You Belong to My Heart (31 page)

Who was he to suppose that Mary might still care for him? She didn’t. She had told him as much many times. And even if that were not completely true, if she had cared just a little, he had managed to kill any lasting love she’d had for him.

He closed his eyes in pain, recalling how he had treated Mary since occupying Longwood. He had been cruel and mean and had shown her no respect. He had coldly seduced her and then used her as though she were one of the women down at Antole’s.

Ashamed, heartsick, he came to the sad conclusion that it would do no good to tell Mary the truth about what had happened when they were children in love.

It was too late.

Much too late.

A
T NOON THE NEXT
day Mary Ellen was at the Shelby County Hospital, giving a wounded Confederate soldier a bed bath, when another volunteer came into the ward, hunting for her.

Mary Ellen apologized to her patient, stuck her head around the white privacy screen, and said, “Right here. What is it, Amanda?”

“There’s a gentleman downstairs saying he must speak to you at once,” the young woman said. Mary Ellen’s heartbeat quickened instantly. “I’ll take over here,” Amanda Clark told her. “You go down, Mary Ellen. Go on.”

“Thanks.” Mary Ellen turned back, patted the patient’s shoulder, smiled at him, and said, “Amanda will take good care of you.”

Mary Ellen hastily washed her hands and took off her soiled white apron. She smoothed her hair, anxiously tucking loosened strands under the neatly plaited braid wound around the crown of her head. She eagerly fled the stifling hot ward and hurried down the stairs, automatically looking about for Captain Knight.

Daniel Lawton stepped forward.

Mary Ellen was both surprised and disappointed. Daniel took her arm and said, “Mary Ellen, I must talk with you.”

“Daniel, I’m very busy and—”

“Please,” he said, and guided her out the front door and down the steps.

“What’s this all about?” she asked, annoyed.

Pleading with her to keep quiet and listen to what he’d come to say, Daniel told her.

Everything.

Speechless, Mary Ellen stared at the man who had once been her husband as he stood there in August sunshine and confessed to a terrible deception. He told Mary Ellen, just as he had told Clay, exactly what had happened. Stunned, Mary Ellen listened in silence, her lips parted, her dark eyes wide with shock and disbelief.

“Your father told you Knight didn’t love you, that he’d heartlessly used you to get an appointment to the Naval Academy. At the same time he told Knight that you were foolish and fickle and fell into my arms the minute he was gone.”

“No. No,” Mary Ellen murmured, shaking her head as if to clear it.

“Knight was as heartbroken as you were, Mary Ellen.”

“But if that were true, then…why…why didn’t he at least try to get in touch with me and—”

“He did. He wrote letters just as you did, but all were intercepted and destroyed.”

“You mean Clay never received any of my—”

“No. Not a one.”

“Dear God!” Mary Ellen exclaimed. “Clay thought that I…all this time he…he…” She swallowed hard, then asked, “Why? Why would Papa do such a horrible thing?”

“He wanted the best for you, Mary Ellen. He thought Knight was beneath you, that you deserved better.” He smiled then, sheepishly, sadly. “So he called on me.” Daniel shrugged and hung his head.

“Why did you agree?” she asked, half dazed by what he had told her.

Daniel raised his blond head. “Because I wanted you so badly I didn’t care how I got you so long as you were mine.” He exhaled heavily, then said, “But you were never mine, you were always Clay Knight’s.

“Yes,” she said wistfully, “I was.”

“I’m sorry, Mary Ellen. You may not believe me, but it’s the truth. I told Knight about this yesterday, but then I got to worrying. I was afraid he might not say anything to you. He might think it was too late. He might leave again with you never knowing. So I came here to tell you myself.”

Mary Ellen nodded, the realization of what this could mean beginning to fully dawn on her. Daniel continued to talk, to explain and clarify anything that might still be a mystery, to tell her he was sure Clay had suffered as much as she had. When he was finished, Mary Ellen was smiling, hope causing her heart to beat erratically.

She impetuously threw her arms around the astonished Daniel Lawton’s neck and hugged him. “Oh, Daniel, thank you, thank you so much!”

“You mean you don’t hate me?”

“Hate you? I don’t hate anyone,” Mary Ellen said happily. “I love everyone alive!”

Mary Ellen ran all the way home. Out of breath, a stitch in her left side, she hurried up the mansion’s front steps, shouting Clay’s name. She ran through the big house calling to him, startling old Titus from his noontime nap.

