Whitney felt their scrutiny and laid down her knife to withdraw her hands onto her linen-covered lap. Food stuck in her throat and she swallowed desperately as the quiet prickled up and down her neck. Garner was watching her; she could feel it, but refused to meet his gaze.

"There were no major military engagements on the entire campaign," he spoke in a carefully moderated tone. "The occasional skirmish, no more."

"No major battles? I've been scouring the papers for word-and not a single mention of you. So that's why. The gutless traitors saw you coming and ran for it," Byron sneered. "The damnable cowards. Only to be expected of the filth-spawned rabble who inhabit our frontiers, I suppose. Well, what did you do about it?"

"Washington left after a mere few days, leaving the divisions to secure the area. I was part of that securing function."

"What the hell does that mean: 'securing'?" Ezra demanded, leaning forward and scowling such that his shaggy white brows met over his nose. "What in hell is securing "We were assigned territories to subdue and... clear of treasonous activity." Garner watched Whitney's paling face and chose his words with aching neutrality. "We were to search out and destroy illegal liquor and distilleries, and to arrest the distillers and their leaders."

"The treasonous scum," Byron said, pouncing on his revelations with pointed righteousness. "Half the lice-infested wretches probably need arresting on some account or other anyway. Most of those frontier scrubs are fugitives from proper society. Who in their right senses would choose a life of such squalor and animal deprivation unless some greater peril forced them to it? How many did you arrest?"

"I was assigned to clear a particularly difficult valley." Garner watched the heat rising in Whitney's lowered face, could feel the stiffening of her shoulders and a corresponding tightening inside himself. "We uncovered a large cache of contraband whiskey and arrested those responsible." Across from him, Whitney was hearing all he didn't say... her participation in the illegal trade, her father's arrest. He was carefully omitting her "shameful" connections, and the hot feel of his gaze on her drove the lesson home.

"And what of a commendation? Did you get one or not?" Byron prodded, unsatisfied with his son's sketchy report and blatant preoccupation with the flaming little tart he'd gotten himself shackled to.

"It's likely," Garner saw the shudder that went through Whitney as he said it. "There was quite a bit of contraband... and resistance."

"Well at least something useful will come out of this... episode," Byron sneered. "The damnable traitors should be hanged, every last one, as an example and a warning. I know the sentiments in Philadelphia are the same; a spate of hard-handed justice should be meted out on the lot of them!"

Whitney's face came up, straight into Garner's dark gray stare.

"These low, animal sorts congregate on the frontier, thinking to escape lawful authority," Byron expounded furiously. "And they subsist in such deprived, degraded states for so long they become like animals themselves, groveling in their own filth. Every standard of morality and decency abandoned! They tried to reduce the entire country down to their pathetic anarchy and, by God, they failed!"

Whitney's fingers were tight white knots in her lap, her body was rigid, her face crimson. Hanging, he had said. The western distillers deserved hanging. And the beleaguered folk who populated the frontier were vermin-infested criminals who wallowed in their own filth and had no pride, no loyalty, no dignity. Her pa was a "traitor" and her loving, extended family were low, crude animals... Uncle Harvey, Aunt Sarah... Aunt Kate. She couldn't breathe, couldn't blink, not even to avoid the darkness and anger she saw in Garner's bronzed features.

She trembled, trying to contain the tempest raging within her. She was an animal, too. That's what Byron meant, probably why he had said it. He wouldn't defy Garner's ultimatum to degrade her directly, but he'd find other ways... meaner ways. And from the darkness in Garner's face, he probably believed it, too. That's why he wouldn't touch her again. Blessed Gabriel-how it hurt! It was a small mercy when her tears defied her to fill her eyes and blur the sight of him.

Garner watched her struggle with his father's callous pronouncements. Her beautiful forest-colored eyes were dark with pain, her sweet body was rigid with the impact of those steely thrusts. The almighty Byron Townsend had just reduced everything his Whitney was and loved to insignificant rubble. He read the desolation of her heart in the defiant tremble of her chin and, strangely, he felt it, too, as though some part of her lodged within him.

