Merline Lovelace (5 page)
Authors: Countess In Buckskin
What a fool she’d been to jerk away like that! How stupid to shy from his touch! He’d been gentle, astonishingly so, and kind to give her his hat. Had she kept her wits about her, she might have played on that kindness to make the night ahead easier.
Her mouth tight, she studied the broad back ahead of her. By Saint Paul, he was big. Far bigger of frame than her husband had been. He carried a good deal more muscle than Aleksei had and a stone or more in weight, she guessed. Without warning, the image of Josiah Jones after he’d dropped the basket in the sweat house flashed into her mind.
Holy Mother, he would rend her in two!
Angrily Tatiana scolded herself for her foolishness. She was no untutored virgin. No giddy, love-struck bride. She knew that the smallest of women could accommodate the largest of men, given the right preparation. It was only the thought that...that she might have to prepare herself that carved a small, empty space just under her heart. Whatever other fatal shortcomings her husband had possessed, he’d known just how to ready a woman for pleasure.
Her mouth twisted. Look where such pleasure had brought her. To the slopes of a snow-swept mountain, trudging along behind a bearded stranger like a docile, well-broken mare, filled with worry about the night to come.
Pah! She was done with worrying. She’d think of home. Of the ballads she loved to play on the pianoforte. Of the pink clouds of cherry blossoms that covered the hills of her father’s estate in the spring, and let the night take care of itself.
It would have eased Tatiana’s turmoil considerably to learn that the American paced ahead of her in much the same frame of mind.
With every step, Josh castigated himself for a fool. He’d had no business touching her like that, or responding to her obvious distress by giving her his hat. Neither one of them would survive the wilderness if he let her soften him or cloud his senses.
She could all too easily do both, he acknowledged grimly. With each painful, rasping breath she’d drawn, he’d had to fight the urge to slow his pace and give her rest. Every gentlemanly precept his mother had pounded into him had nagged at him to reach back and help her over this steep, slippery slope or that yawning crevasse. He’d refrained, knowing she had to toughen for the even steeper climbs ahead, but the effort had frayed his nerves more than he wanted to admit.
Then he had to hunker down beside her and touch her! Even now the back of his hand tingled from its brief contact with her creamy skin. Smart, Jones. Real walloping, tiger-toed smart.
If she hadn’t jerked away, as though she feared fleas would jump from his sleeve onto her skin, he might have given in to another, even more powerful urge. He might have bent his head and taken another taste of that full, ripe mouth. It had been so close, and so damned tempting. Instead, he’d set up her back as much as she’d set up his.
In Russia, it is not done.
Ha! He’d bet his trusty Hawken that it was done in Russia as much as it was done anywhere else. The Countess Karanova didn’t kiss like a woman who’d never had a man’s hands laid on her. Nor had she appeared the least disconcerted by the sight of a lodge full of men skinned down to their hide. She didn’t have a shy, maidenly bone in her all too tempting body.
Maybe he should think again about letting her out of their bargain. Maybe he should shake off the last remnants of his civilized upbringing. He’d gone too long without a woman, as his reaction to their fiery kiss last night had demonstrated. If the Russian put so little value on her respectability that she’d barter it away for a trip through the mountains, why the devil should he turn down what she’d offered?
He’d make camp as soon as they reached a lower elevation, Josh decided in a mood of tight, angry arousal, and let the night take care of itself.
His anger eased with the miles, if not his physical awareness of the woman behind him. Her heaving breath lashed at his back. Her little grunts as she clambered around granite outcroppings pounded at his ears. Futilely Josh tried to close his mind to her as he went sideways down a steep slope. The pony skittered behind him, seeking purchase under the snow. The countess made shorter work of the descent. Halfway down, her feet went out from under her, and she slid the remaining distance on her bottom. To her credit, she got up, dusted off the snow clinging to her dress and resumed her march.
They gained a stretch of level terrain just as the sun sank behind the western peaks. Squinting through the purple shadows, Josh searched the horizon for familiar landmarks. If he remembered rightly, there was a high alpine meadow tucked behind the round-topped crag just ahead. The last time Josh had camped there, he’d felt as though he’d bedded down in a patch of sky dropped to earth. The entire plateau had been covered in blue lupines and the little purple violets the low-landers called Johnny-jump-ups.
