Lakota Princess (18 page)

Black Bear paused. He smiled at the man, a gesture of respect. Then at last he said, “You are most generous, and I am deeply honored at your invitation. But you must know that it is my duty to ride out ahead of our party and ensure our safe passage. Please understand. In my country, I would bring dishonor to you if I sought my own pleasure by riding in the coach when there might be danger lurking ahead for our party.”

“What was that? Dishonor me?” The Duke of Colchester scratched his bearded face. “I say, jolly good of you to think of it, but it would be no dishonor. None at all. I have servants, pray tell. ’Tis their lot to face the danger, my good man, not yours, and certainly not mine.”

Black Bear appeared to register none of what the Duke said. Perhaps the concept was just too foreign. After all, Black Bear had been raised to fight his own battles, make his own decisions. Maybe the idea of paying others to face dangers that a man should confront himself appeared too cowardly to him or perhaps he just didn’t like the concept of others stealing the honor of battle. Whatever the reason, Estrela sensed his bewilderment.

“Excuse me, sir.” Estrela spoke up unannounced from within the carriage. “But perhaps, sir, I might be able to help.” She looked at the Duke and so missed Black Bear’s frown at her. “You see,” she continued on, “in Indian society when a whole camp is moving, the men always ride out ahead of the women and the elders so that the men will face any danger to their families, not the women or children. Please, sir, Black Bear does not understand the system of servants and their ‘betters.’ And I believe he will be insulted if you insist that he ride in the carriage. He would do better riding out ahead.”

“I believe,” it was Black Bear who spoke, Black Bear who drew himself up to his full height, Black Bear who sent her an angry glance. “I believe that I know English well enough to speak for myself.”

“But I was only trying to—”

“I think,” Black Bear said, turning his back to Estrela and speaking directly to the Duke, “I think that although Waste Ho speaks truth, I am no longer in my own country and I think it would be wise if I follow your advice, after all. And in truth, your offer is too tempting to be ignored. However, if I am to ride in the coach, I would prefer to ride with these two women. They must, after all, have protection, and I am best suited to do that.”

Estrela might have been struck, so silent and unmoving was she. In truth, it was shock that kept her so still, so immobile she didn’t even hear the Duke’s reply. But when the Duke, after a short bow to Black Bear and a tip of his hat to the ladies, walked away, Estrela could only consider that His Grace must have agreed to Black Bear’s proposal.

And Black Bear, after saying a short, curt, “Ladies,” paced around to the back of the coach, there to tether his horse and leave the two women to themselves, if only for a moment. And if his step was unusually heavy, neither lady within the coach noticed.

“M’lady?” Anna spoke into the silence Black Bear had left.

Estrela glanced up at her friend.

“What do ye suppose…?” She sighed. “M’lady, it would seem that we ’ave a long ride a’ead of us. A long ride w‘…”

“Yes.”

“Would ye prefer that I sit next t’ ye, so that yer Indian canna—”

“Yes, Anna. Please.”

Anna changed seats, sitting silently for a moment, before glancing toward her mistress and saying, “I dunna know what ye said to yer Indian, but I kin imagine. I ’eard what ye said to t’ Duke, though. About t’ Indians, about one’s peers. M’lady, does t’ Indian society not ’ave servants, then?”

Estrela shrugged. “All tribes are different. The Lakota have no slaves, no servants. If someone is captured from another tribe, they are adopted into the tribe, or sent home in our finest clothes. The Lakota have much pride and feel others also have pride and do not seek to take it away from another. No, my people have no servants, no slaves.”

And Anna, ever observant, sat silently, saying nothing, not about Black Bear, not about his outrageous behavior, not even the observation that Estrela had just called the Lakota “her people.”

Anna sighed.

Chapter Eleven

Black Bear sat in the coach across from Estrela and sulked. Beneath him the coach jerked and bumped over the dirt roads while outside the driver whipped the horses forward, the steady thumping of their hooves, the creaking of the wheels and of the carriage itself the only audible sounds.

Black Bear stared outside the window watching the scenery pass by amid the dust. His mood one of pure gloom, he steadfastly ignored the other two occupants of the coach.

