Man of the Shadows
A Ravenous Romance™ Fantastica™ Original Publication
Morgan James
A Ravenous Romance™ Original Publication
Man of the Shadows
Copyright © 2009 by Morgan James
Ravenous Romance™
100 Cummings Center
Suite 125G
Beverly, MA 01915
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.
ISBN-13: 978-1-60777-021-3
This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Chapter One
Alexander Wyeth swung from his saddle and lashed the reins of his sorrel mare through the iron ring on the roadside post. Cobblestones crunched under his feet as he moved around to check his horse’s hooves for bits of rock and, finding none, gave the animal a healthy pat on the flank. “Rest here, Lady,” he said. “I’ll bring a treat when I come back and then find a you clean stall.”
The horse nickered and rubbed her head on Alexander’s sleeve. He scratched the horse between her ears, waved away a fly, then hurried through the gate and up the short walkway to his gray clapboard house.
Hannah was going to be stunned to see him. He couldn’t wait to kiss her face, to touch her face and hands, to hold her, to love her. It was early May, and he had not seen her since late January.
He stood on the front porch for a moment, slipping his cocked hat from his head and pulling his queue of black hair out from under his collar where it had gotten caught during his hasty ride to Boston’s North End. Then he pressed his ear to the door and listened. She would have to be there. It was only mid-morning and it was Monday – washday – one of the busiest days of the week. There was no noise at first, then, there! The sound of her singing as she came down the steps, most likely carrying a woven basket with linens, gowns, and stockings.
He pushed the door open and crossed the threshold. Hannah, standing at the bottom of the stairs with the basket, spun toward the door, startled. She was beautiful in that moment of surprise, her blue eyes wide, her lips slightly parted, her golden hair caught up in pins beneath her lacy mobcap, and her dark blue gown complementing her pale skin. Seeing her husband, she dropped the basket and raced into his arms.
“Alexander!” she cried. “You’re here! You’re home!”
Alexander threw his hat onto the sideboard and buried his face against her neck, breathing in the sweet scent of lavender water and bayberry soap.
“Yes, my dearest,” he whispered. He ran his hands around her back, tracing the stays beneath her gown, moving up to her neck and caressing the soft flesh of her neck beneath the upswept blond hair. “I’ve been given leave for a month.”
“That’s wonderful! But…why didn’t you send word? I would have made ready, I would have baked a rhubarb pie, and some fresh buns, and…”
“Shh.” Alexander said. “I don’t want a rhubarb pie. I want you.”
“Yet I’m a mess!” Hannah protested, pushing back from her husband and touching her forehead self-consciously, as if seeking strands of hair that should be put back in place beneath her cap. “I should go and make myself more presentable!”
Alexander caught her chin. “When Captain Skinner gave me my leave, I didn’t want to take a moment extra before I would be on the road home to you. I knew any letter would arrive after I did. Three days on the road it was, riding hard, and it is I who should make myself presentable. I’ve not shaved these last three days, and I smell of sweat, grit, dirty leather, and war. I should apologize for it all, but…”
“But no need, no need,” said Hannah, shaking her head. Joyful tears swam in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. “You’re here and I desire you just as you are.”
“As I desire you.”
Alexander drew his wife even closer. He could feel her firm round breasts pressed into his jacket. Beneath the layers of her gown, he felt her shapely legs move up against his, and one slippered foot sliding around his boot. It felt as though she’d put on a little weight since he’d gone. That was good. So many women, men, and children were grown gaunt with the depravations of a war-weary city. An urgent rush of desire erupted in his groin, and he took a sharp breath. He kissed her, his lips pressed against the moist fullness of her own, and then his tongue moving in through her teeth to probe the delicate, honey-flavored recesses of her mouth.
She was beautiful, his Hannah Marshall Wyeth, twenty-three years old and his bride of four years. They had met at a holiday ball at Tyeburn Tavern and had fallen in love immediately. A shoe- and boot-maker by trade, Alexander’s business was brisk, and he had several apprentices working under him, creating footwear for ladies and gentlemen both. Though not as wealthy as some other Bostonians, Alexander’s income allowed him to build a clapboard home with two stories, a vegetable and flower garden, smokehouse, kitchen, and small barn.
Hannah told her new husband she did not want house servants. “I prefer to care for my home myself,” she said. Yet Alexander suspected her real reason was that she did not want the extra expense; life in Boston had been very difficult since the war began in earnest two years earlier. Many people were learning to do without the finer furniture, cloths, spices, and teas they used to get from England. Alexander respected his wife’s position, although was glad her widowed mother, Bessie Marshall, had moved in with them when Alexander enlisted with the 1st Massachusetts Regiment eighteen months earlier. Hannah was a rock – confident, unshakable, loving – even when Alexander told her he would join up to fight the British regulars. Even when it meant they would be apart for long periods of time. She knew his feelings about independence, how the Colonies needed to be free from the Mother Country and the tyranny of King George, and she felt the same way.
