Judith E French (14 page)

His face grew stern. “And it didn’t occur to you to ask? Or to venture forth from your chambers in proper attire?” She didn’t answer. His palms grew sweaty, and he felt waves of angry frustration swelling in his chest. “You’ve made me a laughingstock,” he said, removing his coat and draping it around her shoulders. “How the hell can I make my parents accept you if you’re going to—”

“Nay,” she protested softly. “None saw me but Nancy. She will na’ tell. She’s afraid of me.” Leah caught her lower lip between her teeth and lowered her lashes, preventing him from seeing into her eyes.

“I’ve had it with you!” he said bitterly. “I admitted I made a mistake in bringing you to England, and I’ve tried to make amends. Nothing satisfies you.” He took her by the arms and turned her to face him. “I’ve slept alone, and I’ve listened to your weeping and your insults. This is my country, my home, and I won’t be made to look a fool anymore. If you ever want to get back to that precious wilderness of yours, we’ll do things my way. Do you understand?”

Bright spots of color tinted her cheeks. “Aye,” she whispered. “I do.”

She looked so contrite that he wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her, but his injured pride still pricked like a steel spur. “It’s not too late to mend our marriage, Leah,” he said. “Here at Westover I have my own chambers, and I hope you will want to share them with me in the near future.”

The immense black pupils of her eyes were as hard and shiny as polished jet. It was impossible for Brandon to tell what she was thinking. “We had something once,” he began. “I hoped—”

“Aye,” she agreed, “ye may hope.” She pushed aside his hands, shrugged off his coat, and began to walk as regally as any royal princess back toward the manor house.

“Leah,” he called after her.

She reached down and picked up a fallen peacock feather. “Shall I tuck this into my hair,” she asked coolly, “so that everyone will know for certain you’ve taken a savage to wife?”

Brandon swore under his breath.

“What say ye, husband?” She tucked the feather into her remaining braid. “Do ye approve?”

“I do.” Charles pushed his way through a row of small cedars. “Lady Brandon, I’m charmed.” He removed his hat and made a sweeping bow. “I’m your cousin Charles, and I’m happy to welcome you to Westover.”

Brandon plucked the feather from Leah’s hair and wrapped her in his coat. “You’ll excuse us if we don’t stay and chat.” He glared at Charles. “Mother’s expecting us.”

Charles winked at Leah. “Don’t let him browbeat you, m’lady. He can be an insufferable prig.”

Brandon bristled, remembering Charles’s biting wit all too well. “Enough, cuz,” he warned. “There’ll be the devil to pay if I don’t get her back without Mother meeting us on the stairs.”

Charles laughed. “For a price, I’ll create a diversion that will lure every living member of the household to the back of the manor.”

“What do you want?” Brandon growled.

“A kiss of greeting from my pretty new kinswoman. What say you, Lady Brandon? A kiss to save your husband from a lifetime of explanations?”

“Forget it, Charles.” Brandon stepped between his wife and his cousin. “She doesn’t understand your humor.”

“’Tis ye who be humorless,” Leah said. She bestowed a genuine smile on Charles. “A kiss between strangers is not the custom of my people, but I would consider it an act of friendship if ye would create, as you said, a
diversion
so that I may return to my quarters unseen.”

“Ah hah!” Charles cried in mock astonishment. “The beauty possesses not only speech but wisdom.” He bowed again. “Your servant, madame. For this—or any other favor—you’ve but to ask.” He arched a sparse blond eyebrow. “Give me ten minutes, and I’ll give you a clear, dry track,” he promised. “Until dinner, little cousin, and I’ve no doubt that you’ll enliven our meal a great deal.” He nodded and walked swiftly toward the front entrance of the house.

“I’m sorry,” Leah said to Brandon. “I did not think any would see me.”

He exhaled softly. “Take care with Charles. He’s not the jester he’d have you believe. Beneath that light exterior is a complex, brooding personality.”

“He is your clansman, yet ye canna trust him?”

Brandon shook his head. “It’s not that simple. Charles is Charles . . . There’s none like him. He’s the closest thing to a brother I’ve ever had, but I spent the first years of my life envying him. And”—he frowned—“I think he’s spent the remainder envying me.”

She moved close and stared up into his eyes. “But do ye trust him?”

Brandon drew in a deep breath. How could he make her understand Charles when he himself couldn’t and he’d known Charles all his life? Charles could charm gold from a moneylender when he wanted to, or be a first-rate bastard without blinking an eye. “I love him like a brother,” he admitted finally, “but trust . . . Does any man know who he can trust?”

“Or a woman?”

Brandon’s shoulders stiffened, and he felt the tightness in his chest again. “By the hounds of hell! What other man in England takes such punishment for insisting his wife goes where he does?”

“I be no Englishwoman.”

