Chapter Nineteen

Elissa dressed with care for the last night in camp before the long march on to Vienna. In the center of the circle of tents not far from theirs, a campfire blazed and a gathering of soldiers stood around it. Adrian was among them, she knew, and so was Josef Becker.

Earlier, she had prepared a simple meal of bread and boiled sausages from the supplies they had purchased in Zwettl. She had washed their plates and cooking utensils then returned to the tent, trying to determine her strategy for the evening ahead. Now she changed into a clean cotton skirt and white peasant blouse, adding a red linen bodice that laced up the front, pushing her breasts into soft hills above the neckline.

She wore nothing beneath the skirt. When she walked, the firelight would outline the shape of her legs and hips, and she intended that Becker would see them.

And so would Adrian. She couldn’t help a perverse need to remind him what it had been like when they had made love. For whatever reason, he no longer wanted her in that way, and though she knew she shouldn’t want him, couldn’t afford to want a man incapable of the least amount of fidelity, the fact was she did.

She desired him. Beyond that she was in love with him. Unreasonably, irrationally, regretfully in love with him, and she seemed powerless to do anything about it.

The sound of men’s voices drifted up. The scent of tobacco and leather hung in the air. The faint echo of singing rose from a campfire in the distance. Elissa ran her fingers through her curly blond hair, longer now than when she’d first come to Vienna, fluffing it out around her face in a manner she hoped looked softly enticing. Pasting on her most sensuous smile, she lifted the flap and stepped out of the tent.

The night air felt cool against her skin. A gentle breeze lifted the hair from the nape of her neck and molded her skirt against her legs. Darkness surrounded them, an endless sea of black brightened by campfires like intermittent diamonds. She spotted the major almost instantly, speaking quietly to one of the men. Adrian had been talking to him earlier, she knew, but now the colonel stood a few feet away—speaking to dark-haired, dark-eyed, sensuous Nina Petralo.

Elissa’s stomach did a queer little twist, and a tremor ran through the hand that rested against her hip. Nina was laughing at something Adrian had said and he was laughing with her. Elissa hadn’t heard that easy note in his voice for as long as she could remember.

Her stomach knotted and her mouth felt cotton-dry. She wished she could see his eyes, know what he was thinking, then suddenly was glad she could not.

Was he looking at Nina the way he used to look at her, his eyes hot and hungry, burning straight into her heart? Was his fierce gaze promising fiery kisses and a touch that could set her blood on fire?

Elissa’s palms went damp and an icy chill tingled down her spine. If he went to Nina as he had done with Cecily Kainz—dear God, she didn’t think she could bear it. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes and she panicked to think they might actually begin to fall.

Not now! Dear Lord, not here!

She sucked in a shuddery breath and forced herself to calm. She didn’t realize she had paused, that she was staring in Adrian’s direction until his eyes swung to hers and he smiled. It was a warm, soft smile, and the hot look in his eyes wasn’t directed at Nina—it was directed at her.

Sweet God in heaven, surely she was wrong. The dark-haired girl raised an arm and beckoned her over, and Elissa nearly swooned in relief. She forced her legs to move, forced herself to cross the camp with an air of nonchalance she didn’t feel. When she reached Adrian’s side, she summoned a halfhearted smile. When she spoke, she was amazed her voice could sound so normal.

“Good evening, Colonel. I see you’ve met Nina.”

He nodded. “Apparently the two of you got acquainted earlier in the day.”

Elissa glanced at Nina, saw nothing of seduction in her eyes, just a simple look of friendship. “That’s right. I also met her little brother, Tibor, and her sister, Vada. They’re adorable children. It’ll be nice to have company on the march ahead.” They talked for a while, Nina as forthright and unpretentious as she had been before.

“Your colonel was telling me how you managed to convince him to bring you along.”

Elissa’s brow arched up. “Was he? And exactly how was that?”

“He said you seduced him. He said you promised to cook for him and he is a terrible cook.”

She laughed at that and relaxed a little more. “I promised to cook and clean. I must have been crazy.”

Nina laughed. “I do not think so. I would be happy to cook for such a man if he looked at me the way your colonel looks at you.”

Elissa tried to smile, but she thought that it came out a little wobbly. True, he looked at her as if he cared, as if he still desired her, but he didn’t. He hadn’t come near her in weeks.