“I’ve missed you dreadfully, Alexander,” Hannah said, snuggling into his broad chest. “I began a new letter to you last evening, one I was to post today. But here you are, and I shall tell you everything that has been going on these last days!”
“Later,” said Alexander. “Now, where is your mother?”
“She’s gone over to North Street to visit Rachel Revere. They have a new baby, Joseph, and she took a coverlet and infant mittens we made for the child.”
“So she’s gone for the hour?”
“At least. And I think…”
Alexander put a finger to her lips, then lowered his face and kissed her again. The sensation was warm and moist and excruciatingly sensual, much like his love’s soft, alluring slit when they made love.
“Ahhhh,” Hannah sighed, clutching the back of Alexander’s head with both her hands. He could feel the passion rising in her as surely and strongly it had risen in him. Grabbing her hand and stepping over the basket of spilled laundry, Alexander led her quickly up the stairs to their bedchamber. The family dog, Johnny, a knock-kneed old mutt Alexander had rescued from a gang of boys last winter, trotted lazily down the hall and stood wagging his tail. Alexander gave the dog a hearty head rub and said, “You’ll have to stay out here for a while. And keep guard.” The dog blinked in disappointment as Alexander closed the door.
As he sat to pull of his tall, dusty leather boots, Alexander caught sight of his and Hannah’s reflections in the full-length mirror against the wall. His light blue eyes stood out against his tanned face. He had broad shoulders, accentuated beneath his blue regimental uniform coat, dark hair tied back with a black ribbon in the fashion of the day, and an expression on his face that oftentimes made other people think he was aloof. Not true, of course; he was often so deep in thought about work or life or love that he appeared to have no interest in those around him. Then there was Hannah, so different from him with her delicate features, pale skin, and full, sun-colored hair.
Alexander turned from the mirror and watched Hannah as she unhooked her blue gown and stepped out of it. She slipped off her shoes and stockings and turned for Alexander to remove her whalebone stays. Silently he untied the laces along her spine, pulled the stays off, and dropped them on the oaken chest at the foot of the bed. He stepped up flush against her, cupped and squeezed her breasts from behind, causing her to moan with desire. Then she turned to face him.
He gazed at his wife, now wearing only her white linen petticoat and shift. “My beautiful lady. If I were an artist, I would paint you as you are right now, blushing, beautiful, and willing.”
Hannah’s cheeks flushed pink. “Should you paint me as I am right now then we should have to hide the portrait well away from prying eyes! I’m practically naked!”
“Not naked enough.”
Hannah tossed her head and laughed, then pulled the hairpins from her hair, removed her mobcap, and shook her hair free. It fell in a cascade nearly to her waist, as shining and bright as a summer’s day. Then, as Alexander watched admiringly, Hannah slowly, seductively, pulled her petticoat off over her head and then reached back to untie the drawstring at the neck of her shift.
But Alexander couldn’t wait any longer. The sight of his wife with nothing between him and her body but a thin piece of fabric, her nipples pressing anxiously against the cloth, the little round rise of her belly, and hint of the dark triangle of hair between her legs made his heart begin to pound like horse hooves against the ground. His organ was hard and ready, pushing urgently against the front of his breeches, thrumming with expectation. Grasping her arms, he threw her on her back on the bed, then flipped her over roughly to untie the drawstring himself. She gasped with shock and delight.
The string snagged and created a tight, tiny knot. Alexander’s hands, coarsened from war, found it impossible to undo. He stood abruptly, pulled the horn-handled pocketknife from his coat pocket, and snapped it open. The blade glistened in the light from the window.
“Alexander?” Hannah turned her head to look over her shoulder, and her eyes went wide. “What…what are you doing?”
“What I’ve dreamed I would do for so many nights when I lay on my blanket in the cold and the damp, listening to the snores of the officers who share my tent and the snorts and coughing of the soldiers in their own tents beyond us. I’ve been hard many nights thinking of you, remembering your body, desiring your soul, and now I am here and you are mine!”
With that, he leaned over and slashed Hannah’s shift up both sides and across the shoulders. Hannah whined, but at that moment he didn’t care that she would need a new shift. He would buy her the fabric to make a new one. But now he needed her, he hungered for her. For so long he’d smelled nothing but other men, animals, and the acrid bite of musket fire. For so long he’d tasted nothing but hard tack, soured meats, and bitter sassafras tea. He needed to smell her and taste her, and his need was the need of a drowning man for air.
