“What else can I do with a lady’s horse?” shrugged Dane. “Would you want it on your very tender conscience that I sold her to someone who might not be as good to her as you’d be?” He chuckled, hands still on her waist. “Think of Chica, not your pride.”
“But the saddle—”
“The livery stable owner traded it to me for a pair of boots. He won’t want to trade back.”
She moved away from his hands. The feel of him was an indelible brand. Whatever happened, she was his—even if they never possessed each other; even if they never met again.
“You make it hard to say no.” Her voice was tremulous and she thought her face must be as naked.
His mouth curved down. “You say no with great facility, sweetheart. But since it’s you I love, you with all your stubborn resolves and absurdities, I suppose I can’t cavil with fate for surrounding my special rose with extremely spiky thorns.”
He bent his head and kissed her. She answered with total yielding, melting into him, trying to be part of him. Shaken, he put her from him. Obsessed by her own yearning, she still thrilled triumphantly at the trembling that ran through his tall, strong body.
“Little witch,” he murmured as Thos came out of the stable, “you flow against me like that when there’s nothing I can do about it but ache and dream of you! But you’re so young! If any other man can woo you from me, better he does it now.”
He shook hands with a surprised Thos, then adjured him to take care of his twin, and going to the cabin, he made an expeditious farewell to Leticia and Josiah. He refused dinner. The whole family waved him off. Deborah was half-glad, half-sorry that he couldn’t kiss her again.
Thank goodness, though they must be full of questions, the family didn’t ask them right then, but went about their evening work and let her watch the big gray horse and its rider vanish into the distance.
Her heart felt wrenched from her body. She had to wrestle with all her strength against the wish to saddle Chica and ride after him—beg him to stay, or, if that failed, go away with him. Her family would approve. They wouldn’t blame her; they’d even be relieved.
In a conflict like that of this border, which was only an exaggerated concentration of the hatred and mistrust growing between the North and the South, slave and free states, what did one person matter, one young woman?
Very little, probably. Except to herself. But that, really, was the essential thing, the core of her being. Good-bye, my love, she said silently. Good-bye, my darling. Be safe and well and happy.
He was out of sight now. Tears streamed from her eyes as she stared into that emptiness. It seemed an eternity till spring.
The family was clearly perplexed, and as supper neared an end, Deborah found it impossible to bear their tactful, worried glances. Might as well say it straight out to all of them at once rather than have to go through it with each of them separately.
“Dane asked me to marry him,” she said, trying to keep her tone steady. “He won’t stay in Kansas, so I told him no.”
Thos stared at her in shock. “Well, for heaven’s sake, ’Borah, why should he stay in Kansas?”
“He doesn’t have to, but I do.”
Father cleared his throat. “Daughter, your mother and I talked about this after your young man called on us yesterday. We agreed it would be best for you to be in a safer place. Don’t feel you must stay because of us.”
Why was Judith watching her so enigmatically? Unable to speak for a moment, Deborah shook her head. “Why won’t anyone believe I care about what happens here? It’s not just because you’re here. I belong, too! I can’t go off and forget it!”
“But—” Thos began.
Leticia put her hand over Deborah’s and pressed it. “That’ll do, Thos. So long as Deborah’s not staying because of the family, it’s her decision.”
“She looks mighty unhappy about it!” Thos snorted.
“Things more important than bein’ happy,” Judith said unexpectedly. Her tawny eyes regarded Deborah with approval instead of with their usual guarded skepticism.
“He’s coming back in the spring,” Mother said. “By then things may be better.”
Deborah nodded mutely. Rising, she began to clear away the table.
Judith, helping her, murmured consolingly, “He be back, Deborah. He be back.”
But what good would that do if nothing had changed?
Deborah supposed that Rolf would go with Dane. A few days after the parting, she was grooming Chica, a task she enjoyed both because she loved the little mare and because Chica was Dane’s gift. Chica’s ears pricked up and she whinnied as a rider came into view on the rutted trail to town.
A bay horse. And from his arrogant posture and massive shoulders, Deborah recognized him long before she could make out his features. Rolf. The wrong brother.
Alarm shot through her. Thos was in town delivering the paper. Rolf had been circumspect of late, but there hadn’t been much choice, they hadn’t been alone. Now, to all purposes they would be, since Judith must be warned to keep out of sight.