“Let it rest. Leah, for the love of God. I’ve no wish to fight this same battle with you every hour of the day.”

“Nor I with you,” she answered, letting her gaze drop. “I’m sorry.”

He picked a twig from her hair. What was there about Leah that made him want to kiss her and strangle her in the same moment? “If we can reach your rooms without being caught,” he said as calmly as he could manage, “have Nancy dress you in the rose satin. I told Mother about your father’s title—your birth makes a difference to her. Say as little as possible to her about the Shawnee. She’d be totally at a loss to understand them.”

“Ye wish me to hide my Shawnee blood?” Leah drew herself up to her full height.
“Amotshiikus!
Buzzard! My Shawnee ancestors have as great value as any English. My mother’s people—”

Brandon threw up a hand, palm down. “Cease. I meant no insult to your family, Indian or Scottish. I only said that my mother . . . My mother is a simple woman, Leah. Don’t make things more difficult for us and for her. She will accept you if you give her half a chance.”

“And Lord Kentington?”

“He barely tolerates me, so I’ve small expectations for you. Treat him gently, if you can. Regardless of how little we agree, he’s my father.”

They crossed the courtyard and started up the steps to the door. Leah hesitated for an instant and looked up at the imposing stone mansion. “I have pity for thee,” she said softly.

“For me? Why?”

She sighed. “Ye be a great mon, yet ye canna trust your clansman, and there is no peace between you and your parents.”

He took her arm as he opened the heavy walnut batten door. “I’d not be alone,” he said, “if you were a true wife to me.”

She stepped into the dark hall. “Each man must find his own trail,” she replied in a hushed tone, “and it may be that Wishemenetoo means for you to walk it alone.”

L
eah yawned behind her hand and tried to find her high-heeled satin slipper with her toe. The dinner with Brandon’s mother was tiresome, and she was seated at the far end of the table near Cousin Charles and away from Brandon. An unsmiling manservant in a red coat stood behind her; another man and two women scurried around the huge room bringing and removing dishes of food.

The room was so large and ornate, it was hard for Leah to imagine that Brandon’s family used it only for eating. The table stretched as long as three canoes laid end to end, and the floor was painted in large white and black squares. Silver candlesticks with many arms marched down the length of the table—a table that boasted a great white strip of cloth down the middle.

Windows reached from the floor to the ceiling along one side of the room; the walls on the other three sides were cut with doors. Enormous pictures of Englishmen hung in gold frames between the doors, and under each scowling face was a chair. Leah knew she’d never seen so many chairs in one place before, either. At each end of the long room was a fireplace big enough to roast an elk. Fires burned on the hearths, but the room was still cold.

The ceiling was white and gold with carvings of naked babies and birds. She decided she would ask Brandon how the babies were fastened in the corners of the roof, and how the candlesticks that dangled from the ceiling were lit. She wondered if the great windows opened, and if real birds ever flew in to nest among the stone babies.

Brandon’s mother was staring at her again. Lady Kathryn’s words of greeting had been soft and sweet, but her eyes told a different story. Leah waved at Lady Kathryn. She smiled back—a smile as artificial as the powdered wig on her head. Leah sighed and tossed another biscuit to the little dog under the table. The food in this great house of cut stone was no more to Leah’s liking than the clothes Brandon forced her to wear. Every dish was heavily spiced and soaked in white and yellow sauce. Butter and milk seemed to be a delicacy among the English, and Leah couldn’t abide either one.

She tapped her knife absently against a water goblet. Charles shook his head in silent warning. She sighed and wiggled on the hard chair. Charles smiled at her, but his smile seemed no more genuine than Lady Kathryn’s.

Leah eyed him from beneath her lashes. How she wished she could have someone paint a picture of Charles for her to take back to the Shawnee. No one would believe her when she told them how he adorned his body with false hair and bright-colored silk. Leah dropped her gaze to her gold-rimmed plate and tried not to giggle.

Charles wore an oversized wig of snow-white hair on his head. Fat sausage curls fell over his ears nearly to the bottom of his chin. Scattered over the wig were tiny purple silk ribbons. His nose was long and even thinner that Brandon’s, and his round gray eyes were small, reminding Leah of a porcupine’s.

Charles’s thin neck was swathed in white lace. Below that, his lawn shirt was nearly hidden by a magnificent purple waistcoat with orange and blue birds stitched into the silk. His coat was orange velvet over blue breeches, and his silk stockings were covered in a design of blue and purple clocks. Charles’s short, thin fingers were heavy with rings, and jeweled buttons glittered on his coat.

Leah glanced down the table at Brandon’s subdued blue coat and waistcoat of blue and gold, and she sighed with relief. At least Brandon didn’t feel the need to garb himself like one of those ridiculous screaming birds in the garden.

