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  Laura, meanwhile, did not need Rye Dalton to be bothered. She realized if she didn’t soon ease her whalebone corsets she was going to either vomit or faint.

  As soon as it was gracefully possible, she escaped through the back door, inhaling great gulps of night air. But the air alone did little to relieve her, for it was laden with fog tonight, and she nearly choked on the tang of tar, spread as it was beneath the fruit trees of Starbuck’s orchard, to control canker worms. Picking up her skirts, she ran at a most unladylike clip between the apple trees, where the cloying scent of blossoms only worsened her nausea. She groped futilely for the row of brass hooks and eyes at the back of her dress, but knew full well there was no reaching them. Her mouth watered warningly. Tears stung her eyes. She clutched her waist and bent over, gagging.

  At that moment cool fingers touched the back of Laura’s neck and quickly began releasing the hooks while she broke out into a quivering sweat.

  “What the hell’re y’ doin’ in these things if y’ can’t tolerate them?" Rye Dalton demanded.

  For the moment she was unable to answer, battling the forces of nature. But finally she managed to choke out a single word.

  “Hurry!”

  “Damn idiotic contraptions!” he muttered. “Y’ should have more sense, woman!”

  “Th ... the laces ... please,” she gasped when the dress was open.

  He yanked at the bow resting in the hollow of her spine, then jerked it free at last and began working his fingers up the lacings until Laura breathed her first easy breath in three hours.

  “May you b ... burn in hell, Rye D ... Dalton, for ever bringing whalebones to shore and m ... making women all over the world miserable!” she berated between huge gasps.

  “If I bum in hell, might’s well do it for a lot better reason than that,” he said, moving close behind her, slipping his hand inside her loosened corset.

  “Stop it!” She lurched away and spun on him while all her frustrations boiled to the surface. This incredible trap he’d caused by insisting on going whaling, the torture of these damned insufferable whalebones, the cozy little piece of flirtation she’d just been forced to witness—it all sparked an explosion of temper that suddenly raged out of control. “Stop it!” she hissed. “You have no right to sail in here after ... after five years and act as if you’d never left!”

  Immediately, his temper flared, too. “I left for you, so I could bring you—”

  “I begged you not to go! I didn’t want your ... your stinking whale oil! I wanted my husband!”

  “Well, here I am!” he shot back sarcastically.

  “Oh ... She clenched her fists, almost growling in frustration. “You think it’s so simple, don’t you, Rye? Playing footsie under the table, as if the most important thing I have to decide is whether or not to take my shoe off. Well, you can see what a state it’s put me in.”

  ‘‘And what about the state I’m in!”

  She turned her back disdainfully. “I’m fine now. Thank you for your help ... Mister Dalton,” she retorted, imitating DeLaine Hussey, “but you’d better go back before you’re missed.”

  “I did that so y’d see what I’m forced t’ go through every time I see you and Dan together. It bothered y' didn’t it—seeing your husband with another woman?”

  Again she whirled to confront him. “All right ... yes! It bothered me! But I realize now I have no right to be bothered by it. As I said before, you’d better go back before you’re missed.”

  “I don’t give a damn if I’m missed. Besides, all I’m doin’ is standin’ in an orchard visiting with my wife. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Rye, Dan won’t like—”

  At that moment Dan’s voice came from just beyond the nearest row of apple trees.

  “Laura? Are you out there?”

  She turned toward the voice to reply, but Rye’s hand found her elbow and he moved close, placing a finger over her mouth, breathing softly beside her ear, “Shh.”

  “I’ve got to answer him,” she whispered while her heart drummed. “He knows we’re out here.”

  He grabbed her head with both hands and brought her ear to his lips. “You do, and I’ll tell him your corsets are loose because we were just enjoyin’ a little roll beneath the apple trees.”

  She jerked away angrily, frantically scrabbling to retie her rigging. But it was futile, and Rye only stood by grinning.

  “Laura, is that you?” came Dan’s voice. “Where are you?”

