My Savage Heart (The MacQuaid Brothers) (7 page)

“Listen to us talking like a passel of randy men. And with a maiden among us.”

Jane’s words filtered through to Caroline, and she turned back toward the women realizing they all stared at her. She smiled tentatively and resumed snapping beans, even when Mistress Andrew’s eyes narrowed.

“Where’d you say you was off to?”

“Seven Pines.”

“She’s to marry Robert MacQuaid,” Jane said in a flat tone that seemed to end the discussion. Caroline sensed rather than heard any disapproval from the women, except for Mistress Andrews. She definitely made a disparaging noise, though Jane tried to cover the sound by bustling to her feet and announcing they had enough beans.

It wasn’t until after dinner when Sam returned from his cabin with a violin that anyone spoke to Caroline except to ask her to pass the cornbread. “You mustn’t mind Mistress Andrews,” Jane said as she draped her arm around Caroline’s shoulders. “She hasn’t been the same since the Indians massacred her children.”

The sun had set, and except for the low-riding moon, the only light came from the bonfire. Caroline watched the shadows dance across Jane’s broad, open face for a moment before she could speak. “They killed her children?”

“Scalped them.” Jane shook her head. “Finding your young ones like that ’twould do strange things to a body.”

“When...” Caroline swallowed. “When did this happen?”

Jane tapped her foot to the sound of the lively tune Sam urged from the violin. “’Twas years ago, in Pennsylvania, where we come from. The Iroquois.” She shuddered. “They’re animals. Not like the Cherokee... at least not like they used to be.”

“What do you mean?” The children except for the older ones were abed. The fiddle music faded and off in the night Caroline heard the lonely cry of a wolf.

“There have been some raids. My man is worried, but then you know how men are. I can’t believe the Cherokee would hurt us. I mean ’tis often they stop here to trade on their way to Charles Town. Still.” She took a deep breath, her thin breast rising and falling beneath the worn flowered stomacher. “I remember what it was like up north, the French always inciting those heathens.”

“Is that what’s happening here?”

“What?” Jane seemed to pull herself from deep thought. “Nay,” she finally said. “If we have Indian trouble here it won’t be the Frenchies that cause it. ’Twill be our own fault. At least that’s what my man says.”

Before Caroline could ask what she meant, Jane’s husband, John, came over and grabbed her hands, pulling her up to join the other couples for a reel. To the tune of “Lord Alvemarle’s Delight” Jane and her husband joined hands and danced down the line.

Their garments might be rough and faded and their dance floor, trodden earth, but as Caroline clapped her hands, she realized these dancers were enjoying themselves as much as any she’d ever seen at her parents’ balls. Perhaps more. Their laughter seemed to push out the boundaries of the small civilized settlement. It made Caroline more comfortable with her journey into the wilderness.

Until she spotted him.

Raff sat, leaning against the Flannerys’ cabin. His sprawl was loose-limbed and lazy with long legs spread, arms crossed. He appeared relaxed and at ease... until she noticed his eyes. Even with the space separating them, she felt their intensity, dark and fiery, directed at her. Swirling skirts, dancing legs and wisps of smoke from the bonfire intermittently blocked her view of him. But whenever the way cleared, it was obvious his gaze hadn’t moved. Neither had hers. Despite the distance, Caroline felt closer to him than she ever had.

The pull was undeniable, and powerful. She wanted to turn away, but couldn’t. In her mind’s eye she saw him coming to her, reaching down, pulling her to her feet. Touching her.

But he didn’t move. Nor did she. When the last strains of the fiddle drifted out over the sea of trees enclosing them, Caroline realized she’d forgotten to breathe. She did so now with a gasp as Jane flopped down on the bench beside her.

“I declare,” she laughed, fanning herself. “Dancing sure can wind a person. But look at you, sitting there as calm as can be, and you just come from England. Teach us a new step.”

“Oh, I really don’t know any,” Caroline insisted, but Jane was not to be denied.