This time of year, he knew, the meadow would be a sheet of pristine white, broken only by the tracks of the animals that fished the stream that cut through its center. With luck, Josh might be able to snare a mountairt trout or two for their supper.
The thought of feeding the hunger rumbling in his belly quickened his pace. Only after he’d scanned the small meadow for signs of possible occupation, stomped a patch of snow beside the stream into a hard-packed surface and started on the ropes that held the pony’s pack, did he admit the true nature of his hunger. It had little to do with trout, and a whole lot to do with the countess.
She knelt beside the stream to pound a hole in its thin, icy crust. Her dark hair spilled from under his hat to trail like silk ribbons over her shoulders. When she leaned forward to scoop out a skinful of water, Josh’s fingers froze on the pack ropes. The damp patches on her dress, made when she slid down the slope on her behind, drew his eyes. From where he stood, her bottom looked just about the right size to fill a man’s palms. His palms, anyway.
His hunger spiked, then tumbled through his insides like loose stones rolling down the mountainside. With a wrench, Josh tore his gaze from the perfectly rounded damp patches and yanked at the ropes. What the devil was the matter with him? He’d been reacting to the Russian like an unbroken stallion on the scent of a mare since the moment he’d laid eyes on the woman. He didn’t even like her... much.
Maybe he’d gone more wild than he realized, Josh thought, sobering. Maybe he’d been too long in the mountains. He’d never lusted after Catherine like this, nor had to clench his fists to keep from reaching out to stroke her generous curves. Unlike this Russian, Catherine Van Buren had called to all that was good and gentle and fine in him.
Deliberately Josh summoned the image of his betrothed. Just as deliberately, he accepted the pain that came with it. Hurt settled just under his breastbone as he unloaded the pony, staked it close to the stream and dug several handfuls of barley grain out of a pack for its dinner. Like an old, familiar friend, the ache stayed with him while he built a fire and set a handful of coffee beans to boiling. He’d lived with the hurt for so long, it had become a part of him.
Leaving the countess to tend the fire, Josh took his net to the stream and returned some time later with two fat trout. He gutted the catch with a few swift slashes and speared them on forked branches sharpened to points. Handing one branch to the countess, he settled cross-legged across the fire from her to cook his dinner. Flames hissed and spit as juices dripped, and soon the tantalizing aroma of seared trout teased at his nostrils.
“Is it now done, do you think?”
He glanced across the fire at her intent face.
“Not yet.”
She nodded, wetting her lips in anticipation of the feast to come. The woman had a contrary mouth, Josh decided. The kind that looked sweet and sounded tart. It invited a man to kiss it, then puckered up all tight and disapproving when he did. He wondered what she’d look like when she smiled, really let loose and smiled in—
The acrid scent of singed fish snatched his attention from the woman across from him to his dinner. Cursing under his breath, he flipped the blackened filet over. He’d better keep his mind off the Russian and on something safer. More comfortable. More familiar.
He stared into the flickering flames and searched for the combination of gold and red that always reminded him of Catherine’s lush curls and ripe, rosy lips. For the first time, she eluded him.
“Is it now done?” the Russian asked impatiently.
“Done enough, I’d guess. Better give it a chance to cool, though, or the juices will scald your mouth.”
“I cannot wait,” she muttered.
Josh hooked an elbow on his knee and held his own dinner away from the flames. Amused, he watched the woman pick at the sizzling trout with thumb and forefinger, her pinkie elegantly extended as though she’d just sat down to high tea. She should have looked ridiculous in her furred leggings, bulky fox cloak and Josh’s floppy hat with the wild turkey feather stuck in its woven band. Somehow she managed to appear elegant. She nibbled her way daintily down to the bones.
Abruptly she discarded her nobility along with the fish bones. One by one, she licked her fingers. Then she swiped at the juices trickling along the back of her hand. Against his will, Josh found himself mesmerized by that small pink tongue.
She glanced up, flushing a bit when she caught him staring. “That was most good. I had the hunger.”
Josh had the hunger, too. It burned a hole right through his gut.
Her gaze flickered to his untouched trout. To the pony. To her hands, and back to the spitted fish. She wet her lips once more. Watching the small, incredibly erotic act, Josh felt a groan rolling around in the back of his throat.