Adrian said nothing. His interest had wandered and his forehead was lined with a frown. He was staring at her thin cotton skirt, she saw, and it occurred to her that standing as she was with her back to the fire, he could see right through it. Satisfaction jolted through her. He was a man, after all, and a man had needs. It felt good to know she could still affect him.

Hopefully, she could also affect Josef Becker.

“I see you dressed for the occasion,” Adrian said with a dry, mocking half-smile.

“You could say that.” She glanced toward Becker. She didn’t want to leave. For certain, she didn’t want to leave Adrian with Nina, but she had work to do and only a short time to finish.

She tilted her head toward Becker, and Adrian clamped his jaw. “If the two of you will excuse me,” she said, “I’d like to thank Major Becker for his chivalry earlier in the day.”

Adrian’s mouth curved thinly. “By all means.” Nina watched the exchange with interest, then excused herself to see to the children, making Elissa’s departure a little less painful. Walking around the campfire, she crossed to where Becker stood smoking a pipe of tobacco.

“Good evening, Major.”

His head came up. Until that moment, he had appeared lost in thought. “Good evening … Elissa.”

She smiled. “I just wanted to thank you … for your gallantry this morning, I mean.”

“My pleasure,” he said absently.

“You don’t … you don’t have a woman in the camp to take care of you, Major?”

“After fifteen years in the army, I’ve learned to take care of myself.”

“Not married?”

“No.”

Elissa studied him a moment, wishing he was easier to read. She ran a finger down the front of his uniform coat. “You’re a very attractive man, Major. I imagine you could have just about any woman you wanted.”

He glanced toward where Adrian had been standing and Elissa’s eyes followed. Fortunately, Adrian was gone. “For the present, I’m content as I am.” He eased her hand away. “Besides, I don’t think Colonel Kingsland would approve.”

Elissa shrugged her shoulders. “We have an understanding. He does as he pleases and I do the same.”

“That isn’t the story I’ve heard.”

Another offhand shrug. “The colonel is a gentleman. He doesn’t like to see a woman hurt. Besides, he knows I’m not interested in selling myself to a common soldier. I enjoy men of power and position. Men like yourself, Major Becker.”

“And the colonel?”

“Adrian has any number of women. I am only one of them.”

He smiled at her indulgently, but there wasn’t the least spark of interest. “As I said, Elissa. I’m happy taking care of myself.”

Elissa eyed him with speculation. The approach she had chosen was obviously the wrong one. “Then perhaps, Major Becker, we could simply be friends. I would enjoy that, I think, having a man for a friend.”

He smiled then, more relaxed than he was before. “I believe I would like that, too.”

“The colonel says we’ll be moving in the morning.”

“That’s correct. Have you followed an army before?”

“No. I am rather looking forward to it. Do you know where we are headed?”

“Somewhere in the general direction of Vienna. That is all I know.”

“Napoleon will be following on our heels, will he not?”

“Yes.”

“Will the archduke—”

“I’m afraid I’m not privy to the archduke’s plans. Perhaps Colonel Kingsland will have a better answer.”

“You are aide to a general. I thought perhaps you might have heard something of interest.”

“Nothing I’m free to discuss.”

She glanced away, pretending a look of chagrin. “I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s all right. You’re new to all of this.”

“So I am.” She tossed him a last warm smile. “But I will always be curious. Surely there is nothing wrong with that.”

He smiled. “Perhaps not, but it has been said, curiosity killed the cat.”

An uneasy tremor moved through her. “So I’ve heard.” She glanced toward the tent she shared with Adrian, suddenly wishing she were there. “It’s getting late. I suppose I had better be going before the colonel begins to wonder where I am. Good night, Major Becker.”

“Good night, Elissa.”

He watched her as she walked away, and she wondered what he was thinking. Not the best encounter, but at least she knew where she stood. Perhaps Becker had a woman somewhere, one he cared about enough to remain faithful. Unlike Adrian, there actually were such men. Her brothers were like that. Her father.

She lifted the tent flap, ducked her head and walked in, wishing she could have fallen in love with a man more like them. In the light of the single candle burning on an upended ammunition box, she saw Adrian, his jacket unbuttoned, his eyes hard and fixed on her face.