“Nonsense. You have two working feet don’t you? John, partner Caroline; and mind, follow her lead.”

Pulled up by two work-roughened hands, Caroline had no choice but to join the dancers. They all turned to her expectantly, waiting to see the latest dance step from across the sea... and she had no idea what to show them.

Her mind raced back to the last time she attended a ball. Attended was the wrong word. She and Edward had sneaked down from the nursery to watch her parents’ guests in the ballroom. But that was before her mother died and before Papa sent them off to the country.

Still, though many years had passed, Caroline remembered forcing Ned to dance with her the next day as she hummed the tune learned the previous night. Even then, her brother’s world centered about his books, but he gamely tried to follow her lead.

Now as Caroline looked at the expectant faces, she tried to remember the steps. Her glance strayed outside the ring of people, but now that she was the center of everyone else’s attention, Raff seemed unaware of her. He was involved in a serious conversation with one of the men.

“’Tis not new.” Caroline pulled her focus back. “But ’tis always been one of my favorite dances. Mr. Dabney,” she said, turning toward Betsy’s husband. “Are you familiar with the tune ‘Goddesses?’”

“Now let me see.” Sam tucked the polished wood under his chin, sliding the bow down to play the first few bars. “That what you’re talking about?”

“Yes, that’s it.” She faced John Flannery. “Now for this dance, we stand in two lines men facing women.” She hesitated. “Do any of you know this dance?” To a person they shook their heads, so Caroline continued. When they were set and she’d talked them through the instructions, John called to his wife.

“Come on over Jane, you’ve got to be learning this, too.”

“I’ll just watch,” she said, though Caroline could tell the woman was dying to join the set.

“Come along, Jane.” Caroline took her hand, pulling her into the spot to partner her husband as Sam Dabney began playing.

“But what about you?” Jane held on to Caroline’s arm as she called to Raff. “You know how to do this dance?”

“Oh, I really don’t think we need to disturb Mr. MacQuaid.” Caroline pulled gently, trying to extricate herself from Jane’s grasp. It did no good. Neither did her words.

“Disturb him,” Jane laughed. “Why he’s not doing anything, are you Raff?”

“Nothing as important as partnering a beautiful lady.”

Caroline turned around to see him standing before her. She curtsied to his deep bow and accompanied him to the head of the line. The fire crackled, and Caroline’s heart seemed to beat in time to the lively music.

Any doubts she had about Raff knowing the steps were put to rest when he took her hand, dancing her down the row. When they separated, she to lead the women, he the men, Caroline couldn’t stop watching him. He had a natural grace as obvious on the dance floor as when he rode a horse. Even in his deerskin leggings and shirt he seemed as masculinely elegant as any silk-garbed duke.

When they passed close, right shoulder to right shoulder, he returned her smile. “You’ve done this before,” she said.

“Perhaps a time or two.”

The music forced them apart again; but through all the steps, Caroline could feel his gaze on her. She watched him, too, at first surreptitiously, then as the pace quickened, openly. The other dancers seemed to disappear, and it was only the two of them, meeting, touching, and pulling away, in a parody of life.

Caroline wasn’t ready for the dance to end, for the loss of sensuality. The music stopped and the fantasy ended abruptly. Jane’s plump arm circled her shoulders, turning her away.

“Now wasn’t that more fun than sitting on the side?”

Caroline nodded, unable to trust her own voice. After dancing with Raff, Caroline could no longer deny the attraction she felt for him. It was real and strong, frighteningly so. All she could do was hope he never found out.

It took them three days to reach the fort at Ninety-Six. Raff left her to rest at the home of a widow named Alexandra Trevor while he went to confer with the military commander of the fort. To Caroline’s delight, Mistress Trevor had a tub, which she allowed her to use.

“You’ll have to be filling it yourself. My joints don’t take to me carrying too much water.”

“I’ll do it gladly.” Fetching water from the creek and heating it at the fireplace seemed a small price to pay for ridding herself of all the dirt from the trail.

