I'll be damned if I'll be a gentleman, he thought. Even cavaliers and knights of old surely had their needs.

He reached out, catching her hand where it lay over his heart. Her eyes darted to his in alarm.

"Go on. Touch me," he whispered.

"I—I didn't mean to wake you," she stuttered. They were both whispering. She must have known that he could not let her go, not this time. She was exquisite in the light, her breasts full and firm and ripe and her skin silky, shining in the candles' pale glow. Her eyes were so very blue…

"I'm awake," he told her.

"I've disturbed you—"

"Disturb me further, darlin'…please." His eyes remained locked with hers. He drew her hand along the length of his body. He heard her breath go ragged in her throat and her eyes followed the motion of their hands with a deadly fascination. Her fingers trailed over his flesh, over the soft hair that nestled around his sex. She tensed, and he felt her trembling. He sensed a certain fear within her, but he held her tight. She curved her hand around it hesitantly.

Rockets seemed to burst within his head and into his body. She gasped softly as she felt him swell huge and hard. She cried out softly. He reached up, slipping his hand around her neck to cup her head. He rose up on an elbow and kissed her slowly and fully, taking her lips, releasing them, hovering over them again just to brush them with the taste of his mouth and the seductive jut of his tongue.

Then he laid her flat and crawled aggressively over her. He kissed her again, easing away her hesitance.

He felt her fingers upon his shoulders again. Her body found a slow undulation beneath his. He set his hand upon her breast, and followed his touch with his kiss. He stroked her thighs and invaded her intimately with his touch.

With raw purpose he moved his body in a slow, bold sweep down the length of hers. He kept his eyes hard upon hers until he came to the juncture of her thighs, when he replaced his intimate touch there with the searing violation of his tongue.

She called out his name in a gasp as he brought her to the very edge of ecstasy, then withdrew. He found her eyes once more and she choked out incomprehensible words, reaching for him. She pulled him to her, seeking his shoulders with her lips and teeth. He pushed away again, demanding that she meet his eyes as he parted her thighs with the wedge of his knee and thrust deep and swiftly inside her.

She shuddered and whispered his name again.

That night, he gave little heed to finesse, and passion rose like a tempest within him. He caught her lips again with a savage passion, and as their bodies arched in an urgent rhythm, he caressed her with rough and demanding hunger.

Her legs wrapped high around him and her kisses fell upon him as she tasted the textures of his face and his throat. Her fingers trailed down his back to knot into the rigid muscles of his buttocks. At the end he cast back his head as a fierce shudder gripped his body, a hoarse cry escaping his lips. She sobbed out in turn, barely aware of the night, of time or place, barely conscious of reality.

Seconds later, she felt his touch, so absurdly gentle once again. Their harsh breathing could still be heard, and they were both covered in a soft sheen. "Malachi—"

"It's all right," he said gently. "You don't have to say anything." He lay back, bringing her down beside him. He whispered softly against her ear. "Just don't think to hop up and leave me. Don't deny me."

She lay there in silence. The darkness closed around them as the last of the candles burned out.

Much later, they crawled beneath the sheet. Shannon knew a moment of panic at this new intimacy, but then she relaxed again. There was nothing left to fear for that night. She hadn't meant what had happened. At least she didn't think that she did. She had thought he slept soundly, and she had not been able to resist temptation.

And temptation had definitely led to sin, she thought.

With his arms closed around her, she felt as if she might start crying again, because it felt so good. His arms offered warmth and security and a steel-hard strength, and she found she loved that. Just as she was coming to love the slant of his grin. And the way he would never let a man—or a woman—down. He had his code of honor.

And in his sweeping way, he was a cavalier.

She loved his courage, and his daring, just as she was coming to love the bronzed power of his arms, holding her close now. Just as she was coming to love the breadth of his golden-matted chest, and the hard, muscled length of his thighs…

And his impossible, immoral intimacy. She could not believe the way that he had touched and caressed her, and neither could she believe the sweet, unbearable ecstasy that he brought her with his sheer decadent purpose and determination. She was coming to care for him too much…

"Malachi," she whispered softly.

"What?" He moved his hand gently against her, beneath her breasts, idly, tenderly upon them.