Estrela, Waste Ho, had been right when she’d said he would be more relaxed riding outside. Out in the open air he would have had the sun upon his back, the breeze in his face, the chatter of the birds in his ears, and the boasting of the other horsemen to best. He would even now be mounted on his horse, a much more pleasant circumstance than this, no matter the ornate comforts inside the coach that proclaimed the Colchester wealth.

Yes, he would have been happier outside. Yet here he sat, inside, discontent and grouchy, and he had no one to fault for the situation except himself. She had angered him, and he had reacted. An unwise thing to do. So now while others rode out ahead to face any possible danger or enemy, here he was, stuck inside a coach as though he were a small child needing protection. Well, he was not a small child nor an old man. Neither was he fearful.

Yet, it remained true. Here he sat. Trapped in a spectacular, richly decorated carriage. Stuck.

He glanced toward Waste Ho as she began to speak softly to her maid, Anna, remembering that this one Waste Ho called maid was as observant as an Indian in matters pertaining to the household or to her mistress.

Hadn’t he already had to deal with Anna when he had taken up guard inside Waste Ho’s room each night this past week? He’d won the maid over to his side. Anna let him into her mistress’s room each evening and understood he had to protect Waste Ho.

Damn!
He cursed to himself as though he were English.

He had paraded himself in front of Estrela purposefully, strutting, fully intending to taunt Waste Ho with the sexuality of his body. He had done it to prove a point, to show her that she responded more to
him
than to her husband. She had seen through him, and he had painfully realized that not only she, but he, too, would fall victim to the attraction they held for one another.

Damn!

He had lost control.

He turned to gaze out the window, admiring the lush, carefully manicured countryside, yet upset with it nonetheless. Here he saw the forces of nature tamed into a most beautiful obsession, all natural growth controlled. He stared out at the rolling hills, the fertile fields bordered by the most magnificent hedgerows, the scattering of trees throughout the green and golden fields. He saw that autumn was wielding its influence over the landscape, some of the bushes here remaining green, some losing their leaves altogether while others transformed from green to the bright reds and yellows of fall.

And as Black Bear stared at the stately beauty of the borders of trees and trimmed shrubs, he listened to Anna explain to her mistress that the borders had not been planted for their beauty; that the hedges had formed a system of prickly bushes and trees, put there long ago by the large landowners and individual farmers to keep others out, when before this, men had worked the fields in unbounded peace; that the bushes, such as the hawthorn, the holly, the blackthorn, the briar rose, were all planted for their prickly nature, not their beauty.

And Black Bear, upon hearing this, understood now why he had perceived a barbed nature to the beautiful landscape. He also wondered idly if this might account for the extreme greed he had witnessed in the white-skinned American, this need he had observed in them to claim and fence in land, something he’d been hard-pressed to understand. For the Indian, the land, like the air, was free. And he speculated that these white people, these Americans, were, in turn, dramatizing an aberration that had been done to them here on this foreign continent. They sought to adversely control others as they, themselves, had been controlled.

He shrugged, an interesting thought, but unproductive at the moment, and as Black Bear decided such things really didn’t matter to him, he turned his attention once more to the landscape, to the window, unaware that the scowl on his face attested to his mood.

They traveled north and east through what the Duke had called the Midlands toward a place named Warwickshire where stood the Colchester’s country manor, Shelburne Hall. Black Bear recalled his part in the family’s sudden departure.

After returning from the park with Waste Ho, Black Bear had sought out the Duke of Colchester immediately.

He had demanded to know all that the Duke knew. Why was someone trying to kill Waste Ho?

But the Duke had known little, and unsatisfied, Black Bear had demanded that Waste Ho be taken elsewhere.

Black Bear smiled at the thought. He had actually threatened to steal her away to America if the Duke didn’t act, and didn’t act now.

But the Duke had remained steadfast and unyielding to the Indian’s demands, at least until he had heard Black Bear’s story of how he’d rescued Waste Ho in the park.

Black Bear narrowed his eyes. Even still, he knew the Duke held back from him, relating only those incidents to the Indian that the Englishman felt were safe. And truly, how could Black Bear complain? If he were the Duke, wouldn’t he do the same thing? Wield the same protection over Waste Ho? No, the Duke’s caution earned Black Bear’s respect.

