Sea Fire (47 page)

“I’ll answer that point by point.” His voice was even, and this irritated Cathy more than ever. “You’re right: I do tend to be somewhat jealous, but you must admit you’ve given me provocation!” Here Cathy threw a fiery glance at him, and he backtracked a little. “By that I mean that I found you in some pretty damning circumstances. What other man wouldn’t have thought the same thing I did, if he had found his wife naked in bed with another man? A lot of men would have throttled you on the spot!”

“Instead of which you, generous, kind soul that you are, merely raped me!” Cathy broke in heatedly.
Jon had the grace to look faintly shamefaced.

“It wasn’t rape,” he began sulkily, but prudently decided to abandon this argument in the face of Cathy’s clearly rising temper. “Anyway, I’m working on not being jealous. I promise I’ll do my best to control it. If I get out of line, you have my permission to brain me with something. Knowing you, you will, anyway.”

Here he grinned briefly, but encountering Cathy’s fulminating glance hastily wiped it away.

“As to my temper, may I point out that I
didn’t
throttle you? I’ve never laid a violent hand on you, and you know it, so I think we can dismiss that point.”

“And Sarita?” Cathy prompted coldly.

“Ahh, Sarita,” Jon drawled teasingly, but seeing Cathy’s eyes flame quickly abandoned the joke. He stopped walking and turned to face her, his hands lightly resting on her upper arms. “She didn’t mean a thing to me, and you know it. I just took her to get back at you.”

“You were just unfaithful, as you were constantly accusing me of being,” Cathy interjected waspishly. Jon’s eyes narrowed as he looked down at her.

“You can’t accuse me of being unfaithful if we weren’t even married,” he pointed out, then as Cathy’s eyes widened and her soft pink lips parted for what he was certain would be a pithy retort, he added: “You know damned well that I never so much as looked at another woman from the time I first saw you, screeching your fool head off in your cabin on the
Anna Greer
, to that one time with Sarita. And it will never happen again, I give you my word. Good God, you’re going to throw that up at me for the rest of our lives, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not,” Cathy told him icily. “Because I’m not going to be around for the rest of your life. Let me go! I’m leaving!”

She tried to jerk her arms free of his grasp as she spoke. Going over all his many misdeeds in her mind had effectively
stiffened her resolve to teach him a lesson. He had rent the fabric of their love apart with his jealousy, and now he thought he could blithely stitch up the tears and make whole cloth again. Well, she didn’t even intend him to have so much as the tattered pieces!

“You can’t leave me. I won’t let you.” Jon’s grip on her arms was iron-hard, and his voice was even harder. He towered over her small form, his dark face menacing.

“And just how do you propose to stop me? Lock me up and keep me a prisoner for the next twenty years?” Cathy was furious, and it showed in her face and tone.

“I can think of better ways.” Jon was smiling, but the gesture was not pleasant. Cathy, staring up at him with fire leaping from her eyes, felt a shiver of apprehension run along her spine. He was so very big, and he looked bent on something violent. . . .

“Let me go!” He was pulling her into his arms, laughing softly under his breath as he did so. Cathy kicked him, her little foot coming into bruising contact with his very solid shinbone. Jon didn’t even flinch. Instead, his arms went around her, imprisoning her against the hard wall of his body. Then he was bending over her, his head and shoulder blocking out the sun.

From the first touch of his mouth on hers, Cathy knew that she was lost. Blindly, like a child seeking comfort, she returned his kisses, her arms going up to curve around his neck, her fingers entwining in the thick dark hair. She knew in some deep recess of her being that this was what she had been born for, this man, this moment.

He was bending her back over his arm, muttering her name over and over as his mouth pressed against her soft flesh beneath its silken covering. Cathy moaned as his lips found the quivering peak of her breast, parting over the swelling softness. She could feel the moist heat of his mouth burning her skin through the layers of silk.