"Have you ever been in love?"

He went still, then he moved away from her, his arm over his forehead as he rolled to his back, staring at the ceiling. "Yes. Once. Why?"

"I just… wondered.''

He grunted, giving her no further answer.

"Malachi?"

"Yes?"

"Who was she?"

"A girl." It was a short, terse answer. He sighed. "It was a long, long time ago."

"What happened?"

"She died."

"The war—"

"A fever."

"I'm so sorry."

"I told you, it was a long, long time ago."

"It hurt you, though. Badly."

"Shannon, go to sleep."

"Malachi—"

"Shannon, go to sleep. It's night, and I'm tired." He started to rise. In the darkness, she saw the glitter in his eyes.

"Unless you plan on entertaining me again, I suggest you go to sleep."

She closed her eyes quickly, turning from him and hugging her pillow. She couldn't…do it again. Not that night. She had to hug what had happened to herself, and she had to try to understand it, and live with it.

She felt him as he eased back down.

And later, when she was drifting off to sleep, she felt his arm come around her again, strong and sure, bringing her body close against his. It was warm, and it felt better than she ever might have imagined.

It felt…peaceful.

She opened her eyes and looked down at his hand, brown against the whiteness of her flesh in the moonlight.

It felt right, and though it might not be, she was tired. She was tired of the war, and tired of righting. She didn't want to worry anymore. She wanted to take moments like these, and cling to them.

Her pa would be twisting and turning in his grave if he knew anything about her behavior in bed with this man, she thought ruefully. Gabriel McCahy had been a strong man— in his beliefs, in his ideals, in his morality. He'd liked his Irish whiskey, and he'd always been able to spin a fine tale, but he'd loved their mother, and when she had died, he'd been determined that his daughters would be ladies.

Of course, he'd never reckoned on the war.

And then, she reflected wistfully, maybe he wouldn't be so upset after all. He'd had an ability to judge men, and he might have understood that she had stumbled upon a good one, albeit, he came clothed in gray.

She closed her eyes and slept, her fingers falling lightly over Malachi's where they lay across her midriff.


"It is him! I told you it was him, Martha!"

Malachi woke abruptly, his eyes flashing open.

The bore of a sawed-off shotgun was stuck right beneath his nose. He jerked up. Shannon, curled against his chest, moaned in protest and went silent again. Instinctively, Malachi pulled the sheets high over her naked form as he stared respectfully into the face of the man carrying the shotgun.

"You're Malachi Slater," Mr. Haywood said. He barely dared glance at his wife, plump and pink in her nightgown and cap behind him. "Martha, you look now. It is him."

"Do you make a habit of bursting into your guests' bedrooms in the middle of the night?" Malachi demanded icily.

Beside him, Shannon stirred. Her eyes flew open and she saw the shotgun. "Oh!" she gasped, grasping the covers. She stared from Malachi to Haywood, and past him to his wife. She stiffened, raising her chin, and her voice came out as imperiously as a queen's. "What is the meaning of this?"

"There's wanted posters out on him all over the countryside," Haywood said. "You're a dangerous man, Captain Slater. Captain! Hell! Bushwhackers shouldn't get no titles or rank!"

Shannon leaped from the bed, dragging the covers with her, and heedlessly leaving Malachi bare. "He isn't a bushwhacker!" she swore. "It's all a lie! You want to shoot somebody, you ought to go out and shoot Fitz!"

Malachi grimaced at her sudden, passionate loyalty and pulled his pillow around to his lap. "Mr. Haywood, what she's saying is true. I was never a bushwhacker. I was a captain under John Hood Morgan until he died. I signed surrender forms with my men, and we were all allowed to keep our horses, and I was even allowed to keep my arms. I didn't know anything about this until some Union sentries shot at me." He indicated the wound on his leg. The bandage had been lost during his impromptu swim in the stream, but the evidence of Shannon's quick surgery was still there, a jagged red scab.

"Well, I don't know, young man. You're worth an awful lot of money, you know. If this is the truth, you can tell it to Mr. Fitz," Haywood said.

"Fitz will hang him and ask questions later," Shannon said.