“Do you not eat?” she asked casually.
Too casually. The offhand question didn’t disguise the hunger in her eyes. Josh rose without a word. Circling the fire, he thrust the branch into her hand.
“I’d just as soon feast on the smoked salmon I traded with Cho-gam for. I build up a craving for it whenever I come through these parts.”
She sneaked a sideways glance at the trout. “Truly?”
“Truly.”
While she attacked the second fish, Josh dug a good-size chunk of dried salmon out of one of the smaller packs. Flavored with wild seasonings and smoked over a slow fire, it made almost as tasty a meal as fresh-cooked mountain trout. He finished off his dinner and dusted his hands on the back of his pants.
“I’ll gather more wood to feed the fire while you pick at the bones. Then we’d best bed down. We’ll have to start out before dawn to make the next pass.”
Her hand stilled halfway to her mouth. Slowly she laid aside the bite she’d been about to take.
“Yes. We must, as you say, bed down.”
Chapter Five
A
rms laden with wood, Josh followed the glowing beacon of the campfire. His breath steamed on the cold, and his blood pulsed from hard, vigorous exercise.
rms laden with wood, Josh followed the glowing beacon of the campfire. His breath steamed on the cold, and his blood pulsed from hard, vigorous exercise.
The strenuous activity of hacking up deadwood in this thin mountain air had cleared his mind. He’d worked off all traces of the raw hunger the countess had unknowingly fed with each lick of her fingers. He’d also come to a belated decision. It was time, past time, he set matters straight about their sleeping arrangements. He hadn’t missed her sudden paleness when he’d mentioned bedding down for the night. He’d let her stew about the matter long enough.
He walked into camp, fully intending to set her mind at ease. And he might have done just that...if she hadn’t scrambled to her feet and regarded Josh across a bed of pine boughs with the same enthusiasm she’d show a scaly-backed wood beetle that had just crawled out from under a rotten log.
Damnation! She could cut a man down to half his size with one haughty stare. Crossing to the fire, Josh dumped his armload of wood. He’d let her off the hook. He’d already decided that much. He didn’t have to make the letting easy, though. Tucking his thumbs into his belt, he waited for her to make the next move in their prickly contest of wills.
She waited for the same thing. The fire crackled and sent a spray of glowing sparks into the air. The pony chuffed quietly a few feet away. In a nearby tree, a chickadee scolded as a comrade snuggled up to it for warmth.
Finally the Russian drew in a slow, martyrlike breath. “I have made a bed.”
She was no coward. Josh had to give her that. She wasn’t afraid to drag the matter right out in the open.
“So I see.”
“I did not wish to open your packs, you understand, when you are not here, but...” Shrugging, she gestured to the scratchy pine boughs. “There should be blankets for the branches, or furs to cover these branches.”
Declining her offer was one thing. Divvying up the tasks on the trail was another. She could pull her share of the load during the trek.
Josh jerked his chin toward the piled gear. “There’s a capote in the smaller pack, and a buffalo robe tied to the frame.”
She stared at him, her eyes shadowed and unreadable. For a moment Josh thought she didn’t understand his reference to the hooded coat made from blankets that the French trappers had made so popular. Either that, or she was having second thoughts about this business of bedding down with a stranger.
“Countess...” Josh began, then halted abruptly. His American egalitarianism tripped over the title. “What did you say your name was?”
“Tatiana,” she said stiffly. “Tatiana Grigoria.”
Josh was still digesting that mouthful when she swept to the packs and went to work on the laces that attached the rolled buffalo hide to the wooden frame. She tugged the heavy rug free of the frame and dragged it to the makeshift bed. Pliant and just a touch rank, the buffalo robe weighed a stone or more. The countess... Tatiana... grunted once or twice, but got it spread across the pine branches. The fleecy, brightly striped capote was far easier for her to handle.
While she knelt to smooth the bed covering, Josh slipped into a routine that had become second nature to him. He answered a last call of nature, checked the pony and fed more wood into the flames. Survival instincts cultivated over the years would wake him at regular intervals throughout the night to keep the fire ablaze. When he returned to the pile of pine boughs, he saw that the Russian had already taken her place under the blanket.
