Columbine (9 page)

But even before he’d seen her face he had recognized her at once from the way her small body had filled his arms, and the dismay he’d felt had been tempered by a fierce joy at finding her again—a joy that angered him for being both unreasonable and irrational.

Coughing, Dianna could only stare at him in return with equal dismay. She had believed him left behind with the Prosperity in Saybrook, yet here he was, every bit as handsome as she remembered, and every bit as angry with her, too. He was, she decided, dressed quite outlandishly. Gone was his English gentleman’s suit. In its place was a coarse linen hunting shirt, the yoke and collar elaborately fringed to emphasize the width of his shoulders, and a bright woven sash knotted around his waist. He wore deerskin leggings, not breeches, the soft leather straining across the muscles in his thighs as he knelt, and on his bare feet were moccasins. A curved powder horn with pewter tips swung from his neck, along with a fringed leather bag for rifle balls, and tucked into his sash was a long knife with a stag-horn hilt. Yet it all suited him, and with his long, sun-streaked hair and his cat’s green eyes, he looked like a savage himself.

“Dianna Grey,” he said at last.

“What in God’s holy name are you doing here?”

Dianna’s lungs were still too choked to reply, but Mercy, standing close to Kit, was quick to answer for her.

“Grandfer says she’s to watch o’er me, but I ask ye, who’s to watch o’er her? She don’t even know wet wood from dry, nor split from a blessed log. Faith, she near smoked us like a very ham in our own house!”

Humiliated, Dianna saw the wretched log still smoking beside the door where Kit had tossed it, and she prayed he hadn’t seen the mess she’d made of the eggs, as well.

Kit stood, wiping the soot from his hands with a red handkerchief.

“You’d best come back with me. I can’t leave you here, not until your house has a chance to air. Asa will guess where you are.” He smoothed his hair back from his brow, and settling a broad-brimmed beaver hat on his head, he gazed contemptuously at Dianna.

“Are you well enough to ride?”

Dianna nodded, She should thank him for rescuing her, but the words stuck stubbornly in her throat. If he’d known it was she in the house, he probably wouldn’t have bothered.

“How should I know the log would smoke?”

“Because any child in these parts should, and would, or risk killing himself with stupidity like you very nearly did.” He clicked his tongue, and a black stallion like the one Dianna had seen his brother ride into Saybrook came to him and nuzzled his shoulder affectionately. He had been hunting; his rifle and three dead partridges hung from the saddle.

“Though ladies, I suppose, do not dirty their hands with such tasks.”

“Lady!” exclaimed Mercy, her turned-up nose turned even higher.

“She looks like no lady I’ve ever seen!”

“Oh, aye, Mercy Wing, and you’ve seen so many to judge,” said Kit dryly.

“Don’t be fooled by how she looks now. She’s more things than you’ve ever dreamed.”

Mercy frowned and sucked in her lower lip, considering.

“How dye know her, Kit?”

“I know Master Sparhawk from London,” answered Dianna, tired of being discussed as if she wasn’t there.

“And don’t be impertinent, Mercy.

He’s your elder, and you call him Master Sparhawk.”

Mercy’s frown deepened.

“Kit’s my friend,” she said stubbornly, “and I’ll call him Kit.”

“Dianna’s right, Mercy,” said Kit, laughing. He caught the little girl’s hands and lifted her, giggling, high into the air. With each word he pretended to drop her, and she shrieked with delighted excitement.

“You’re the most impertinent little baggage in this entire colony, and you’ll never be a lady yourself until you learn some manners! Now up with you!”

Lightly, he boosted the girl up onto the horse and turned expectantly to Dianna.

“Where will you ride?” she demanded crossly.

The silly play between the two had made her feel even more like an outsider.

“Why, on Thunder, of course. He’ll scarce notice a mite like you in front of me.” Slowly he smiled, smug and superior.

“Unless you’re afraid.”

Exasperated, Dianna stepped closer to him, her hands on her hips.

“By now, Master Sparhawk, you should well know I am not afraid of you or anything to do with you. But I don’t see what good will come of traipsing off with you God knows where just because you wish it.”

Kit toyed with the reins in his hands, and ever so slightly, his smile widened.

“Mercy wants to come with me. She’ shad no breakfast and knows she’ll eat well at my house. You are, nominally at least, her caretaker. You can come with her and with me, or you can remain here and answer to Asa as to why you abandoned your charge.”

