Sioux Slave (24 page)

“Do you think I could ever forget?” He snarled. “I'm engaged to Lenore and I know this thing between us could never work out, but when I think of the way you return my passion when I make love to you, I want you all over again!” He grabbed her, kissing her hotly, his hands stroking her back and hips.

She tried not to let him mold her against him all the way down both their bodies, but she had no will where he was concerned. He had said he wanted her, he hadn't said he loved her. She loved him with all her heart.

He had her up against the frame building in the shadows, his mouth ravaging hers while he worked her shift up with his hands. She wore nothing underneath it. The doeskin shift had fallen off one shoulder so that her bare breasts were pressed against him. Kimi slipped her arms around his neck, digging her nails into his shoulders in a frenzied passion as she felt him reach to unbutton his pants. “Come to me,” he demanded in a hoarse whisper, “come to me!”

She could do nothing but obey his need and her own. Still standing against the building, he rammed up into her and she locked her legs around his waist as he guided her to him. They coupled standing up while his mouth sucked her tongue into his throat. He seemed to be crushing her against the wood in the hot frenzy of their mutual need. This time, there was nothing gentle or tender in their meshing in the darkness like two wild things, and her need was as great as his. For a long moment, they gasped and strained together, and then it was over. She let her slim legs slide down his virile body, and he disengaged from her, but he didn't let her out of his embrace. He leaned against her, breathing hard and she let him, feeling his hot seed running down her thighs.

What had she done? No matter how much she loved him, she must have more pride and honor than this. Kimi took a deep, shuddering breath and straightened her clothes. Then she pulled away from him. “You think to keep me for your pleasure yet marry her. A woman who would settle for that is a fool.”

“I never meant what happened just now to ever happen again, Kimi, you've got to believe that. I can't leave you here in this wilderness where you won't be taken care of. Go with me. At least I can send you to a boarding school or something, so you can learn to make your own way in the white world.”

“I suppose you feel you owe me that to salve your conscience,” she snapped. “All right, I will be your family's houseguest, but not your mistress.” She kept her tone icy. “If I get a little education or track down my family, that's all I need from you. I might even meet a man I like better. Then you have no problem with your elegant fiance or your honor. From now on, I will speak English and call you Rand.”

“Kimi, I don't want you to think–”

“Don't worry about it.” She tossed her head. “Frankly, maybe after I see the way civilized people live, I'll like it so much, I'll thank you for giving me the chance. And I suppose I can't blame you for anything, when you had this other obligation, this other girl chosen before I ever came into your life.”

He swore under his breath. “There's no good answer.” His voice was ragged, tense. He looked stressed. “Get ready to go. It'll be dawn in an hour. I'll make arrangements for you.”

She stood there a long moment, struggling with her heart. How could she go with him, watch him marry that other girl, thinking of him sleeping with her? Yet even though she knew she could only be hurt, she couldn't stop herself from loving him, wanting to be with him if it was only for a few days longer. “I–I–all right.”

She forced herself not to think of all the gloomy consequences as she turned and ran to her quarters to gather her few things. She was going with Hinzi. Nothing else mattered but being close to him, even if only for a little while.

 

 

“Damn that puppy anyhow!” Lenore kicked at the dog as it dug at the base of the camelia bush. “Shelby, would you put him out of here?”

“Sure,” he grinned at Lenore and reached down to grab the clumsy foxhound pup. “Sweet Jesus. We can't have Grandma know we're out here a lot, can we?”

He grabbed the dog roughly, dragged it to the French doors. The piano music drifting softly through the doors as he opened them. Pushing the puppy into the hall, he closed the doors and came back to join the beauty on the wicker settee. “Doesn't the old lady ever play anything else?”

Lenore agreed. “Greensleeves? I get sick of it too. It was my father's favorite. She always wore green silk; it looked beautiful on her.”

“Who?”

“My mother.” She paused, remembering the regal beauty in the green silk rustling through the halls. Sometimes at night when it was very dark and late, it almost seemed Lenore heard her full skirts rustling. When she awakened, it was always the big oak trees blowing in the night air. “It seems strange to call her that. She was quite vain and very cold. She didn't like to be called ‘Mother.' She made me and my little sister call her by her first name.”

“Strange.” His tone told her he was dismissing the conversation. “Discussing your family isn't too entertaining, honey.” He reached out to stroke her soft skin where it swelled above her low-cut canary yellow bodice. “We're taking a chance meeting here, you know.”

