As the expedition descended the mountain, they encountered less and less snow, and the trail became easier. Groves of green oak bushes, redwood, white cedar, and balsam trees covered the mountainside. By the end of the week, over a month since they’d entered the Sierra Nevadas, they camped at the base of the mountain. Game was plentiful here, and they ate their fill of deer, elk, bear, and antelope. An Indian village was seen from afar, but its residents fled at the sight of them.
The exhausted travelers had a rest day at last, and Theodora spent the afternoon straightening her packs. She unearthed the diary she’d begun at Fort Leavenworth and reread her early entries in which she criticized Blade for his arrogance and overbearing sense of authority. She remembered with poignant nostalgia the time she’d sheltered under his cape, and the morning he’d found her under her petticoat tent. It had been the last day of Tom’s life. There in the diary, too, were the scathing passages in which she’d denounced the captain for the inhuman way he’d insisted that she speak and eat and work. She knew now that it had been a calculated campaign to force her to return to the world of the living.
She rose from her bedroll with a deep sigh and walked to the doorway of her shelter. In front of her stretched a valley of incredible beauty. Its meadow was covered with snow, but the soil beneath it was rich and bountiful. There were great granite monoliths, one of which Blade estimated was three thousand feet high. One cataract fell fifteen hundred feet from its massive cliffs, whipping into a feathery mist in the cold air before it fell straight down its sheer walls. All was snow-clad, silent splendor, a white wilderness of untouched beauty.
How Tom would have marveled at it all, she mused. The carnival atmosphere of the rendezvous on Horse Creek. The near-silent journey through the desert. The horrible forcing of the Sierra Nevada. She gazed up into the wintry sky. Oh, Tom, she called in silent prayer. Are you watching us now and smiling that wide, carefree grin of yours? Do you know that I’ve tried to keep our dream alive? Your maps will be published, just as we planned. And now I must go on, to build a life of my own with the man I love.
Theodora dropped her gaze to her husband’s form next to War Shield, where he was currying the great stallion’s coat. Blade was as strong, as unconquerable, as unchanging as the land. But she no longer feared the land, and she no longer feared the life he represented. She wasn’t the narrow-minded scholar he’d met that first day at Fort Leavenworth. With his help she’d survived. No, she wasn’t afraid of the wilderness and all its challenges.
She gloried in it.
The thought of returning to Cambridge and a lifetime spent within the confines of a stuffy classroom was as absurd as her foolish idea that Martin Van Vliet was more suited for her as a husband than the man who had not only saved her life but also taught her how to live it to the fullest. She smiled tenderly. When she reached civilization, she would write Martin a letter, telling him of her marriage. She hoped he’d understand. For she’d never give Blade up.
She looked at the tall, dark-haired man who belonged to her now. If she searched the earth’s seven continents, from the highest peaks of the Himalayas to the jungles of the Amazon, she would never find another human being so perfectly made for her. At last she understood the meaning of the name he’d given her in the Cheyenne village: Meatozhessomaheo. He was truly her gift from God.
She moved her gaze once again to the blue sky that encircled the snowy valley like an azure dome. The peace of the afternoon filled her soul, and suddenly she felt Tom’s presence beside her. She could hear his carefree voice. Be happy, Sis. Live your life to the fullest, and I will live through you and your children.
That night, as she lay sated in her husband’s arms beneath the thick fur robes, Theodora languorously wove her fingertips through the mat of hair on his chest. The glow of their lovemaking still shimmered within her, and her voice was husky with the embers of passion. “I hope you brought some gold with you, nahyam,” she teased, “for you promised to take me shopping once we reached the Pacific coast.”
“I did?” Blade pulled her closer and gently kissed her temple. He chuckled softly as he slid his hand across her stomach and down one thigh. “I don’t recall saying anything of the kind.”
“Oh, but you did!” she assured him. “Back at Fort Leavenworth you said you’d purchase some new gowns for me when we reached California. And there’s one dress in particular that I’m planning to buy.”