She lay like a frozen deer carcass, all stiff limbed and unmoving. She didn’t stir at Josh’s approach, didn’t acknowledge his presence by so much as the blink of an eye. She stared fixedly up at the stars, as though she intended to count every blessed one of them while he took his pleasure on her.
“You can rest easy, Tatiana,” Josh drawled. “I’m not going to make you pay for your safe passage through the mountains. Not in that way, anyway.”
She left off counting the stars. Her gaze slid sideways and fixed on Josh. If she was relieved by her reprieve, she didn’t show it.
“Why do you not?”
The question flummoxed him. He couldn’t imagine Catherine...or any other female of his acquain-tance... calmly asking a man why he didn’t lift the blankets and have his way with her.
“Because I don’t choose to do the fandango with a woman who looks like she’d rather have a diamondback for a partner than me.”
“What is this, this fandango? And this diamonds on the back?”
“A fandango is a dance.” Carefully Josh positioned his Hawken, powder horn and possibles bag within easy reach of the bed. “A diamondback is a snake. A vicious, deadly kind of snake.”
Her eyes narrowed as he eased his long frame down onto the springy bed. The branches rustled under his weight. The scent of pine and resin drifted through the pungent odor of buffalo. For several moments she didn’t speak. When she did, her voice was as low and smoky as the campfire.
“Do you mock me, Josiah Jones?”
“No. Go to sleep. We have a harder trek tomorrow than today.”
Tugging a fold of the capote over his body, Josh rolled onto his side. Within moments, he fell into the light half slumber of the woodsman.
Tatiana stared at the massive shoulders a few inches from her nose, thoroughly disconcerted. She had intended to pay her debt! She was
prepared
to pay her debt! True, she’d shivered at this man’s approach like the tall grasses of the steppe in a high wind. She’d stared up at the stars as though she could lose all feeling, all sense of despair, in their silvery splendor. But, by all the saints, she was ready!
prepared
to pay her debt! True, she’d shivered at this man’s approach like the tall grasses of the steppe in a high wind. She’d stared up at the stars as though she could lose all feeling, all sense of despair, in their silvery splendor. But, by all the saints, she was ready!
Hot, liquid shame rushed through Tatiana as she realized that she’d done as the coarsest woman of the streets and readied herself to receive a man who did not even want her. At this moment, she wasn’t sure whom she hated more...the American whose body blocked the heat from the fire, or the woman she’d become. She lay rigid and dry-eyed, and tried to find surcease in sleep.
It came before she expected it. Exhausted by the day’s march and her seesawing emotions, her limbs gradually relaxed into a limp, aching state. Tatiana closed her eyes and slipped into that velvety void between wakefulness and slumber. She twitched once, an involuntary spasm that pulled her back to consciousness for a moment. Then she drifted off once more.
She had no idea whether mere minutes or long hours had passed when a piercing cry ripped through the blanket of sleep. She jerked again, her knees coming up to whack against solid flesh. The American grunted at the impact of her kneecaps in the small of his back. Belatedly Tatiana realized she’d turned on her side and sought warmth from the body next to hers.
The scream came again, closer this time and terrifying in its savagery. The little packhorse whinnied in fright. Tatiana gasped. The American rolled off the bed, taking the wool covering with him. He snatched up his rifle and had it cocked before the first blast of cold air hit his quaking bed partner. Taut as a bowstring, he peered into the darkness.
A bleating, blood-chilling cry rose on the thin night air and ended in a deep-throated gurgle. After that, there was only stillness.
“What is it?” Tatiana whispered when her nerves could no longer stand the eerie quiet.
“Mountain lion,” the American murmured. “They don’t usually hunt at night, but it sounds as though this one just got himself a bighorn sheep.”
He eased the rifle hammer partway down, still staring into the darkness. “The big cat’s particular in his feed. He prefers warm blood for every meal. I suspect we’ll find the remains of a—”
He broke off, his jaw dropping as he gaped at Tatiana. She huddled in the middle of the buffalo robe, naked and shaking with fear and cold.
“Cover yourself,” he snarled. “Now.”
He turned away. Legs spread, spine stiff, he stood facing the fire.
Although the frigid air had raised huge goose bumps on her uncovered flesh, Tatiana flushed. His tone left no doubt of his disgust. Had he forgotten his so crude order that she come to his bed bare-skinned and naked? An order he did not see fit to rescind before he calmly announced that he did not want her services, after all?
