"I mean every snot-nosed young trooper here is ready to lie down and die
for you." "Really?" she asked with a sweet note of astonishment. "Well,
how very genteel of the lads, how kind! But tell me, Lieutenant, how am
I doing with the others?" His jaw twisted slightly, but there was still
amusement to his smile.
"The graybeards, Miss. Stuart, are quite willing to dig their own
graves, if need be, for your cause."
"Oh, dear! Ah, well, let's hope that it need not be. But I'm curious,
sir, how am I doing with the men between nineteen and ninety?"
"Would it please you to know that a number of them were probably quite
ready to slit one another's throats for the mere bounty of your smile?"
She didn't know if he was teasing. Not anymore. The smoky quality was in
his eyes again. She lowered her lashes, shivering slightly, wondering if
he was really a man to play with so freely. Then she raised her eyes
with a bold and sweeping challenge.
"Thank goodness, sir, that you would not participate in such a skirmish!
I mean, as one could see how heavily involved you are ..."
"What?" he demanded, scowling.
"The bountiful brunette, Lieutenant. Miss. Eliza."
"Oh, Eliza." He said the name dism~ssively. Too dismissively. He knew
Eliza well, maybe better than he wanted to at the moment.
"Yes, Eliza," she said pleasantly.
"Are you engaged, Lieutenant?"
"Good heavens, no!"
"Ah, was the horror of that statement over the possibility of
engagement, or over Eliza?"
"Miss. Stuart, you are very presumptuous."
"Sir, no one is forcing you to dance with me."
His arms tightened around her. He was smiling, but there was a sizzle to
the smile, and it sent little shock waves rippling all along her system.
Maybe she was playing dangerously. It was delightful. Maybe she risked
igniting his temper to extremes she had yet to know. She realized that
she was willing to do so, that the storm taking place within her own
heart and body was demanding that she do so. "Miss. Stuart, I am your
escort to this dance, remember?" he said bluntly.
"Oh ... yes, well, I suppose that I had forgotten. When I saw the way
your lips became pasted together with Eliza's ..."
"Jealous, Miss. Stuart?"
"Well, how could I be? I have just entered into your life. I couldn't
possibly mean to dissuade you from, er, liaisons you have been
nurturing."
She heard the clenching of his teeth. The scowl that tightened his
handsome features seemed to reach inside her and take her breath away.
She felt his hand upon her waist, warm and powerful, and the fingers of
his other hand so tightly entwined with hers that the pressure nearly
caused pain. She inhaled a clean scent from him that also seemed to
speak of the plain, of the rugged vistas, of the horseman, the marksman.
Everything rugged, and everything striking.
He was a real son of a bitch, a small voice warned her. It didn't
matter.
"Do you always hop so recklessly into the fray, Miss. Stuart?"
"Whatever do you mean? What fray, Lieutenant?"
"You've barbs on your tongue, ma'am."
"Why, Lieutenant! I'm only speaking frankly."
"Um. I still say there are barbs there. Perhaps I should discover if I
am right ..."
He was swift on his feet, agile and sure. In a moment he had danced her
out the door and into the shadows on the porch. He swept her against a
supporting pillar, then his mouth descended upon her, lips parted,
parting hers. She had wanted this. this very thing. She had teased and
goaded him, and now she had him. But the kiss was no casual dance-floor
brush. It was a thing so searingly intimate that she lost all hope of
breathing, all hope of standing upon her own two feet. His mouth
encompassed hers, drawing from her all strength and will. The heat of
his mouth filled and infused her, and his tongue swept by all barriers
to ravage and invade.
And she did nothing to stop him, nothing to fight back, nothing to
protest even the shocking intimacy of the invasion.
He kissed her mouth as if he kissed all of her. His 73 tongue touched
every little crevice and nuance of her mouth and thrust with a rhythm
that entered into her pulse, into her bloodstream. It was far different
from anything she had ever experienced before. Anything. It brought
tremors to her limbs and a swirling tempest within her belly; it singed
her breasts and weakened her knees.
And worst of all, perhaps, she felt no remorse, no shame. She allowed
herself to fall into his arms, to feel his strength support her, the
rippling muscles of his chest and thighs. Then his mouth pulled away
from hers. She inhaled raggedly and lifted her eyes to meet his. It had
been a game; she hadn't been expecting this, and she was suddenly very
afraid that her eyes betrayed the depths of her innocence, of her shock,
of the staggering sensations that had taken place within her. His eyes
were heavily shadowed, and he didn't look at all like a man about to
laugh with the pleasure of an easy conquest, but rather like one
consumed with some blinding fury or emotion. But he didn't speak. She
wanted to reach up and touch the sandy tendrils of his hair, fallen
rakishly over his forehead, but she didn't dare move, she didn't dare
touch him again, for there seemed to be something explosive about him.
"There she is!"
The accusing cry seemed to awaken them both. Jamie stepped back,
surprised, frowning, looking around.
A plump woman was coming out on the porch. She was small and seemed
exceedingly broad. Her hair was snow white and swept up beneath a little
cap, and her dress was old-fashioned, her petticoats as wide as they
might have been during the war, her dark fringed stole from an earlier
period.
She wasn't alone. People were spilling out behind her. "Clara," Jamie
said softly, still frowning.
"Clara, what on earth is wrong?"
Clara seemed not to hear him. She pointed a finger at Tess.
"You!
You--you harlot! You hussy! You whore!
Attacked by Indians, and crying out that white men fell upon you! How
dare you! You should have been killed! God will smite you down with an
arrow for lying! You trash, you white trash!"
"Clara!" Jamie shouted.
Tess, stunned by the violence of the attack, stared in silence.
"Clara, you're overwrought, but you owe this lady an apology, you can't
know"
"No!" Clara shrieked.
"She's the devil's spawn!" Tess realized then that the porch was full of
people.
The young soldiers who had been ready to die for her looked as if they'd
gladly nail her to the wall.
"How many of us have lost our dear loved ones to the bloody savages?
You, Lydia, the Pawnee took your only daughter! Charlie, the Comanche
cost you your arm, and Jimmie, your boy Jim went down in that fight with
the Apache. Heathens, bloody heathens, all of them! And now she's lying
about what happened to her little wagon train.
She won't let the men go after the real culprits, she wants a war with
the white men! She wants us all at one another's throats so the bloody
savages can move right in. She"--" No!" Tess shouted furiously.
"You don't understand, you weren't there, and don't you dare" -- "She
ought to be tarred and leathered and thrown right out of here naked as a
jay. Then she can run to her Indian buddies."
There was a startled moment of silence. Tess felt certain they were all
about to step forward and tear her into little shreds.
"Yes, yes" -- Clara began wildly. But she was interrupted.
The sound of a clinking spur struck loudly and discordantly upon the