She caught his hand and clasped it over her breast. “For pity's sake! Grandmother's so old, I think she's getting hard of hearing, half blind, and senile. She doesn't know what we're up to.”

“She seems pretty sharp to me. Where did she get that damned dog, anyway?”

“Tally Ho?” Lenore shrugged. “It's a cull from the Erikson's pack: too timid to hunt. It should have been shot, but Grandmother saved it. Stupid mutt. It's dug up every flower bed around the house. She keeps him shut out of the conservatory. I forgot to close the door.”

“If the dog had pooped around her favorite camelia bush, she might figure out we'd been out here.”

“For pity's sake, that's no way to talk around a lady.” She whacked him hard with her fan.

He acted as if he were about to say something, then changed his mind. His hair, with its perfumed oil, shone in the light. “How come you live with your grandmother? Where's your folks and that little sister?”

“They went West.” Lenore leaned forward so his fingers could reach inside her bodice.

Shelby looked puzzled. “With all this, they picked up and went West? Doesn't make sense.”

“I think there was some kind of disagreement with my grandmother; I don't know what about. I was in school and they were going to send for me. We never heard from them again.”

He looked mystified. “That's all?”

She nodded and yawned to indicate how bored she was with the topic. She never liked to stray from her favorite topic, herself, very long. Shelby didn't seem as entertaining as he once had. She wondered what Vanessa saw in him? Probably the only offer the poor thing had had, with all the men off getting killed in the war. “For pity's sake, Shelby, you know that. Stop talking! You know what I want.”

“What I want, too, honey.” He ran both hands down the front of her dress.

She took a deep breath, liking the feel of a man's hands on her. She wondered whether Rand was skilled at making love. He was such an honorable, old-fashioned Southerner, naive enough to think Lenore would be offended by anything less than gentlemanly conduct. “Vanessa had you yet?”

He laughed and leaned to kiss the swell of her breasts. “Now is that a question for a lady to ask?” Instead of answering, he kissed her.

She smacked him with her fan. “You silly boy, she's my best friend; I think I have the right to know.”

“Some best friend you are to her, honey.”

“Why don't you just dump her?” Lenore unbuttoned his pants, liking the feel of him hot and big in her hand.

He groaned with pleasure. “If we play our cards right, we can end up with both fortunes. Suppose I marry Vanessa? Her parents can't last forever and then if she should meet with an unfortunate accident, I'd be a rich, grieving widower. With Rand dead, there's no reason we couldn't get married then and end up with both fortunes.”

Lenore liked a clever, greedy man. She and Shelby were well-matched. “For pity's sake, Shelby, I do admire a man who knows what he wants!”

“I'm taking chances making love to a single woman,” he murmured against her neck. “My brother-in-law was a real lady's man and he always told me to choose a married woman or one who was about to be married.”

“Why?”

“Because if she comes up with a kid, her husband thinks it's his.”

“Don't worry. If I could have a baby, I'd have a flock by now, after what we've been doing all these weeks.”

“Don't you worry about Grandma catching you?”

“She's old, and getting senile,” Lenore said, enjoying the feel of his hands roaming over her body. “She can't last much longer. If she doesn't die soon, I may try to find her a nice rest home.”

He laughed, pulled her to him, and kissed her. “Don't you think the judge would put a fast stop to that?”

“I haven't figured out a way to get around him yet,” Lenore complained, “I'll have to think about it some more. Maybe he's the one who should meet with an accident.”

Shelby reached to pull off her lace drawers. “You know what I like about you, Lenore?”

“It's rare for a lady to be so good at sex?”

“It is rare, all right, you'd put a whore to shame. My brother-in-law once told me elegant ladies could be deceiving with their appetites. He had one wealthy beauty who couldn't get enough of him while her old man was out of town on business.”

“I don't want to hear about your relatives,” she gasped as she pulled him to her. “You know what I want.”

“You little slut,” he whispered as his hand went up under her lace drawers, stroking ... stroking ... stroking the most secret, sensitive part of her. “That's all you are under that fine pretense.”

“And that's what you like about me.”

They made passionate love with no more emotion than two animals rutting, but Lenore liked it that way. Poor Rand, he'd been so naive and gallant. She regretted now she'd never got to enjoy him, but he had such old-fashioned ideas. He would have been shocked if he had known the real Lenore Carstairs. She gave herself up to the enjoyment of Shelby's maleness. She liked to be treated like a whore, not a lady. That was where Rand had made his mistake.

