Elisabeth Fairchild by Captian Cupid Page A

too heavy?” he asked.
    She shrugged. Still the treasure of her gaze was kept from him.
    “Come.” He beckoned.
    Her wariness was back. Had she been a dog her hackles would have been raised, and yet she turned, first to look at him, then to obey.
    “Sit here.” He shifted his injured foot to one side on the slab of basalt.
    “Why?” She stood above him, all resistance, cheeks pinched by the wind, her eyes--he must tell her at a more appropriate moment how incredible he considered those amethyst eyes.
    “I will take that kink out of your neck,” he said.
    She considered him a moment, suspicion in those eyes.
    He kept his expression carefully neutral.
    Hesitantly she sat.
    He put gloved hands upon her shoulders.
    At once she stiffened.
    “Relax,” he said. “My batman used to do this at the end of a long day, when my neck and shoulders ached most abominably.”
    “From shooting?”
    He had not meant to speak to her of shooting. “Yes,” he said, voice low as he removed his gloves, and rubbed his hands together, and blew on them to warm the cold flesh.
    He pulled back the collar of her cloak,  and lifted a lock of hair out of his way, and though she shrank from his touch, he persisted, fingers seeking the heat of her neck, the tensed joining of neck and shoulder.
    Gently he kneaded the muscle.
    “Ow!” she cried, “That hurts!” and might have pulled away, had he not stopped her with, “It may pinch a bit to begin with, but it gets better. I promise.”
    He tried a fresh spot, using both hands, on both sides of her neck, the odor of jasmine rising from her hair, his eyes closing as he leaned a little closer, drinking her in, feeling his way.
    “Mm!” She gave a surprised moan. Her shoulders sank a little, less resistant, and he knew he had hit a sweet spot.
    He smiled, pled.
    “Was it a difficult thing to learn?” she asked.
    “No. I just paid attention to what my batman . . . ”
    She halfway turned toward him, neck muscles contracting, straw bonnet swiveling, one smooth cheek exposed, lips too soft for the words. “I mean the killing.”
    Odd juxtaposition, he thought, the sensation of her muscles loosening beneath his hands, while his mind tightened around memories he would rather forget.
    “A dreadful business,” he said, straightening her shoulders, so that her head must turn, too, the bonnet a welcome barrier between them. He could not bear it should she look at him in that instant. “One shoots rather than be shot, and trusts . . .”
    Her neck arched into his hand. She uttered another surprised little moan.
    In the touch of his hands on her shoulders, he thought, in the delicate curl of her hair at the nape of her neck, in the slow rise and fall of her breasts as she took breath. He trusted in these implicitly.
    What he said was, “In the idea that there is too much living yet to do--to die.”
    He leaned forward to smell her hair, eyes closing, voice soft.
    She turned her head, the silk of her cheek brushing his knuckles, shocking his eyes open again.
    “There were mornings when I hated to see the sun rise . . .” he said.
    She shuddered beneath his hands. He knew not if words or touch stirred her, only that she pulled away, with a sigh.
    She rose, stretching, her hands first pressed to the small of her back, then rising to touch her neck where his hands had been. “Feels much better,” she said. “Thank you.”
    “Least I can do, seeing as I am the cause.”
    He accepted her assistance in rising, and carefully, an almost overwhelming level of desire swelling in his chest, he slid the weight of his arm onto her shoulders again.
    She turned her head as they set off, her bonnet scraping his ear, her breath briefly warming his chin--he might have kissed her had she not said in that instant, “She is Val’s.”
    The words struck him like unexpected gunshot. He staggered, might have fallen.
    “Ah!” His own sense of stunned disappointment surprised him as she pressed him more firmly to