Judith E. French by Shawnee Moon Page A

children.”
     
    “Stop pretending to be asleep,” Sterling said. “I know you’re awake. I asked if I can trust you alone here long enough to secure passage to Maryland for us on the Galway Maid .”
    Cailin rolled over in bed and opened her eyes. It was true; she had heard his question. But she had been summoning her wits to try to deal with him.
    They had been in the seaport of Dover for the best part of a week. Sterling had rented two rooms in a private home on the outskirts of the town for them. The accommodations were plain but clean, and Cailin could find no fault with their landlady’s cooking.
    Since she’d witnessed the angry scene between Sterling and his father in the library at Oxley Hall, Cailin couldn’t help feeling some sympathy for the man she still considered her captor. It was obvious that whatever his reasons for becoming entangled in her life, Sterling Gray was a complex and basically decent man.
    “Ye canna force me to go with you to America,” she said quietly. She was close enough to feel his breath on her cheek. As unnerving as it was to live in such intimacy with her unwanted husband, he’d made no improper advances toward her, and she had begun to trust him enough to catch hours of fitful sleep at night.
    “You are a vision in the morning with your hair loose around your shoulders and your face all dewy soft.”
    Shivers ran down her spine, and she sat up, clutching the light coverlet to her chest. She looked away toward the window, where mastheads showed against the robin’s-egg-blue of a cloudless morning sky.
    For an instant, memories of the rape swept over her, and she saw the hungry eyes of soldiers and heard their foul words.
    “Dinna fash me with such lies,” she said. Sterling was not like the men who had hurt her. In her heart of hearts, she knew it. “I am not a beautiful woman, and I am past the age to believe such nonsense.”
    “Cailin.”
    He touched her bare arm between elbow and shoulder, and her shiver became a flood of sensations that she’d vowed she would not let herself feel for this man.
    “Cailin,” he repeated.
    Her name rolled off his tongue like warm honey. There was no anger in his speech, no naked lust. Sterling was an Englishman, but he was nothing like the soldiers who had raped her. She could not prevent her gaze from straying back to his naked chest ... his muscular, tanned arms... his intense face.
    “We are enemies,” she murmured.
    “Our countries are enemies.” His lean fingers caressed her shoulder.
    “I hate you.” The words came out all wrong. She did hate him, she did, but her tone wouldn’t have convinced a lackwit. And Sterling Gray was far from slow-minded.
    “You think you do.” He stroked her hair with feather-light movements, and pinwheels danced in the pit of her stomach. “Wife,” he whispered. “I’m not made of steel.”
    “Ye knew from the first I didna want you.”
    “No?” He buried his fingers in her hair. She wanted to tell him to stop touching her. She wanted to leap out-of bed and run from the room, but she didn’t. She was so surprised that his touch didn’t repel her that she waited until he lifted a heavy lock of her hair and kissed her neck.
    “Don’t be afraid of me.”
    She wasn’t. The fear she’d expected didn’t come. Instead, she felt what could only be desire. “Sterling.”
    “Aye,” he teased, then kissed her again beneath the ear. His lips were warm and moist. His hand slid down to caress her shoulder and collarbone. And when he pulled her closer to him, she had not the strength to resist.
    “Dinna ...” she began, but the rest of her words were lost as his mouth pressed against hers.
    His kiss was tender. His lips were as beguiling as the devil’s lies.
    “Wife,” he said. “Let me love you.”
    “I dinna ...” Her protests died away as she found herself inexplicably kissing him back. She sighed, a long, soft sigh. This felt good. It felt right.
    She had been so afraid that