 

 

They were just finishing straightening their clothes when she heard a rider galloping up the lane, shouting.

“What's that all about?” Lenore frowned.

“You don't suppose–?”

“For pity's sake, don't be foolish. No one knows you're here. Slip out the side door. If it's important, you'll soon know.”

He did as he was bid. Lenore hastily straightened her clothes and crossed the conservatory in her tight shoes, her full skirts rustling as she minced through the plants toward the entry hall. She heard the piano stop playing abruptly and her grandmother came out of the music room. “Lenore, what is all that shouting about?”

“For pity's sake, I don't know, but I aim to find out.”

Elizabeth Carstairs came with her. As they reached the entry, Nero, the big, black butler, rushed to open the door.

The little black boy with the crooked teeth, the Erikson's servant, swung down off the horse and ran inside.

Nero's tattooed face frowned, and he scolded him. “Where's your manners, boy!”

The child ignored him and ran to the two women, breathless with urgency and excitement. “He be found! He comin' home!”

“My family!” Elizabeth clutched her throat, looking pale. “I just knew someday they'd return! Where? When?”

“No, ma'am.”

“You little nigger!” Lenore snapped, “stop shouting before I take a strap to you! What are you talking about?”

“It's Marse Rand, ma‘am,” he said, obviously afraid of her ill-tempered fury. “Word just come to de house. He been found alive and he comin' home!”

Elizabeth sat at her piano. She enjoyed playing, although arthritis had affected her hands. The piano brought back memories of happier times with her beloved husband and later, her son Jim and his family.

Slowly she played Jim's favorite:

How prophetic, Elizabeth thought sadly as she played, remembering everything that had happened in the past. After a few minutes, her arthritis began to bother her again and she stopped playing. She rubbed her hands together and looked around the music room. Seventy-five wasn't so old. She had been a widow almost fifty years. Fifty years without her love.

She stood up with a rustle of hoops and Clair-de-Lune-colored silk. Clair de Lune. Moonlight. The pale bluish green lavender color complemented her gray eyes and white hair. Late afternoon sun shone in through the music room windows, illuminating the painting on the far wall. Elizabeth walked across the room to it. The fox hound puppy raised its head from the corner, thumped its tail, and went back to sleep.

It was a beautiful painting, she thought. Her son, Jim, so serious and handsome standing behind the chair, his left hand holding his father's watch with the gold acorn fob that represented Carstairs Oaks. Elizabeth frowned as she studied his elegant, beautiful wife in her expensive green velvet dress seated in the chair. Jim had met and married the beauty in a whirlwind love affair on a trip to Memphis. When Elizabeth had questioned the wisdom of such a hurried union, Jim told her why they had wed posthaste. A baby. Yes, the ebony-haired beauty would make any man forget about waiting until after the vows to consummate the union.

The children. Elizabeth smiled as she reached out with a trembling hand to touch the toddler's face. Laurel. She sat on her mother's lap reaching for Jim's watch with her left hand. Elizabeth had tried to change the toddler's hand preference, but to no avail. Even when the child sat on Elizabeth's lap at the piano and picked out the notes, she played with her left hand. The other little girl, Lenore, leaned against the chair, pretty and remote as her mother. Elizabeth's gaze swept over the painting. One little girl had her father's eyes, the other her mother's. Frowning, Elizabeth turned away from the painting. If she had only known then ...

Nero, the butler, came to the door, interrupting her thought. The tribal tattoos on his face always scared first-time visitors. “Yes, Nero?”

“Excuse me, Miz Elizabeth, the judge is here.”

“Show him in.” She stared after Nero's departing back. He had gray in his hair now, too. Strange, it seemed like only yesterday that she as a young widow, had bought him from a slave trader who was whipping the little boy to death.

She felt a pain in her chest, winced, then managed to straighten up and forced her face to smile as Pierce entered the room.

“My dear Elizabeth.” He took her hands, kissed them. “Great Caesar's ghost! Are you all right? You don't look well at all.”

“Oh, Pierce.” She laughed and turned toward the sideboard, pouring him a brandy and herself a sherry. “You worry over me like a mother hen.”

“I'd rather worry over you as your husband.” He took the brandy and sat down in a big leather chair near the fireplace.