  “Help me!” she begged, turning her back on Rye as Dan’s footsteps came closer. He was walking between the trees now; they could hear the branches snapping.

  “Not on your life,” Rye whispered.

  In a panic she grabbed his wrist, picked up her skirts, and ran, pulling him along after her. Down the rows they went, ducking between trees, skimming silently through the fog-shrouded night, which buffered the sound of their passing. Foolish, childish thing to do! Yet Laura was unable to think beyond the fact that she could not let Dan discover her half undressed out here in the misty night with Rye.

  The orchard was wide and long, stretching away in a maze of white-misted apple trees which gave way to quince, then to plum. The fog blanketed everything, obscuring the two who moved through it like specters. Laura’s wide skirt might well have been only another explosion of apple blossoms, for the trees cowered close to the ground, protecting themselves from the incessant ocean winds, until they took on the same bouffant shape as a hooped skirt.

  At last Laura stopped, alert, listening, one hand pressed against her heaving breasts to hold the dress up. Rye, too, listened, but they heard not the faintest strains of the music drifting from the house. They were surrounded by billows of white, lost in the swirling fog, alone in a private scented bower of quince, where they’d be neither seen or heard.

  She still clutched his wrist. Beneath her thumb she could feel his pulse racing. She flung the hand away and cursed, “Damn you, Rye!”

  But his good humor was back. “Is that any way t’ talk to the man who’s just loosened your stays?”

  “I told you I had to have time to think and work things out.”

  “I’ve given y’ five days ... just what have y’ worked out?”

  “Five days—exactly! How can I get a mess like this worked out in five days?”

  “So y’ want to string me along and lead me out t’ the apple orchard where we used t’ do it right under Dan’s nose even when we were kids?” He moved closer, his breath coming heavy, too, after their run.

  “That’s not why I came out here,” she protested, and it was true.

  “Why, then?” He put both wide hands on her waist to pull her closer. Immediately, she grabbed his wrists, but he would not be waylaid. He caressed her hipbones while his voice blended with the soft fog to muddle her. “Remember that time, Laura? Remember how it was ... with the sun on our skin and both of us so scared Dan would find us right there in the daylight, and—”

  She clapped a hand over his mouth. “You’re not being fair,” she pleaded, but the memory had been revived, as he’d intended, and already served Rye’s purpose, for her breath was not easing. Instead, it came heavier and faster than when they’d first stopped running.

  So he kissed the fingers with which she’d stifled his words. Immediately, she retracted them, freeing his lips to vow, “I’ll tell y’ right now, woman, I’ve no intention of playin’ fair. I’ll play as dirty as I have to t’ win y’ back. And I’ll start right here by soilin’ your dress in this apple orchard if y’ won’t take the damn thing off.”

  His hands pulled her against his hips again, then slid up her ribs and onto her back, finding the openings in her laces, pressing against her shoulder blades until her breasts touched his jacket.

  She turned her mouth aside. “If I kiss you once, will you be satisfied and let me go back?”

  “What do y’ think?” he whispered gruffly, nuzzling the side of her neck, biting it lightly, sending goosebumps shiv
ering across her belly.

  “I think my husband will kill me if I don’t get back to the house soon.” But she inched her lips closer to his even as she said it.

  “And I think this husband will kill y’ if y’ do,” he said, almost at her mouth. He smelled of cedar and wine and the past. She recognized his aroma, and it prompted her response. The silence hemmed them in, so immense and total that within it their heartbeats seemed to resound like cannon shot. The first day when he’d kissed her, she’d been in shock. The second time he’d taken her by surprise. But now—if he kissed her now, if she let him, this one would be deliberate.

  “Once,” she whispered. “Just once, then I have to go back. Promise you’ll lace me up, ” she pleaded.

  “Nay,” he returned gruffly, breathing on her lips. “No promises.”

  Sensibly, she pulled back, but it took little effort for Rye to change her mind. He simply touched the corner of her mouth with his lips.

