THE GUN KETCH

knacky of him to know how to tie.

She let go of his hand, and he put both of his palms beneath his head, as he gazed up at the fleecy clouds that sailed overhead, framed in the circle of the watchtower's ruin as if seen through a spyglass. Birds flitted and warbled through his squinted vision, a pair of rooks sailed along from one tree to another, and a falcon circled lazily above them.

He heard music, as Caroline sat up, legs tucked to one side, and began to play a very old country song he'd heard before but never knew the name to. He gave her an encouraging smile before turning his face back to the sky and closing his eyes, more than ready for a short nap of satiation and peace.

Almost at the verge of sleep, he did not notice when her music ceased. Almost adrift, he barely sensed her shadow over his sun-shut eyes, no more than he might have noticed a cloud occluding the light for a second or two. He grinned slightly as something soft tickled his cheeks, as a sweet, fruity perfume insinuated its way into his snoozing awareness of grass, wool and fried chicken.» What woke him was the soft, moist pressure of her lips. His eyes flew open, and there Caroline was, kneeling over him, bending down with one hand supporting her, the other holding her hair back, a most fond look on her face and in her eyes; grinning at waking him, grinning with delight at the way she had done so, and grinning with excitement of being, for a fleeting moment, just a bit wanton.

Chaperoned as they had been, as in public as they had been in the last week, they had not had opportunity to kiss beyond that one enthusiastic, but interrupted, moment the first day they'd ridden.

Alan smiled back at her, and she leaned forward once more to bend down to him. Then, being Alan Lewrie, his baser instincts took over, and he raised a hand to caress her cheek as their lips met, to stroke under her thick hair to the base of her neck and hold her from escaping, his arm encircling her upper back; the other to explore the length of her, down to her waist from her shoulder. To draw her down to recline against him. His nether regions sprang awake as wefl as their Jips parted, as their tongues met and circled-his with long practice, hers in a shivery experimental response.

To his immense surprise, she did sink down beside him, atop him, sliding her feet down toward his, as he began to kiss her cheeks, her eyelids, her nose, and her brow, to nuzzle deep under her hair to her ears, below and behind them into the secret hollows of her throat, and under her chin, down past her collarbones to her exposed chest.

With a shuddery impatience, she put her arms about his neck and sought his mouth with hers once more. With a swishing of cloth, in ancient instinct, one thigh crept up across his outstretched legs and near his groin. Mewing with her first heady experience?»f passion, she returned his attentions measure for measure, her breath coming ragged and sweetening cow-and-clover musky as it mingled with his, as his free hand stroked down her flung- across thigh to discover the last hem of her skirts, the smoothness of a stocking tied above her knee, and the exquisitely maddening softness and smooth-as-talc texture of her thigh. She shivered and wriggled against him as he made his way, soft as butterflies and caressing with his fingertips, all the way up the back of her leg to the fold where slim thigh ended, and soft-but-firm buttock began. Until she began to weep against his neck, her tears and breath hot as a forge.

'Oh, God, Alan, but I love you so much!' she cried, trembling with her passion. 'I've always loved you!'

He froze. After a moment, his insistent hand came back up to her back to hold her close and stroke her hair. She kissed him once, twice, thrice more, chastely soft then rolling with enticement each time, before she leaned back the slightest space.

'I have loved you ever since you first came to our door, in those rented rooms in Wilmington, Alan,' she told him, her lovely face alive with fleeting emotions, first joy and pleasure, then hesitancy at her revelation. 'Five years I've dreamt of this. Five whole years I've wondered how you'd feel. I know proper young girls ain't to own to such. I know young English ladies oughtn't say such things, but…at last, you're here where I may at last tell you face to face…'

'And other things,' Alan shuddered, trying to be light.