Going to the cabin in a casual manner, Deborah stepped inside and warned Judith. “Don’t come out even if you hear us quarreling,” she said. “There’s something about Rolf I don’t trust.”
Judith’s teeth showed. “Don’t fret your mind, Deborah! If it sound like I need to come out, I do it so he won’ know what hit him!”
She made for the lean-to while Deborah, reassured by Judith’s promise, went outside and pretended surprise as Rolf trotted up the lane. “I thought you’d gone to California,” she said as he sprang down and looped his reins around a post.
He smiled at her, green eyes watchful. “I was—invited. But Dane couldn’t lasso and drag me all the way.”
“You—you’re staying here till he comes back?”
“That distresses you?”
She shrugged, carefully working the tangles out of Chica’s mane. “I should think California and the way there would be much more interesting than Lawrence.”
“Ah, but you see,” he said and laughed, “with Dane gone, things become extremely interesting.”
He’d moved to stand across from her; now he ran his hands over the mare in a proprietary way that made Deborah go stiff.
Challenging his amused gaze across Chica’s withers, she said coldly, “You won’t find me interesting, Mr. Hunter. My feelings haven’t changed.”
“Mr. Hunter?” he mocked good-naturedly. “Come now, we know each other better than that!” She said nothing, concentrating on Chica. “My feelings haven’t changed, either,” Rolf said slowly. “And you do interest me; in fact, you’re the only woman who’s ever done so for more than a fortnight.”
“Even Dane’s almost-fiancée?” Deborah couldn’t resist asking.
Rolf lifted one shoulder. He was strikingly handsome today in a fringed doeskin vest over his full-sleeved, open-throated white shirt. He was holding his black slouch hat, and his golden hair shone bright in the sun. “So he told you about that? Mighty dull young lady. If he hadn’t chosen her, I’d never have looked at her. I spared him years of boredom.”
“Is that what you’re trying to do now?”
“Lord, no!” The pupils of his eyes contracted to tiny points, and in the harsh light, the usually dark jade irises glowed with almost a sulfurish cast. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted enough to marry.”
“That’s unfortunate. I don’t wish to marry you.”
His mouth hardened. She was glad Chica was between them. Then, again, he began to caress the mare, his hands sensitive and sure. The way he’d touch a woman? Deborah pushed the unwelcome thought away, startled and revolted at the awareness of him that shot through her, though she didn’t like him, didn’t trust him.
Was that what Dane’s lovemaking had done? Awakened her senses, brought her to ripening when he wasn’t there for the harvest? She must be winter, then, the sleeping, frozen earth, until he came back.
As if guessin
g the treachery of her quickened blood, Rolf laughed. “I’m not sure that what you want counts all that much in what you do. You wanted to marry Dane, I’ll be bound, but you didn’t.”
“If you know that much, you know why.”
“My noble brother sees it as his duty to take you away from here. I wouldn’t.” Rolf gestured expansively. “Have me, Deborah, and I’ll join Lane and scourge the pro-slavers or jog along with old Brown on slave-stealing—anything to help your cause.”
“Anything for a fight,” she said wonderingly. “You don’t care at all who wins Kansas—whether we come in as a slave state or free!”
“Not a particle,” he said cheerfully. “But if we were married, I’d serve your cause.” He slanted her a teasing look. “As keen an abolitionist as you are, that should persuade you to take me.”
She made a sound of revulsion. “It’s terrible that you’d be willing to kill over something you don’t believe!”
“Believing’s what makes it holy?” He chuckled derisively, but there was jealousy in his voice. “If Dane had made the same offer, you’d have thought him a hero!”
“He wouldn’t fight unless he believed. Besides, I don’t think Englishmen should get mixed up in our troubles.”
“Afraid we’d recolonize you?”
Deborah didn’t answer. She was appalled at Rolf’s light-hearted proposition. He might have been asking her to dance. Why hadn’t Dane taken him away? Was this more of his waiting to see if she resisted Rolf before venturing himself? Didn’t he realize how jealous his younger brother was? She believed that his obsession with her sprang mostly from her being the woman Dane wanted. As if realizing that he was antagonizing her, Rolf shrugged and stopped stroking the mare.
“Aren’t you going to ask me in?”
“No. Thos is in town, as I suspect you perfectly well know!”