With the self-satisfaction of a new bridegroom, Blade smiled indulgently, his strong fingers roving over her bare skin. “And what’s that, princess? Something in velvet, I hope. Shockingly low and indecently seductive.”
“No, the dress I want will be quite proper, actually. It’ll be made of the finest Spanish lace, with rows and rows of deep ruffles over a full, hooped skirt. The bodice will be lace over satin, with puffed short sleeves and a scooped neckline trimmed with a wide satin ribbon.” She sighed dreamily, then continued with added emphasis. “White lace over white satin.”
Blade’s fingers stilled. He propped himself up on one elbow and gazed down at her in surprise. “Thar sounds suspiciously like a wedding dress to me.”
Laughing, Theodora gently traced his raven brows. “Well, you did say we’d have a white man’s ceremony as soon as you found a clergyman. Naturally, if I’m going to get married, I want a gown suitable for the occasion.” Her eyelashes fluttered shyly. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.”
His answer was the deepest, longest, most passionate kiss Theodora had ever experienced. At last, he pulled back, leaving her breathless, his jet-black eyes glittering with joy and triumph. “What made you change your mind?” he asked, his voice thick with emotion.
“Remember when you told me that I’d walked in your soul? That I belonged to you, just as you belonged to me?” She slid her hands up his biceps and across his broad shoulders, feeling the muscles ripple in response to her light touch, and met his unwavering gaze. “I didn’t understand what you meant at the time, Blade. I do now. All my life I’ve been searching for something. I used to think that fulfillment would come when I succeeded as a naturalist, but that didn’t happen. Then suddenly the answer came in a flash of understanding. All this time I’ve been looking for my own counterpart, the other half of my female self. It’s as though our two spirits have blended into one whole.” She looked up at him with a rueful half smile, afraid he wouldn’t understand, afraid he’d laugh at her fanciful imagery.
“Theodora, in your roundabout way are you trying to tell me that you love me?”
She burst out laughing. “Yes! I love you, Blade Stalker Roberts. We belong together, for the rest of our lives. Do I sound crazy?”
“As a matter of fact, you sound as though you were raised Cheyenne. I never dreamed a vehoka would show such promise as a pupil.” He bent his head and traced a circle with his tongue around the rosy peak of her breast. “I’ll explain my people’s spiritual beliefs later,” he murmured. “Right now I propose to teach you about more earthly delights.”
Theodora arched against him and purred with enchanted pleasure at his sensuous touch. He entered her, and she reached up to frame his face with her hands, her thumbnails brushing the thick mustache, her fingertips buried in the full beard. As their bodies melded together, she felt their very selves commingle. “I love you, my husband,” she whispered, fearlessly meeting his possessive gaze. “And I shall never let you go.”
“How shall I ever describe in my journal all the wonders I’ve seen?” Theodora asked her husband. “So much has been larger than life.”
They stood facing the Pacific Ocean, watching the waves roll in on the shore. Blade held her against him, his arms around her waist. “And what have you written about me lately in that infamous diary you keep?” he goaded. “All our secret conversations in the middle of the night?”
Giggling, she laid her head on his shoulder and looked up at him. “I’m afraid that wouldn’t come under the heading of flora and fauna of the unexplored wilderness. I
want to have my work published under the auspices of the Massachusetts Linnean Society, not banned by it.”
Blade laughed and squeezed her against him. “Don’t worry about pleasing that committee of old stick-in-the-muds. You just think about keeping your husband happy.”
“And are you happy, nahyam?”
He slid his hands up to cup her breasts, and Theodora felt the longing his touch always brought. “I’ve never been so happy.”
A wave rolled near their feet and they both jumped back. “Let’s go barefoot,” he suggested. He released her and she sat down in the sand.
“I just put these shoes on,” she complained in mock protest, as she tossed her long braid over her shoulder. “I haven’t worn shoes or a dress in over a month. Now you want to undress me.”