'And other things,' she echoed, nodding slowly and resting her body a little more atop him again. 'Our too-few letters, they'd never serve to tell you, Alan. You were half a world away, at sea, and you could have dismissed me as a foolish young chit, had I ever dared record my feelings towards you on paper. But now, we have so little time before you're off again… I could no longer keep it to myself, do you see, Alan? Before you sail out of my life again, you have to know how much… God save me!… how deep in love I am with you!'

'Oh, Caroline!' he whispered into her hair, folding her into his arms tighter and closer, for want of something else to say, as his mind rattled about like a startled sparrow in a cage. And, like a sparrow, seeking an exit! 'You darling, darling girl!'

Damme, what do ye do now, ye poxy clown, he wondered? What do ye say to the poor little mort?

It was not as if he hadn 't been half-seas-over about her those past five years! Every one of her letters that had survived the post and the voyage of delivery had been a veritable feast for his soul, every sight and scent and sound of her in their too-short rencontres had made him woozy with both delight and lust.

But then, so had a platoon of delectable young mutton!

'Have I been a fool all this time, Alan dearest?' she asked in a small, slightly scared voice against his cheek. 'I do confess I love you, have loved you such a long, long time! I've dreamt about you, thought about you… made up silly fantasies…!' She rushed on, frightened by his silence and unwilling to give him pause in which to answer, fearing an answer which would break her heart.

He could not hurt her feelings… could never even consider hurting her feelings! Of that he was sure. She was indeed dear to him. But by replying with the truth, or nearly the truth, he would step over the bounds of flattering but playful gallantry and 'cream-pot' courtship into another, infinitely restrictive world.

Of course, he speculated quickly as she prated on, her family might not approve, after all, and would deny them. Or, he could vow his love for her, but plead his new commission in the Bahamas, requiring a long betrothal, for what that was worth to her, sparing her Tudsbury's, Byford's, and most especially Embleton's advances; then, what he might do with his own life overseas would be his own, still, setting anything permanent far off into the future.

Could he spurn her affection and break her heart? No. Could he be callous enough to sail off and leave her to a cruel fate? No. Could he rescue her? Yes, he could. And still remain mostly free.

'I love you, Caroline!' he muttered in reply at last, stopping her lips first with a fingertip, then once more with a kiss, and she yelped aloud in shivery relief, in pleasure, and in sudden, springing joy. And when she drew back once more to gaze upon him, her visage crumpled somewhere between tears and heavenly elation, the look she bestowed upon him, so full of love and promise, was all the reward that any lover could ever hope to see.

'Truly, I do love you!' he grinned back at her, jolting himself with the horrifying thought that, for once in his miserable 'damme-boy' life, he was telling the truth when he said that to a young lady.

'Oh, Alan! God, you've made me so happyl' she exulted with a trembly laugh of victory. 'My Alan! Wonderful, marvelous Alan, my own love!'

There ensued a few feverish minutes during which neither of them had need for speech as they swooned with the wonder of kisses and caresses, of rolling about on the blanket, limbs twining as they took the measure of each other, heated nearly to a forge's glow, or the blue white heat of steel. Experimenting with how two alien bodies would mesh together in the years to come, first clumsy and with no clue where hands and arms would be most comfortable or exciting, but learning quickly.

Though still gowned, Caroline was explored with gentleness, and nowhere Alan caressed or kissed her did she flinch from, though she started now and again as she experienced sensations she had not in her limited knowledge ever even imagined. And she chuckled and sighed and groaned with delight; laughing once out loud in reverie of a neighbor boy in North Carolina who had dared to kiss her on the shoulder and lips one night when she was sixteen- purse-lipped-and how she had at that time thought that the heady sensation she had experienced then was the height of human passion!

Alan reclined atop her. Her sack gown and underskirts were rucked up near her hips, her thighs parted, by his weight and ancient instinct on her part, their groins pressed close and shifting slowly-again in instinct on her part, as Alan tenderly undid the buttons of the back of her gown, rained kisses and endearments muffled by her flesh upon her shoulders, her chest, and the tops of her breasts.