“How did it go?” he asked.

Elissa sighed. “Not the way I had hoped. He isn’t interested in me, not as a woman. Perhaps he’ll accept me as a friend.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Adrian snapped, surprising her. “There isn’t a man in this camp who isn’t interested in you ‘as a woman.’ Becker might not show it, but it’s there just the same. There isn’t a soldier here who isn’t jealous of what they imagine I’m doing to you in here right now.”

He couldn’t have said anything worse. Her eyes burned with the unexpected sting of tears. She thought of him laughing with Nina and blinked to force them away.

“But you aren’t doing anything to me—are you, Adrian? You aren’t kissing me. You aren’t touching me.” She glanced down, saw the cots had been carefully pulled apart, leaving a modest distance between them. “You have no more interest in me than Becker.”

She turned away from him then, unable to stop the tears she had been holding back for so long. Her heart ached, felt like a crushing weight inside her chest. Rejection tasted bitter on her tongue.

“My God, you’re crying,” Adrian said, gently resting his hands on her shoulders, turning her slowly to face him. “Why are you crying?”

She only shook her head.

“Tell me, Elissa. I want to know.”

She looked up at him and a hint of her old bravado returned. “You tell me, Colonel—explain why it is that you don’t want me anymore.”

His fingers tightened on her shoulders. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about touching me, making love to me. There was a time when you wanted me, but not anymore.”

His features hardened. The muscles across his cheeks seemed etched in stone. “That is what you believe? That I do not want you?” He took her hand, roughly slid it down his body to the front of his breeches. He was hard and pulsing. She could feel the heat of his desire through the tight material of his breeches, and the blood began to thunder in her ears.

“I want you,” he said in a voice thick and rough. “I’ve never stopped wanting you. Every time I look at you, I get so hard I ache. I can’t sleep at night for remembering what it was like to be inside you, to kiss your beautiful breasts, to taste that soft, delicious mouth. I want you, Elissa. I can’t remember ever wanting a woman so badly.”

A little thrill shot through her, a heady, womanly feeling of power she hadn’t known in weeks. “Then why—”

“Because I promised myself I would not touch you. I forced you into my bed before. I blackmailed you into giving me your body. I swore I wouldn’t do it again—not unless it was your idea. Not unless you wanted me as badly as I wanted you.”

Her heart was beating so incredibly hard. She felt lightheaded and her hands were shaking. He wanted her. He had wanted her all along.

A finger ran down her cheek. “Is that what you want, angel? For me to make love to you? Because it’s damned well what I want.”

Her heart squeezed tight, stole the breath from her lungs. Of course it’s what I want, she silently screamed. I love you. I love you so much. She wanted him to kiss her, hold her. She wanted him to love her. But he didn’t even care enough to stay out of another woman’s bed.

The giddy feeling began to slide away. Her throat clogged with a fresh lump of tears and her chest felt suddenly leaden. “It doesn’t matter what I want. There are other things to consider.”

He sighed. “Yes, there are. Your family. Your reputation. You were an innocent, the daughter of a nobleman. You deserve better than to wind up some man’s mistress.”

She only shook her head. “None of that matters to me.”

He frowned. “What, then?”

Her eyes searched his face. “I know … I know about you and Lady Kainz.”

“Lady Kainz? Of course you know about Cecily. You were sleeping in her bed the first time I saw you, the night I came into your room at Blauenhaus. You’re certainly smart enough to realize we’d been having an affair.”

She glanced away, misery washing over her, making it hard to speak. “I know about the other times … after we made love. The times you went to see her in Vienna.”

“What! What are you talking about? Who told you I went to see her?”

“She did. She said she saw you at a dinner at the Belevedere Palace. She said you took her home. She said she knew how to make you happy, how to please you … that the two of you had been friends far longer than we had.”

Fury blazed in his eyes. His hands balled into fists. “That conniving, lying little baggage. I took her home, all right. I escorted her to the front door of her town house and I left her there. I saw her a few times after that at social functions, but I was never alone with her—and I never touched her. I haven’t been with another woman since the night I came into your bedchamber at Blauenhaus. I haven’t wanted any woman but you.”

Elissa stood there staring. Sweet God, could it possibly be true? Could the viscountess really have been lying? She studied his face, tried to read the truth there.

