My Unfair Lady (29 page)

   She held up a hand. "To learn the way of the
Be-don-ko-he
, you must first learn to be silent." Lionel snapped his mouth shut. They took a few steps when Summer sighed and turned to face him. "That means when you walk too. You sound like a bear crashing through the leaves."

   His face fell, and she mentally kicked herself. Now she understood how Chatto had felt when he tried to teach her his ways.

   "It's not your fault, Lionel. You walk like all white people do, like I used to. With your head down, leaning forward—like small falls. I'll teach you to fox-walk."

   She placed her hands behind his knees and pushed them forward. "Keep them bent, yes, but keep your spine straight." Summer thought she could hear his back snap in his haste to obey her. "Good, now put your feet, toes forward, in the direction you're going; now lift your foot, lower it to the ground. No, Lionel, keep your weight back; there you go. Now touch the side of your foot to the ground and roll it in.
Enjuh!
Now do it again."

   Lionel froze with his foot in the air. "What's 'in-juh'?"

   Summer grinned, her mind alive with the memories of Chatto. "It means 'good' in Apache. It's a word I'd thought I'd forgotten."

   And after Lionel practiced for days the art of walking like an Apache, she taught him how to see as well. He had just as difficult of a time as she did when she'd first learned it, trying to keep his eyes slightly unfocused so that he could see everything around him, instead of what lay directly ahead.

   "I know it's hard, Lionel. But you're doing much better than I did at learning it."

   He grinned at her. His days of learning the ways of the Apache had erased the dark circles around his eyes and turned his face pink with the outdoors and sunshine.

   Hunter had woken today with a hunger that made her sure the cat would, amazingly, survive his injuries, and Lionel carried the animal with him in a sling around his neck, the cat riding along his hip. The boy helped the critter to eat and relieve himself, showing a devotion that made her heart ache.

   Summer and the boy spent most of their days in the forest, making a game out of eluding the men who the duke had posted to watch over her. Summer didn't wear her buckskins again; Meg had fainted dead away when she'd seen her mistress in them. So she wore the riding habits His Grace had purchased for her. Even though they had an overskirt, they allowed her an ease of movement that her other dresses couldn't match.

   She loved being with Lionel. She just wished that the memories he stirred with all his questions didn't remind her of who she'd been. She'd come to the understanding that if she wanted to be accepted by society, and by the man she'd promised herself to, she would have to leave that person behind. And she would, as soon as she left the estate. Meg had recovered enough to travel, but Summer still delayed. She had to make sure that Byron would accept his son.

   "Tell me about the two coatis you raised," Lionel asked one rainy day as they huddled before the fire in the newly cleaned parlor.

   Summer sighed and scratched beneath India's ear, the monkey smiling and pushing his head at her fingers. "I killed their ma—mother."

   He raised an eyebrow, so very like his father, and waited for an explanation, his eyes telling her that he knew she'd never intentionally harm any animal, that after their weeks together, he knew her soul better than she did.

   "It was a mistake," she began, the patter of rain at the window and the crackle of fire in the hearth making her drowsy, allowing her to remember that day with remarkable clarity. "I was cleaning the shack when I heard the growl of an animal behind me. I didn't stop to think, just took the heavy broom and whacked at a snarling pile of fur. At first I thought it was a stray dog, but my pa told me it was a coatimundi, and she only woke once, to give birth to her babies. Then she died."

   Summer's eyes burned. "Pa didn't like it, but I was responsible for the death of their mother, so I took it upon myself to raise her pups."

   Lionel grinned. "What did you call them?"

   "Whiner and Fighter, 'cause that's what each one was born doing. And they became my best friends, and even started to hunt with me. After that day, Pa decided that even though I was a girl, he had to teach me how to shoot, 'cause maybe next time, it would be a bear sneaking up on me. But I was just happy to have fresh meat for dinner every night."

   Summer paused. She'd thought she'd heard the jangle of harness, the clop of hooves on broken cobblestone, but it seemed that she thought she heard that every day since the duke had left; and her stomach would flop and she'd hold her breath to listen for the sound of an opening door, a deep voice full of amused scorn. But he never appeared, and then she'd sigh with either relief or regret; she wasn't sure which.

   "So that's how a girl learned to use a gun so good," said Lionel.

   Summer smiled at him, knowing her heart would miss him terribly when the duke returned and she left for London. "Yes, starvation teaches you to shoot straight. And that's how I met Chatto—because he thought I had some kind of animal spirit in me, the way the wild animals would come to my call. Even when I explained to him that the coatis listened to me because I had raised them since they were little, he still insisted that
Usen
had given me a gift." She held up a hand at his open lips. "And before you ask,
Usen
is the name they use for their god."

   Lionel's forehead wrinkled. "I know, you told me before about their spirits and stuff. Summer, how come everybody says Indians are savages?"

   "Because they just don't know any better. Oh, injuns are fierce all right; I taught you that too. But they're just different is all, with different beliefs."

   Lionel nodded.

   "Chatto gave me an abandoned eagle to raise because he thought I carried animal spirits inside me. I named the eagle Talon, and he grew strong and beautiful." She sighed at the memory of spread wings soaring over rocky peaks. "Chatto said he wanted to see how I tamed animal spirits, but I think he wanted to make sure the eagle survived—they're precious creatures to the Apache. It doesn't matter; I was just lucky he did, 'cause he saved my life."

   Lionel leaned forward, those pale eyes rounded in fascination. "How? What happened?"

   Summer sighed, berating herself for that slip of her tongue, wishing the boy didn't have such a talent for listening. His loneliness touched her, and she couldn't help trying to fill his need for a friend. And friends shared with each other.