“Thank you for your offer, it makes a lady feel good to know she has a beau.” She smiled and sat down on the leather sofa across from him.

“For fifty years now,” he reminded her gently and stroked his gray mustache.

“For some women, there is only one man in her lifetime.”

“How many times have we had this same conversation?” he smiled a bit sadly and sipped his brandy.

She smiled. He would always be there for her, she knew that. He and Nero had devoted their lives to Elizabeth Carstairs' welfare.

“Elizabeth, you don't look well. You should see a doctor.”

“I did and he said I would live to be a hundred,” she lied. “Stop being such a fussbudget.” She would not worry him about what the doctor in Louisville had told her and she'd sworn the doctor to secrecy. All that had kept her going for the past several years was the hope that they still might be alive somewhere in the West, that she might yet hear from them.

“You've heard of course, that young Rand has been found and is on his way home?”

“Yes. He's to arrive this evening, I hear. Surely you didn't drive out here to tell me that?”

He blushed and fidgeted with his brandy. “Of course not, although I never pass up a chance to come by when I'm near. How has Lenore reacted?”

“Appears to be deliriously happy, but I don't know how it will affect her scandalous carrying on with her best friend's fiancee.”

“That hasn't stopped then?”

She frowned, looked toward the painting. “Lenore is just like her mother. I have half a mind to warn young Rand.”

“But of course you won't. You would do anything to protect the Carstairs name.”

A look passed between them and she remembered. Sixteen long, long years. “You know I would. No scandal shall ever smear the Carstairs reputation. I will protect it at all costs.”

“As would I,” he reminded her gently.

“I know, Pierce. That night, if you and Nero hadn't helped–”

“You owe me no gratitude.” He made a dismissing gesture. “Your husband was an old school friend of mine. I couldn't bear to see the name sullied, although,” he sighed, “young Lenore's behavior may create a scandal yet.”

“So far, only you and I and Nero know,” she acknowledged, a little weary of worrying about it. “Maybe she can't help it, Pierce.” She glanced toward the painting. “It's in her blood. I feel I must do something. With young Rand returning, if she keeps on, her behavior will become common gossip. I'm thinking about sending her off to that fancy girls' school, Miss Priddy's, in Boston.”

“She's a little old for that, isn't she? And what would people think with her fiancee finally coming home to marry her?”

Her sherry trembled in her frail hand. “I reckon twenty-one is a bit old to be sending her off to school, but frankly, I don't know what to do with her. I will not stand by and have her destroy the Carstairs name.”

“Have you had a talk with her?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I suppose that's the next step, but I hate to acknowledge that I know about her trampy goings on. I once tried to talk to her mother about the same thing to no avail. I think my daughter-in-law was shocked that I knew.”

“Too bad she didn't heed your warning; the tragedy might have been averted.”

She looked at the painting. “It was bound to happen sooner or later.”

He reached for his pipe. “May I?”

“You know you never have to ask, Pierce, I like the smell of a pipe.”

He filled his pipe awkwardly. His right arm had taken a mini ball at the First Battle of Bull Run. Elizabeth smiled with a touch of sheer mischief. Rose Randolph Erikson had never quite forgiven Pierce for being on the Union side of the fight.

She looked at the painting, although she knew every inch of it by heart. “I would do what I did all over again, Pierce. I'm sorry I involved you. It could have cost you everything. Perhaps it bothers your conscience, having the sterling character you do.”

He looked troubled. “It's been a long time since we spoke of what happened, Elizabeth. I'd rather forget it. What we did was not legal, but it was moral. As long as justice was served, I suppose that's all that counts.”

“You didn't do it for justice, you did it for me as did Nero.”

“Yes, for you,” he admitted and the old warmth shone in his brown eyes. “I'm not sorry. And not just because your husband was my best friend. I loved you from the first moment I saw you when he brought you here as a young bride. To protect you and look after you and your son after he was killed has been my personal honor and privilege.”

She blinked back tears, thinking how sad he would be when she was gone. He was younger than she and in good health. “Someday, Pierce, I hope you will go into politics. This country needs men like you to guide it.”

He laughed and shrugged. “Great Caesar's ghost. Don't think I haven't considered it, but going to Washington would take me too far from you, my dear.”

“Should you outlive me, I hope you will reconsider.” She sipped her sherry, wondering again why he had come.