Her dress was falling
away from her shoulders, and he was pulling it down, loosening her arms from about his neck so that he could free them from its folds. Vaguely Cathy realized that he was undressing her, in the middle of an open field, with the sun shining down on their heads and a party of men just over the rise. But she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything except this fever that was in her blood, scorching her, turning her to fire beneath his hands. Like a kitten wanting to be rubbed she arched herself against him as he sent her petticoats the way of the dress. Then she was standing in nothing but her chemise and pantalets, her fingers shamelessly unbuttoning his shirt, laying hot little kisses on the bronzed skin thus exposed.

He groaned at the touch of her lips, his hands not quite steady as they slid the straps of the chemise down her arms, then untied the drawstring of her pantalets and let them drop to the ground. Then he was lifting her free of the little circlet of clothes, laying her on her back amidst the tall, waving golden grass. Cathy, looking up at him with searing desire as he divested himself of his clothing, saw the wide naked shoulders, gleaming beneath the sun, the curling black pelt that covered his body, the flat belly and long, powerful-looking legs, and felt weak with longing. He was so handsome it hurt, and she wanted him. And from the look of him, there could be no doubt that he wanted her.

He came down beside her, naked, leaning over her, his black head framed against an expanse of untroubled blue sky. Those gray eyes, that long, hard mouth tempted her. . . . Shuddering, she reached up and slid a hand behind his neck, pulling him down. Just before his mouth touched hers again she closed her eyes, shutting out the light.

“Oh, God, you’re beautiful,” he groaned just before he took her, his voice shaken. Cathy opened her eyes to see him staring down at her, his eyes dark with passion as they eagerly watched the hunger build in her small flushed face.

“Love me,”
she moaned, her nails digging punishingly into the nape of his neck. “Oh, Jon . . . !”

This last subsided into an aching gasp as he possessed her, the throbbing heat of his desire impaling her fiercely. Cathy writhed, moaning, her nails raking deep furrows down his broad, sweat-slick back. Her eyes shut tight, her breath coming in little pants, she met thrust with thrust, responding to his bruising ardor with a clamoring need of her own.

“Oh, darling!” she cried when she felt she could stand his hot-sweet torture no longer. His mouth closed over one aching nipple and his final hard thrust began to throb deep inside her. She felt him shudder, gasping, in her arms, and then was whirled away into a dark, timeless void.

When she came to at last, she was surprised to find that the sky was the same bright blue it had been minutes before, the grass was still tall and golden and sweet, surrounding them like whispering guards, the sun was shining, and the air was cool. Somehow she had expected it all to be changed.

Jon was lying on his side next to her, his long, naked body dark against the rustling grass, his hand propping his head as he looked down at her. A lazy smile curved his mouth. His black hair was wildly mussed, and Cathy felt color stain her cheeks as she recalled running her fingers through it mindlessly. At her blush, his eyes warmed on her face.

“Now tell me you don’t love me,” he murmured complacently. Cathy, staring at him, said nothing. He looked so smug, so supremely self-satisfied. . . . She sat up abruptly. He was so certain that his lovemaking had settled everything!

“I have a confession to make,” he said idly, turning over to lie on his back with his hands crossed under his head, clearly unconcerned with his nakedness. Cathy rose to her feet and began to pull on her clothes with hands that were still not quite steady. He watched her, his expression both admiring and possessive.

“When I took Cray, I knew you’d come after him,” he told her, smiling a little
at the memory of his own cleverness. “As angry as I was, I still couldn’t bear to lose you forever. I even told him that Mama would be coming soon, when he asked. I’ve been expecting you for weeks.”

Cathy, struggling to fasten her dress, felt a welcome dart of anger. So he had manipulated her again! He thought her so easy to bend to his wishes, did he? Well, he was in for a surprise!

She tied her bonnet beneath her chin, not caring if the bow was slightly awry. Then she turned, and walked purposefully in the direction of the trap. Behind her, she heard the grass rustle as he suddenly sat up.

“Where are you going?” The question was sharp. Cathy smiled grimly. Ah, maybe he was at last beginning to get the idea! Reaching the trap, she stepped quickly into it, gathering up the reins. Then she turned to look at him.