“Patience,” Charles whispered. “These dinners do seem to go on forever.”

Leah nodded, feeling a little ashamed of laughing at Charles. He had helped her get into the house that morning. She didn’t know what ruse he’d used, but she and Brandon had walked up the grand marble staircase without seeing a soul. Charles had done her a favor, and it was wrong to make fun of him, even in her own mind. He’s been kinder to me than my husband, she thought. She retrieved her shoe under the table with the toe of her foot and wiggled into it.

Brandon had deposited her safely in her chambers and instructed her to dress in the proper clothing and wait to be called to dinner. He treats me like this pet dog under the table, she mused. Brandon says “Come” and “Go,” and I am expected to obey without question.

Later, he’d arrived to escort her to his father’s bedroom to meet the earl. There she had been inspected like a broodmare. Lord Kentington had coughed and wheezed and said something that sounded like “Hrumpt.” Then he’d cleared his throat and dismissed them with a haughty nod without ever speaking a word to her.

It was no wonder that Brandon had grown up a barbarian, Leah thought. No one could be normal in this house.

“M’lady?”

The servant in the red coat was offering her a large bowl of gray-green liquid. Leah looked at it helplessly.

“Green turtle soup,” Lady Kathryn said clearly. “It is Brandon’s favorite. I ordered it made especially for him. Surely you must like it, my dear. Turtles thrive in the sea around America, do they not?”

Leah’s stomach turned over. Among the Shawnee, the turtle was a symbol of wisdom. If she was lost or confused, she might ask a grandfather turtle for advice, but eat one? The thought was disgusting. She shook her head.

“Do try it,” Charles urged. “Cook’s bound to have made buckets of the stuff, and Brandon and I are the only ones who like it.”

“Green turtle soup gives me a headache,” Lady Kathryn said, “but I have a delicate constitution. I’m certain Leah’s made of stouter material.” She reached across and patted Brandon’s arm. “We’ll soon fatten you up, darling. Your dreadful experiences in the Colonies have left you positively emaciated.” She glanced at her other guests, Lord and Lady Rondale, for confirmation. “He’s far too thin, isn’t he? I shudder to think what he lived on in that wilderness.”

“Looks all right to me,” Lord Rondale said before taking another bite of his bread and butter. “Fit as a butcher’s apprentice.”

“Nonsense,” his wife corrected. “Lady Kathryn has every reason for concern. The Colonies swarm with disease and vermin. Everyone says so.”

“Cook does make good turtle soup,” Brandon said.

“None for us,” Lady Rondale said. “William’s gout.”

Brandon looked at Leah. “It’s delicious. Do try just a little.”

Leah turned her soup bowl upside down and laid her butter knife across it. “No,” she said emphatically.

Charles motioned to the footman. “I’ll have soup.” The man served Charles, and then carried the tureen along the table to where Brandon was seated.

Leah watched in horror as Charles stirred the thick soup with his silver spoon and crumbled crackers in it. The smell made her shiver. He scooped up a spoonful and raised the soup to his lips, but he barely tasted it.

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” he said with a wink. He reached for his wineglass, and the bowl caught on his cuff and spilled. “Damn!” Charles leaped up as the hot liquid soaked his napkin and dribbled off the edge of the table onto the floor. “Beg pardon, ladies.” The servants scrambled to clean up the mess and bring clean dishes and silver.

Leah watched the performance uneasily. Charles called for more soup, and the others resumed their meal. As Brandon took a spoonful of his soup, Leah stood up. Brandon paused, spoon in hand, mouth open.

“No!” she cried. “Do not eat it.”

He dropped his spoon. “Leah, what’s wrong?” Blood rose beneath the surface of Brandon’s fair English skin, and she knew that she’d shamed him again.

“I have a . . . a condition,” she declared. “I think I shall faint.”

Lady Kathryn clapped her hands. “Mary! Rose! See to Lady Brandon.”

Brandon rose to his feet, staring at Leah with a mixture of concern and suspicion. Lord and Lady Rondale began to whisper between themselves. “Leah . . .” Brandon said.

All eyes were on her. Taking a deep breath, Leah moaned, shut her eyes, and let herself fall backward. Lady Kathryn screamed just before Leah’s head struck the floor.

Pain shot through her head and neck, but Leah lay still and limp, pretending unconsciousness. Strange hands touched her . . . a man’s hands. In seconds she heard Brandon’s voice, and he was picking her up and carrying her from the room.

“Out of my way!” he shouted at someone.

“Yes, sir.” It was a servant’s voice, Leah decided. She opened her eyes a slit. Brandon kept walking. He carried her down a hall and into a shadowy room. She heard the door slam shut, and he dropped her onto a high-backed wooden bench.