Dianna hated to admit that Kit was right, though, of course, damn him, he was. She had already mined the house into a smoky disaster. What would Asa think if she let his granddaughter run off without her, as well? In frustration she stamped her foot.

“Well, then, let’s be off. I’ve no—Oh!”

With his hands on her waist, Kit picked her up as easily as a doll and sat her on the horse behind Mercy. In another moment he had swung himself into the saddle, and with his arms circling around them both, he urged the big horse forward. Dianna fell back against Kit’s chest; there was no way to avoid it. Despite the layers of clothing between them, she was aware of the warmth of his body touching hers, the strength of his thighs beneath her own as he guided the horse. Sternly she reminded herself that Mercy was her responsibility, and she clasped her arms around the little girl’s waist for safekeeping.

Better to think of Mercy than of how her own body seemed determined to slide against Kit’s. Lord help her, how far was his house?

But for Kit, who knew the distance was short, the ride seemed interminable. He was all too aware of the soft curve of her hip and bottom pressed against him, and her wriggling as she tried to ease away from him only made matters worse. He recalled how sweet her mouth had been to kiss and how passionately she had responded to him, and he almost groaned aloud I at the memory. Beneath his nose her hair smelled smoky, plaited into a thick, tight braid. How he’d like to set it free and bury his face in the silkiness as he kissed her lips, her throat, her : breasts-“There be Plumstead now!” cried Mercy excitedly.

Sitting high on the crest of a hill, the house itself was old-fashioned by English standards, a bit rough hewn in its lines, with sharply peaked gables and diamond-paned windows. The second story overhung the first, and elaborately carved pendants hung at the corners like giant water drops. From the center of the shingled roof rose a massive chimney, shaped and angled like a castle’s tower, the pink brick in contrast to the dark, weathered clap boarding below. But in this setting, on land so recently claimed from the forest, the house seemed exactly right. Dianna could imagine it in the summer, when the hill that rolled down to the small river would be green and the two huge beech trees would shade the twin benches by the front doorway. Plumstead: Kit Sparhawk’s home, and the home of the man who wished to steal Mercy away from her grandfather.

“Follow the child,” Kit said to Dianna as Mercy scrambled off the horse and raced for the back door.

“She knows today’s baking day, and she’ll lead you straight to Hester and the sweet buns

Self-consciouslY Dianna untangled herself from Kit and slid off the horse before he could help her.

She began toward the house, then paused.

“Why do you wish to take Mercy from Asa?” she asked curiously.

“That you are fond of the girl is clear, but he is her grandfather and he loves her.”

She was startled by how quickly Kit’s expression grew hard as flint.

“You have been among us but one day,” he said sharply.

“Don’t be so quick to judge matters you can’t understand.” He jerked the horse’s head toward the barn and left her alone and puzzled.

“Welcome to Plumstead, mistress!” called a merry female voice, and in the kitchen doorway stood a tall, angular woman wiping her hands in her apron, squinting into the sun as she smiled at Dianna.

“I’m Hester, Hester Holcomb, an’ y’must be Asa’s new servant, Dianna! Mercy’s already told me ye had a smidge of’ trouble with the’ hearth. No matter, I say.

Ever’one’s different. Ye best come get yerself tidied, now, an’ have some tea an’ cookies.”

Shyly, Dianna followed Hester into the house. The Plumstead kitchen was huge, running almost the entire length of the house, and the plaster above the wainscotting was painted golden yellow. Iron skillets and kettles, marsh-willow baskets and bundles of dried herbs hung from the rafters overhead. Three dozen loaves of new bread were laid out to cool on the long table, and the sweet fragrance of baking filled the room. There was no sign of Mercy, and in a way, Dianna was glad. Responsibility or no, she’d had quite enough of the girl this morning.

She watched as Hester deftly used a long-handled peel to shove a pan of cookies into the oven behind the hearth.

“Are you Master Sparhawk’s cook?”

“His cook, his housekeeper, his laundress, his chambermaid an’ whatever else he needs.” Hester swung the iron door of the oven shut.

“With only Kit, Plumstead don’t need more’n me. Not like the’ days when there were six Sparhawk children, all run-uin’ wild an’ underfoot.”

“Is that why he likes having Mercy here?”

“I warrant so, aye.” The woman looked away, and her answer had a forced heartiness that made Dianna wonder what she hid.

“Will Kit—I mean, Master Sparhawk–-eat all this himself?.”

