Merline Lovelace (2 page)

Zach’s step slowed, then halted completely. Unless the steamboat had delivered two ravishing creatures, he’d just spotted the Lady Barbara Chamberlain. She stood staring out over a bend in the river, a frilly parasol held aloft to shield her face from the fierce rays of the late-afternoon sun.

Damned if Prescott didn’t have the right of it, Zach thought on a swift, indrawn breath. She
was
a diamond of the finest cut.

Her lavender gown fell in soft folds over seduc
tively rounded breasts and hips. A paisley shawl dripping yards of fringe dangled from her elbows. The profile shaded by the parasol was one of porcelain perfection.

And her hair…

Zach had never laid eyes on such a mass of glorious, shimmering gold. Altering his course, he started down the path to the river.

S
he would have to change her plans.

Considerably.

Her forehead creased in deep concentration, Barbara stared unseeingly at the marshy cane lining the banks of the river.

She’d traveled thousands of miles in search of the half-breed mistress of a long-dead trapper. She’d sailed through a vicious Atlantic storm. She’d endured weeks aboard a packet from New York to New Orleans. More weeks aboard a steamboat paddling up the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers to this dismal little outpost.

She’d arrived at her destination only this morning and learned the woman wasn’t the ignorant savage she’d been led to expect, but the wife of a prosperous landowner. Even more disturbing, her son was an officer assigned to this very fort. All accounts in
dicated he was an educated man, one who’d studied law before donning a military uniform, no less!

Barbara’s frown deepened as she turned that unwelcome bit of information over in her mind. The scowl was an uncharacteristic expression. She’d learned at an early age she could achieve far more with honeyed smiles than pettish pouts. The lesson had stood her in good stead for most of her twenty-two years, a good number of which she and her brother had spent fleecing well-heeled gentlemen on several continents.

But Harry’s usually razor-sharp instincts had failed dismally in his last scheme to line their pockets. He’d picked the wrong prey, a seemingly vacuous English lordling touring the Italian coast. Unfortunately, the young lord’s uncle turned out to be a chancellor of the courts. He’d been waiting with a long list of charges when the Chamberlains returned to London. After a farce of a trial, the judge had sentenced Harry to transportation. Barbara’s brother was now in leg irons and confined to a prison hulk anchored off Bermuda.

With a clutch of pain just under her breastbone, she recalled how thin and ravaged Harry had looked during the one visit she’d been allowed with him. Five months in the hulks had taken their toll. He wouldn’t survive his ten-year sentence. Barbara had needed only one glance at his gaunt face and gray pallor to recognize that fact.

Her hand tightened on the carved ivory handle of her parasol. Harry would not serve those ten years. He
could
not! Barbara would take whatever measures necessary to secure his release. If those measures included relieving a French trapper’s relic of every farthing she possessed, so be it!

First, though, it appeared Barbara must deal with the woman’s son.

Her lips pursed again, this time in a moue of distaste. Lieutenant Zachariah Morgan. How Puritan. She could only hope the lieutenant wasn’t as sanctimonious as his name implied.

Ah, well. It mattered not. She’d beguiled more than one seemingly staunch and upright gentleman with her seductive smiles and murmured half promises. She’d beguile this one, too, if necessary.

The sound of footfalls on the path behind broke in to her thoughts. Startled, she spun around and snagged her gown on one of the thorny pea vines lining the path.

“Hell and botheration!”

Muttering Harry’s favorite oath, she tugged on the soft kerseymere. She had few enough decent frocks left in her trunk. The maid who’d tended to her hair and her wardrobe had declined to accompany her from Bermuda to the wilds of America. The fact that Barbara was several months in arrears with the woman’s wages no doubt contributed to her stubborn refusal to set foot aboard another ship.

The possibility of being forced to cope with a torn hem didn’t disturb Barbara nearly as much as the figure striding down the path in her direction, however. He wore his jet-black hair clubbed at his nape, not shaved in a scalp lock like the aboriginals she’d observed since entering Indian Country. In all other respects, though, he mirrored the native tribes-men. Quills and beads adorned his fringed buckskin trousers and shirt, which stretched taut across frighteningly wide shoulders. He carried a rifle in the crook of one arm, and his skin was so weathered by wind and sun, Barbara couldn’t tell if it was white or red or something in between.

