Bertrice Small - Captivated

Robert straightened. "Shall I help you?"

The heat blazing in Abigail's face felt like it would burst into flame. "I think not."

"Abigail, there is no place for modesty inside a one-room cottage. Men and women share the same bodily functions. I have to make use of it, too. What is the difference, for God's sake?"

She refused to look away from him. "The difference, Colonel Coally, is that women squat and men do not."

His gray eyes widened momentarily; then he threw back his head and roared with laughter.

He had very white teeth.

The laughter stopped when Abigail scooted out of bed slowly, carefully; the flesh between her thighs stung as though she had been impaled on a shaft of nettles. Her legs were like two slabs of wood, with no feeling in them whatsoever. Standing, bracing herself so she would not fall flat on her face, she reached for the faded green dress that lay heaped on the floor.

"Don't be ridiculous, Abigail." It was the colonel's voice of last night, sharp and autocratic. "It's pouring down rain outside."

Firmly clasping the blanket across her breasts, she threw the dress over her headand got totally lost inside it. Her stilted reply was muffled. "You may dictate to your men, Colonel Coally. I, however, am not ruled by military law."

Long, hard fingers reached inside the dress, grabbed her left hand, thrust it into a sleeve. "You did not object last night, Miss Abigail."

They both knew they were not discussing military dictatorship.

"Last night, Colonel Coally, was an anomaly."

"It is not necessary to go outside." The muted voice was suddenly flat. Her right hand was forced into a sleeve. "I give you my word as an officer that I will not intrude on your privacy."

"Thank you, but no." Her head cleared the dress. "I am in need of fresh air."

"Very well." He whirled her around.

Abigail stared past his dark headhis hair was hardly mussed, while hers felt full of live rats. "I can button up my own dress, Colonel Coally."

"Can you, Miss Abigail?" he asked enigmatically. Reaching inside the open placket of her dress, he grabbed hold of the blanket and yanked it up and out. Before she could voice her objection, he pulled her dress together and commenced fastening the tiny buttons.

Abigail silently endured his ministrations. The colonel just as silently retrieved her drawers.

She grabbed the silk from his hands and turned her back to wriggle inside the flimsy underwear.

"Where are your shoes? Or do you make a habit of running about barefoot?"

Blushing, back ramrod straightwhere had she put her shoes? ah, yes she marched to the door and crammed her feet inside the half-boots there. She contemplated putting her hair up, but knew there was no time to waste.

The wind almost knocked her back inside the door. It was accompanied by a blast of memories.

I want a woman to make me forget that I have spent the last twenty-two years of my life killing.

He had thought she was reading devotional literature when he had peeped through the window. Matrons and spinsters read devotional literature, not a woman who a man would choose to help make him forget.

What a shock he must have experienced, seeing The Pearl clutched to her chest.

What a whore he must have thought her when she had propositioned him.

How pitifully desperate she had been, an old maid unable to accept her virgin status.

Idid not take you because I thought you were wanton, Abigail. I took you because I needed you.

The rain was icy.

For a second Abigail's intent wavered.

He knew everything else about her body, what was so shameful about this aspect of it? But then reason prevailed.

The colonel knew the wanton she had been in the night; not the spinster she was in the day.

Bowing her head, she fought the wind to close the door, then fought the wind and the rain and the mud all the way to the backyard privy. Only to fight it all the way back again on the return trip.

The colonel met her at the door; a towel was wrapped around his lean hips. After one look at Abigail's sodden clothes and dripping hair, he unbuttoned her dress and peeled it and the silk drawers off her. Wrapping the blanket around her, then, he picked her up as if she weighed no more than a child and sat her down on the wooden chair at the table where the air was unaccountably warm.

Abigail should have been outraged at such cavalier treatment. Instead, she felt chastised… and oddly comforted.

Hunkering down in front of her, he matter-of-factly removed her shoes. "I fired the stove and put a bucket of water on to heat. All I could find in the cupboard was a tin of tea, half a loaf of bread, and a jar of strawberry jam. Would you like some toast now or would you rather wait for the water to heat up and have it with your tea?"

Abigail turned her head to look at the wood box behind the stove. It was missing a hefty portion of wood. The other chair was pulled up to the far side of the stove; it was draped with his clothes that she had dropped last night. Turning her head in the opposite direction, she surveyed the floor in front of the cupboard. There was no broken glass littered abouta broom leaned against the wall.

ThePearl, where she had dropped it by the bed last night, was gone, too. As were the hairpins he had taken from her hair.

She faced the man who waited at her feet. "I will wait for tea, thank you."

"You're a stubborn woman, Miss Abigail."

Abigail stared into the stark gray eyes that were on a level with her own and felt her heart skip a beat.

He lookedvulnerable. And intensely masculine.

Last night had been an anomaly.

It must have been.

He had gone out into the stormand had come upon her cottage. Once past the initial heat of lust, a man like him would not want a woman like her.

But you are not just any woman, Abigail. For the duration of the storm you are my woman.

It still stormed.

Abigail braced herself against the rejection that was certain to come. "You lied, Colonel Coally."

The dark face grew shuttered. "In what, Miss Abigail?"

"You said you wanted everything."

"You said last night was an anomaly."

"Then I lied."

For one endless second the steady rhythm of the rain ceased. Then tiny lines radiated out from the corners of Robert's gray eyes, and they were no longer stark but warm pewter.

"How does the sponge feel?"

Blushing, Abigail tilted her chin. "It feelsthere."

"I'll take it out for you."

The blush grew hotter.

"After I soak you in hot water to relieve the soreness."

She refused to look away from the pewter gaze. "And what then, Colonel Coally?"

"Then I'm going to put it back in."

Suddenly the damp, dreary rain was more pleasant than a sunny day.

"Perhaps I will have that toast now, Colonel Coally."

"We made a bargain, Abigail. Until the storm ends we call each other by our first names and you are free to indulge in any sexual urges that you wish."

The red-hot stove hissed as water boiled over onto it. Grabbing a towel, Robert picked up the handle of the bucket and poured the hot water into the little hip bath beside the sink. Steam roiled up to the ceiling. The remainder of the water he poured into a tea pot. Then he refilled the bucket and set it back on the stove.

"Are we on bread-and-water rations?"

"Only until Mrs. Thomas makes it through the storm. She and Mr. Thomas look after the cottage. For a few extra shillings a week she cooks and cleans and does my laundry."

"I doubt she'll make it today."

"No." A warm glow of anticipation grew inside Abigail's stomach. Another night with this man was well worth a little starvation.