“Why are you bent on following this trail?” She leaned forward, wanting to cut through his defenses as he had cut through hers. They had so little time left. “Why spend all this effort and money pursuing the man? Why, after all these years?”
“Because I can and the others can’t.”
“What do you mean?” she whispered.
He dropped the curtain and turned fully to her. There was no artifice, no shield in place to keep her from seeing the desolation in his face. “They’re dead. They’re all dead.”
“Jasper—”
He laughed. “Even the ones who survived are dead, don’t you see? Vale may joke and drink and play a fool, but you’ll be wedding yourself to a corpse, never doubt that.”
She stood to meet his awful despair head-on. “I do doubt that. Jasper may have his demons, but he’s alive. You saved him, Samuel.”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t there.”
“You ran to bring help—”
“I ran away,” he rasped, and she shut her mouth, for she’d never heard him say it aloud. “At the height of the battle, when I knew we were going to lose, when I knew the Indians would overrun us and take scalps from still-living men, I figured there was no longer any point in fighting, so I hid. And when they took Vale, Munroe, your brother, and the other men captive, I ran.”
She ventured close to him and grasped his coat in both fists, feeling the wool on her fingertips. She stood on tiptoe and brought her face as near to his as she could. “You hid because you knew that it was pointless to die. You ran to save the lives of the men captured.”
“Did I?” he whispered. “Did I? That’s what I told myself at the time, that I was running for the others, but perhaps I lied. Perhaps I ran merely for myself.”
“No.” She shook her head desperately. “I know you, Samuel. I know you. You ran to save them, pure and simple, and I admire you for it.”
“Do you?” His eyes seemed to focus on her face finally. “Yet your brother died before I could return with the ransom. I failed him. I failed you.”
“No,” she choked. “Never think that.” And she pulled his head down to her own.
She kissed him, trying to instill all her conflicting thoughts and hopes into that simple gesture. Mouth to mouth, lips moving together. A kiss was such a basic thing, a thing easily given, but she wanted this kiss to be more. She wanted Samuel to know that she’d never thought him a coward.
She wanted him to know that she loved him.
Yes, love. No matter who she married, no matter if she never again saw him, she would always love this man. Loving him was beyond her control. Even though Samuel was the wrong man to marry, the wrong man to spend the rest of her life with, she couldn’t help loving him.
So she kissed him softly, her lips as gentle as she could make them. She moved over his mouth, murmuring incoherent endearments, finally licking so that she could taste him. She would need to remember this moment later, his taste, his lips, what kissing Samuel felt like. She would have to hold the memory in her heart forever. This memory would be the only thing she had of him.
He moved suddenly, grasping her upper arms, and she didn’t know whether he sought to push her away or draw her closer. She panicked then. He couldn’t leave her before she’d shown him that she loved him.
“Please,” she murmured against his lips.
His fingers tightened on her arms.
She pulled back and looked into his eyes. “Please. Let me.”
His brows drew together over his beautiful coffee-brown eyes as if he were puzzled. She pressed her palms against his chest. She’d never be able to move him against his will, but he let her. He stepped back, and when she pressed again, he backed again, until his legs hit the side of her bed.
He glanced at the bed behind him and then at her. “Emeline—”
“Shhh.” She placed her fingers against his lips. “Please.”
He searched her eyes a moment and then must have understood her incoherent plea. He nodded.
She smiled tremblingly at him. For this night, she would put away all thoughts of the future and what would come. Her anxieties, her fears, all the burdens she carried, all the people who depended on her. She would forget them for a few precious hours. Gently she drew his coat from his shoulders, taking care not to jostle his injuries. She folded the garment carefully and placed it on a table; then she began unbuttoning his plain brown waistcoat. She was conscious of her breathing, shallow and quick with nervousness, and his as well, deep and even. He watched her undress him, making no move to either help or hinder, his hands idle by his side.
She glanced up and met his eyes and felt a wash of heat in her cheeks. What an intimate act this was, to undress a man.
He smiled faintly as he shrugged off his waistcoat. She took a deep breath and started on his shirt. His hands came up to rest on her hips, lightly, but she felt the heat of his fingers even through the layers of cloth. Her hands shook, fumbling with a button. He leaned over her and kissed the top of her head. His body surrounded her, and she inhaled his scent: wool and linen, leather and parsley. She pulled apart the edges of his shirt, looking at his bare chest. His skin was so beautiful; she ran her fingertips over his collarbone and pressed her palm onto his chest. She could feel the wiry hair beneath, and under that the slow beat of his heart. He was here with her, so real. How would she be able to bear it when he wasn’t? When he was across a wide, wide ocean?