He was standing, looking slightly ludicrous as he stared at her, hands balled and resting on his hips, feet planted apart, as naked as the day he was born.

“I’m leaving you,” she said sweetly, and clucked to the horse. Obediently the animal moved forward. As she turned the trap around, she heard Jon cursing, a steady, furious stream of profanity. Her last glimpse of him as she rolled out of the meadow found him hopping about on one leg, hurrying madly to pull on his breeches so that he could come after her. Her action had caught him totally unawares.

Cathy smiled, her blue eyes gleaming triumphantly. She had her revenge at last. So why was it that she couldn’t shake the conviction that she had just cut off her nose to spite her face?

eighteen

M
iss Cathy, I am positively ashamed of you!” Martha said severely, dragging the brush through her mistress’ long hair so hard that it actually pulled out a few silky golden strands.

“
Ouch! Martha, if you don’t hush, I swear I’ll turn you out without a character! As I’ve told you a dozen times, it’s none of your business what I choose to do!” Cathy jerked her head away from the woman’s vengeful brush. She was getting sick and tired of hearing Martha’s views on poor, mistreated Jon! What about poor, mistreated Cathy? Was no one concerned about her wrongs? Even her father seemed inclined to feel that Jon had suffered a little too much at her hands.

“That poor man,” Martha continued, ignoring Cathy’s threat as Cathy had known she would. “All the way across the ocean on that benighted boat, you were all he talked about. Cathy this and Cathy that, it was. He even told me how like you Virginia is! And when I explained to him how it happened that you married Lord Harold, he was most understanding. Said he saw it all now, and couldn’t understand why he hadn’t seen it before. Proper apologetic, he was.”

“Not to me!
” Cathy murmured resentfully. Martha, busy arranging her hair in a becoming topknot, paid this interjection no heed.

“I tell you, Miss Cathy, if you take those poor children away from their papa for no better reason than spite, I’ll have to take shame on the way Sir Thomas and I have raised you! Master Jon loves you, and you won’t find a finer gentleman the length and breadth of this heathen country. Not even in England! Why, he. . . .”

“If he loves me so much, then why hasn’t he come after me?” Cathy interjected unanswerably. “We’ve been here for a week—a
week—
and he hasn’t come near us. Answer that, pray!”

Martha couldn’t, and both she and Cathy knew it. She hemmed and hawed, but the simple truth was that there was no acceptable answer. She and Cathy and the children, along with Sir Thomas and Mason, had been staying at the Charleston Arms. Every day since Cathy had returned with Sir Thomas and little Cray, Martha had expected Master Jon to come battering down the door, demanding that they come home to Woodham with him. But so far, it hadn’t happened, and even Martha’s faith in him was being shaken.

Cathy, too, had expected Jon almost hourly since she had left him half-naked and cursing in the meadow. When she pictured his coming, she was filled with a pleasurable sense of anticipation mixed with fear. He would be so angry . . . ! But as the days passed, and he didn’t come, that shivery feeling that possessed her whenever she thought of his rage began gradually to be replaced by dull resignation. Apparently he had accepted that it was over between them. The ship taking them back to England sailed in another ten days. Once she was on that boat, Cathy knew that she would have lost Jon forever.

“That’s good enough, Martha. Help me get dressed,” Cathy said irritably, pulling her head away from Martha’s fingers as
they coaxed a few ringlets to fall becomingly around her face. After all, who was there now to care how she looked?

Cathy turned away from the dressing table mirror and got to her feet. Martha, blessedly silent now, went to retrieve Cathy’s dress from the tall wardrobe. It was a beautiful autumn morning, with the sun streaming in through the long windows and a light breeze rustling the brightly-colored leaves on the maple tree nearby. In keeping with the weather, Martha selected a wine-colored velvet two-piece outfit, consisting of a short, fitted jacket and a sweeping, full skirt. Beneath the jacket went a white silk shirtwaist, with a high neck and stock. It was a severe garment, almost masculine in style. It heightened Cathy’s fragile beauty, making her seem the very epitome of femininity.