He yanked the pieces of her shift away, leaving nothing on the bed but a beautiful, nude, golden-haired woman, still watching him over her shoulder, a small smile on her lips. Then she rolled onto her back, wiped a strand of hair from her eyes, and slipped her hand between her legs. She wriggled her hand through the brown curly hair of her mound and parted the swollen lips so he could clearly see the glistening, reddened hole waiting for him. “Have you way with me, my love,” she said. “I want to feel you in me, I want to feel your manhood plumb my depths! Take me, dearest, however you like!”
So he did.
Still fully dressed except for his boots, Alexander dropped onto the bed and gathered his wife in his arms, holding her as he would a small child, rocking her tenderly, her hair tumbling over his arms. He kissed her again, his tongue probing, demanding, and she willingly responded, her tongue meeting his and then moving about to savor the taste of his mouth. Then he sat straight, cupped one plump breast, and ran his thumb alone the dark pink areola, examining it carefully. As he moved his finger along the satiny flesh, Hannah arched reflexively into his touch. Her breaths began to come in short, rapid gasps. Alexander smiled and then lowered his face to the taut little nipple in the center of the areola. He took it into his mouth and sucked.
“My precious!” Hannah squealed. “If I had milk I would give it to you. But take my heart instead.”
Alexander drew even harder against the nipple, tapping it with his teeth, bathing it with his tongue, then letting it go with an soft yet audible “pop.” He put his mouth to her other breast and tended it with the same urgent passion as he had the first. Hannah squirmed deliciously in his arms. As he licked and sucked, he slipped one hand between his Hannah’s legs to find that her cunnie was nearly gushing with passion. Hannah immediately opened her knees wider to give him access. His penis bobbed, engorged and frantic in his breeches. He bore down, fighting against the lightening current building there, to hold it back just a bit longer.
“I need you in me,” Hannah said, her voice tremulous. “Oh, dearest husband, most glorious lover, I need you to fuck me!”
“Not yet,” Alexander said through clenched teeth. “I must see if you are indeed ready for me, or if your little cunnie needs to be prepared all the more.” Alexander drove three fingers deep into Hannah’s core, feeling the warm, wet walls contract and pulse around them. She was more than ready. Then he drew his fingers out and rubbed and pinched the protruding nub of her clitoris until Hannah began to weep and struggle with desperate cravings.
At last he stood and placed his wife on the bed. Then he shed his coat, breeches, stockings, and shirt. Hannah watched him, propped on her elbows, her gaze as full of childlike innocence, hope, and raw lust as she had been on their wedding night. Her hair was tussled and tangled, her legs splayed, her pussy gaping and ready. As Alexander slid his trousers off, her gaze moved from his face, down his sweat-dotted chest to his groin, where his manhood stood out amid the dense black hair and fleshy balls, proud, thick, and angry.
“Yes, my love,” she whispered. She nodded and licked her lips. “Take me as you will.”
Crawling onto the bed, Alexander shoved Hannah’s legs apart as far as he could and guided his cock head to the red folds of her opening. A shiny bead of his semen welled at the purpled tip, a promise of things to come. He dabbed it off with his thumb, then held the thumb to Hannah. She sucked the moisture off hungrily.
He pulled open her cunnie lips and gazed at her quivering flesh lovingly. Then he lowered his body over hers and drove his penis deep inside her. His balls swung hard against her ass.
“Ah!” Hannah cried, grasping the bedcovers to either side and closing her eyes as he pulled his cock out, then drove it forward again, and again, and again. The current in his loins grew even more intense, swelling more and more into a red-hot, all consuming force that demanded release. He shoved himself into her yet again, his face locked in a grimace of urgency, his cock reaching deeper and deeper into the hot, slippery satin sleeve of her sex. The friction on his organ caused the hairs around his penis, on his chest, and on his arms to stand at attention.
Then it came, the explosion that made him heave forward even harder into his wife and lock the muscles of his legs, back, and neck as the glorious pulses shook him, erupting at once out of him and through him, traveling every nerve of his body like lightning. He wailed with his discharge, his head up and his teeth gritted.
Then he collapsed on top of her.
Hannah cooed and drew her fingers through her husband’s long black hair, which had come loose from its queue. “Darling. My precious love. My dearest.”
They stayed silent for a long moment, panting, sweating, his face against hers, her hair coiling along his arms and across his belly between them. Their breathing came in perfect unison, his chest rising as hers fell, hers rising as his fell.
Then Hannah kissed his cheek. “Welcome home, husband. I wrote you a letter last night to post today. I have news for you.”