Her whitened hands gripped the table edge as she pushed her chair back. Pride and misery warred in her heartlike face as she turned a crystal-blurred gaze on them, then strode out. Garner found himself on his feet, watching each painful step, and he turned on his family.

There they sat, the lauded and superior Townsends, with their smug ignorance and insufferable eastern prejudices in full array. Perhaps they actally believed it, the foul, poisonous doctrine of frontier inferiority Byron spouted like a self-righteous canticle. It was a mythology, he realized, created by his peers in business, his class, to insulate themselves from the human crises that prevailed on the country's harsh frontiers. And whether from true malice or mere arrogance, Byron had just wielded those judgments like a bludgeon against Whitney.

She had sat there, valiantly coping with the intimidation of a purposefully overset table and enduring their blatant contempt... forbidden to retaliate. He turned on Byron with blood in his eyes, his entire body quaking with towering Townsend rage.

"You insufferable bastard," his voice was raw with the long fermented fury of a thousand sneers and slights. He was no longer of a mood to play the contrite son, the black sheep, the perennial Townsend disgrace. "If you ever do anything like that to her again, I swear, I'll thrash you within an inch of your life."He slashed a fist across the table, sending several of the precious crystal goblets shattering on the floor. And he stalked out.

Ezra watched his grandson's passionate explosion and violent exit through narrowed, perceptive eyes. And as Byron cursed and Madeline gasped outrage, old Ezra finished his watered wine and smiled a crooked smile.

Chapter Sixteen.

Whitney stood in her dusky room, staring out the long window, holding herself together with her arms about her waist. Tears burned down her cheeks and she could scarcely get her breath. She felt utterly empty inside, as though everything vital to her being had somehow been ripped out. Only jangled bits of feeling and ragged hurt remained, crowding painfully into her heart and mind. Frightening images of her pa, dead, were mingled in her mind with visions of Garner's dark anger and his family's open contempt for her and her background.

She didn't hear the door open and close, didn't realize Garner stood in the shadows near the door watching her. She choked back a sob and sagged against the window frame, her square shoulders softened, her stubborn Daniels chin now hidden in her hands. How could she live here another day, bearing Garner's anger and coldness?

He stood watching her misery and felt the molten core of his anger draining through him, leaving a void inside him that he knew was tied to the pain she was feeling. His proud, quixotic little Whitney drank whiskey like a man, ran like a deer, bargained like a Baghdad merchant, and fought as dirty as a pillaging Hun. And yet, she was proving vulnerable in the most unexpected ways. To words... as well as kisses. He swayed when the realization dawned: his kisses, his touch. She had wakened to womanhood in his arms and had responded fully, eagerly to him each time he loved her. She had embraced her own stunning passions and his righteous, unbending self in the same tender moment, and in so doing, had warmed the chilled core of his being.

Plunged into the steamy turmoil of a man's strongest needs and feelings, Garner felt physical waves of possession and protectiveness surging through him. They crashed into the foundation of his towering Townsend pride, battering it and finally overflowing, subsuming it. He wanted her, wanted to discover and to claim the tantalizingly vulnerable parts of her, wanted to hold them safe. And in the grip of this compelling urge to comfort and protect her, he forgot all about protecting himself.

"Whitney-" He was mere feet away when he spoke and she startled about with a horrified look. She swiped at her wet cheeks with her palms and stiffened, raising her still-trembling chin as she tossed a panicky glance about the room.

"I know I didn't wait to be... dismissed, or whatever it is you do. But I couldn't..." She fought a tightening in her throat to swallow, and died a little more at the emotion swirling in his finely chiseled features. His turbulent silence stirred her worst fears and she backed a step, smacking into the window frame and opened shutter as she sought escape.

"I didn't mean to make you angry. I'd never seen so many things to eat with. I know I probably did things wrong. But, I didn't say anything about my pa... and I won't. I promise." Her jaw clamped shut and her throat closed and the humiliation of breaking down in front of him was too much for her proud trader's heart to bear. She struggled briefly to hold back crystal prisms of tears, and when she lost the battle, she bolted.