  And the old thrill was back, as fresh and vital as always. He had that way about him, Rye did, that she’d tried to forget since being married to Dan. Call it technique, call it practice, call it familiarity—but they’d learned to kiss together, and Rye knew what Laura liked. He let their breaths mingle, then wet the corner of her mouth, dipping to taste before savoring fully. She liked to be aroused one tiny step at a time, and she waited now, her neck taut, her breathing labored, while he held her with one hand around the side of her neck, his thumb massaging the hollow beneath her jaw. The thumb circled lazily. Then came his tongue, wetting the perimeter of her lips with patient, faint strokes, as Rye sensed the fire building within her.

  The memories came flooding back to Laura ... being fifteen in a dory with lips tightly shut and eyes safely closed, being sixteen in a boathouse loft and knowing well the use of tongues; moving toward full maturity and learning together how a man touches a woman, how a woman touches a man to create impatience, then ecstasy.

  As if he read her mind, Rye now murmured, “Remember that summer, Laura, up in the loft above old man Hardesty’s boathouse?”

  And he took her back to those beginnings, pressing his mouth fully over hers, his tongue inviting hers to dance. His silky inner lips were just warm enough, just wet enough, just hesitant enough, just demanding enough, to wipe away today and take her back through the years to those first times.

  She shivered. He felt the tremor beneath his palm on her neck and drew her against him, then slipped that warm, seeking palm within the dress that hung loosely from her shoulders. But when he would have pulled it down, she quickly flung her arms about his neck so that he couldn’t. The dress was doing its intended job, for through spikes of whalebone and clumps of gathers there was little chance of his touching her intimately. The hoop was pressed tightly against his thighs and flared out behind her as if blowing in a hurricane.

  But the hurricane blew not on her skirts but within her head and heart, for the kiss now had substance. It was a hot, whole giving of mouths, with neither holding back anything. Her tongue joined his and she knew the immediate shock of difference, as anyone knows who has kissed only one person for a long time, as she had Dan. It should have sobered her, reminded her she was not free to do these things with this man, but instead she welcomed it and realized that ever since she’d married Dan, she’d been comparing his kiss to this and finding it lacking.

  That traitorous admission brought her somewhat to her senses, and she hoped fervently that Rye would be content with this kiss for now, because her resistance was fast slipping as he held her firmly and ran his hands along the exposed skin of her back, which was the only bareness he could reach.

  He tore his lips away and spoke with savage emotion. “Laura—my God, woman, does it give y’ joy to torture me?” He raised one hand and slid it along her arm, capturing one of her hands from the back of his neck, carrying it down, and placing it on his swollen body. “I’ve been five years at sea and this is what it’s done t’ me. How long would y’ make me wait?”

  Shock waves sizzled through her body. She tried to puli free, but he held her palm where it had too long been absent, the heat of his tumescence insistent through the cloth of his trousers. Clutching the back of her neck, he drew her wildly against him once more, kissing her, his hot, demanding tongue stroking rhythmically in and out of her mouth, reminding Laura that it was he who had taught her these things in a boathouse loft years ago. Her hand stopped resisting and conformed to the shape of him, and he thrust against her caress, still pressing the back of her wrist and knuckles and fingers.

  Against her will, she again compared him to the man who waited at the house for her now. Her palm moved up, then down, measuring, remembering, while Rye begged her with the motion of his body to seek the touch of his satin skin if she would not allow him to seek hers.

  The fog curled its tendrils about their heads, and the seductive scent of blossoms filled the night. Their breathing scraped harshly with desire, like ocean waves rushing upon sand, then retreating.

  “Please,” Rye growled into her mouth. “Please, Laura-love. It’s been so long.”

  “I can’t, Rye,” she said miserably, suddenly withdrawing her hand and covering her face with both palms, a sob breaking from her. “I can’t ... Dan trusts me.”