   She bowed her head, the words coming out as a mumble. "It's something… It involves something I did that I vowed never to think of again. I've been trying to leave that person behind, to become someone else, you see?"

   Lionel's face fell, and she could see in his eyes that he thought she didn't trust him, that just like everyone else, she didn't care enough about him to share her secrets. "Do you promise not to tell another soul?"

   His face lit and he nodded.

   Summer took a deep breath and lowered her voice. "A stranger came to our shack. Pa was down in the mine. The man said he'd kill me and Pa. So that he could steal our claim."

   Lionel's eyes bugged.

   "I reached for my gun, but I never would've shot him first if Chatto hadn't distracted him. He came hollering from out of some trees." The burning in her eyes had turned to tears, and Summer felt them hot on her cheeks.

   Lionel's voice trembled with awe. "You really killed a man?"

   "Yes, God save my soul. And then Chatto… He took the man's scalp…" Summer couldn't go on. The horror of that day wrapped her up in a black shroud of grief that threatened to overwhelm her once and for all. She remembered that moment when she'd realized that she couldn't count on anyone else to take care of her, that she could only rely on herself. And that when she'd asked Chatto to teach her to be Apache, he'd looked at her with newfound respect and had agreed to teach her how to be a warrior.

   The fire popped, and Summer shivered as the memory of the body of the dead man superimposed itself over Lionel's avid face.

   Then India gave a squeak of joy and hopped toward the open doorway, and Rosey and Chi-chi woke from where they'd been drowsing in front of the fire and bounded right after him, lapping at the boots of the Duke of Monchester. Summer's head snapped up, and she stared into his handsome face, the horrible memory of that day snuffed like a candle as a shiver of delight ran through her body. She
had
heard a carriage this time; he'd finally come home! She fought the urge to fling herself at him just like her critters and was horrified by her reaction.

   His blue eyes smoldered as they raked hungrily over her, and she gasped at the peculiar expression on his face. She glanced at Lionel, and then back to his father. "How long have you been standing there listening?"

   "Long enough to know that you've revealed more about yourself to my son than you ever have to me," replied the Duke of Monchester, as he tried to relieve himself of her animals and his sodden cloak. He pretended not to notice the look of surprise on her face, because he knew that he'd always been the one who'd set the rule that their relationship was strictly business. Didn't the woman realize everything had changed?

   Evidently not, for she gawked at him as if he'd turned into a stranger. "What ever happened to our strictly business relationship?"

   Byron rolled his eyes in answer—if she didn't know already, he certainly couldn't explain it to her—then tried to suppress a shiver. The rain had soaked his clothes thoroughly, but after he'd made his decision to return to her, nothing had stopped him. Not delayed trains, a broken carriage wheel, and certainly not the weather.

   He'd spent a frustrating time with Scotland Yard inspectors, who'd interviewed everyone he'd ever insulted, and managed to come up with no suspects other than John Strolm, who Byron still believed incapable of plotting a murder. With little results from his efforts, and with images of Summer Wine pressed against a boulder, her mouth parted in a moan of ecstasy, the pull to return to Cliffs Castle had been irresistible.

   And when he realized that there had been no further attempts on his life, and perhaps the true intended victim had been Summer, and perhaps even now she was being attacked and he wasn't there to save her, he'd made a reckless journey home.

   To come into the house and see her calmly sitting by the fire, safe and sound, and more beautiful than he remembered, made him blink stinging eyes. He'd thought about nothing but her while he'd been gone, and had so much to tell her, that when he fully entered the parlor he at first didn't see the person she'd been telling her secrets to. He assumed it was her new companion, Meg, and then he saw the boy. His son. In his house.

   "Lionel?" he asked. "What are you doing here?" He felt so shocked that he didn't realize he'd barked his question until he saw his son flinch.

   He could see the shift of Summer's thoughts from her confusion about his attitude, to concern and anger for Lionel at the frightened look on the boy's face. His stomach twisted with another warmth of feeling toward her.

   "Because this is where he belongs," she snapped.

   Byron raised a golden brow at her but turned all his attention to his son. "What about your grandmother? Does she know you're here?"

   Lionel laid a hand on the cat asleep in his lap, as if that furry body brought him reassurance. "She's dead."

   Byron felt the blood drain from his face and sat on the velvet chaise, unmindful of his wet breeches. "When… Why wasn't I informed?"

   His voice had risen on his last words, and Summer got up and stood between the two of them, partially shielding the boy with her body. Protecting his own son from him. "Cook told me she'd written you a letter telling you his grandmother had passed, but since you never seem to stay put in one place for very long, she thought it might not have reached you. And since she didn't know what else to do, she did the right thing and brought your son home."

   Summer didn't even try to keep the accusatory tone out of her voice; she had narrowed her eyes at him and fisted her hands. Chi-chi growled, the look on his muzzle showing that he didn't know who or what he was growling at, but since his mistress was angry he had to back her up. India had scampered over to the boy's shoulder, wrapping a furry arm around his neck to stroke that blond hair.

   If Byron hadn't been so happy, he might've resented the united attack against him. Instead, he just opened his arms to his son, letting his face reflect the joy he felt inside. It felt uncomfortable to let down his guard, to allow his real emotions to crack his carefully constructed mask of aloofness, but he hoped that in doing so, his son would respond.

   Lionel blinked, as if he'd been slapped, then narrowed his eyes in suspicion and studied the face of the man before him. Byron kept his arms open. They stood frozen that way for some time, including Summer with her mouth open in shock, the angry words he'd felt her about to flay him with frozen on her tongue.