by Jenna Kernan
Did she know him?
Her horse danced nervously, relaying his mistress’s distress. She gave a sharp tap with her crop and the ghost horse leaped forward. Lena’s eyes flashed wild and rounded as she rode at him.
Mist beaded upon her hair, pulled into a severe bun that lacked the frivolity of the past. The black hat perched upon her head reminded him of a crow.
She charged forward. He readied himself for the collision. Too late, she reined in, sending her horse’s front legs bracing against the ground and she skidded to a halt. Her mare bumped his dapple-gray.
Her eyes flashed wild.
“Lena, it’s me.”
But Lena did not move, except to draw great ragged breaths as if she meant to scream. Did she know him? In a heart-stopping instant, he feared her mind was gone, that despite all, he had lost her.
“Lena, do you know me?” He reached for her and she drew back.
She gripped the reins, swaying. “Troy?”
Her face grayed. He dropped from his horse and ran the last two steps, catching her as she fell. He carried her away from the mare. She lay immobile, her color still ghastly pale.
He stroked a stray strand of hair from her forehead, accustoming himself to her changed appearance. It was not so much. He touched the scar across her cheek, remembering Jeb Macey telling of her father’s blow with the butt of his saber. She was thinner now. Too thin. She’d suffered, much as he had. Only hers had been worse for she had no hope. She had not known he lived.
She did not revive even when he stroked her face. Fear gripped him as he reached beneath his coat and withdrew his skinning knife, ready to slice through the stark row of gray buttons and the damned constricting corset strings he knew lay beneath.
Just then, her eyelids fluttered and then he gazed down into the unchanged beauty of her blue eyes.
She caught his wrist, staying his hand.
“You promised.”
The corner of his mouth twitched as he attempted to give a reassuring smile.
“That damned thing is cutting off your air.”
A tear came to her eye. “I knew I’d see you again someday. I knew. Am I dead then?”
“Dead? You just fainted.”
“You…you are really here.”
“What?” He paused allowing her to recover. Her eyes rolled white and his insides turned to ice. Could she be mad?
He shook his head. “We’re alive, Lena. They didn’t shoot me. My friends Black Feather and Jeb Macey, they pretended. The charge was only black powder.” He thumped his chest. “You see? No bullet. Just to fool your father.”
“What about the saber cut?”
He grimaced. The pain of his healing muscles reminded him daily of the encounter. “That’s why I didn’t come at once. He broke my ribs and I was weak from bleeding.”
She lifted a hand and touched his cheek. Next came a cry of joy as she lunged into his arms.
“Troy!”
“Oh, Lena. How I’ve missed you.”
She wept as he rocked her. He stroked her hair and murmured words of love and promise until her cries ceased. Her fingers gripped him as if she feared someone might separate them again.
Something nudged him. He looked up and Scheherazade blew a great breath of hot air upon him.
Lena lifted her head and laughed.
“She’s worried about her mistress,” said Troy.
“She had reason to worry.” She tried to stand and he helped her to her feet. She wobbled and he studied her face, reaching again for his skinning knife. Her hand stilled his.
“It is not the corset. I have not been able to breathe since we parted—until now.”
As if to prove her words, she lowered her head to rest her cheek upon his chest and drew a ragged breath.
His heartbeat pounded as he dipped to taste her lips once more.
She relished his touch, needing him as much as the air she breathed. In his arms she came alive once more. He drew back and she blinked up at the face she thought forever lost. Yet here he stood. Eleanor glanced about; the mist shrouded them from view. Here her world was only the horses, the black bark of the cherry tree and Troy.
Too perfect.
In a moment she’d awaken to the desolate landscape of her chamber, her tomb. Her grip tightened, determined not to let him go again.
His arms enfolded her, his hot breath fanned her cheek and the familiar taste of his mouth set every nerve a jangle. He pressed her more closely to his wide chest and the truth of his reality shone like the first rays of sunshine through the mist.
“You’ve come for me,” she whispered and felt him nod his head. She pressed her back to the trunk of the ancient tree.
He pursued her as relentlessly as any of his quarry. She recognized the predatory glint shining determinedly in his eye. “I’ve missed you.”
Tears streaked her cheeks. “I saw them shoot you.”
He nodded, remembering. “A bad day that.”
“My father ordered you killed.” The anger sizzled within her. “He broke our bargain, burned my paintings.”
His brow wrinkled. “Jeb told me.”
She clenched her jaw, as her nostrils flared with angry breath. “They are trying to force me to wed.”
His serious stare seemed to look into her soul. “That’s why I’ve come.” His sad smile broke her heart. He gazed up at the branches above as if drawing strength. “I know you’ve got obligations, Lena. I understand them now. I didn’t come to bust up your life. I just wanted to tell you I love you. I should have told you sooner, only I didn’t see no way for us.”
She sobbed as she fell against his chest. His arms encircled her in a tender embrace.
“A while back you said that a lady sometimes takes a lover.” He cleared his throat. “I’m offering myself to you, Lena. I know you love me and I can’t be your husband. So I’ll take what I can get.”