“Now what the hell was all that about? You’re not sick, and you’ve never fainted in your life.”

Leah opened her eyes. The room was unfamiliar. Brandon was leaning over her, his face close to hers, and he was very angry.

“I’m waiting.”

“My head hurts,” she said. She looked around. The dark paneled wall behind them was hung with animal horns and pigs’ heads. “What place is this?”

“The gaming room,” he snapped, “and your head should hurt. You’ve made a spectacle out of yourself and of me. You’ve embarrassed my mother in front of her friends and given Charles reason to bedevil me for the rest of my natural life.”

Leah sat up rubbing her head and looked around curiously. In the center of the room was a table covered with green velvet. On it were small round balls and a long stick. “What is that table for?”

“Billiards. I thought your head hurt.”

“It does hurt,” she said. His gaze was accusing. “I be sorry, Brandon mine,” she murmured contritely, “but ye were going to eat the body of a turtle.”

“What?”

“The soup of a turtle. I had to stop you. Ye were going to eat it, and it is forbidden—very bad luck for a warrior. I am sorry your mother be a fool, but . . .” She looked at her fingers. They were sticky with blood. “Oh,” she managed. “I think—”

“Good God, woman. You’re bleeding.” He went to a table along one wall and came back with a bottle of amber liquid. Using his handkerchief, he moistened the cloth with the strong smelling stuff and dabbed it on the back of her head.

It stung, but Leah gritted her teeth and kept quiet.

“There. It’s not serious, but you’re going to have a bump the size of a pigeon’s egg.” He made a disgusted sound. “What am I to do with you?” Brandon laid his hand on her bare shoulder and stared into her eyes. “You’ll never make a living as an actress, that’s certain. That was the worst fainting performance I’ve ever seen.”

Her lower lip trembled and she blinked away a tear. “I did it for you,” she insisted.

“For me.”

His touch made her tremble, even if her head did feel as if a tree had fallen on it. Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. A lock of his yellow hair had come loose and hung over his cheek. She pushed it back with shaking fingers. “I . . . I didna want . . . want ye to have bad luck. I . . . I didna want ye to eat . . .” She sniffed. “To eat the soup of turtle.”

“Oh, Leah,” he whispered. He leaned forward and kissed the rise of her breast above the neckline of her gown. It was a feather-light kiss, as soft as the down on a new-hatched duckling, and it made her knees weak.

She shook her head. “Nay. Dinna . . .” He kissed her again, and he let his hand caress the back of her neck. I can’t let him, she thought. Not after what he’s done to me. But her body cried for more.

“You’ve skin like rose petals,” he murmured. He kissed her throat and the sensitive spot below her right ear.

His lips were warm against her skin.
Stop him!
her inner voice cried.
Stop before it’s too late!

“You’re my wife, Leah,” he murmured, “and I need you.”

She sighed and turned her head toward him. Their lips met, and he nibbled the tip of her tongue. She opened her mouth to receive his deep kiss. The voice in her head grew fainter as a warm delicious feeling spread through her body. The weakness in her knees intensified until she thought her bones were turning to water.

“Darling.” He sat down beside her on the seat and she leaned against him, heedless of the fragile satin gown. His kisses became more urgent, and she felt her heart pounding in her chest.

“Leah,” he whispered. “I do love you, little Leah.” Brandon’s broad hands moved down her back, massaging and stroking. He traced her eyelids and brows with his lips, and she found it suddenly hard to catch her breath.

Leah choked back a tiny moan of excitement. She could feel her breasts straining against the linen of her shift, and she longed for the sweet tugging sensation of his mouth on her aching nipples. The thought made her blood race, and she pressed tighter against him, returning kiss for kiss and tangling her fingers in his thick yellow hair.

“Englishmanake,”
she whispered thickly. “I need you, too.”

Without warning, Brandon seized her by the waist and lifted her in the air. “Shhh,” he soothed when she gave a startled cry. He lowered her onto the billiard table, then dropped on one knee and removed her high-heeled slipper. Pushing up her petticoats, he unrolled her silk stocking, then bent his head to kiss slowly the exposed skin of her ankle, and then her knee, and next the soft inner places on her thigh.

“Oh,” Leah shivered with delight. With each kiss her heart beat faster. The warmth in her belly turned to liquid fire, and she longed to rip away her garments and feel his bare flesh against hers.

“Ah,” he murmured as his fingers tangled in her dark curls.

Leah’s hunger grew as he palmed the warm wet source of her yearning with a slow circular motion. She lay back and closed her eyes, caught up in the magic of his touch.

“So sweet.” He thrust a finger into her throbbing folds, and she cried out. Her breath came in ragged gulps. He stroked her until she squirmed and tossed her head from side to side. “I want to taste your sweetness,” he murmured.

She felt his warm breath against her naked skin.