He grinned and pointed. “The Cap’n is down at the stable with his—”

Mary Ellen was out the back door before Titus could finish his sentence. Skirts lifted, she sprinted across the terraced north lawn as the sun reached its zenith. She flew past the old sundial and the white summerhouse. Breathing so hard her lungs burned, she raced around the silent carriage house. The long run had jarred loose her neatly plaited hair; it had fallen down, and the long braid was bouncing off her back.

Holding her aching side, her heart pounding in her ears, the badly winded Mary Ellen finally stepped into the open door of the small, shadowy barn. Shirtless, his back to her, Clay was currying his black stallion.

Swallowing with difficulty, her hand on her racing heart, Mary Ellen softly spoke his name. “Clay.”

The currying brush poised in his hand, he turned around slowly and saw the look in her eyes. His dark face brightened, and he broke into a wide grin.

“You know,” he said, and it was a statement, not a question.

“Everything!” she assured him. “Daniel told me.”

Mary Ellen pulled the door shut as Clay dropped the brush and opened his arms wide in invitation. She ran to him eagerly, and then they were in each other’s arms, saying “I love you, I love you!” between anxious kisses.

Passions flared immediately.

“Clay, darling,” Mary Ellen said breathlessly, “let’s go up to the house—”

“It’s too far, sweetheart,” he murmured against her throat.

They couldn’t wait. Kissing hotly and whispering endearments, they sagged to their knees on the straw-strewn floor. Kneeling there in bands of bright August sunlight slicing through the stable’s weathered plank walls, they anxiously undressed each other.

When they were naked Clay sank back on his bare heels, spread his knees, and reached for Mary Ellen. She came to him breathlessly, climbing astride his hard thighs. Both watched and sighed as she clutched his wide shoulders and impaled herself upon him. His hands gripping her flared hips, Clay bent his dark head and kissed her bare breasts while he plunged into her. Her arms wrapped around his neck, Mary Ellen gasped with pleasure, her head thrown back, a smile of pure joy on her fevered face.

The pair made hurried, heated love there on the straw-covered floor while Clay’s indignant black stallion danced about nervously, whinnying, snorting, and tossing its great head.

The lovers ignored him.

They climaxed quickly, and afterward Clay rose to his knees, bringing Mary Ellen with him. A strong supporting hand beneath her buttocks, his body still a part of hers, he put out a stiffened arm and lowered her gently to the straw, following her down.

For a long moment he lay silently atop her while she sighed and stretched in sweet contentment, her eyes closed, her arms draped around his neck, a hand idly stroking the silky black hair at the back of his head.

Finally Clay kissed her ear and said, “Marry me, Mary Preble.”

Mary Ellen’s dreamy dark eyes opened. Her arms fell heavily to her sides as she smiled and said, “I’ll marry you, Clay Knight. When?”

“Today.”

“Yes!” she said excitedly. “Let’s get dressed and—”

“Wait, sweetheart,” he said, and Mary Ellen felt him stir inside her.

Clay rose up over her, a wicked smile on his full lips. Surprised but pleased, Mary Ellen lay there smiling up at him while he swelled and surged inside her. He began to move his pelvis seekingly and sliding strongly into her. Wholly erect again, he penetrated to his full length, and Mary Ellen sighed and wrapped her slender arms around his neck, her long legs around his back.

This time they made love more leisurely, but just as lustily, as if each had been long starved for the other and must feast yet again. They looked into each other’s eyes as they moved together sensuously, their souls as well as their bodies mating.

Now of the same mind, heart, and body, the deeply-in-love pair communicated perfectly without speaking. Silently they agreed to prolong the pleasure. To extend the ecstasy. To delay the delivery.

It was sweet, sweet agony.

Incredibly exciting to maintain their heated level of passion without ending it in swift orgasm. Mary Ellen bit the inside of her lip in an effort to keep from climaxing and heard his gentle words of praise wash over her.

“Yes, baby, that’s good. So good. Hold back for just a while longer. Keep loving me, sweetheart.”

Mary Ellen listened and heeded this magnificent man who was to be her husband and who had taught her all she knew about love and lovemaking. She thrilled to the sure knowledge that he would continue to teach her through the long, happy years to come.

Proud of herself for already learning a small measure of control, Mary Ellen moved erotically with her adored lover, but in carefully reined-in splendor. They played and pleasured each other there on the straw in the shafts of sunlight while the excited stallion reared and whinnied, threatening to kick down the walls around them.