She took a nervous step back at his approach. The thorny vine brought her up short. Reminding herself that an entire garrison of troops was just a scream away, Barbara straightened her shoulders and fixed a cool smile on her face.

“Good day, sir.”

“Good day.”

The fact he spoke English relieved her, although the deep, rough timbre of his speech wasn’t particularly reassuring. He was really quite intimidating. And rather dirty, she now saw. Grease stained his buckskin trousers in several places and a rusty splotch that looked suspiciously like blood darkened one sleeve.

Her smile slipping a bit, she slid her hand behind her and gave her skirt another tug. The prickly vine refused to yield.

Observing the surreptitious movement, the man lifted an ink-black eyebrow. “Caught, are you?”

“It appears so.”

“I’ll help you get free of that—”

“No!”

She flung up a hand to halt him. His size and his pungent aroma of leather, sweat and horse chased away her smile. She wrinkled her nose delicately.

“I do not require your assistance, sir.”

Something gleamed in his dark eyes, quickly come and as quickly gone. Cocking his head, he seemed to be considering his response.

“Looks to me you’re snared tighter than a rabbit.”

“If I am, I’ll free myself.”

The tart reply earned her a long look. “Well, now, missus, I’m guessing you’ll stay snared ’less I cut you free.”

His accent seemed to grow thicker and coarser with every word. The slow drawl and uncouth garb confirmed Barbara’s suspicions. She had his measure now. He was a frontiersman.

She’d heard many a tale of this rough-and-tumble sort during the steamboat voyage. Most were outcasts, misfits who penetrated deep into Indian Country despite every attempt to keep them out, illegally peddling whiskey or trade goods. Like the white settlers who, she’d been told, persisted in staking claims to lands west of the Mississippi, these men had no respect for boundaries or for laws.

Having danced around the law more than a few times herself, Barbara nevertheless viewed such low-bred ruffians with the contempt characteristic of her class. It was best to take a firm hand with men of this ilk.

“I must ask you not to refer to me with such familiarity.’”

“How am I to call you, then?”

“If you must address me, you may refer to me as Lady Barbara.”

The honorific was purely fictitious. As the heir of a baron, Harry was entitled to hang a “sir” in front of his name, but Barbara had no claim to the title of “lady.” With his characteristic disregard for convention, Harry had bestowed the title on her years ago to boost her status in the eyes of their gullible marks. She was confident this colonial wouldn’t question her rank, though, and so he didn’t.

“I reckon I ain’t niver met a real lady before.”

“No, I shouldn’t think you had.”

“You sure you don’t need help?”

“Quite sure.”

Instead of accepting the cool dismissal, he stood there, big and broad shouldered as an ox. The standoff looked to continue indefinitely. Finally, Barbara released a small huff of disgust, turned to one side and gave her gown a determined yank. The dratted kerseymere proved tougher than canvas. Forced to admit defeat, she faced him once more.

“It appears I shall require some assistance after all.”

There it was again. That indecipherable glint. For an incredulous moment, Barbara thought he might actually be laughing at her. Her back stiffened, but his response held only affable agreement.

“’Pears you do to me, too, missus.”

Her eyes narrowed. Was he deliberately trying to rile her? If so, he had a good start on it. She was considering her response, when he propped his rifle against an oak and drew a knife from the beaded scabbard at his waist. Its monstrous blade knocked the breath back down Barbara’s throat.

Along with the other lessons her harum-scarum life had taught her, she’d learned never to show fear. Yet that wicked blade sent a shiver rippling down her spine. She would have stopped the man from approaching once again, but his long legs quickly covered the few yards still separating them.

She managed to hide her nervousness as he hunkered down beside her. His shoulders were really most ridiculously broad and his buckskin shirt so very thin. Quite unlike the padded frock coats and starched linens worn by gentlemen. She could see the play of his muscles as he sawed through the tough weed.

Unaccountably, she found the rippling movement as disturbing as his scent. It was sharp, to be sure, but not overpoweringly so, she was now forced to
concede. Nor was it as cloying as the effusive perfumes and pomades the men of her class used so lavishly.

When he finished his task and rose, she exhaled a silent breath of relief. Relief gave way quickly to outrage when she realized he’d brought the hem of her skirt up with him.

“Sir!”

Seemingly unaware that he’d exposed her petticoats and the silk drawers that had become so popular among well-bred ladies, he plucked at a bit of thorny vine still embedded in her hem.

“Don’t be a-fidgeting or you’ll tear this pretty dress.”