He grunted and shrugged as if he didn't even want to think of a world without her in it. “Elizabeth–” He hesitated as if he had something to discuss that he didn't want to speak of. While he hesitated, she wondered suddenly if the doctor had broken his oath. Pierce Hamilton had a vast network of friends in high places.

“Elizabeth,” he said again and cleared his throat, “I've heard some disturbing news that I need to discuss with you.”

He knew about her heart. Oh, Lord, he knew. “Yes?”

“Something Lenore is up to.”

She relaxed and tried not to look too relieved. “Oh, what has the scheming little chit done this time? I've tried to love her, I really have, Pierce, but she's so devious and immoral. Besides, knowing what I know–”

“Perhaps she can't help it. She's the spitting image of her mother.”

Elizabeth looked toward the painting. “I suppose she's inherited some of it from her. I often wonder what she inherited from her father?”

“That's not important at the moment,” he seemed to shrug her off as if to return to the topic he came to discuss. “I have friends in other states and one of them, knowing I'm your lawyer, has contacted me. Lenore has been making inquiries into a place called Rose Haven.”

“Rose Haven? Sounds like a cemetery.”

“Elizabeth”–his eyes bored into her–“it's a private asylum for the insane.”

The idea baffled her. “Lenore thinks she's losing her mind? Oh, the poor girl, I–”

“It's for her grandmother.” Now he hurried on as if to tell it all before Elizabeth interrupted him. “It seems her elderly grandmother is getting senile and Lenore hopes to put her away at this expensive, but isolated asylum.”

Elizabeth stared back at him, her mouth open. Her frail hand holding the sherry suddenly trembled so much, she reached out and put it on the lamp table to keep from dropping it. She was too astounded to speak.

“It's true, my dear. I've checked it all out.”

She finally found her voice. “The conniving little–! Surely she didn't think she could legally do this with you as my lawyer?”

“Apparently she was willing to try. Rose Haven is very secluded and pleasant. Once a patient is in there, there's no contact with the outside world unless the person with power of attorney allows it.”

Elizabeth threw back her head and laughed. “Lenore has more gall than I gave her credit for! Why would she bother? I'm an old lady and she surely thinks she'll get everything when I die. If she only knew–”

“Don't laugh, Elizabeth, this is serious business! Perhaps she's impatient to get her hands on your money. I could shock her by telling her now about the terms of your will. It should have been changed before now–”

“No.” She shook her head. “The hope that they're still alive somewhere is what keeps me going, Pierce. I keep hoping they haven't contacted me because they're afraid of being traced by the law.” She paused, looking toward the painting, remembering that dreadful night.

“Great Caesar's ghost! You know how many inquiries I've made? How many wild goose chases I've checked out?” He stroked his gray mustache again. “No trace. It would be so much easier on you, my dear, if you faced the fact that after almost sixteen years, they surely must be dead–”

“I don't want to hear that!” she snapped, with a spirit that surprised even herself. “I reckon I should make some changes in my will, though. I wouldn't want there to be speculation and idle gossip after I'm gone.”

He sighed heavily. “I've been telling you that all along. Are you going to let Lenore know you're on to her about Rose Haven and her affair?”

“Not yet,” she mused. “Perhaps she'll end this scandalous thing with Shelby Merson now that Rand Erikson is coming home.”

Pierce frowned and puffed his pipe. “Maybe like her mother, she likes living on the edge, playing with danger.” He set his glass down and seemed to think it over. “I've got some Baltimore contacts. Think I'll look into the Merson family. Didn't I hear Shelby's supposed to be from old Baltimore money?”

“That's my understanding. He doesn't look like a gentleman, does he?”

“Not to me. I reckon Lenore finds him handsome, but there is something phony about him.”

She stared into the fireplace. “In the meantime, with young Rand returning, can I keep silent and allow him to marry the faithless twit?”

“To expose her would bring dishonor and shame on the Carstairs' name. Remember what we have gone through to protect it.”

She nodded, sighed. “You're right, of course. Do you suppose young Rand's still as spoiled and arrogant as before? In that case, they deserve each other.”

“War changes people,” he mused, playing with the stem of his pipe, “and he's been gone a long time. Even more alarming, they say he's been a captive of the Indians for months.”

“Then he's bound to have changed for the better ... or the worse. I always felt he was such a young rotter that he deserved Lenore. Now I'm having second thoughts. She's just too much like her mother.”