Sam was conscious of how foolish his actions were—to sneak into the garden of the woman who’d rejected him. He was embarrassed and angry because he was embarrassed. Soon he would need to return home and ready himself for supper with Rebecca, but he lingered a little longer, gazing at her house, his heart aching as it pounded a silent beat: if only...if only...if only...

He closed his eyes, coming to a decision. He couldn’t leave it like this. He had to speak to her. But now was not the time. For what he wanted, he’d have to wait for nightfall. So he glanced again at that window and then turned and left the garden. He would bide his time. He would wait patiently.

For the fall of night.

Chapter Seventeen

Just past midnight, Iron Heart was dragged from his dungeon cell. Guards marched him up the stairs of the castle, out into the street, and into the square in the middle of the shining city. Crowds lined the streets, clutching torches to light the way, their faces eerily lit by the flames. The people of the Shining City were silent, but one among them was not. For the wizard danced the entire way to the square, crowing his delight at Iron Heart’s death sentence and only a little hampered by a limp. And on the wicked wizard’s wrist, bobbing as he capered, was a white dove, tethered there with a golden chain....

—from Iron Heart

It was late and she was tired, but she still felt him before she saw him. Emeline’s heart gave a wild, joyous leap, entirely outside of her control. He was here. Samuel was here. She turned from her vanity table where she’d been brushing her hair in preparation for bed.

He stood by the door that connected her room to a small dressing room. His face was battered, his left eye swollen and black, and he held one hand against his side as if something pained him there. She stared at him, not daring to believe, trying not to breathe in case he evaporated from her sight.

“Your hair is beautiful,” he said softly.

It was the last thing she expected him to say. It made her self-conscious and oddly shy. He’d never seen her with her hair down. Never seen her in such a normal, homey setting.

“Thank you.” She set her brush down on the vanity table and nearly knocked it to the floor, her hands were shaking so badly.

He glanced at the brush. “I’ve come to say good-bye.”

“You’re leaving so soon?”

For some reason, she hadn’t expected this, either. She’d thought she would be the one to leave first, after her marriage to Jasper. But that was silly, of course. Samuel had to return to the Colonies some time. She’d always known that.

He nodded slowly at her question. “As soon as I finish my business, Rebecca and I will sail.”

“Oh.” There were thousands of things she wanted to ask him, thousands of things to say to him, but somehow she couldn’t give voice to her real thoughts. She was stuck in this awkwardly formal conversation instead. She cleared her throat. “Is it shipping business? Or the business of finding who betrayed your regiment?”

“Both.” He ambled into her room, pausing to pick up a china dish from a side table and turning it over to look at the bottom.

She swallowed. “But surely it will take weeks, maybe months to find out who—”

But he was already shaking his head. “Thornton’s the traitor.” He replaced the dish.

“How do you know?”

He shrugged, not looking particularly interested in the subject. “He isn’t really Thornton. I think he’s probably another soldier, MacDonald, who was under arrest when we were attacked. MacDonald somehow took Thornton’s place.”

She frowned, plucking at her wrap anxiously. She wore only a shift and the silk wrap; her feet were bare. She felt vulnerable with him prowling about her private rooms. Vulnerable, but not afraid. There was something inevitable about this scene, as if she knew all along that Samuel would someday enter her rooms. She only wished she could hold him a little longer. She looked down at her trembling hands in her lap and asked another question, delaying what would come.

“Wouldn’t Thornton’s friends or family have turned MacDonald in?”

“Most of Thornton’s friends were killed at Spinner’s Falls. Maybe all of them. As to family”—Samuel fingered the heavy brocade curtains hanging on her bed—“they were dead, too, all except his wife, and she died soon after Thornton, or MacDonald, returned home. I imagine he killed her.”

Emeline caught her breath at the casual comment. “Why are you doing this, Samuel?”

He looked up at her tone. “What?”

“Why are you bent on following this trail?” She leaned forward, wanting to cut through his defenses as he had cut through hers. They had so little time left. “Why spend all this effort and money pursuing the man? Why, after all these years?”

“Because I can and the others can’t.”

“What do you mean?” she whispered.

He dropped the curtain and turned fully to her. There was no artifice, no shield in place to keep her from seeing the desolation in his face. “They’re dead. They’re all dead.”

“Jasper—”

He laughed. “Even the ones who survived are dead, don’t you see? Vale may joke and drink and play a fool, but you’ll be wedding yourself to a corpse, never doubt that.”

She stood to meet his awful despair head-on. “I do doubt that. Jasper may have his demons, but he’s alive. You saved him, Samuel.”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t there.”

“You ran to bring help—”

“I ran away,” he rasped, and she shut her mouth, for she’d never heard him say it aloud. “At the height of the battle, when I knew we were going to lose, when I knew the Indians would overrun us and take scalps from still-living men, I figured there was no longer any point in fighting, so I hid. And when they took Vale, Munroe, your brother, and the other men captive, I ran.”

She ventured close to him and grasped his coat in both fists, feeling the wool on her fingertips. She stood on tiptoe and brought her face as near to his as she could. “You hid because you knew that it was pointless to die. You ran to save the lives of the men captured.”

