"I never thanked you for what you did today."

"For what? Pushing you up against the bedchamber wall and working my way beneath your gown?" Teasing was easier than facing the emotions beneath.

"You're an incorrigible man. I was referring to the way you handled Charity. How you stood up to her. No one has ever done that for me. Ever."

"I only spoke the truth, Tessa." He fought the tug of deeper emotions, of ways he had not let himself feel for so long. "I never had my eye set on Violet Bradford. I'd have run screaming all the way to Boston rather than wed a cold-hearted chit like her."

A small, satisfied smile touched her mouth, a smile he wanted to kiss until she melted against him. "Thomas will watch over Father tonight. Mayhap we can head to bed a little early."

"Nay, I need to keep watch on Samuel." She used Father's proper name with quiet affection, as gentle as dawn. "He appears to be doing a bit better, but I'm leery. I know in my heart I need to watch carefully for any sign of the fever returning."

Half aroused already, he gritted his teeth against the building desire for her expanding in his breeches. He'd been thinking of little else all day, of stripping her in his bed and feasting on the sweetness of her breasts, of listening to the growing urgency in her moans, of her restless body rising up to mate with his.

But Father was the reason why he'd married her in the first place. So the old man would have the care he deserved in these last days of his life.

He sighed, resigned to a night without passion. There would be time enough for making love. Tessa strode down the corridor and into Father's room, her skirts swishing, and beneath them, the tantalizing sway of her hips and thighs.

The old man looked up from his pillows, and laughter crinkled in knowledgeable eyes. "You look like a hungry wolf, son. Don't suppose 'tis something you can tell your father about?"

"Nay, and you well know it."

Jonah watched Tessa set the basin on the night table, her movements lithe and graceful. The brush of her fingers to the water's steaming surface reminded him of her feather-light touch across his chest. The twist of her mouth into a smile made him taste again the heat of her kisses. The flicker of her gaze to his reminded him of their joining, when she stared up at him from between heavily lidded eyes.

"I left you sleeping." She settled down at the bedside, her face tender.

"Aye, I awakened to find my angel of mercy had left me."

"I needed more water. I could fetch you some broth."

"Nay. I have a craving for real food and you'll not let me have it." Father's hand, strong and straight even with age, caught Tessa's. "It did me good to see you and my boy married. To think he harbored a fondness for you all these years. I well remember him as a little schoolboy racing home many afternoons complaining of his muddy breeches and blaming sweet little you."

"I shoved him, all right." She laughed. "Trust me, he deserved it."

"Little boys always do." He winked, a weak smile coming to light his face. How his eyes twinkled. "Now my son is giving you a different kind of tumble, and he pleases you, judging by the color in your cheeks."

" 'Tis only because of the steam from the boiling water."

"Say what you will, but an old man can recognize these things." Father sighed, his smile weak and pale, but lingering.

"You look better." Jonah circled the bed to draw another chair to the edge of the mattress. "You had us worried for a while there."

"I cannot deny it. I fear my time is near." Father sighed, a sadness plucking at the papery wrinkles at his eyes. "I'm well contented to see you sensibly married. Tessa, I think that foul tea is bewitching me."

" 'Tis possible. I said a spell while steeping it." A soft humor twinkled in her compassionate eyes. "Now go to sleep, and stop fighting it. Trust me, you'll feel better come morning."

"Aye, or I'll be dead. Either way, 'twill be a change." Chuckling, then coughing, Father relaxed into the pillows. "Make yourself useful and read to me, boy."

"I already have the book in hand." Jonah leafed through the pages, remembering where he'd left off.

Tessa's gaze snared his. The warm glow of candlelight caressed her face and illuminated the sweet blue of her eyes. And resonated with the hues of her heart-gentle, kind, and infinitely caring.

Not the heart of a sensible old maid after all. He thought of Charity Bradford's cruel words today at the wharf, and how crushed Tessa had been without the hard armor she'd built over the years, the sharp-tongued spinster who could handle any insult or any situation.

He saw for the first time what a grave mistake he'd made, assuming she had a heart as lost to love as his, lost from too much pain and too many dark nights without comfort or hope or dreams.