Lena gasped. “You would do this?”
“If it’s the only way to have you.”
She pushed past the obstruction in her throat that threatened her words. “You would stay here, give up scouting and trapping, give up your freedom for me?”
His gaze never faltered. “I would.”
And she knew it was so. He loved her enough to leave his world to share some part of hers. Her heart thumped against her ribs. Possibilities rose before her.
But she couldn’t do it. He was proud and wild. Once she had thought to cage him, to turn him into a lapdog. Nothing could be so cruel.
“No.”
His jaw went rigid. “You won’t have me then?”
She stroked his cheek. “Not like this. We deserve better.”
Now he stepped back, eyes intent. “What about your duty, your promise?”
“My father released me from our bargain when he broke his word and burned my work. And as for duty, mine lies with you and with myself. We deserve what happiness we can find.”
“You once said you loved me, Lena. If you’ll come away with me, I’d like to ask for your hand in marriage. I brought you this here ring.” He took her hand and pressed a black velvet box into her palm.
She hesitated almost afraid to believe this moment was real. Here he stood, back from the grave, alive and asking for her hand. He sunk to his knees before her.
“Open it.”
She lifted the lid. Nestled in white satin lay a pale blue faceted stone set in white gold.
“I had it made in New York, by a feller by the name of Charles Tiffany. He was real interested in that stone.” He motioned with his index finger.
“Lovely.”
“Recognize it?” he asked.
She stared at the gem again as recollection dawned.
“The blue pebble.”
“The blue sapphire.”
Memories of the day she’d first seen buffalo stirred in her mind. She had been blue that evening and he he had given her a stone.
“A sapphire?” She stared down at the facets in wonder.
He rose, sliding his hands about her waist. He rested his forehead upon hers. Tears streaked her face.
She choked on the words. “Why do you want to marry me?”
“All my life I’ve been looking for a place where I belonged. You were right all along, Lena. It ain’t a place I was searching for. It was you.”
Troy must have read the worry on her face, for he scowled.
“What?” he asked.
“He will disinherit me. I’ll not receive a nickel.”
He snorted. “Is that all? Let him keep it, the old stodger. I’ll care for you, Lena. You don’t need his money.”
Her smile returned. He didn’t want the money. Here stood the only man in her acquaintance who cared nothing for her fortune, but only for herself.
Another thought struck. “What if he follows us?”
“Let him try.”
He was the best scout in the West. If anyone could disappear it was Troy Price. She nodded as his confidence filled her.
“Oh, Troy, how I love you.”
“Then say you’ll marry me.”
There was nothing else she wanted in the world. The ice about her heart melted in the heat of his embrace.
“Yes, Mr. Price, I will be honored to be your wife.”
He gave a howl like a wolf as he lifted her high into the air and spun her in dizzying circles. Her laughter mixed with his wild joyful call.
At last he set her upon her feet.
They smiled at each other.
Then he seemed to remember something. “I showed your paintings to your Mr. Audubon.”
“What? But how could you? My father burned them.”
“Not the ones you painted at Fort Union.”
She gasped.
“I showed them to him and he says you got real talent. ’Course I don’t need his say-so to know that. He offered you a job painting backgrounds for his next book, the one about animals.”
She stared up in wonder; her breathing coming in short bursts.
He wagged a finger at her. “Don’t you faint. I ain’t finished. Audubon wants me to guide his party.”
“Truly?”
“Sure does. And while I was waiting for that stone, I also showed your paintings to a magazine publisher, a feller called Benjamin Grove from Harper’s Review. He’d like you to illustrate some articles on Indians for his magazine. So you got two jobs. You’ve come a long way for a lady who couldn’t tell beaver from weasel a few months ago.”
“And you have journeyed far from your Georgia hills as well.”
His smile showed some flicker of pride. “Guess we’ve both got some miles beneath our moccasins. From now on we travel together.”
She gazed up at him and to the clear blue sky beyond. The fog had lifted. The dreamy lassitude extinguished in a heartbeat. Her breathing caught. “They must not find you here.”
He stood beside her now. “Who?”
She gazed at the house no longer shrouded in mist. Anyone looking out the breakfast room window…good God, it was breakfast time now.
“You have to go.”
“Not without you.”
She glanced at the house, which now threatened her newly found joy. How many servants looked from those panes of glass? “I’ll come to you as soon as I can.”
Lena tried to draw away but he captured her wrist.
“When?”
“This evening, after everyone has gone to bed.”
“Where?”
“Outside the gates. I’ll meet you at the Long Wharf.”
“You’ll come?”
“Yes, yes, only let me go or it will all be ruined.”
He smiled and kissed her brow. “I’ve so much to tell you.”
“Not now. If they find us, I’ll never get away.”
Lena swung up onto her horse unassisted and after casting one glance back, galloped away. Her heart pounded with the striking hooves.
He lived.