He grinned lecherously as he slipped off one of her shoes and rolled her garter and stocking down her leg. “Don’t worry,” he said with an overt leer. “I’ll help you put them back on again.” When he’d finished removing her other shoe and stocking, he kicked off his own moccasins and pulled her to her feet. “Come on, let’s see how cold the Pacific is.”
Catching her full skirt and petticoat in her hand, Theodora ran beside him to the water’s edge. The feel of the cool, wet sand between her toes was wonderful. When the first wave came crashing up, she turned with a shout and raced back to safety. Blade stood his ground and the water splashed against his buckskin trousers.
“Come on. It’s not too cold,” he called to her as he stripped off his breeches, shirt, and breechclout and tossed them onto the shore. “Take off your dress and petticoat and come back in.”
Theodora pulled off her dress and approached hesitantly. Attired in her camisole and pantaloons, she reached out and grabbed Blade’s hand. The next wave caught her off guard, soaking her legs. She screamed and laughed. “Let me go! It’s freezing!”
Another wave crashed against them. This time she jumped up in a vain attempt to avoid it. Instead, she was knocked to her bottom and the water came up to her shoulders. Sputtering and shivering, she allowed Blade to pull her up.
Her teeth chattered. “I’ll be ready for it next time,” she promised in delight. The next wave came in high, rolling over itself. They were both immersed in the salty water. The exhilaration of the pounding surf was contagious, and when they looked at each other, soaking wet, they laughed out loud with the sheer joy of it.
As the wave receded, Blade pulled her to him. He kissed her passionately. A wave splashed against their legs and sprayed them with foam. “You’re right. It is too cold. Let’s get these wet clothes off of you,” he said. “We can hang them on the branches of those bushes over there and let them dry in the sun.”
“What about the others?” Theodora asked, jumping to avoid the next wave.
“No one will bother us. I left word with Haintzelman that we wanted some privacy for a change.”
“Whatever will they think?” she asked, shocked at his openness.
He chuckled. “They’ll think you’re young and I’m in love.”
Another wave rolled in, swamping them up to their shoulders. As it receded, Theodora looked over at the grove of trees near the edge of the sand. The shady bower seemed to beckon her. She gazed into his eyes, glowing with desire. “Well, I really should get out of these wet underclothes and let them dry before we go back to camp.”
They stopped to pick up their clothes, then tore across the warm sand together. In the shelter of the oaks, they turned into each other’s arms. Theodora cupped his bearded face in her hands. He bent his head and kissed her with lingering deliberation .
“My sweet little wife,” he whispered against her lips.
They stood facing each other, only inches apart. He spanned her waist with his hands. She ran her fingertips up his muscled arms and across his powerful shoulders. Leaning back, she looked into his heavy-lidded eyes, burning with passion. “Do you love me, nahyam?” she asked, her voice husky in her need for him.
“Hehe, nazheem. Nimehotaz.”
“Then show me. Show me how much you love me.”
He lifted her in his arms and laid her gently on the bed of soft leaves, where he slowly removed her wet undergarments. With infinite care, he aroused her, bringing her with him to an all-consuming crescendo. She was aware of nothing but his strong, skilled hands upon her. He played her body like a lover’s flute, and her responses were the haunting melody she’d heard coming from a clearing beside a Cheyenne village on the warm evening breeze.
Epilogue
September 15, 1837
The White House
Washington, D.C.
Tingling with excitement, Theodora Roberts glanced around the Diplomatic Reception Room, filled with over a hundred guests. The buzz of conversation hummed in the room like a massive hive of bees on a warm autumn evening.
Amid the press of congressmen, cabinet members, and journalists stood the members of the U.S. Army’s Exploring Expedition. Haintzelman, O’Fallon, Overbury, and Belknap, dressed in their impeccable cavalry uniforms, visited with the elite of Washington society.
Not to be outdone by the soldiers, Chardonnais and Guion, their dark beards meticulously trimmed and combed, were attired in black tailcoats with silk lapels and trousers decorated with braided side seams. Several buxom matrons who wanted to show off their schoolgirl French had cornered the two voyageurs on a spindly-legged settee and chattered away, barely pausing for breath. Though they were held as virtual hostages, the two Canadians grinned irrepressibly, flattered to be the objects of any female attention.