He bowed his head and began reading, the meter and imagery of the poem rolling off his tongue, but never touching his heart.


"You mean so much to him." Tessa felt the candlelight glint in her eyes, saw how it softened the hard chiseled angles of Jonah's jaw and the strong blade of his nose.

His well-shaped hands cradled the open book, as if he treasured the words there. "I'm his eldest son. Such high expectations he set for me."

" 'Tis why he's so proud, no doubt."

"Proud?" Jonah shook his head in disbelief and closed the volume. "He sleeps now."

"Aye, he fought the sleeping powder I made him. He has been sleeping, but not well. As I said, 'tis best for him that you're here. He seems brighter, more determined."

"If this is truly his time, there's naught either of us can do to stop it."

"Aye, I've seen it often enough." Tessa stood and reached to the low shelf over the bed. Her fingers grasped three fresh candles. "Some who seem strong enough to fight die, whilst others who are more ill survive. Sometimes I think it has to do with the will to stay with loved ones. I've not given up hope on your father."

"Truly?" How deep his eyes, filled with an abiding affection.

"Truly. He has you." And so do I. She held those words back, although they lived deep inside, in a place that had not known love in too long.

"You place too much importance on me."

"On strong, heroic Major Hunter?" She now believed him to be.

"Trust me, I'm not so heroic." He bowed his head.

Tessa lit a new taper with the stub of a dying one. " 'Tis all your father talked about, how you received this commission or that, another promotion, or won a greater victory. You made him proud, Jonah. Everyone in this village knows it."

He said nothing, but sat in silence as the candlelight brushed at his shoulders and the edges of his face, as the clock ticked and wood smoke puffed into the room with a gust of wind. "I'm but an ordinary man, Tessa. With ordinary flaws and failures."

"I never said you weren't flawed." She set the last lit candle into its holder.

"So I have you to remind me, lest I get too big of a head from listening to such high praise." It hurt to smile, it hurt to feel.

And yet she touched his heart in ways he could not explain. How she moved, the way she smiled, the steady quiet strength of her. She did not seem afraid of death, not afraid to touch it, to breathe it, to feel its cold shadows creeping from the corners of the room toward the light.

"Let me guess. You didn't like the army." She knelt at his side, bringing with her the sweet scent of roses and the herbs she'd last steeped for Father's tea. Her hands, not silken and soft as many of those silly young women's in the village, were slightly rough and reddened, but were beautiful just the same. And the touch of her heated skin to his moved him like nothing else.

"Nay. I was just a small boy fed on my father's tales of his time in the army, and I loved him."

"You wanted to be just like him."

"Aye." He didn't like how Tessa's sharp gaze could look inside and see his thoughts, his truths. "I left home a man determined to do my father proud and protect this land from marauding Indians and the French."

"I can't believe there is much pride in war."

"Why do you say that? Others think-"

"I have seen far too much dying. I can't think 'twould be easy to inflict such suffering, to become a killer."

"You see into my soul, then."

Her eyes shadowed. "Nay, just into your eyes."

Relieved, he was glad she could not see the darkness there, for every life he had taken in battle and for every life he saved. He'd not expected brutality, and the burden of it still weighed on his shoulders. "He was an Indian brave, no older than I."

"Who was?"

"The first man I killed." He did not want to tell her this, did not want her to see the flaws so deep. "My first battle."

"You remember?" How dark her eyes, full of sympathy, of unspoken questions. But not judgment. Nay, that would come in time.

"I've never forgotten." His throat closed tight on the truths he kept silent for ten long years. "He was like me, fighting for what he believed in. I had the luck to dodge his arrow meant for my heart. 'Twas naught but luck. I slashed and killed him in one swift act. I will never forget his face, never forget what I saw there."

"What?"

His chest squeezed when her fingers curled around his. "That he was like me and no different. He probably had a father who loved him, and younger brothers at home who would miss him. His life was gone, spent on the muddy field that day. That is battle. I've not been the same since or held the same beliefs over what is right and what is wrong."

"You're not so bad of a man as you think." Her mouth brushed his, gentle and comforting, like sunlight after winter, bright and earnest and full of hope.