Adrian caught her chin with his hand. “I have never lied to you, Elissa.”

His jaw was set, sincerity etched in his features. He was telling the truth, she could see it in the depths of his beautiful eyes. He had never been unfaithful. He wanted her and she wanted him. Dear Lord, how badly she wanted him.

Tears blurred her vision. “Adrian…” She took a single step and he crushed her against him. His heartbeat thundered against her breast, nearly as loud as her own, and Elissa slid her arms around his neck. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered. “I’ve missed you so much.”

His hand slid into the loose curls of her hair, and he cradled her head against his shoulder. “I need you, angel. God, I need you so damned much.” He kissed her then, a hot, fierce, passionate kiss, yet so achingly tender her heart seemed to melt inside her. He needed her. He had only been trying to protect her from himself.

Adrian kissed her again, a deep, drugging, mind-numbing kiss that sent her head spinning, made her legs feel as if they were made of India rubber. Reaching behind him, he snuffed out the candle, but light from the fires outside the tent bled through the canvas, giving the room an exotic glow. The kiss continued, deeper now, softly probing, his tongue sweeping in, radiating heat out through her limbs.

She kissed him back, slid her fingers into his dark, silky hair. His lips moved along her jaw, trailing small, moist kisses down her throat and across her shoulders. He pulled the string at the neckline of her blouse, slid it down to bare her breasts, and his mouth settled there, his tongue flicking over the stiff bud of her nipple, making it ache and distend. He moved to her other breast, tending it with equal care, his lips and teeth closing over the end, nipping gently, then parting to take the fullness inside. She whimpered at the sensual tugging, at the heat licking over her skin.

“I want to feel you,” she whispered. “I have to touch you.”

His eyes found hers, dark with heat and wanting, need burning like fire in their depths. He stripped off his jacket, let her help him peel off his shirt. Muscles bunched and moved beneath the dark thatch of hair across his chest. She wanted to touch him, to skim her fingers over those dense, smooth muscles, but Adrian’s plundering kiss had her clinging to him instead.

He pulled the laces at the front of her red linen bodice and tossed it away, then drew her blouse up over her head, leaving both of them naked to the waist.

“I’ve wanted you for so long,” he said, nipping the side of her neck. “I tried not to. I told myself it was wrong. But now that we are here like this, it doesn’t seem wrong at all.” He kissed her deeply, his lips hot and insistent over hers. Taking her hand, he guided her fingers to his hardness. “See what you do to me? It’s all I can do not to tear off your clothes and bury myself inside you.”

“Yes…” she whispered. “That’s what I want, too.”

He only shook his head. “Not this time. This time I won’t hurry. I want all of you. I want to see you, touch you all over. I want to kiss you until neither of us can stand it a moment more. Then I’ll come inside you.”

She was shaking as he reached for the buttons on her skirt, unfastened them, and pooled the material around her ankles. Adrian smiled at the sight of her in nothing but her garters and stockings and a pair of sturdy brown shoes.

“Those have to go.” He kissed her as he pulled her down beside him on the single cot, bent and untied each one, set them carefully away, then dispensed with her garters and stockings. He removed the rest of his clothes, setting his boots beside her shoes then stripping off his breeches. Elissa watched each of his movements, marveling at his long, powerfully muscled flanks, at his narrow waist and rounded buttocks.

Tentatively, she reached out to touch him, allowing her fingers to glide through the hair on his chest, over his flat stomach, and down the ridges of muscle that tightened beneath her hand. His shaft was big and hard, straining upward against his belly. She reached for it, let her fingers wrap around it, felt the hot, slick surface, and heard Adrian groan.

“Easy, love. It’s been far too long and I’ve only got so much control.”

She cupped his face between his palms and kissed him. “Adrian…” Then she was lying beneath him on the narrow cot, feeling his hands on her body, his mouth against the hollow at the base of her throat, his fingers probing, stroking, working their skillful magic.

“Please, Adrian,” she whispered, clutching his thick neck, her body arching against him. “I need you. I can’t … I can’t stand any more.”

“Soon,” he promised in a voice gone rough. “Soon, sweet angel, but not yet.” Lowering his head, he began to kiss his way down her body.