Hester laughed.

“Nay, ‘tis just for the’ dinners for the farm workers. Kit believes a man gives better work when his belly’s full. He be a good master that way, better’n most. But tell me of London! It’s been forty years since I left, an’ neither Jonathan nor Kit be much for recalling how the’ ladies be dressin’ their hair.”

Dianna perched on the edge of a tall stool and scrubbed at her face with a towel.

“Of course, I can tell you such things, if you wish, Hester, but this morning I’d rather speak of useful things—all the things I can’t do and you can.”

Now that she’d begun, the words tumbled out, and she balled the towel up in her fist.

“I can’t cook or bake or make a fire or anything/I don’t even know how to get water from the well! Mercy’s right. She’d be better off looking after me, for all the good I can do her!”

“Ah, now, ‘tis only because you’ve never had t’make do, not because y’can’t.” Hester patted her shoulder, leaving a floury white handprint on Dianna’s sooty bodice.

“Ye be clever enough. I can see that. Y’only need someone t’show ye how.”

“Then, please, please, I beg you, Hester, teach me how!” cried Dianna eagerly.

“Teach me now, this morning, how to cook and keep a house and—” Hester laughed again, deep in her chest.

“Oh, lass, I’ll be needing more’n a morning to learn you all that! I’ll send ye home today with enough t’keep Mercy an’ Asa from complaining. Tomorrow’s the Sabbath, an’ no work’s done, but ye come back with Mercy on Monday, an’ I’ll begin your schooling proper. We’ll make a huswife from ye yet!”

But Dianna’s enthusiasm faded.

“I’m sorry, Hester but I don’t believe your master would want me back in his home. He—he doesn’t care for me.”

Hester rolled her eyes.

“I’d like t’see the time when Kit Sparhawk turns a pretty young lass like ye out of’ Plumstead!”

“Nay, truly, he hates me. I sailed from England on the Prosperity–” “On the Prosperity! Don’t mark a single word Kit said on that ill-starred venture!” exclaimed Hester warmly.

“Why, ye be lucky ye weren’t starved down t’your bones by that old skinflint Welles, the’ devil claim his greedy soul! Fancy him trying t’blame it on Kit, too, as if the Sparhawks haven’t always been known for their charity tot hers Keeping back food from children—why, that near broke Kit’s heart, he’s so besotted with the’ little creatures.”

Dianna listened in confused silence. It had been Captain Welles, not Kit, who had brought the food to the passengers, yet Hester would know the two men far better than she. Loud voices outside interrupted her thoughts, and both she and Hester hurried to the window.

“I’ll see Tiny own granddaughter, Sparhawk!”

Asa was shouting angrily. He had jerked off his hat and was shaking it for emphasis.

“She don’t belong to ye, mind? Ye can’t make Mercy take the’ place of’ the one that be lost!”

On his way from the stables when he’d met Asa, Kit held his long-barreled rifle in one hand and the string of bloody partridges in the other, and even from the window Dianna could see the anger in his green eyes.

“You’re a trapper and a trader, Wing.

You’ve no place in your life for a child. You can’t go off with Jeremiah and leave Mercy behind in that house alone!”

“But I’m telling ye, she won’t be alone!” insisted Asa.

“That’s why I brought Annie back from Saybrook!”

“Worse than alone, then! Did Welles tell you why she’s here? What kind of woman she is?” Dianna felt her face grow warm. Better he should have left her to die in the smoke than to have to suffer through this!

“I’ll not hear you speakin’ ill of Annie! She seems a good lass time, an’ if she’s made mistakes, she’s a right t’leave them behind.”

Kit slammed the stock of his rifle down on the ground.

“But to leave a sweet child like Mercy in the care of an ignorant hussy like Dianna Grey—” It was too much for Dianna. She charged past Hester and out the door, and with both hands shoved into Kit’s chest as hard as she could.

“I am neither ignorant nor a hussy, you great mindless bully, and—” But before she could finish, Asa’s open palm caught her square on the jaw. Off balance, she tumbled backward onto the ground. She rolled over quickly, ready to fly at Asa now, but the shocked look on his face stopped her.

“Don’t ever shame me like that again, Annie,” he said, his voice shaking, almost pleading.

“Master Sparhawk be a selectman an’ colonel of the militia an’ the magistrate, too, an’ yet in your temper, ye struck him, Annie, he could have ye whipped in Wickhamton for less!”