Captivated

kindness that had taken away the agony of his first kill.

'Abigail, look down and tell me what you see.'

'A basket of food,' was the too innocent reply. 'Are you hungry?'

He opened his eyes in pained amusement. 'Did the stroll on the beach meet up to your expectations?'

'I will never forget it, Robert.'

His lips twitched. 'Neither will Mr. Thomas.'

The brown eyes staring up at him were solemntoo solemn. Her eyelashes were spiked from the rain. 'What did you tell him?'

'I told him we were man and wife.'

'But I specifically stated in the lease'

'And that you were not anticipating my arrival because my leave of absence from the Army came unexpectedly.'

'You did not have to say that we were married, Robert.'

'But we are. Joined at the hip.'

Laughter glimmered in her brown eyes, a spark of amber where before there had been none. 'It was not my hip that was joined to you, Colonel Coally.'

'I know very well what was joined to me, Miss Abigail.'

Her spiked lashes lowered. 'Your feet are muddy. You need a bath.'

'Only if you wash me.'

'But I am hungry, Robert.' She raised her eyelashes; behind the amber laughter was warm desire. 'If I wash you we will not eat. And I have a particular fantasy that I want to act out.'

The water in the small tub was as cold as the rain outside. Robert experienced a strange contentment, watching Abigail's small, plump breasts elongate when she leaned over to clean the floor. When she turned around and scrubbed her way backward toward the tub, Robert thought his heart would stop.

'You have a round bottom, Miss Abigail. And between your legs you have dainty pink lips surrounded by wet brown curls.'

That got her attention.

Straightening, she turned and stepped around the tub. Her face, before she swirled around, was as pink as the lips he had mentioned. 'You have a concave bottom, Colonel Coally. And hairybullocks.'

'Shall we compare tit for tat, Miss Abigail?'

Turning, she offered him a towel. 'Not at all, Colonel Coally. You have a tit and I have a twat.'

Eyes glinting with laughter, he took the towel that she offered, stepped one foot at a time out of the tub as he dried off. Then he blotted dry her hair, her shoulders, her breasts, her hips, worked his way down to a pair of elegant, narrow feet.

'Time to eat,' he murmured into the jointure of her thighs, deliberately breathing into the soft nest of damp brown curls there.

Her legs quivered.

Grinning, he jumped up. 'Real food this time, Miss Abigail. If I am to satisfy more fantasies, I have to keep up my strength.'

Used as he was to field rations, the basket contained a veritable feast. Cold mutton. Cheese. Hard-boiled eggs. A loaf of bread still warm from the oven.

There was more than enough for two.

Abigail ate daintily but with a definite appetite. When her eyelids drooped, he repacked the food and carried her to bed.

He had never before slept with a woman until Abigail. Had never before experienced the simple joy of having a woman's spine curve to fit his abdomen and her butt snuggle into the flatness of his groin. Had never imagined this closeness that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the woman in his arms.

The reality of Abigail far surpassed his fantasies.

Sighing, he buried his face into her damp hair.

A blast of cannon fire woke him.

Jesus God, he had fallen asleep during battle. Boneless flesh curved to fit his bodya corpse, already stripped by the natives, body still warm.

Heart pounding, his fingers tightened around the butt of his rifleonly to sink into giving flesh.

And he remembered.

The storm. The burning need that had driven him out into it. The light in the cottage and the woman named Abigail.

He gently soothed the breast he had abused.

Abigail stirred. 'Robert?'

'Why are you here, Abigail?'

The boneless spine stiffened.

He refused to let her go, pressing her more firmly into the curve of his body while he braced his chin on the top of her head. 'Tell me.'

'I told you.' Her heart pounded against the palm of his hand. 'In three weeks I turn thirty.'

'Every secondsomewhere in the worlda woman turns thirty.'

'But not every woman is a spinster.'

'By your choice, Abigail.'

'But Idon't want to be a spinster, Robert.' He strained to hear her over the steady drum of rain. 'Idon't want to be passed between my brother and sisters. Idon't want to bealone.'

Robert braced himself against the pain in her voice.

'So why are you here, then, with only your books for company?' he persisted, determined to solve the mystery that was Abigail.

For long seconds he didn't think she was going to reply, then

She sighed. 'I came to say good-bye.'

Fear pumped though his veins. Along with images of death her death now instead of his. Immediately he thrust the images away. 'Who did you come to say good-bye to?'

'My dreams, Robert. I got tired of wanting things that could never be. I brought my books and journals with me here because I planned on leaving them behind. In the hope that without them, perhaps I could find… a little peace.'

Peace.

Hardened soldiers like himself sought peace, not gently bred ladies who had never faced death and chosen life. But the same loneliness was there, the utter aloneness that was the price paid for stepping outside the rules that bind societies together. Robert had killedin duty; Abigail had indulged her desires with forbid den eroticain secrecy. And had been passed from brother to sister

'What about your parents?'

'Dead. I have one brother and three sisters of whom I am very fond. But I am still the spinster sister. And I am the youngest, so of course they know what is best for me.'

He rubbed her nipple in gentle consolation. 'Not this.'

'No.' A hint of laughter lightened her voice. 'I think William would die of an apoplectic fit if he ever discovered my chest of books.'

'Tell me about your brother and sisters.'

Abigail cupped her hand over his. 'My brother and sisters have kindly provided me with twenty-one nieces and nephews. They are convinced that a woman's happiness lies in marriage. Or I should say, in having a familythe husband, or wife, whichever the case may be, is a trial one must endure in order to have children. And you are correctIam a spinster by choice. But I found myself wondering if my brother and sisters do not have the right of it. That perhaps life with one of the eminently eligible but dreadfully boring men they are constantly surprising me with might just possibly be preferable tobeing alone.'

Robert had no reason to be jealous. But he wasfuriously.

'You'd marry a fat-bottomed man with side-whiskers?' he growled. 'A man who would have you dress a piano