He saw a number of the members of the Boston ministry who were critics of the proceedings, but he learned nothing that could help him. After two days he returned to Salem, determined to make definite plans for escape.
Chapter 19
Sloan found Brianna with Robert. She was growing as thin and pale as her husband, he thought dispiritedly.
He sat with the two of them, speaking about the events taking place in Boston. Robert listened, nodded, and pretended to believe that things could get better. Brianna tried to speak lightly. It was Robert, Sloan thought, who was the stronger. They were trying to find a hope to cling to, but Robert was resigned to whatever life might bring, his faith being stronger.
At length Robert yawned discreetly and agreed that he was tired. He asked Sloan to take Brianna out for a breath of air. Sloan remembered the letter he carried from Lady Eastwood, and added pressure to Robert’s insistence. The letter was about Michael’s adjustment, and Sloan did not believe he could produce it or discuss it with Robert present—no matter how much he had come to admire the man.
The guards allowed them to exit, and Sloan led Brianna far along, determined to be alone. She didn’t seem to mind. Perhaps she needed to feel far away from her husband’s prison, if only for a while. They found a wooded cove, gently lit by the moon. A fallen tree trunk served as seating.
Sloan gave Lady Eastwood’s letter to Brianna and watched the color suffuse her cheeks as she read it.
“Michael is doing well,” she murmured to him, and he knew the color would come to her cheeks anytime she thought of their child.
“Paddy is bringing theSea Hawkup from Boston,” Sloan said a little harshly. “It’s time to leave.”
“Robert is not well enough,” she began, paling.
“Whether he is or isn’t, they might bring him to trial. The wind is blowing both ways in Boston. Some are saying that too many of the accused are escaping justice through protestations of illness, and some are furious that they have not had a mass hanging for the ‘confessed’ witches. Brianna, more trials are being set and more executions will follow. We must flee.”
She nodded and said vaguely, “Soon.”
Sloan sighed, and decided he’d have to talk to Robert Powell himself. He couldn’t bear to see her so unhappy. He smiled and very gently brushed her cheek with his hand. “All will be well,” he whispered.
She tensed at his touch, but then sighed softly, and he tenderly sat her on his lap. “Look at the coming fog,” he murmured. “So soft and magical. It blurs harsh edges…ah, Brianna. There is still good magic in the world. Things of grace and beauty.…”
Beauty, yes. Like the night that encompassed them. Magic. They might have been alone in the world.
They stared at each other. Her head tilted slightly as if in expectation, her eyes beckoning like the eternal depths of the ocean. Looking down at her, he ached with the need to know her again, to hold her. He could not remember why she had ever left him. And he could not, God help him, remember at all that there was any reason for them to be apart. She was his, and had been since the first time he had taken her, yet he had been the one forever and fully seduced.
The air was fresh and clean, the moon blessed with an ethereal glow of beauty. He brought his palm gently, tenderly, to her cheek. She clutched his hand, and pressed her lips to it, then slowly looked to him again.
He touched her mouth with his, feeling his blood and his life suffused with a warming fire. He savored the taste of her, he caught her to his heart, and felt the erratic thunder of her own. Moon fever, he would think of it later—a touch of madness—but it was only the hunger of knowing that he loved her and needed her. His hands began to move over her, gentle and shaking, then fevered. She was soft and feminine, she was the dream he had dreamed so long. He slid from the tree trunk on one knee, carrying her down, laying her down in a bed of clover and pines.
Her eyes were on him, wide and dark. Her lips were parted, her breathing ragged. He leaned beside her and tasted her lips again, then brought his palm along the length of her, caressing her with reverence. He found the hem of her skirt, and slid his hand along her calf, over her hose, until he reached her thigh, and the erotic fire of her bare flesh. He wanted her naked in the clover—coming to him, touching him, his at last again! He wanted to touch her, drown in her, die with her forever in a sea of verdant green and swirling mist and the sweet smell of summer wild-flowers.…
But he could not.
What stopped him he would never really know. Her eyes closed suddenly, and she shuddered, and despite the mist and magic he paused. There was a Robert Powell—and Sloan had told him he did not intend to steal his wife. It seemed like a vow, and in his heart he silently cursed the man he could not despise.
Brianna shivered, and opened her eyes, and it was as if an awakening of painful reality had come to her too. “Oh, my God!” she gasped out, and then she was struggling against him, trying to rise. “Damn you…don’t, please, don’t touch me or come near me again!”
“Wait a minute!” he said harshly, angered at her condemnation of him. He would not let her rise, but pinned her there, hands to the ground, a knee cast over her legs. “Don’t you ever think to blame it on me, Milady Virtue! My God, yes! You were here, you made no protest! If you remained faithful tonight, it was by my accord.”
“I really do believe I hate you!” she cried as she strained against his hold.
“Do you? You have a strange way of showing it, my love.”
“Sloan! Let me be!”
“Oh, aye, I’ll let you be. And why, I do not know, for we both know that what I crave I might have taken.”
“No…yes! Yes, you’re right! And that’s why I hate you, don’t you understand! Please…”
He didn’t shift, but stared into the night. “I wonder if he wouldn’t even give us his blessing.”
“What did you say?” Brianna stared at him, puzzled, glad of his weight against her, glad of his hold—desperately aware that she had to break it. “Robert!” she exclaimed, realizing where his brooding thoughts were taking him.
