drove her, and the joy she received of this
knowledge was equal to or greater than the explosion of their mutual
release.

He needed her. They truly were equals. And for the first time, Faith realized, she was in love.

Faith wasn’t particularly happy with her new
feelings. Morgan had made her love him, tied her to him more surely than
with rope and chain, but nothing held him bound.

The misery of unrequited love burned in Faith’s
belly as she watched Morgan over their meal later that evening. He had
washed, and his black hair still gleamed with moisture, slicked back
from his strong features and held with a strip of leather.

She tried to ease the ache by introducing a topic
that had played in her mind ever since Toby had spoken of it one day at
the inn. “Do you think the colonists live much differently than this?”

Morgan shrugged. “We don’t have red Indians, leastways.”

“Toby said his brother lives in a town over there. It isn’t all Indians. They have inns and stores, just like here.”

“I suppose they must.” Morgan eyed her quizzically. “What is your interest in the colonists?”

Faith squirmed. He could look right through her
sometimes and know her every thought. “Toby’s brother just bought a lot
of land. He says anyone can make a living over there. He wants Toby to
join him.”

“Toby is a young fool and will probably be better off over there. How do you know so much about Toby’s brother?”

Faith ducked her head to hide the heat in her
cheeks. She didn’t want Morgan to know the direction of her thoughts
just yet. “Toby can’t read and he brings me his brother’s letters to
read for him.”

“And is Toby going to join his brother?” he asked.

Faith shook her head. “He doesn’t want to be a farmer, he says, but I think he’s afraid of the journey alone.”

“As I said, Toby’s a young fool.”

He seemed prepared to dismiss the topic, and Faith
hastily fumbled for the words to keep it open. “You once said a man
needed land to be gentry. Land is cheap over there. You could probably
buy a whole farm with the price of this place here.”

Morgan’s black brow quirked upward as he finally
fathomed the direction of her thoughts. “’Tis not a dirt farmer I am,
lass, nor a farmer’s wife you’ll be. You belong in satins and lace in a
great terrace house in St. James’s, with servants at your beck and call.
You’ll have that one day, lass.”

Faith glowered. “On a highwayman’s take? I’m more
likely to see your dead body hanging from a noose than I am to see
inside the great houses of London. I do not know who’s the greater fool
here, Toby for not grabbing the chance when it’s offered, or you for
being too blind to see it!”

“Lass, you worry over naught.” Morgan rose to come
around the table and place his hands on her shoulders. “I’ve seen that
you’re provided for, whatever might happen to me. There’s a man in
London, Miles Golden, who looks after my business. I’ll leave you his
direction. I don’t think you’ll be needin’ it. I’ll only ride a little
longer, and I’ll have all that I need to set us up royally. We’ll have
that house in London, lass, see if we don’t.”

On a highwayman’s ill-gotten coins, with the threat
of his death ever present. It was not a future she placed any reliance
on, and Faith shook off his hands and rose to clear the table. “You may
live as a king if you wish, but I don’t feel like a queen. I don’t need
satins and lace. I am willing to work for my wages. I just need a roof
over my head and food in my stomach.”

And you by my side—but she couldn’t say that. Her
heart longed to say it, to talk of babies and homes and her need for his
love, but it would be madness even to think it.

“You deserve better than that, Faith.” Morgan caught
her by the waist and pressed a kiss against her hair, but she shook him
off irritably. “I mean to see you have it, little one, as my wife or
not, as you will.”

His wife. He still offered marriage. She ought
seriously to consider it. But he would always be a highwayman and she
could not be a highwayman’s wife. She simply could not. Someday she
would have to leave. Someday, when she was strong enough.