Alexander pushed up on his knees to look down at his wife’s lovely, damp, spent body. “What news?”
“Can you not guess?”
“No, dear.”
“I’m four months pregnant.”
Alexander blinked and then placed his hand on his wife’s smooth, rounding belly. “My love!” he said. “What wonderful news! My leave in late winter was fruitful!”
Hannah giggled and nodded.
Then there was a banging down stairs and a middle aged woman called up the steps. “Alexander? Alexander Wyeth! Is that your horse Lady at the street? Are you home?”
“Yes, Mama!” Hannah called. “We’ll be done in a moment!”
The young couple embraced each other upon the bed, bare arms and legs tangling, and laughed.
Bessie Marshall was beside herself with joy to see her son-in-law. By the time Hannah and Alexander were presentable again and Alexander had groomed Lady and given her fresh bedding and hay in one of the barn’s three stalls, Bessie had heated up a ham and cabbage dumplings on a footed iron pan over the coals. Normally, she would have cooked in the detached kitchen behind the house, but she couldn’t wait to have something tasty for Alexander.
“You look like quite the lieutenant,” Bessie said. She was seated
across the dining table from Alexander, watching as he scooped up the
dumplings with his spoon. “Handsomest man I’ve ever seen, except
for my Robert, of course, rest his soul. Are they treating you well?
Are you dressing warmly? Are you eating enough?”
“Well enough,
Mother Marshall.” Alexander winked at Hannah, who sat beside him,
holding his hand under the table. “We sleep on the ground and we
march for hours through the rain and sleet and mud and heat. On the
march, officers such as I must walk with the others to show we will
endure what they endure. Our horses are tethered to the back of the
baggage wagon. Happily, though, in battle we are allowed our mounts.
We dine on whatever we can find on farms and whatever the soldiers
might hunt down. Sometimes there are squirrels and rabbits,
groundhogs and feral hogs. Sometimes, however, we go for days with
nothing but wormy bread and molded bacon.”
“Alexander!” Bessie put her hand to the bodice of her modest gray gown. She was a lovely woman in her fifties, her features much like those of her daughters, only etched deeper. “When we send you back, we will have a sack of good food for you to take with you. At least for a few days you should be nourished properly!”
“Thank you, Mother Marshall,” said Alexander. He gave Hannah another squeeze of her hand, then slid his fingers to her belly and felt the small rise there. Would it be a boy child or girl? Either would be his heart’s delight, his darling. He would be away when the child was born if the war was still raging. If he had the power, he would end the fighting that moment – declare the Colonists the victors and the king’s men the losers – and stay home with his growing family.
They took an early evening stroll, Alexander and Hannah, arm in arm up the street to speak to neighbors and to take in the air. Alexander had shaved, shaken the dirt from his jacket, combed his hair back into a fresh queue, and polished his boots. Hannah had donned her favorite dress, deep rose trimmed in velvet, and had tied a matching bonnet over her hair.
The afternoon air was heady with the briny scent of the Harbor to the east. Lilacs and daffodils bloomed behind whitewashed fences. Servants and slaves, both white and black, hurried along the road pushing rattling carts filled with vegetables, grains, barrels, tools, and bundles of rags. Little boys chased hoops along with sticks, with gangly dogs on their heels. Men not fighting with George Washington’s army – Quakers, old men, those who had stayed behind to craft weapons and ammunition for the military, and those who had served their enlistment but had not signed up again – stood about in small groups on street corners, smoking pipes, swatting at gnats, and discussing the current events. Several nodded respectfully on seeing Alexander’s uniform.
“Let’s stop by Martha and Josiah Burton’s home,” said Hannah, nestling against her husband’s shoulder. “They will be so happy to see you! Martha is with child as well, though farther along than I am, and so is staying at home these days.”
“All right,” said Alexander. “I would like to see them again. And how is Josiah faring?”
“He keeps his spirits up. He hasn’t let the loss of his leg to an English musket ball stop him from ordering around the indentured servants and apprentices at his print shop.”
Alexander nodded. “War is surely hell,” he said soberly, “but it is good to know Josiah hasn’t lost his will along with his limb.”
There was a sudden loud racket up the road. Alexander squinted into the setting sun to see what was causing the commotion. It was a gang of boys, shouting and swearing, waving their arms and racing in Alexander and Hannah’s direction. A black man quickly maneuvered his knife-grinding cart to the side of the road. “Here they are again!” the man said to the couple, shaking his head nervously. “Chasing their anger ’round the streets! Best move out of their way!”
Hannah frowned and drew close to her husband. “What’s happening?”