She returned her horse to the stables and entered the house, pausing as her mother called her from the breakfast room. Eleanor’s mouth went dry as ash as she crossed the hall and stood in the immense arched doorway of the gilded dining room.
Her mother sat before a plate of strawberries and clotted cream, resting beside a cup of tea. Eleanor cast a glance to the window and her heart sank to see the serving table laden with food. Behind the table, the windows framed the cherry tree in perfect symmetry.
Chapter 25
Her mother waved to the empty seat beside her. “Come join me.”
Eleanor hesitated as a creeping uncertainty inched up her spine.
“I am not hungry.”
Her mother’s voice changed tenor, no longer lilting, it now carried authority. “Sit down, Nora.”
Eleanor crossed the room like a condemned prisoner. Had her mother seen? Would she sound the alarm? Eleanor did not know. Her mother protected her and supported her, but she also wanted her wed.
“Who is that man?”
Eleanor’s face heated and she stared fixedly at the spotless white linen cloth before her.
“What man?” Her voice cracked. She was a miserable liar. Her ears tingled and she refused to glance up, knowing her eyes would betray her.
“Come, come, my girl. I saw you sitting beneath the cherry tree with a servant. Though I am gratified you are taking a natural interest once more, I must say I am disappointed in your choice. At the very least I will see him dismissed.”
Her attention changed from the table to her mother’s knowing gaze.
“It’s him,” she whispered.
Her mother leaned forward and also spoke in a whisper. “Whom?”
“My scout. He survived and has come for me.”
Her mother straightened, as shock and concern flashed across her usually reserved face. Finally, her eyes narrowed as if to a threat. “What are you planning to do, run away with him?”
She did not deny it.
Her mother gasped and carefully set her napkin aside. “You will not marry a baron, but will elope with a savage. Have you lost your wits?”
“Mother, I love him.”
Charlotte fanned the air in a dismissive gesture. Then leaned toward her daughter, casting a look of deadly seriousness.
“I am all for love. But not at the cost of your reputation. This is pure selfishness and will lead us all to no good.”
“Am I not entitled to some measure of happiness?”
“Not at the expense of your family.”
“Do not force me to choose, Mother, as you might not like my decision.”
Her mother drew an indignant breath.
“Think what you are about, my girl. Your father will most assuredly pursue you. Do you wish the man dead?”
Lena’s heart pounded in her throat as certainty froze her heart. Her father would follow, bringing his armies of men and this time he would kill Troy. He had resources beyond even her imagining. Troy believed they could evade him. Could they?
Doubt squeezed her belly.
She set her elbows upon the table, clasped her hands as if in prayer and lowered her head. Her shoulders shuddered with her sobs. Her mother leaned across the space between them.
“Now, there. No tears. I am not going to tell your father. I want what is best for you, after all. And what is best is to marry a titled gentleman and then seek your pleasures elsewhere. There is no reason that you should not continue your affair with this man until you tire of him. But after you fulfill your duties. If he is wise, he will wait.”
Lena felt her dreams burning to ashes. Her insides ached. “But I want him for my husband.”
Her mother dabbed Eleanor’s eyes with a napkin. “Do not be ridiculous. You’d never be allowed in society again. And think of the shame your selfishness will heap upon our heads. We shall be forced to disown you. Do you understand?
You will get nothing. Surely, he will understand what you stand to lose.”
“He doesn’t care about the money.”
“Then I shall expect you to do the sensible thing.”
“I don’t care for it, either.”
“One rarely does when they have an abundance.”
“You know nothing of abundance, mother. Only money.”
“They are one and the same, my darling.”
Eleanor pitied her mother. Her world was so small and rigid. She was so convinced that this way was best, she was willing to force her unwilling daughter down the same path even as she sat as a living example that wealth could not buy happiness. Eleanor needed no further evidence. She would follow her heart.
“I will marry Troy.”
“That is out of the question.”
Eleanor drew away from her mother’s embrace. “I know you want what is best for me.”
“No more talk now. Have some tea.”
The head butler appeared from the servant’s door and waited for her mother to note his presence.
“Yes, Matthew?”
“I have notified the patrolmen, Madame. They are on their way.”
“Thank you, Matthew. That is all.”
Eleanor stared at her mother. “Patrolmen?”
“It’s for the best.”
Eleanor stared in astonishment. Her parents moved her through life as if she was a chess piece and she was only now becoming aware of their manipulations. She leveled her gaze on her mother, seeing a woman who valued power and propriety more than her daughter’s happiness.
“You should thank me. If I catch him, he goes to prison. If your father catches him, he goes to his grave.”
Lena leapt up as the desperate truth of her situation settled. If she ran, they would not clear the door before her mother sounded the alarm. They’d never escape. She stared in utter astonishment.
“Did you ever care what was best for me or was it always for your benefit?”
“There is no difference, darling. Come sit. You needn’t witness the arrest.”
“How I hate this world you foist upon me. Do not speak to me again of what is best for me.” She straightened as the painful truth settled over her like a shroud. “I will send Troy away, to save him. But I will never marry.”