Barbara had no choice but to stand rigidly still until he worked the thorn free and tossed it aside.

“Thank you. Now if you’ll loosen my skirt, I’ll return to the fort.”

Various admirers had described her as slender and willowy. Her brother, Harry, put it somewhat less charitably by claiming she stood as high as a gate-post. Yet as tall as she was, Barbara had to crane her neck to look into the woodsman’s face. What she saw there gave her instant pause.

He wasn’t done with her yet. She knew enough of men to grasp that instantly. He confirmed her suspicion with his next words.

“Surely you’ll be payin’ me a reward before you go on your way.”

“You expect payment for this paltry service?”
Disdain tightened her lips. “I have no coin with me at the moment. Give me your name and I’ll have one delivered to you.”

“Oh, you needn’t be payin’ me in coin. A kiss will do.”

“A kiss will most definitely
not
do! Release my dress at once!”

“Just a peck, sweeting. One little peck.”

There was no mistaking it now. That was most definitely laughter dancing in his eyes. Her lips thinning, Barbara came to the humiliating conclusion her earlier supposition was correct. The man was toying with her.

He was also maintaining a firm grip on her skirt. She had two choices, she supposed. She could deliver a resounding slap and risk further unpleasantness or pay the toll he demanded.

“Present your cheek.”

A rakish grin sketched across his face, altering it quite astonishingly. Barbara barely had time to appreciate the transformation before he turned and offered a bristly patch of skin.

Rising up on tiptoe, she delivered a quick buss. Or attempted to. He turned his head at the last second and caught her lips with his. The contact startled her, but the skill he brought to the kiss astonished her. Before she quite knew how it had happened, he’d covered her mouth with his.

Barbara had been kissed before. A goodly num
ber of times, if the truth be told. She’d even surrendered her virtue during one escapade gone sadly awry. But none of the titled gentlemen she and Harry had enticed into their snares had heated her blood as hot—or as swiftly!—as this rough frontiersman.

As confounded by the heat that surged through her as she was infuriated by the man’s impertinence, she jerked back, balled her fist as Harry had taught her and put every ounce of strength she possessed into a punishing blow to the woodsman’s midsection.

Her fist slammed into a wall of solid muscle, so hard her knuckles cracked and pain shot straight up her arm. His startled grunt more than made up for the pain.

“That, sir, is only a taste of the payment you’ll receive if you dare to touch me again.”

Yanking her skirt free, Barbara stalked past him.

Zach rubbed his aching middle and grinned as the golden-haired beauty flounced up the path to the fort. Despite her haughty airs and aristocratic accents, Lady Barbara Chamberlain delivered a wallop that would do a mule skinner proud.

Zach deserved the punch. He’d be the first to admit it. Although a body couldn’t tell it by looking at him right now, he was an officer and a gentleman. True, he’d traded his gold braid and tasseled sword for buckskins, but he shouldn’t have allowed his amusement at the lady’s assumption she was dealing with a rustic oaf to goad him into acting like one.

Oh, well, he’d had his fun and received a solid punch to the middle as a reward. Time to mend a few fences and discover what this English beauty wanted with his mother.

He retraced his steps and found her standing next to Nate Prescott, staring in sympathetic dismay at the female Zach had left in the lieutenant’s charge.

She wasn’t the only one who stared. Word had spread like summer lightning that the rangers had brought a squatter’s woman back with them. White females were a rare enough occurrence in this remote wilderness. Two showing up at the fort on the same day would provide fodder for late-night chawings for weeks to come.

A small crowd had gathered. In their eagerness, the men pressed too close. Their avid curiosity drew a whimper from Hattie and a curt command from Zach.

“Stand away, men!”

At the sound of his voice, Hattie’s head lifted. She spotted him shouldering his way through the crowd, gave a little keening cry and slumped to the red dirt.

“I say!”

Nate Prescott tried to catch her and missed. Smothering a curse, Zach went down on a knee beside the fallen woman.

His fellow officer hovered at his shoulder. “Is she ill?”

“I don’t know.”

“For pity’s sake!” Lady Chamberlain protested. “Stand back and give the poor woman some air.”

Shoving her parasol into Nate’s hands, she dropped down on the woman’s other side and laid the back of her hand against her neck.

“She’s not feverish. She must have fainted. Fetch some water.
Now,
” she bit out when no one responded quickly enough to suit her.