At last neither could wait any longer.

“Now, darling,” Mary Ellen gasped.

“Yes, baby,” Clay murmured hoarsely.

The delayed release was frightening in its intensity, and Mary Ellen viciously bit Clay’s sweat-slick shoulder to keep from screaming while he groaned and spasmed wildly against her.

When finally it had passed, when they lay limp and perspiring in the straw, Clay raised his dark head, smiled down at Mary Ellen, and said, “Jesus, honey, that was so good it scared the hell out of me.”

“Scared you?” Mary Ellen said. “I thought I was dying!”

And they began to laugh. Clay fell over onto his back beside Mary Ellen, and they lay there laughing deliriously for several minutes.

Finally they calmed, and Mary Ellen said, a smile in her voice, “Now about that marriage proposal, Clayton Terrell Knight…Was that just passion speaking, or does it still stand?”

Grinning, Clay rose onto an elbow, looked down at her. He picked a piece of straw from the frazzled blond braid lying over her shoulder, and the smile abruptly left his handsome face. Solemnly he said, “I love you, Mary Preble, with all my heart and soul.”

“Oh, Clay, did you miss me as I missed you?”

“Every day was a year.”

“For me, too,” she said honestly.

“I never stopped loving you, Mary, not for a minute. You’ll never know how very sorry I am for all the cruel things I’ve said and done to you since I came back. It’s no excuse, but I was badly hurt and I wanted to hurt you. Forgive me, Mary, even if I don’t deserve it. I’m sorry, I swear I am. Marry me, sweetheart. Let me make it up to you. Tell me you’ll be my wife and I promise to love you and cherish you for the rest of our lives.”

“Oh, Clay,” Mary Ellen said, tears of happiness filling her dark eyes. “All I’ve ever wanted was to be your wife. I love you so much. I thought I’d die without you.”

“I know, Mary, I know,” he said softly. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. No more tears.”

She blinked away the tears, smiled, and said, “Do you remember what you said to me in the summer-house the first time you ever kissed me?”

Clay smiled and shook his dark head.

Then he repeated the words he’d said so long ago. “You’re mine, for now and always. You belong to my heart. No other lips must kiss you but mine, no other arms must hold you but mine.” He paused, grinned devilishly, and asked, just as he’d asked that cold February day, “Do you understand?”

“I do,” she said as she’d said then, thrilled and flattered that he could remember verbatim the words he’d said to her that day. “Oh, I do. Now please, Clay. Kiss me the way you kissed me that day.”

He leaned down, gently pressed his closed lips to hers, and said against her mouth, “We’ll get married today and catch up on all the years we lost. What do you say, sweetheart?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!”

A
T FIVE O’CLOCK THAT
same afternoon, Mary Ellen Preble finally became the bride of Captain Clayton Terrell Knight. The handsome pair stood at the altar in the old Asbury Chapel while a distinguished, gray-haired Union naval chaplain read the rites.

Suffused sunlight spilling through the tall stained-glass windows fell on the pair, illuminating them softly, giving them an almost mystical appearance. It was as if they’d been touched by the angels.

The slender, pale-skinned bride looked unusually young and beautiful in a simple low-necked summer dress of lilac dotted swiss. Her white-blond hair, freshly shampooed and shimmering with healthy life, was swept atop her and secured with a tortoise-shell comb. In her hand she held a well-thumbed white leather Bible, atop which lay a lace-doilied nosegay of fragrant hothouse flowers.

The tall, dark groom looked remarkably boyish and handsome in his starched summer whites. Medals decorated his broad chest, and the blouse’s double row of brass buttons glittered in the mellow light. A wide sash circled his trim waist. His heavy ceremonial sword rested against his white-trousered thigh, and snowy white gloves were tucked in the sash.

On Mary Ellen’s left stood the tall, plain Leah Thompson. The smiling matron of honor held a bouquet of pink roses in her hands. On Clay’s right stood the young, freckle-faced Ensign Johnny Briggs. The beaming best man clutched a plain gold wedding band in the palm of his white-gloved hand.

Few witnesses sat on the hard hickory pews of the dim chapel. Old Titus was there, dabbing at his watery eyes. Mattie, in her best Sunday bonnet, was beside him. Leah Thompson’s well-scrubbed children—lectured thoroughly by their momma to keep quiet and behave themselves—gazed at the pair solemnly exchanging vows.