Theodora’s father and Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Watts Kearny stood beside her. Across from them was her husband engaged in polite conversation with Grandmother Hannah, dressed in her somber Quaker garb, and a beautifully gowned Mary Kearny.
Blade was resplendent in full dress uniform, the gold braid, epaulets, and brass buttons a bright slash of color against the deep blue of his tunic. A dress sword hung from his side, belted over the orange, tasseled sash. His straight black hair was now trimmed to above his collar. His beard was gone, but the thick mustache remained. And the gold earring still winked impudently in the candlelight.
As though feeling her eyes upon him, he looked over at Theodora and smiled tenderly. Above the stiff gold collar, his face was deeply bronzed from the sun, and his midnight eyes flashed like black jets in the light of the crystal chandelier. He was breathtakingly handsome. His bold gaze roamed in blatant appreciation over the rose velvet gown he’d chosen for her to wear that night, with its full puffed sleeves and yards of hooped skirt.
As they’d dressed together earlier that evening, he’d assured her that the scooped decolletage wasn’t scandalous, for after months of wearing her buckskins, she felt half-naked in the low-cut evening gown. With husbandly attention he had even helped arrange, in the blond curls piled high on her head, the diamond-encrusted combs he’d given her as a wedding gift. Since their arrival in Washington, Blade had showered her with presents. She dropped her eyes briefly to the ring on her finger, sparkling with diamonds and sapphires, only to lift her lids and meet his searing gaze once more.
“I understand your journal will be published sometime next year, Mrs. Roberts,” Colonel Kearny said to her, interrupting the couple’s frank perusal of each other. “Your family must be very proud of you.”
“Indeed, we are, Colonel,” Charles Gordon agreed. “My daughter has surpassed all our expectations, and I can assure you, they were high to begin with.”
“Oh, Papa.” Theodora laughed. “You’ll embarrass me with your boasting. Besides, it’s your hard work classifying and categorizing the botanical specimens I’ve brought back that will make the journal possible.”
Her father shook his gray head. “But you were the one who found them, Teddy. You just keep sending me your discoveries from the wilderness, and I’ll be happy to do the tedious, but safe work of cataloguing them.”
Theodora looked with love at the slight, scholarly man, att
ired in formal evening clothes, who beamed at her so proudly. He’d accepted her marriage to a French-Cheyenne topographical engineer with amazing aplomb. From the minute he’d met Blade he’d treated him as a beloved son, and she suspected that the terrible loss of her twin brother was somehow eased by this new, vibrantly masculine addition to the Gordon family.
Twiggs and Conyers, still attired in the soft, fringed buck skins of the mountain men, joined their group. His cocoa colored eyes glowing with enjoyment, Julius smiled at her. “One fine day, Miss Theo,” he told her fondly. “Old Twiggs mighty proud.”
“Tarnation, pun’kin, if ’n this ain’t the dog-gondest place I’ve ever seen,” Zeke added as he looked up at the ornate ceiling. “Never thought in all my born days I’d be hobnobbin’ with the president hisself.”
At a signal from the soldier on duty in the hall, the noise faded, and the guests took their places in the chairs that had been arranged in precise rows across the oval carpet. All eyes turned to the doorway through which President Martin Van Buren entered and walked to the podium at the front of the room.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he addressed the audience, “it is with pleasure that we welcome to the Executive Mansion on this delightful September evening the members of the United States Army’s Scientific Exploring Expedition. And a special privilege to have the opportunity to honor the expedition’s commanding officer, Major Blade Roberts.
“The astounding amount of information this campaign has brought back has truly opened the doors for settlement in the trans-Mississippi west. I believe that our dream that one day this great nation will spread from the rocky shores of the Atlantic to the golden beaches of the Pacific will be a reality, made possible in part by the bravery, the heroism of the soldiers of the First Regiment of Mounted Dragoons and their valiant commander.
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