Elissa nearly swooned at the erotic sensations, bit down on her lip against the heat roaring through her body. He kissed her breasts and belly, kissed the insides of her thighs, then he was looming above her, sliding his hard length inside, filling her nearly to bursting.

His loins flexed. Bands of muscle rippled across his chest as he began to move in and out, and waves of pleasure rolled through her. Her nails dug into his back. She reached down to cup his buttocks, felt them tighten as he drove into her again and again. A second climax hit her, so sweet it made her dizzy. She felt his body go rigid, felt the dampness of his seed spilling inside her, and knew he had followed her to release.

She stroked his back and whispered that she loved him, knowing he couldn’t hear, knowing she dared not say the words aloud for fear he would withdraw from her again. Instead she held him tightly against her, kissing the side of his neck, praying what they shared this night would be a new beginning.

*   *   *

They broke camp at dawn. Elissa hurriedly packed the few sparse items they had brought with them, then paced the earthen floor of the tent, waiting for Adrian to return from his meeting with General Klammer.

She smiled as she glanced down at the two narrow cots, positioned side by side now, as Adrian had placed them during the night, once they had finished making love. Of course it hadn’t really stopped with just that one time. Twice more before dawn, he had reached for her, taken her as if he couldn’t get enough. Perhaps she was a fool, but it had changed the way she felt about him, made her begin to look at him in an entirely different way.

Where before she had been holding herself back from him, trying to protect herself from the heartbreak she was certain she risked in loving a man like him, now she thought of Adrian and wondered what he might be feeling. Perhaps he cared for her more than he was willing to admit.

Perhaps he even loved her.

Major St. Giles had told her a little about him. He had never known love as a boy. Perhaps he had never known love as a man. It was something she could give him if he would only let her.

He ducked into the tent just then, his strides long and elegant, pausing a few feet in front of her. The scowl was back on his face. She hoped last night was not the cause.

“Are we ready to leave?” she asked.

“Soon. Lieutenant Helm will be here shortly to disassemble the tent and take care of the cots. In the meantime, there is something I need to say.”

A thread of unease trickled through her. “Do not tell me you regret last night—if that is so, I refuse to hear it.”

His hard look softened. A hand came out to cup her cheek. “I do not regret it I am far too selfish for that. But I … last night I should have been more careful. The times before when we made love, I did my best to protect you. Last night I did nothing. I wanted you and I took you. It was a stupid, reckless thing to do. I fear for you, Elissa. If we continue as we did last night, sooner or later, I am bound to get you with child. Neither of us wants that.”

Elissa smiled to think how wrong he was. “I would love to have your child, Adrian.”

His head jerked as if she had fired a shot. Something flickered in the depths of his eyes, then it was gone. He drew himself a little away. “A child of mine is the last thing you should want. I wouldn’t marry you, Elissa, and even if I did, I would leave you at home and return to my life in the army. I’m a soldier. I’m not cut out to be a husband. I never will be.”

She only shook her head. “I don’t care.”

“You do care. I don’t want you hurt—even if it means I have to give you up.”

“There were others before me … you didn’t worry about those things with them.”

His jaw tightened beneath his scowl. “The other women I’ve known knew how to protect themselves.”

Elissa’s chin went up. “Then I shall learn. There are women in the camp who know the ways. I’ll get one of them to teach me.”

“But you shouldn’t have to—”

“You aren’t the only one with a say in this, Colonel. If you don’t want children, there are ways to prevent them from occurring. If by chance I should conceive, the problem will be mine.”

He gripped her arms and dragged her solidly against him. “I didn’t mean I would ignore my obligations. I would see to your welfare, and that of the child. ’Tis just that you deserve so much more.”

She relaxed a little, reached up and cupped his face. Raising up on the tips of her toes, she gently kissed him. “You’re enough for me, Adrian. You’re all I want. I’ll speak to the women—but I will not give you up again.”

For a moment he said nothing, as if he couldn’t quite believe the words. “You’re sure this is what you want?”

“I have never been more certain.”

The tension drained from his body and a smile broke over his face. For the first time in weeks, she saw his dimples. “I’m a lucky man, angel. A very lucky man.”

Elissa only smiled and went into his arms. If there was any way she could arrange it, she would make him feel like the luckiest man in the world.