The Sergeant's Lady by Susanna Fraser Page B

dance.” Where was the harm? No one but the two of them would ever know. Anna longed for even a brief release from the tense propriety that had ruled her marriage and reigned over her still in widowhood. “Please, Sergeant Atkins,” she implored.
    He shook his head again, but rose and took her by the hand. His grip was warm and strong. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
    With Sebastian she’d learned to separate her body from her mind and heart—to touch and be touched without feeling anything. So the jolt of warmth that shot down her spine at the sergeant’s touch stunned her. Perhaps this was unwise.
    No. It felt too wonderful. She wanted to laugh with pure joy. It was only a dance. How dangerous could it be?
    At a ball they would have joined a line or square with other couples, barely touched and followed a prescribed set of steps. Outside that framework Anna hardly knew how to follow through on her own mad scheme. Fortunately, once persuaded, her partner took the lead. He caught her about the waist with one hand, clasped her hand with the other and whirled her into a series of quick steps.
    The soldiers by the fire began to sing—something about a trooper lad arriving in town weary with riding on a moonlit night. Oh, this was more like it! Her sergeant was a grand dancer. Even in the dark, on unfamiliar ground, dancing in a close hold, she trusted his surefooted guidance.
    The singers reached the chorus. Bonny lassie, I’ll lie near you, hey bonny lassie, I’ll lie near you. Anna flushed, but she had expected a bawdy song from Sergeant Atkins’s warnings.
    The next verses told how the lassie took the horse to the stable and the trooper to her table and fed them each their dinners. Anna looked up. In the moonlight she could see a twinkle in her partner’s eyes, and he grinned at her. Despite his initial reluctance, he was enjoying this, too. She let the music carry her along, feeling as if she were flying. Every time he pressed his fingers against her waist to guide her she shivered. She felt the sergeant’s stripes sewn onto the sleeve of his rough wool jacket and beneath it the strong, lean muscles of his arm.
    She went upstairs to make the bed,
    And she made it soft and easy.
    She’s pulled her petticoats o’er her head,
    Crying, soldier, are you ready?
    Anna gasped.
    Sergeant Atkins laughed. “Told you.”
    “You did,” she admitted.
    “It gets worse.”
    How was that possible? This was scandalous—but she had all but forced it upon him. She could not in justice complain. Yet it was still a joyous tune, and he was still one of the best dancers she had ever encountered.
    As the song continued, the trooper left the maid for his duties, and she followed him, pregnant, only to be abandoned.
    It’s when will you come back again
    To be your bairnie’s daddy?
    When cockle shells grow silver bells
    It’s when I’ll come and wed ye.
    Anna flung her head back and laughed at the absurdity of the situation, and Sergeant Atkins joined in. He whirled her through to the end of the song in a flourish of sweeping steps and turns.
    The music over, they stood stock still, his hand at her waist, hers on his shoulder. She could not remember the last time she had felt so alive, there in the friendly darkness, breathless and feeling the rapid rise and fall of his chest as he sought to catch his own breath. If she stood on tiptoe, her lips would touch his. She did not dare quite so much, but the thought of it impelled her to rock forward onto the balls of her feet just as he bent his head.
    They were so close their racing breaths mingled, and Anna’s heart drummed more than any amount of dancing could justify. And then, with the lightest, faintest whisper of a touch, his lips brushed hers.
    So good it made her quiver with delight, but it wasn’t enough. She wound her arms around his neck, one hand buried in his hair to pull his head down to hers, just as he drew her to him. He kissed her again, this time hungry and