"Whitney-" he growled softly, catching her, but unable to drag her closer without hurting her. "What my father said-"

"Is it true?" she blurted out, bracing and trembling as she searched the growing heat in his eyes. "Do they want to hang the distillers? Would they really kill my pa?"

Garner could scarcely answer as the volume of pain in her voice thundered through him. "No, Whitney, they don't hang distillers."

She sagged and he reeled her a bit closer before she halted him again. The bruising of her heart was visible in her beautiful green eyes. And as a fresh volley of tears rolled down her face, all he could think about was holding her, sheltering her in his arms, kissing her tears away.

"My family... in Rapture..."She tugged her wrists closer, finding to her dismay that his hands came with them and his hard body was not far behind. "They're not animals... they're good people. They'd give a body the shirts off their backs..."

"Or the pies out of their ovens," he supplied, pulling her closer.

"And my pa's not a traitor. He fought in the War for Independence and took two British balls. He was with General George at Valley Forge. And Charlie's pa fought under General Green, and Uncle Ballard and Uncle Julius drove Henry Knox's ox team when he dragged his cannon across the mountains. They didn't try to bring the country down," she choked. "They just wanted-"

"-the freedoms they fought for," he finished for her, slipping a hand around her waist to bring her against him. He forced her tear-streaked face up to his and felt the shudder of her indrawn breath as she squeezed her eyes shut against the futile hope that he might believe her.

"And hardly anybody ever gets lice," she choked out on a sob.

"Just fleas," he nodded tightly, even though she couldn't see. He pulled her head to his chest and cradled it above his heart.

Warmth flowed from his hard body into her embattled core, besieging her defenses. His embrace, his soft words,the strange, comforting quality in his gaze both frightened and heartened her. He was holding her so gently. Or was it just the terrible loneliness in the middle of her, distorting her senses? She felt so empty, so rootless...

Her arms raised and halted midway, hovering near his waist in breathless uncertainty. Could he touch her like this if he really hated her? Then his fingers slid up her shoulder to her hair and cheek, caressing her with such tenderness that it took her breath and sent need for him plunging through her like a flaming brand. She wrapped her arms around him desperately, burying her face in his gentlemanly shirt ruffles, embracing him and all he meant to her... for better or for worse.

"I'm sorry he hurt you, little Whiskey." He clasped her fiercely against him and bent his head to whisper into her hair. "It won't happen again, I swear." The tremor of his body against hers, the hush in his voice brought her face up to his.

He brushed her tears away on the backs of his knuckles and took her face in his hand, searching her with a hauntingly tender smile. Then he lowered his head to comfort her bruised-cherrry lips and she melted against him, drinking him into her, filling her empty heart with his desire, accepting his comfort, borrowing his strength.

She opened to his mouth like a wild rose, silken and fragile, yielding her succulent nectar to his hungers. His tongue spiraled hers, beckoning, stirring a divine and primitive need for completion in her. She molded helplessly to his powerful frame, wanting him, reborn in his wanting of her. Excitement budded and flowered under the warmth he poured into her center, and it unfolded into pure sensual joy. He did want her. She soared with the knowledge. He still wanted to hold her, to touch her, to love her...

"Love me, Garner Townsend," she murmured, dazed, when he released her mouth to nibble the edges of her tingling lips and her chin and the line of her jaw.

"I will," he rasped, contracting around her, crushing her soft, womanly frame against his burning body. The honied wetness of her mouth and the spicy, roselike fragrance of her hair and skin beckoned him to savor and claim more of her, all of her. A groan erupted from his depths as the fierce lightning between them set fire to his blood. There was only one way to put out such a raging conflagration.

He scooped her up and carried her to the bed, ripping back the bedclothes to deposit her in the midst of them. He watched the desire flickering through her as he tore his coat and waistcoat from his shoulders. She lay there, her eyes glowing embers, her half-revealed breasts love-flushed... a wanton, irresistible angel. And she belonged to him.

When his boots and shirt came off, she sat up weakly, mesmerized by the perfect symmetry and muscularity of his wide shoulders. She wriggled and arched seductively, anticipating the feel of him against her bare body and within her burning heat. Clumsy fingers slid to the lacings of her woolen bodice, but he sank one knee into the bed and brushed her hands away.