Yet one question remained unanswered. Why would the Duke extend such protection to Waste Ho?

Black Bear shrugged. It was a question he’d pondered ever since the night he’d spoken with the Duke. Eventually, he would discover the answer. It would require patience on his part, patience, and the Duke’s trust in him. He only had to bide his time.

But Black Bear had also learned much that night. He had demanded to know the whereabouts of Waste Ho’s husband, learning an important fact. The Duke of Colchester had no knowledge of Waste Ho’s marriage.

Interesting.

Not that Black Bear had enlightened the Duke as to Waste Ho’s marital status. Learning of the Duke’s ignorance on the subject, Black Bear had pretended no more than mild curiosity over her situation, explaining to the Duke that in his country, at Waste Ho’s age, she would surely have been married by now. And then Black Bear had ceased speaking, listening to the Duke instead, the Indian on the alert, observing.

Nor had Black Bear attempted to make sense of it. He wouldn’t. He merely noted the fact that something was quite amiss; these two details, both of them true, did not align. Waste Ho declared she was married yet she’d never been seen in the company of a man.

An odd situation for a married woman.

He shifted his position, gazing away from the window and back into the carriage, contemplating Waste Ho now as she spoke in quiet conversation with Anna.

The women’s good-natured friendship irritated him irrationally so that when he spoke, his voice mirrored his disaffection.

“What is the name of your husband?” he asked in English, his manner grumpy.

Waste Ho gazed at him, her glance guarded, and Black Bear watched her carefully, though he presented, for all appearances, a guise of indifference.

“Why?” she asked at last.

He shrugged, catching Anna’s quick look at her mistress before that maiden lowered her lashes, looking to the floor. He smiled, a deceptive sort of gesture before answering, “I am curious.”

Waste Ho peered at him for several moments, and Black Bear stared casually back, waiting, noting her every reaction.

“I… His name is… What difference does it make?”

“None, I suspect,” he said, pausing. “However, will you not enlighten me? After all,” he said. “What difference does it make?”

Waste Ho caught her breath, endowing him with a strange sort of look. “His name,” she said at length, “is Sir Connie.”

Black Bear nodded but didn’t say a thing.

He could tell by her direct gaze, by the fact that her pupils did not dilate, that she did not lie, and Black Bear became more and more interested.

“Where does he live?”

Again she caught her breath, and her gaze, when she looked to him, had all the appearance of that of a trapped animal.

He waited patiently, staring at her, infinitely aware of every nuance of her mood, of her facial expression, even of the delicate scent of her body.

“I…” she said. “Black Bear, what are you about?”

He shrugged again, observing all the following: the pulse at the base of her neck suddenly raced; her coloring had changed from a vivid rose to a chalky white, her scent grew a little stronger; her eyes were guarded, unsure; her pupils had dilated at the mere mention of this Sir Connie’s residence; her lips had thinned, and her gaze darted about the small confines of the carriage.

And he knew, from just these small facts, that Waste Ho not only did not lie, she did not know where her “husband” lived.

An odd sort of situation.

He let the subject drop, or so it would appear, saying to her, “Were I your husband, you would not know my absence.”

She cast him a curious glance, but all she said was, “Oh?”

He smiled, then pretending ignorance, he asked, “Did you meet this Sir Connie through the Duke?”

“No, I… Black Bear, I don’t have to answer your questions.”

Again, he presented every appearance of nonchalance, saying, “Have you reason to avoid them?”

She gasped. “No, it’s just that I… What is the purpose of all these questions?”

He grinned, saying only, “I am curious. How long have you been married?”

“I…I was married before I came to the Colchester House.”

Black Bear nodded and glanced away from her.

She had married, then, he reasoned, just shortly after leaving the Indian camp. He had learned from the Duke that Waste Ho had been with his household for about five years, first as a servant, in much the same capacity as Anna, then only a short time ago, the Duke had discovered her working for him and had taken her under his protection. The reason: She had resembled the Duke’s own mother so much Waste Ho might have been that other woman at a younger age.