  “Dan!” he growled. “Dan! What about me?” Rye’s voice trembled with rage. He grasped her arm and jerked her almost onto tiptoe. “I trusted you! I trusted y’ t’ wait for me while I sailed on that ... that miserable whaleship and floundered in the stink of rancid oil and rottin’ fish and ate flour with the weevils sifted out of it and smelled men’s unwashed bodies day after day, and one of them my own!” His fingers closed tighter, and Laura winced. “Have y’ any idea of how I longed for the smell of y’? I nearly lost my mind at the thought of it.” But now he thrust her away almost distastefully. “Lyin’ there adrift in the doldrums, at the mercy of a windless sky, while days and days passed and I thought of the wasted time when I could’ve been with you. But I wanted t’ bring y’ a better life. That’s why I did it!” he raged.

  “And what do you think I was going through?” she cried, her shoulders jutting forward belligerently, tears now coursing down her cheeks. “What do you think I suffered when I watched you stuffing clothes in your sea chest, when I saw those sails disappear and wondered if I’d ever see you alive again? What do you think it was like when I discovered I was carrying your baby and I got the news that that baby would never know his father?” Her voice shook. “I wanted to kill you, Rye Dalton, do you know that? I wanted to kill you because you’d died on me!” She laughed a little dementedly.

  “But y’ certainly wasted no time findin’ someone t’ take my place afterward, did y’!”

  She clenched her fists and shouted. “I was pregnant!”

  “With my child, and y’ turned to him!” They stood almost nose to nose.

  “Who else could I turn to? But you wouldn’t understand! When’s the last time your stomach swelled up like a baloon-fish so you couldn’t even walk without hurting or ... or shovel a walk or carry wood or lift a water pail! Who do you think did all those things while you were gone, Rye?”

  “My best friend,” Rye answered bitterly.

  “He was my best friend, too. And if he hadn’t been, I don’t know what I’d have done. He was there without being asked, whenever I needed him, and whether you want to believe it or not, it was as much because he loved you as because he loved me.”

  “Spare me the dramatics, Laura. He was there because he couldn’t wait t’ get his hands on y’, and you know it,” Rye said coldly.

  “That’s a despicable thing to say, and you know it!”

  “Are you denyin’ that y’ knew how he felt about y’ all the years we were growing up?”

  “I’m denying nothing. I’m trying to make you see what two people suffered at the news of your death ... suffered together! After we heard that the Massachusetts had gone down, we got through those first days by walking the dunes wh
ere the three of us used to play, telling ourselves one minute that it couldn’t be true, that you were still alive out there someplace, and the next minute telling each other to accept it —you’d never be back. But I was the weaker one by far. I ... I told myself I was acting exactly like my mother, and I hated it, but the despair was worse than anything I’d ever known. I found I didn’t care if I lived or died, and at times I felt the same about the child I carried. After the funeral was the worst ...” Her voice cracked with remembrance, and she shuddered. “Oh God, that funeral ... without a corpse ... and me already awkward with your child.”

  “Laura ...” He moved near, but she turned her back and went on.

  “I couldn’t have made it through that ... that horror, if it weren’t for Dan. My mother was perfectly useless, as you can well imagine. And she was no better when Josh was born. It was Dan who was my strength then, Dan who sat beside me through the first of my labor, then paced outside where you should have been pacing, then came to praise the baby and tell me he looked like you, because he knew those were the words I needed to give me the will to get strong again. It was your best friend who promised he’d always be there for Josh and me, no matter what. And I owe him for that.” She paused a moment. “You owe him.”

  He studied her back, then stepped close and roughly began lacing up her stays.

  “But what do I owe him?” His hands stopped tugging. “You?”

  Laura shivered, unable to answer. What did they owe Dan? Certainly something better than stealing off into the night and indulging in sex play. Again Rye continued lacing.

  “You’ve got to understand, Rye. He’s been Josh’s father since the day Josh was born. He’s been my husband three times as long as you’ve been. I can’t just ... just fling him aside carelessly, without a thought for his feelings.”

  At her back came one irritated tug, harder than the rest, then the tension disappeared around Laura’s ribs as Rye fumbled. “I’m not much good at this ... I haven’t had much practice.”