"No-" he ordered hoarsely, "let me."

Time and again, his hands strayed from their task to stroke her breasts, to savor the curve of her waist, to find the shape of her hip and thighs through her skirts. Then, with a primal male growl, he dragged her laces from their holes and tugged open her bodice. The sight of her, tangled in her clothes, half opened to him like some forbidden blossom, sent flame roaring into his loins.

"When," he half-groaned, rubbing trembling hands up the boning of her corset, "did you start wearing one of these?"

"I have to wear one... with this dress," she whispered, wondering at the strange, lidded look invading his handsome features. A new, focused intensity in his bronzed face took her breath as he dragged her dress from her with stunning precision. Her petticoat came next, and by the time he pulled her stockings from her, she gasped at the rapacious efficiency with which he undressed her. When he halted, staring hungrily at the deliciously trapped mounds of her breasts, she sent her fingers to the lacings of her corset, "No-" he commanded, stilling her hands with his, "leave it."

"B-but won't it be... in the way?" she whispered, awed by this new glimpse of him... demanding, sensual.

"No, my hot little Whiskey, it won't." He flipped the buttons of his breeches and shed them without taking his molten eyes from the satiny mounds she wanted to bare to him. He spread his long, desire-hardened body on the bed beside her, kissed the bewildered dent in her brow, and lowered his head to the voluptuous twin prisoners of fashion.

A small movement, a flick of his finger, and the dark, hardened nipple of one breast was freed to ride above its stern confinement. And while his mouth tantalized the proud, burning pebble, his finger released the other nipple to equally breathtaking stimulation between his thumb and finger. He twirled and nibbled and suckled the hardened peaks, making her gasp and wriggle as though unable to contain the riot of pleasure his actions produced. Through the steam in her head she realized her corset had become an extension of his hands, tightly embracing, molding her tender flesh, evoking her response.

And somewhere in that charged, erotic constraint, in the dueling of tongues and the hot press of bodies, he slid between her bare, silky thighs and began to stroke the creamy open petals of her woman-flesh in decreasing circles that led inevitably to her swollen, pearlescent button of pleasure. With each knowledgeable swirl of his fingers she shuddered, responding to his sensual command. And each round proved the turn of a spiral that broadened, leading to the volcanic, soul-rending conclusion she craved. With wanton urgency, she clasped his shoulders, seeking his body with her hips and moaning helplessly when he denied her.

"Please-" she flicked her tongue over her dry, burning lips then sucked breath through her teeth in a soft, delectable rush. "Garner, please-"

"Oh, Whiskey, love," he moaned, rubbing his sandy cheek against her nipple, then seeking her lips, "let it come."

Obeying his sultry command, she gave herself over to the power of her own fiery responses and gasped, arching into his hand, aching for release. Once, twice... more... his strong fingers stroked with uncanny precision, as if guided by her desires. A wild, searing rush burst from the center of her, flinging outward, invading and claiming all of her. She clung to him, feeling the primal clash of pure elements within her, carrying her to the edge of existence, where all motion damped and muted into pure dazzling energy.

He called her back to him with tender kisses on her shoulders and up her slender throat. And when she opened her eyes to him, they were filled with glowing coals, not yet banked. Her voluptuous body rippled sinuously against him, opened, still seeking. Shifting slightly, she urged his weight onto her fully, and wrapped his buttocks with her sleek, muscular legs. She rubbed the liquid heat of her throbbing flesh against his engorged shaft in seductive, thrusting rounds that were meant to conjure a like motion in him. There was no doubt of what she wanted.

Garner sank his arms beneath her and buried his aching shaft in the wet, satiny sheath he'd so generously prepared. Fiery pleasure blew through him in consuming waves as he fought to contain his response. Then he began to move with powerful, rhythmic thrusts that rasped slowly against her burning flesh, carrying her with him. She arched against him, shuddering again and again, crashing through unseen barriers, one after another, as she soared higher and higher. And this time,she called out his name and he came with her into the blindingly bright realms of inexplicable joy.

