Free Silken Dreams by Lisa Bingham

his elbow. Laws! She’d never known such a thundering burst of anticipation could shoot through a person’s body at the simple exploration of a man’s arm.
    The man muttered something and she snatched her hand away, as if fearing a sudden bolt of lightning would fry her on the spot.
    But nothing happened.
    Smiling to herself in delight—but deciding not to tempt heaven any further than she already had—Lettie settled back against the headboard and drew the quilt over her chest. Then, reaching for a cup of milk from the tray beside her, she held it aloft in a silent toast.
    “To mother possums everywhere.”

Chapter 5
    Even from the depths of my slumber, I could hear the distant grumbling of thunder and the patter of rain against the windows of my bedroom, and I frowned. Dread settled within me like a leaden weight, pulling me from my sleep. It had been months since I’d seen him. Long, long months. Yet the sound of rain and the scent of fresh-washed earth never failed to bring back the memories. And the pain.
    I’d known for some time that he was in danger, but lately, I’d heard rumors of his capture. And his hanging.
    A hot knife seemed to sear through my stomach, and I groaned, wrapping my arms around my waist and turning to bury my face in the downy pillows beneath my head, my hair spilling about my shoulders like a silken curtain. How would I bear life if the news were true? How would I find the strength to live out each day, knowing that I would never see his face, his smile?
    Deep sobs wracked my chest, dry heart-wrenching sounds made all the more painful by the lack of soothing tears.
    “Shh.”
    The sound came to me like the whisper of a summer breeze. Whirling against the pillows, I opened my eyes to find him silhouetted against the weak light that seeped through the French windows. Around him, the delicate lace curtains danced in the rain-kissed breeze as if jubilant at his return.
    My Highwayman!
    Slowly, I pushed myself upright, staring at him, hoping that this was not some specter of the night that would vanish if I were to reach out and touch him.
    My heart began to pound, my breathing came in jagged sobs. “Are you real?” I managed to whisper, my voice choked with desperation and need. “Or are you merely a ghost come to torment me?”
    A smile creased his features. A smile laced with humor and a tinge of inner pain. “Nay. No ghost, madam. But a man. A man who has longed for your smile, your joy, your sweet healing caress.”
    As if to underscore his reality, he slowly unbuckled his saber from about his hips. Narrow, masculine hips that I longed to have crushed against my own.
    He set the saber on a nearby chair, then whipped the cape from his shoulders, dropping it in a black puddle beside his sword. He took a step toward me. Two. The weak light of dawn played against his back, emphasizing the dark hair clinging wetly against his head and drawn back in a queue against his nape. Water dripped onto his shoulders. His shirt, which usually flowed about the muscled contours of his torso, lay plastered against his chest. The lacings had evidently worked free during his ride, because the fabric gaped open nearly to his navel, revealing the dark hair that delineated the firm shape of his chest, then stretched down, down, down, like an ever-narrowing ribbon toward his waist.
    Real or not, I found myself responding to his nearness, growing hungry for his touch. My fingers lifted to tug at the delicate satin tie of my nightcap, and I slid the cap from my hair, dropping it onto the floor.
    His eyes blazed with pleasure. Eyes the color of a hot summer day, yet twice as warm, needy.
    “If you be some ghost or demon from hell come to taunt me with my pain, tell me not of my lover’s death,” I whispered through a throat grown tight with unshed tears.
    “If this be death, then may I never live.”
    I gasped at his words, my fingers reaching to pluck free the ribbons of my nightshift, moving from my