Compromised Hearts

“I won’t hurt you, Emily,” Cloud murmured.

“There are many ways to hurt a person, Mr. Ryder,” she retorted softly. She trembled as he removed her bodice. “You think it will not pain me to play the whore for you?”

Tugging off her shoes and stockings, he studied her flushed face. “Not the whore, Emily. My lover.”

“How so? Do I not buy your help and protection with my body?”

“Women have sold their bodies for far less.” He tipped up her chin and made her face him. “I haven’t even had you yet, but I know you’re no whore. Now no more talk.”

She had no choice but to obey him, for his mouth hungrily covered hers. Emily was so caught up in the sensations that his Kisses produced that she was only vaguely aware of is skillful removal of her clothes …

COMPROMISED HEARTS

Books by Hannah Howell

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Colorado Territory, 1870

“
G
odforsaken land,” muttered Emily Cordelia Mason Brockinger as she picked herself up and dusted herself off.

She should be thankful, she supposed, that she had fallen forward, thus not endangering the child she carried on her back. She picked up her parasol, sighing over its battered appearance. Her bonnet probably looked just as disreputable. The plains did not treat such frills and furbelows gently, but despite their tattered condition she would continue to use them. They kept the sun off of her head and she did not feel quite proper going without them.

She had already walked for two days but had yet to see any sign of civilization. She could not believe that the territory could be quite so empty. Then again, the Indians could well have something to do with the emptiness.

A shudder rippled through her. The memory of the slaughter was still too clear. Those poor farmers had not deserved such a death. They had never harmed anyone. The Indians were extracting their revenge from the wrong people.

Emily’s penchant for cleaniness had been all that had saved her. She had noticed a small creek, and had walked some distance from camp for a bath. It had not been far enough away, however, to spare her from hearing the sounds of the massacre. She wondered if the war whoops, shots, and screams would ever fade from her memory or cease to haunt her dreams.

Returning to the smoldering wagons had been the most difficult thing she’d ever done. The smell of death still tainted her nostrils. The Indians had spared neither man nor woman. The only survivor was a child.

It would always puzzle her. There seemed no reason for three-year-old Thornton Sears’ survival. He had been walking amongst the dead. She could only assume that he had been hidden and had stayed so until the danger was past. His plump little body was unhurt, his thick brown curls still intact, and his green eyes unclouded by a horror he was
probably too young to fully understand. He was alive and she prayed she could keep him that way.

The dirt on her hands from her fall began to sting her blisters. She really should not have lingered to bury the dead, although she doubted that the two days lost to that gruesome chore would make any difference in the end. During that time she had meticulously combed through the ruins, salvaging one extremely recalcitrant mule, a rickety cart, a few belongings of hers and Thornton’s and a pitiful supply of food and water. She was carefully rationing what she had, but she feared that it was not enough.

“Go home now?”

“I’m trying, darling, but I fear it is a very long way.”

Emily felt like weeping but refused to give in to that weakness. She wondered what madness had caused her to leave her Boston home, then grimaced as she recalled her reasons. At the time she had received her brother’s request to come live with him, perhaps teach school in the budding town of Lockridge, she had thought it was the answer to all her prayers.

She had thought that anything would be better than the life she led in her sister Carolynn’s home. She didn’t know which was worse—caring for Carolynn’s three spoiled children or trying to elude Carolynn’s husband. At times the man had seemed possessed of a score of hands, all trying to
grab her. There had been no help from her sister. Caro thought her children were living saints, and she clearly hoped that her sister would take Caro’s place under her husband, thus relieving Caro of one wifely duty she plainly found repulsive.

Used to a life that had never been ideal, Emily had suffered stoically. Born late to Charles and Mary Brockinger, she had had little sense of family. All her siblings had been full grown, while she was an infant. It hurt to remember it, but her parents had made it abundantly clear that she was an unwanted surprise. Only Harper, she thought with a soft smile, had loved her but he had left to find his own life when she was only ten.

She touched the pocket where Harper’s letter rested. She had wasted no time in answering it. Although she had not seen Harper for eight years, his smile had always lingered in her mind as one of the few bright spots in her life. Without hesitation she had set out for Colorado.

She just wished Harper had sent some money. Carolynn had adamantly refused to let go of a single penny of her plentiful horde, so Emily had been forced to take the long, hard, dangerous route to Colorado. Until now she had not really minded that. Thirst, dust, hunger, heat, and all the hardships of travel across the country by wagon train had not deterred her. The savage deaths she had witnessed were another matter. She was no
coward, but she was, after all, only a girl of nineteen who had never been outside of Boston.

Her feet hurt, her sensible shoes long since worn out from the rough terrain. Carrying Thornton was easier than letting him walk, safer than setting him on the already heavily laden mule, but her back and shoulders were now screaming out for relief. The stubborn mule added to her problems, for she often had to drag him along, and the rope had left its painful mark upon her tender palms.

Worse, she decided, was the fear she could not shake. It seeped through her veins like poison. She had little idea of where she was headed, only knowing that it was west, and that she was alone and unarmed in a territory filled with Indians. She could only keep walking, however, and hope that the Indians were far too busy to bother with one woman, one child and one very cantankerous mule.

She met the day’s end with little emotion. All she could be glad of was that she and Thornton still lived.

As she set up a small campfire, her gaze settled upon Thornton who sat quietly playing with some pebbles. Protected by his extreme youth, he had accepted his family’s loss quickly. He had only cried a little as the beginning, then switched his dependence and affection to her. Dishing out his share of the oatmeal, Emily prayed that she would not fail him. The responsibility weighed
heavily upon her.

When they curled up beneath the cart to sleep, she was glad of the warmth of his sturdy little body. He was too small to be any real help but he made her feel less alone. Although she knew she ought to stay awake to keep watch, she soon fell asleep. Emily sadly admitted to herself, as she welcomed oblivion, that she had no defense against the Indians, so keeping watch seemed a fruitless exercise.

Cloud decided that nothing was more frustrating than trying to talk the major out of his plans. Newly arrived from a military school, the man had no concept of how to fight the Indians. Cloud could only hope that the man would learn his lessons without killing himself or too many of his men. He, however, had no intention of waiting around to watch.

“Off again?” drawled James Carlin as he leaned against the hitching post.

Cloud did not look up from saddling his roan stallion. “Don’t think I’ll be back this time.”

“Not even for sweet Abigail? It’s a hard man you are, Cloud Ryder.”