In a starry night sky they floated, replete, drifting slowly back. Some time later, their fingers and legs entwined as they lay on their sides, facing. The steamy, charged haze between them lingered, still exerting a powerful spell on their sated senses.

"You were right," she murmured, running her gaze over his sculptured face, his exceedingly pleasurable mouth, and his tousled hair.

"Ummmm?" he opened eyes now smoky with satisfaction.

"My corset. It didn't get in the way."

"No, it didn't." His white teeth flashed a devilish grin in the dimness, and her heart quivered. "I'm rather fond of corsets, actually."

She was a little shocked to read the wicked glint in his eye so plainly. He meant he found corsets... stimulating. They brought his blood up... and other relevant parts of him as well. It was something of a revelation to her. He liked to look at half-dressed women. Imagine that.

"Well, I suppose that's reasonable," she announced a moment later, realizing that she had developed a powerful fascination in recent weeks for tall, glossy boots... and for snug, gentlemanly breeches that hugged a man's tight buttocks and muscular thighs... and for the occasional glimpse of dark chest hair. "Anything else you're particularly 'fond' of?"

His grin went from devilish to positively dangerous. "Stockings. Sheer silk stockings... and..." he swallowed, staring into her sooty-lashed eyes.

"And?" she prompted, licking her itchy, sensitive lips.

"And..." he was about to say'tight deerskin breeches,' but thought better of it. "Bare skin. Especially yours."

"Ohhh, I was hoping you would say that." Her smile was both impish and desirous as she released his hands and pushed up to sit on her knees, in front of him. Her fingers flew over her laces, ripping them out with seductive flair. And soon she peeled the bony restraint away, tossing it into the oblivion at the edge of their bed. "I really like bare skin better."

He laughed, his eyes riveted on the full, glorious perfection of her breasts as she spread herself over him, rolling him onto his back. Her knee inserted itself between his and she braced on her elbows above him. "Have you... seen a lot of corsets?"

He could read the drift of her thoughts quite clearly. "A few."

It didn't satisfy her. "Were you ever fond of one corset in particular?"

"No." That truth surprised him as it escaped. He'd never been exactly "fond" of a woman... before now. And it surprised him that he'd never even thought about women in such terms before. Fond. It was mildly disturbing. "I had more important things to think about."

"Such as?" She savored this closeness, this unprecedented sharing, relieved that there didn't seem to be another "corset" hiding in his heart.

"The Townsend companies. My family has the distillery, a shipping concern, a bank, and a mercantile business, as well as shares in other ventures. It's a diversified group, and managing them is a heavy responsibility, one I've been groomed for, worked for all my life. And I'm due to assume the helm soon..." His pause was laden with hidden meaning. "It's a Townsend tradition, the son taking over..."

"And your father, what will he do then?" she asked, watching the changeable lights in his eyes.

"Enter politics, hold office, most likely. That's what Ezra did, until he became ill. That's tradition as well, politics in later years."

"It all sounds so... tidy," she observed, searching his expression. What she meant was "dull."

"Well, it's not. Things don't happen tidily. Control is actually voted by family shares, and the head of Townsend Companies has to earn both the family's confidence and his place at the helm... study hard, win a few military laurels, demonstrate sterling business judgment and impeccable character, and marry-" He halted and his ears reddened.

"Marry... properly ,"Whitney finished for him, beginning to see just how drastically their marriage might have affected his prospects. Just now his family's estimate of his character and his judgment seemed dismal indeed, primarily because of his "disgraceful" marriage to her. It produced a twinge of alarm in her chest and a very solemn look.

"You really want to control the Townsend companies?"

"I've wanted it, prepared for it all my life." He watched her deal with his revelations and felt the same uneasiness rising within him. No-he battled the unwelcome intrusion of larger problems-not now. Not yet. Just a little more time...

He ran a distracting finger down the length of her nose to her swollen-cherry lips. Her gaze warmed slightly and she rubbed her chin gently on his chest, creating tickling sensations that vibrated through him all the way to his toes. His eyes closed as he concentrated on that sublime feeling, and a moment later they reopened.