She bathed quickly, worried that Raff would return at any moment. Besides, the sensual slide of the heated water across her skin reminded her too much of thoughts she was trying to suppress. Scrubbed and dressed in a clean shift, bodice and petticoat, Caroline felt like a new woman.

But apparently she didn’t look like one. She was sitting by the fire, brushing her damp hair, when Raff entered the cabin. Caroline tried not to feel a stab of pique when he ignored her. “Mistress Trevor went to visit a neighbor.”

“Hmmm.” He paid no more heed to her words than he did her appearance. “I’d planned to let you rest here a day or two before continuing but that’s not—”

“I don’t need a rest. I’m perfectly capable of traveling more... now if you like.”

“That anxious to reach your bridegroom, are you?” He glanced up then.

Caroline’s back stiffened at his words. “It has nothing to do with that.” Then when her eyes met his, Caroline’s blood ran hotter than the fire at her back. She wanted him to notice her, but she wasn’t prepared for the power of his gaze when he did. Her clothing was perfectly respectable. Caroline had noticed that most of the women on the frontier forsook the cumbersome overgown and simply wore a long sleeved shift, boned bodice and petticoat. She chose to dress the same, saving her gowns for more formal occasions than riding horseback through the wilderness.

But he made her feel as if she’d failed to cover herself at all. Yet she knew better, for her stays seemed so tight she could scarcely breathe. Her hand trembling, Caroline once again tugged the brush through her tangle of curls.

“Allow me, Your Ladyship.”

Caroline hesitated, maintaining her grip when he reached for the silver handle. Was he mocking her with that cool smile on his sensual lips? But then his long, brown fingers folded over hers, and she was lost.

“If... if I don’t brush through it as it dries, my hair becomes...” Caroline finished the statement with a nervous shrug of her shoulders.

“It appears we’ve already wasted too much time.” Raff inched his hand beneath the thick fall of sunshine blond hair. His knuckles brushed her warm neck.

“I...” Caroline tried to calm the quiver in her voice. He stood behind her, his muscular thighs pressed against her back. “I never have been able to control it.”

“Perhaps it is time you stopped trying so hard.” Raff began at her scalp and pulled the bristles through the rough silk of her hair. Her head fell back, and he allowed his gaze to drift down the front of her neck to where the stays pushed her breasts into his view. Her skin was creamy smooth and he forced himself to look away. But he couldn’t ignore the clean flagrance of her hair, or the feel of her curls as they wrapped about his fingers.

With each sweep of the brush, Caroline felt her resistance slipping away. She knew she should stop him, but she couldn’t summon the energy to do it. Her body seemed to lack a will of its own, falling back against his hard body.

He smelled musky, and the blend of that and her clean soapy scent was an erotic harmony to the senses. Her skin tingled and her nipples ached, thrusting forward against the fine linen of her shift. Every time the brush skimmed down, his roughened fingers touched her. And every time she longed for the contact to continue, to expand.

Her hair crackled with electricity and still he brushed. But his movements slowed. And then as if he read her mind, his touch lingered. He traced an imaginary line down her neck till his hand spread across her chest. Caroline thought her heart would stop beating when one finger dipped to the valley between her breasts. Her head fell back and to the side. And the touch of his lips, hot and moist, on the side of her neck was not unexpected.

“Would you like me to braid it?” The words, spoken against her skin, vibrated through her.

“Wh... what?”

“Your hair.” His knuckle rose up the side of one breast then the other, feeling them tighten before trailing his hand up to her chin. With his thumb he shifted her face to look at him. Her eyes were nearly as black as his, the blue a mere ring around the center. “Do you wish me to braid your hair, Lady Caroline?”

Caroline swallowed. “Can you? I mean... do you know how?”

“I’m Cherokee, Your Ladyship. There are times I even braid my own.”

She reached up then, the thick black hair too hard to resist. “When? When do you tame these wild locks?”

“When hunting.” Wolf knelt beside her. His lips were inches from hers. “To keep from getting myself tangled in the underbrush.”