As they lay on their sides face to face, Nathaniel slid a knee up her thigh until it lodged there at the juncture of her. He was watching her face while he did this, his eyes flickering with satisfaction at her gasp. The warm, hard surface of his knee rocked against her, and her flesh answered with an increasing dampening and a sparking rhythm. In the back of Elizabeth's mind a connection was made, between the pleasure of this particular kind of touch and what might be possible, what he might have meant about satisfaction. Because she could not find the words to ask this question, she hooked her knee over his hip to draw him closer, but he held back.

"Not yet," he whispered against her mouth. "Patience."

Patience took on a new meaning, then, in the next long minutes. She had often used the word with her own students as they strove toward some new skill, and she vowed to herself never to use it again.

"Nathaniel!" she said finally, her voice breaking, and he looked up from her breast.

"There's no special word for this that I'm aware of." he said, grinning at her. In response she batted at his head, hit him with the heel of her hand above the ear. He caught her hand and then the other one, coming up to take her chin in his mouth, suckling softly. She moaned then, and he stopped it with a kiss, his length against hers and his weight concentrated where their hips strained together.

"Yes, there is," she gasped finally, her fingers flexing and stretching without effect. "It's called teasing. And if you tell me to be patient—”

“But if you're patient, darling', you'll hear those words you wanted. If you still do want them. Aye, I see that you do. Well, then, listen, listen to me. With his mouth at her ear he flexed and suddenly he was poised there at the quick of her. She gasped, her eyes wide and startled, at the silky, hard touch. "Do you know how fine you feel to me?" he murmured, his eyes flickering with this, with his pleasure.

But he drew away, his mouth trailing down between her breasts. She cried out in disappointment and frustration and then stilled, her whole being startled and frozen, as Nathaniel finally settled between her legs and set about the business of teaching her, with great deliberation, about one kind of satisfaction.

"Nathaniel?" she gasped, her fingers in his hair, her mind reeling in panic and shock and confusion. This could not be; there must be a mistake. But the rough caress of his cheek against her inner thigh was real and so were the hands that cupped her, spread—fingered. He murmured to her, soft words, as soft as the first touch of his lips and tongue, and suddenly all the questions and doubts and all the words in the world disappeared in a blaze of pleasure and Elizabeth let them go without any regret.

And when she had finally learned about satisfaction of one kind, when she lay subdued and sated, her flesh still pulsing and leaping, then he came to her and taught her about another. Arched over her, belly to belly and mouth to mouth, Nathaniel taught Elizabeth what she had wanted to know, and he took his lessons in turn.

* * *

When she slept, he covered her with a blanket and stood looking down at her. Carefully, gently, he smoothed damp curls away from her face, resisting the urge to kiss her temple because she needed her sleep, and because he wanted a few minutes to himself to think. But then, because he could not do otherwise, he sat carefully on the edge of the cot to watch her. Supporting his weight on one arm, he leaned in and lowered his face to hers, close enough to feel the heat of her on his skin. In the soft candlelight he traced the sweep of her eyebrow and the curve of lashes on her cheek.

Nathaniel wondered that she could be both women, this peaceful one and the one who had wound herself around him with such purpose, her mouth open in a circle of surprise and wonder. The close memory of her heat, her weight in his hands, her unapologetic desire, stirred him almost to the point of waking her. But he mastered himself by degrees and leaned slowly away to rise, feeling the cool air on his damp flesh. He blew out all the candles but two. One he left on its shelf on the wall, the other he took with him to the spring where he lit a torch.

With a soft grunt of appreciation he walked into the pool and submerged himself, holding his breath as long as he could in the heavy hot water, and coming up with an explosion of breath and spray, shaking his head. He floated, spread—bodied, feeling his muscles expand and loosen, his hair sweeping around him. With his eyes open or closed he could see only Elizabeth. This evening they would sit together and eat and talk; he had missed talking to her. Tonight he would sleep with her alongside him. In the night she would turn to him and he would have her again, because he wanted her already with a will that surprised even himself. He rolled in the hot water and submerged himself again and again, letting the images of her wash over him with the water.

In the morning they would emerge into the daylight and confront what waited for them. In the morning there would be no choice but to face it all, because by the day after, they would be on the run again.

Chapter 29

"You cannot be serious," Elizabeth said, wiping a strand of hair away from her forehead with the back of her hand.

Nathaniel looked up over the edge of his tin cup, wondering exactly how angry she could get.

"I cannot, I will not believe this," she said, stirring the porridge with such force that it jumped out of the iron cauldron to hiss and bubble on the rocks below it.

"If I understand this correctly, you are telling me that Kitty Witherspoon has forsworn herself against me in a public court of law, and along with her Martha Southern and Liam Kirby." She glanced up at him, her mouth set hard. "Liam Kirby! The ungrateful—" She stopped, but reluctantly.