"Let's go, Miss Fisher," he said, "It's too noisy in here."
The girl was like an automaton as she allowed herself to be ushered ahead of Hedges between the tables and the pale-faced patrons who sat at them.
"That was vicious," she whispered as they emerged into the warm Washington night.
"He did the talking and she thought it was funny," he said softly. "They had to pay for it."
"But so cruelly?"
He sighed. "Would you have cared what 1 did to that drunken soldier back in Parkersburg?"
"That was different," she protested.
"Because your honor was at stake?"
She flushed and the deep color added to her prettiness. "If you want to put it like that," she said softly, dropping her gaze.
"That loudmouth was questioning my honor," Hedges told her and began to walk away from the front of the saloon, heading back towards Pennsylvania Avenue.
She ran to catch up to him and they walked apart for a few yards. Then her hand found his arm again. Their silence lengthened and was emphasized by the bustle in the street around them.
"Where are we going?" she asked suddenly.
"Hotel."
"It's early," she protested.
"It's overdue," he answered.
"I heard about it and I've seen it. About time I tried it."
She halted abruptly and her grip on his arm pulled him up short. Her green eyes flashed angrily as he looked into them. "If you mean what I think you mean, Captain, you've come to the wrong girl."
"You came to me, Miss Fisher," he pointed out.
"I hardly know you."
"Don't see what that's got to do with it."
"A girl likes to be courted," Jeannie said, her tone softening, and a coy smile turning up the corners of her I slightly pouted mouth.
Hedges bent forward suddenly, swept her into his arms and crushed his lips against hers. The kiss lasted several long moments and the passing crowds laughed at the couple. But neither of them were aware of any existence except their own as they pressed against each other.
"There's not much time for courting in a war," Hedges said as he eased his embrace and looked steadily into her eyes which showed an expression he had never seen there before. "Figure that takes care of it. Can we get on with the humping now?"
"Captain!" the girl exclaimed.
"Yes, Miss Fisher?" he asked evenly.
"That is no way for a gentleman to talk."
"All officers ain't gentlemen, Miss Fisher."
She fluttered her long eyelashes and found something of intense interest in the area of his chest. "I haven't ever ... before," she whispered.
He began to walk towards the hotel and she fell in beside him. "But you thought about it?" he asked.
"Yes," she caught her breath. "What it would be like when I was married."
"I'm not the marrying kind, Miss Fisher."
"I know you're not, Captain." Her tone spoke volumes of regret. It was awkward and unsuccessful at first in the small bedroom on the first floor of the hotel. Their naked bodies, her's soft and yielding, his hard and demanding, became bathed with sweat as they attempted, to attain congress. Each time she cried, aloud her pain he withdrew from her, desperately wanting release from the ache of desire but afraid to hurt her.
She would not look up at him and pressed the side of her head hard into the pillow, shutting her eyes tight as she spread her legs and arms wide in submission.
"You gotta help me, Miss Fisher," he gasped.
Her hands reached for him and the gentle touch of her fingers was almost painful in the jolt of pleasure it sent through him. The hardness of her erect nipples pressed through the hair of his chest as he lowered his weight on to her and the squeal of pain that burst from her lips became a sigh as he pierced into her.
"Captain," she murmured, locking her hands at his neck to press her face into her shoulder. "Captain, there's an earthquake." She began to move her body in concert with his. His teeth sank into the soft firmness of her flesh as he sucked upon the saltiness of her. The tempo mounted and Hedges wanted to cry aloud his exhilaration. But his lungs were near to bursting and his throat was filled with an emotion which he did not understand. This is what it must be like to die, he thought, and gave himself up to whatever was possessing him, driving into the girl relentlessly.
"That was wonderful, Captain," she sighed as he finally lay still.
He raised his face from her shoulder, licking her blood from his lips. "Beats kissing," he said. "Obliged, Miss Fisher."
He rolled off her, on to his back. She reached for his hand and squeezed it. She laughed suddenly. "It really did feel like an earthquake."
"Something moved, sure enough," he confirmed. "I feel different."
"You are," he told her, and tried to force his grin to show humor. "You're a woman now. You came into this room a maiden and then you lost your head."
For long moments she was silent and he looked sideways across the pillow at her afraid he might see regret in her face. But it was a puzzled expression that creased her forehead and crinkled her nose. Then it was gone, as she saw the joke and happy laughter burst from her bruised lips. He broke into his own, harsher laughter and the sound of their joy filled the room. Without shyness she released his hand and reached down to find the source of her pleasure. His body offered an immediate response to her touch and their laughter reached a crescendo and then died as she urged him onto and then into her again.
"Where's your sister, Miss Fisher?" he whispered as his teeth tugged gently at her ear.
"Out with a man," she answered breathlessly.
"Humping?"
"One family can't have that much luck," she sighed, clasping him to her.
The cold grey light of dawn was streaking across them eastern sky as Hedges left the hotel to begin the bleak walk back to camp through the desolate city streets. He felt weak but replete, emptied but satisfied. If he had come through the opening horrors of war with any relic of his youth intact, tonight he had lost it. He felt the complete man in every sense of the word.
"Hold it right there, soldier boy." The words were spoken in an easy drawl, almost conversationally. But the expression on the speaker's face gave the lie to his easy manner. He was leaning against a pillar in the porchway of a bank, ten feet in front of Hedges. He was tall and thin, dressed in an eastern suit with a fancy vest which had a gold watch chain looped across the front. His low-crowned hat was tipped back off his brow so that the dawn light showed every line of his thin, aquiline features. His hands were thrust casually into his pants' pockets and a half-smoked cheroot angled from the comer of his mouth, issuing blue-grey smoke in a vertical column.
"You talking to me?" Hedges asked, slowing his pace.
"I've been waiting all night for you. Not likely I'd be addressing anyone else."
"Must be something real important you want to say to me," Hedges answered, halting a yard from the other man.
"Message from the Senator."
"Which one?"
The man took the cheroot from his lips with long fingers. "The one from Virginia. The one you attacked last night."
Hedges narrowed his eyes. "He can still talk?"
"Enough." The man rolled the cheroot between his thumb and forefinger and suddenly flicked it towards Hedges.
Hedges sidestepped, feeling the adrenalin pumping through his body, driving out the euphoria of post-sexual relaxation. A man cried out and Hedges made a half turn and looked at two hulking roughnecks, one of them raising a hand to where a circular burn mark decorated his cheek. But the second man had no such preoccupation. The massive fist he had launched continued on its course and only its target as altered. Aimed for Hedges' kidneys, it landed on the side of his waist, with enough force to tear a grunt from the injured captain's lips.