Her cheeks burning, she yanked the soft, supple buckskin down around her legs, then pulled on the long-sleeved, fringed.jacket and, finally, the fur cloak. Fully clothed, she sat in the center of the bed. She longed to remain there, to never again move, but she knew she didn’t have that luxury. She had to face the American. Had to understand what it was he wished of her for the rest of this damnable journey.
Feeling more ancient and gnarled than one of her father’s precious apple trees, Tatiana pushed to the edge of the buffalo robe. The rigid, wide-shouldered man turned at the sound of her approach. She flinched, expecting more censure or insult. He caught the movement, and his face turned ruddy above the golden brown of his beard.
“I offer you my apologies,” he said, his voice stiff. “I’ve treated you with less than the dignity you should expect from one you’ve asked for aid.”
Tatiana stared at him, doubt heavy in her mind as she turned his words over. Had she misheard him? Had she missed his meaning?
At the outright suspicion on her face, Josh’s conscience took another twist of the screw. He didn’t blame her for not balieving his apology was sincere. He’d told her flat out the price she’d have to pay for his escort. All day he’d let her worry about paying it. As a result of his mule-headedness, she’d stripped down and crawled into his bed to await his pleasure like a two-penny whore. Thoroughly and completely disgusted with himself, Josh tried to convince her.
“Despite what I said this afternoon about the fandango, I never intended to lie with you. Not in the way a man lies with a woman.”
His conscience suffered another sharp prick. All right! For a few hours, he’d contemplated more than just lying with her. He’d tramped a good many miles thinking about her taste and her feel, and ached with wanting her. Even now, with disgust at his behavior weighing heavy on his conscience, Josh couldn’t completely banish his regret at refusing what she offered.
His confession didn’t seem to allay her fears. If anything, the suspicion in her face intensified.
“But in the sweat house you said that you would...that we would...”
“I was just trying to scare you. To keep you from the mountains.”
She stared at him for long moments, then a slow flame lit in her eyes and she let loose with a stream of Russian. Josh didn’t have to speak the language to know she was calling him every name a woman could call a man.
He deserved the tongue-lashing, and stood it without flinching. To take his mind off the sparks flying from her magnificent eyes, Josh tried to decide just how the hell he’d regain her trust. In the days ahead, her survival would depend on the faith she placed in him and his abilities. If she doubted every order or suspected his motives, she could well place herself... and him...in jeopardy.
“How do I know this is true, what you tell me?” she demanded. “How do I know you will not...you will not...” She spit out another Russian phrase, one Josh didn’t need translated.
Frowning, Josh walked back to the pine bed and scooped up his fringed possibles pouch. He fumbled through the contents and extracted a small object wrapped in a piece of folded oilskin. He stood still for a moment, fingering the packet. He hadn’t unwrapped it in months. A year maybe. Just looking at it pained him too much. Now he had no choice.
He returned to the furious woman. Holding the packet in the palm of one hand, he unfolded the oilskin and revealed a small painted portrait in a gilt frame.
“This is Catherine.” His voice held a quiet reverence. “I wouldn’t betray her or shame you by making you keep to our bargain.”
Distrust clouded the Russian’s eyes as she glanced from his face to his hand. Josh didn’t press her. Nor did he pass her the miniature. It hadn’t left his possession since Catherine handed it to him, the day of his graduation from West Point.
After a moment, curiosity overcame her suspicion and anger. “Is she your wife, this Katerina?”
“No. She died six years ago. A few months before we were to marry.”
“How...how did she die?”
Absorbed in his memories, Josh paid no attention to the hitch in her voice. “We went for a carriage ride and got caught in a spring rain shower.” His fingers closed over the portrait. “She took an inflammation to the lungs. She was dead within a week.”
“Ahh.”
The low exclamation brought Josh’s gaze from his tightly clenched fist. Tatiana slowly lifted her eyes to his.
“I, too, have watched someone I once loved die, Josiah Jones. It causes the hurt to the heart, which never goes away.”
The simple words pierced Josh’s absorption with his own past and shifted his attention to hers.
“Your husband?” he guessed.
She dipped her head in a nod so slight he almost missed it and stared beyond him into the darkness.
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