Alexander said, “I don’t know.” He moved Hannah out of the street and up against a fence to give the mob room to go wherever it was they were going.
Then Alexander saw the boys were chasing someone: An old man with white hair and a bent back. He was running, though with a limp. The side of his breeches were cut and his leg was bleeding. One hand held on to his tri-corned hat, the other reached out as if he could grab the air and pull himself along faster.
“Stop them!” he cried out as he stumbled past. “They want to kill me!”
“Loyalist!” one of the boys screamed, waving a rock over his head. “You shoulda gone home to England where you belong! Get out of Boston!”
“Foul traitor! Kingsman!” shouted another boy. He, too, held a large rock, and the others, heavy sticks. There were five of them, lanky and barely in their teens. Each was red-faced and furious.
Alexander stepped into the middle of the road and held up his hand. “Stop! This minute, I order you to stop!”
The boys all skidded to a halt in front of Alexander, blinking in shock to see an officer of the Continental Army in their path. The old man slowed and turned to see he was no longer being chased, then dropped to his knees and put his hands over his face. Hannah held up the hem of her gown and ran to him.
“Lieutenant, sir!” said one boy, weighing the rock in his hand. “That man there is a Loyalist! He still supports King George even with the King at war with us! I don’t doubt he’s spied on us when he’s had the chance.”
“He’s an old man,” said Alexander. “Let him be, whatever his views. He is no harm to you, to me, or to our cause of independence.”
Hannah knelt beside the man, her skirts dragging on the grimy, mud-caked cobblestones. “We’ll get you home,” she said gently. “Don’t worry.” The old man weakly tipped his hat. “Thank you, Madam,” he said. Then he ran his hand beneath his nose and sniffed.
“But he’s a stinking Tory!” said another boy, stomping his foot.
“Regardless,” said Alexander. “I command you in the name of our General George Washington to let this man alone.”
The boys stared hard at the old man and Alexander. Then four turned away and started back up the street, throwing their stones down in frustration. But then the fifth said, “I’m sorry, sir! But he deserves this!” and hurled his brick-sized stone over Alexander’s outstretched arms toward the old man.
But the rock missed the old man. As Hannah turned toward the voices, it struck her full against her skull. She fell back onto the street, a huge gash in her forehead.
“Hannah!” Alexander’s heart flew into his throat. He ran to his wife, falling down beside her and pulling her up into his arms. The boy raced off, howling, “It was an accident! It wasn’t my fault!
“Hannah!” He touched her cheek as blood flowed down across his fingers. His throat was instantly dry and his arms cold. “Hannah, open your eyes! Oh, please, my love! Look at me!”
But she could not. Her body was limp, her voice silenced.
The old man sat at stared as Alexander clutched his wife’s body and shouted to the sky, “Not her! Not my dearest! Anyone but her!”
And he buried his face into her chest and wept hot, bitter tears.
Chapter Two
Holly Raines glared in the direction of the phone on her kitchen counter, listening as the computerized voice announced, “Call from Anne Raines Davis. Call from Anne Raines Davis.” Four times the caller’s name was spoken amid the ringing, then at last the phone went silent.
“Mom, how many times a day do you have to talk to me?” Holly said to nobody. “Believe it or not, I have my own life to live. Can’t you please call somebody else once in a while? Like a therapist, maybe? That would do you a whole lot more good than crying on my shoulder!”
Pressing the mute button on the television remote control, the sound sprang back into life. On the screen, New Jersey cops were rousting up a druggie trying to smoke crack in the lobby of an apartment building. Each time the druggie called one of the cops “Poppie,” the cop got angrier and more red in the face. The cop and the druggie argued until the cop finally hauled the guy out to the waiting squad car and plopped him in the back seat, where the skinny little man continued to plead his case through the closed window.
That’s what I feel like sometimes, Holly thought, trying to plead my case through thick glass and nobody can hear me.
It was Sunday, her day off, and she had planned on spending most of the time working on her novel. She was going to brew a little tea, toast an English muffin and douse it with peach jam, then sit on the sofa with her laptop and let her imagination take over. Holly’s older sister Patrice was going to be gone for the entire afternoon – miracle of miracles – and so it would just be Holly, the laptop, the tea, and the toast.
But of course, things Holly planned rarely worked out the way she wanted. Yes, Patrice had finally left, but just fifteen minutes ago, and it was already 2:13 in the afternoon. Yes, Holly had toasted the muffins but Patrice had put the toast level on high and Holly hadn’t checked first, so the muffins had burned to a blackened crisp. Yes, Holly had settled on the sofa with her laptop but as she stared at the screen, she just couldn’t get back into the story.