“Did I?” he whispered. “Did I? That’s what I told myself at the time, that I was running for the others, but perhaps I lied. Perhaps I ran merely for myself.”

“No.” She shook her head desperately. “I know you, Samuel. I know you. You ran to save them, pure and simple, and I admire you for it.”

“Do you?” His eyes seemed to focus on her face finally. “Yet your brother died before I could return with the ransom. I failed him. I failed you.”

“No,” she choked. “Never think that.” And she pulled his head down to her own.

She kissed him, trying to instill all her conflicting thoughts and hopes into that simple gesture. Mouth to mouth, lips moving together. A kiss was such a basic thing, a thing easily given, but she wanted this kiss to be more. She wanted Samuel to know that she’d never thought him a coward.

She wanted him to know that she loved him.

Yes, love. No matter who she married, no matter if she never again saw him, she would always love this man. Loving him was beyond her control. Even though Samuel was the wrong man to marry, the wrong man to spend the rest of her life with, she couldn’t help loving him.

So she kissed him softly, her lips as gentle as she could make them. She moved over his mouth, murmuring incoherent endearments, finally licking so that she could taste him. She would need to remember this moment later, his taste, his lips, what kissing Samuel felt like. She would have to hold the memory in her heart forever. This memory would be the only thing she had of him.

He moved suddenly, grasping her upper arms, and she didn’t know whether he sought to push her away or draw her closer. She panicked then. He couldn’t leave her before she’d shown him that she loved him.

“Please,” she murmured against his lips.

His fingers tightened on her arms.

She pulled back and looked into his eyes. “Please. Let me.”

His brows drew together over his beautiful coffee-brown eyes as if he were puzzled. She pressed her palms against his chest. She’d never be able to move him against his will, but he let her. He stepped back, and when she pressed again, he backed again, until his legs hit the side of her bed.

He glanced at the bed behind him and then at her. “Emeline—”

“Shhh.” She placed her fingers against his lips. “Please.”

He searched her eyes a moment and then must have understood her incoherent plea. He nodded.

She smiled tremblingly at him. For this night, she would put away all thoughts of the future and what would come. Her anxieties, her fears, all the burdens she carried, all the people who depended on her. She would forget them for a few precious hours. Gently she drew his coat from his shoulders, taking care not to jostle his injuries. She folded the garment carefully and placed it on a table; then she began unbuttoning his plain brown waistcoat. She was conscious of her breathing, shallow and quick with nervousness, and his as well, deep and even. He watched her undress him, making no move to either help or hinder, his hands idle by his side.

She glanced up and met his eyes and felt a wash of heat in her cheeks. What an intimate act this was, to undress a man.

He smiled faintly as he shrugged off his waistcoat. She took a deep breath and started on his shirt. His hands came up to rest on her hips, lightly, but she felt the heat of his fingers even through the layers of cloth. Her hands shook, fumbling with a button. He leaned over her and kissed the top of her head. His body surrounded her, and she inhaled his scent: wool and linen, leather and parsley. She pulled apart the edges of his shirt, looking at his bare chest. His skin was so beautiful; she ran her fingertips over his collarbone and pressed her palm onto his chest. She could feel the wiry hair beneath, and under that the slow beat of his heart. He was here with her, so real. How would she be able to bear it when he wasn’t? When he was across a wide, wide ocean?

She pushed that thought away as she urged him onto the bed. He sat and watched her under hooded eyes, waiting for her next move.

She dropped to her knees and began to unlace his moccasins. He made to lift her up.

She looked at him. “Please.”

His hands dropped.

The laces were made of some type of leather, and she bent over them, concentrating on discovering how they worked. She was aware, though, of his legs before her and her supplicant position. The pose was humble and at the same time erotic.

The first moccasin came off, and she started on the next. He stroked her hair as she worked, silent, never commenting, and she wondered what he thought of this. Yesterday he’d been so angry. She looked up and saw only need in his eyes.

He bent and kissed her, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, holding her head now with both hands, and she was lost, forgetting her purpose, forgetting what she wanted. She swayed and placed her hands on his thighs to steady herself as he arched her head back, feeding on her mouth. Oh, Lord, she wanted this man. He brought her forward, and she was enclosed, still kneeling between his thighs, hard and strong, on either side of her. And in front...She smoothed her palms up the leather covering his thighs until they inevitably met where the leather stopped and there was only fabric at the juncture of his legs. She gasped, her inhale lost in his kiss, for he was hard and straining already against his breeches. She cradled his length, tracing him through the cloth.

He caught her hands.

She broke the kiss and glanced up at him. “Let me.”

His face was dark, flushed from passion, and he looked in no mood to concede her anything.

“Please,” she whispered.

He opened his hands, spreading them palms up on his thighs in a gesture of acquiescence. She squeezed him gently through the fabric and then let go to work on opening the flap of his breeches. She peeled back the cloth and fumbled with his smallclothes until she found him, ruddy and proud underneath. The hair surrounding his cock was almost black, a shockingly private sight. This should only be for her, she knew on a primitive level. This man, this sight, this penis was hers.