Free Merline Lovelace by The Horse Soldier Page A

he’ll move heaven and hell to come for you. God knows, I did.”
    She pulled in another breath, this one soft and fast. A rush of heat warmed the satiny skin under his finger. Without intending to, without even knowing that he did it, Andrew spread his hand and cupped her cheek.
    Lord, she was beautiful. Her face was so delicate beneath the heavy coronet of braids. Aching for a touch of that silky hair, he slid his fingers from her cheek to her neck. The fine, damp curls at her nape lit a fire under his skin.
    A pulse beat in the side of her neck, hard and fast against his palm. Wide-eyed and still as a startled deer, she stared up at him.
    She felt it, too, Andrew realized with a shock. The same throbbing heat, the same remembered pull deep in her loins.
    A fierce satisfaction stabbed through him, tempered by the knowledge that what he was about to do was sheer idiocy. He’d lost his head and almost lost his life once because of this woman. He’d be twenty kinds of a fool to fall under her spell again.
    Even that stern admonishment didn’t stop him. The need to taste her one more time, to see if her lips were as warm and ripe as he remembered spurred him on. Curling his fingers around her nape, he bent his head.
    He was so intent on the brush of his lips against hers that Andrew could never afterward determinewhich came first, Julia’s sudden jerk back or the voice that trilled out of the darkness behind him.
    “Major Garrett? Is that—? Oh!”
    Smothering a curse, he lifted his head. What a perfect time for Lieutenant McKinney’s petulant wife to appear on the scene. Before he could take command of the situation, Julia shook free of his hand and stepped to one side.
    “Are you back so soon, Victoria?” she inquired coolly.
    “ Too soon, it appears.”
    The arch reply locked Andrew’s jaw. Turning, he pinned the young wife in place with a stern look.
    “Perhaps you have something you wish to say to me, Mrs. McKinney?”
    Faced with her husband’s commander at his most forbidding, the woman clutched her baby’s basket to her chest and quailed. “N-no, sir.”
    “Then may I ask you to be so good as to go inside while I finish my conversation with Mrs. Bonneaux?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    Gathering her skirts, she scurried up the steps. Andrew waited until the door had banged behind her to face the woman who stood rigid as a flagpole on the steps.
    “I’m sorry, Julia. I didn’t intend—”
    “Spare me your apologies,” she said with icy disdain. “I don’t want to know what you intended. Nor do I ever want to feel your hands on me again, Andrew Garrett.”

6
    T he storm Julia expected broke over her head as soon as she’d fetched Suzanne from the next door neighbor’s and carried the sleepy little girl up the stairs to the bedroom the two of them shared.
    Victoria was waiting for her at the top of the stairs, having deposited her infant son in his cradle. One glance at the younger woman’s angry, pinched face spoke volumes. It was obvious the cutting reproof Andrew had delivered outside still rankled. Badly.
    Clutching her muslin wrapper around her nightdress with agitated hands, she followed Julia down the hall. “I never expected to be taken to task on the steps of my own home by anyone on this post.”
    “No?”
    Still shaken from those inexplicable seconds on the porch, Julia was in no mood to pander to the woman’s ill humor.
    “Were I you, Victoria, I should have expected itat any time. You would be wise to mind your tone and your tongue around your husband’s superiors.”
    Gasping, the younger woman gripped her wrapper even tighter across her thin chest. “How dare you question my behavior? You, of all people!”
    Her outrage woke Suzanne. Stirring, the girl lifted her head from her mother’s shoulder. “Mama?”
    “Hush, sweetheart. Go back to sleep.” Julia directed a warning glance at her hostess. “Mama and Mrs. McKinney are just talking.”
    The fuming Victoria was forced to