She gasped as his arms flew around her and pulled her closer beside him. He rose over her in a single lithe and powerful movement, pinning her easily on her back.

"I have forty percent of Townsend Companies and I need sixty to control," he growled."But right now I want a hundred percent... of Whitney Daniels."

Much later, in the chilled darkness of predawn, Garner picked up his beleaguered clothing, donned what he could, and padded quietly across the hall to his own room. It was warmer than he expected, and he realized a fire had been laid in the hearth even though it was probably clear to all where he was spending the night. Benson, he sighed. Only Benson would be so oblivious. He pulled a heavy wing chair near the banked fire and sank into it, propping his bare feet near the still-warm brands and bracing for the disaster that always descended after he bedded Whitney Daniels.

But the quiet continued uninterrupted. His body was at peace, his passions truly slaked for the first time in his life. And with passion's pathways purged, his thoughts were astonishingly coherent, focused. He'd made rapturous love to Whitney again and again, too hungry for her, too intoxicated with her to stop. But unlike the sickened aftermath of whiskey, the aftermath of Whitney was clear and calm, as was his view of the turmoil he'd endured since the day he'd laid eyes on her.

He'd gone about in a perpetual agony of half-arousal, his body reeling out of control, bursting into spontaneous flame whenever, wherever she appeared. In front of his men or her whole villiage, in a freezing wet forest or against a splintery barn wall-it didn't make a bit of difference to his appallingly independent parts. Wherever she appeared, his loins recognized her command... and saluted.

He groaned, dropping his head back against the chair. It even happened last evening, in front of his family! Lord, that was the absolute limit... roused like a buck in rut from the mere sight of two little bumps on her shirt and a few strategically placed wrinkles of deerskin. And all the while trying to explain and gloss over the disasters already wrought by his volcanic and bewildering urges for her!

It was just in his nature, he had always understood, to be vulnerable to women in that way. Easily roused; easily had. And after that first debacle at age sixteen, Chloe - he shuddered, he'd spent years constructing impenetrable defenses against refined womanhood. He taught himself to see absurdities in the elegant affectations of the women of his class, concentrating on squelching and flattening his responses to the sumptuous gowns and dresses worn by refined femininity. He had ruthlessly cultivated immunity to the seduction of swishing skirts and fluttering fans and to the women who wielded them.

But Whitney Daniels was the perfect antithesis of everything he'd taught himself to beware. Straightforward, unaffected, seemingly unconscious of her blazing sensual impact, she had startling preferences for breeches and bluntness, and equally startling indifference to his position and his money. She had absolutely nothing in common with the females of his class... except her penchant for betraying him in order to get what she wanted.

His vulnerability toward her was growing worse by the day, by the hour. Wanting her body to the point of distraction was bad enough, but every encounter with her roused increasingly more than just his unceasing lust. His sculptured features tightened as he recalled how hotly he'd defended her and how eagerly he'd comforted her. She'd seemed so hurt, so sweet... she had stimulated his feelings in a way that made "fond" seem pale indeed. And he didn't even want to think of the disastrous ramifications of that!

He was losing ground to her in almost every way possible and it had to stop. He had to disentangle from her somehow, before she ruined both him and his chances for control of Townsend Companies. He had to keep her at a distance, somehow, and stay on constant guard against the wanting she conjured in him with a sway, a tilt of her head, or an unconscious lick of her lips. Oh, God. How? What could he do... where could he... ? Think, man! He had to find out what was happening at the offices. Undoubtedly a backlog of work was waiting for him. Perhaps he could stay...

Wait! A stroke of pure inspiration came to him. If uniqueness was her compelling sensual appeal, then perhaps there might be hope, after all. Perhaps he could somehow camouflage her terrifyingly potent curves ... and kill two birds with one stone. She would be made acceptable to his family, and her unique sensual hold on him would be greatly diminished... well, at least to tolerable, resistible levels.

Lord, yes! That was exactly what he had to do. Make her look like the kind of spoiled, treacherous "lady" he could ignore. Clothes, fancy clothes... lots of them. That was the place to start!