“I’m thirsty.”
“Would you like buttermilk, water, or coffee? I’ll bring it to you.” He colored to the roots of his waving hair.
“I want to come in your house and sit down, damn it! It’s not as if I hadn’t often been a guest.”
“When Thos or my parents were here. If you want to wait outside till they come home, you’re very welcome to.”
He stared at her so angrily that she decided to try vaulting onto Chica and making a bareback dash if he tried to touch her. He crossed his arms resolutely and she thought he’d schooled himself to be patient.
“All right. I’ll call when your family’s home, sweet Deborah.” Stepping around Chica’s head, he took Deborah’s free hand and brought it to his lips. “Give me some credit for doing this instead of what I want to,” he said huskily. He almost flung her hand from him, then turned abruptly to his horse.
Mounted, he watched her broodingly. “You’ll be mine. I want you to want it, to choose me over Dane, so I’ll play your game. But don’t doubt the end.”
Spinning the big bay around, he was off, raising dust. Deborah’s breath escaped in a rush. Thank goodness, he was gone! She shivered in spite of the heat. That he hadn’t used force, that he’d thought her alone, yet respected her, was more troubling in a way than if he’d pulled her to him as he had that first time they met. He must love her.
That could be dangerous. She remembered his kiss, touched with her own blood. Was there no way to be rid of him? Deborah pressed her face to Chica’s shoulder. Why had Dane left her?
The winter would be so long.
The next day was Sunday. Rolf, impeccably turned out in a black suit, sat behind the Whitlaws, perturbing Deborah so much that she scarcely heard a thing Reverend Cordley said. He accompanied them to the buggy and eagerly accepted when Mother invited him to come out for dinner, promising to catch up as soon as he got his horse from the livery stable.
“I do wish you wouldn’t ask him to our house,” Deborah said as Josiah started the horses.
“I’m sure your mother feels that with his brother gone, he needs to feel at home somewhere,” Father said, casting her a surprised, slightly reproving look. Leticia was watching her, too. Without revealing the way Rolf had treated her the day they met, Deborah couldn’t object further, so she bit the inside of her lip and wondered, with a mixture of dismay and half-guilty anticipation, if Rolf was going to be a frequent visitor.
At least with her parents and Thos around, Rolf couldn’t say or do much.
But he could look.
While he listened attentively and in apparent agreement to what Leticia and Josiah had to say about the coming vote on whether or not to accept the Lecompton constitution, while he talked with them about English politics and his impressions of the United States, often, when no one else could notice, his eyes rested on Deborah, the flame within them touching off a smouldering restlessness that had nothing to do with her distrust of him or her love for Dane.
She must never be alone with Rolf. That much was sure. Meanwhile, his visits broke the sameness of the days. It was flattering to be tacitly courted by the handsome, rich young English aristocrat who had all feminine Lawrence in a flutter, and if Dane would go off and leave his brother, he could hardly expect the Whitlaws to forbid him the house.
Rolf exerted himself to mesmerize Thos, letting him use his rifle and the Colt revolver he had, interestingly, bought in London.
“Your Mr. Colt had opened a factory in Britain and wanted to exhibit his pistol at the Great Exhibition, or World’s Fair, of 1851, when under Prince Albert’s patronage a fantastic array of inventions, wonders, and follies were displayed at Hyde Park. British gun-makers were afraid of Colt’s mass production, but Robert Adams accepted Colt’s challenge and the two showed off their guns.”
“I remember something about that,” mused Father. “The results were never formally announced, were they?”
Rolf shook his head. “Though Colt made an excellent showing, Adams put out the story that the Colt misfired ten times while his own revolver, which cocked and fired each time the trigger was pulled, instead of needing to be thumb-cocked like the Colt, didn’t, according to him, misfire once.”
“Did it?” asked Thos eagerly.
“You don’t expect me to accuse a fellow countryman,” chuckled Rolf. “But Sam Colt was clever. He began giving his Colts to men of influence—Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales—and before long his pistols were being used in Africa against the Kaffirs. After that, his revolver became so respected that the Times said the Light Brigade might have carried their charge at Balaclava if they’d been armed with Colts.”
Thos shook his head, admiring the big weapon with its nine-inch barrel. “So it’s not just Texas Rangers and westerners who use these!” he said. “It’s a beautiful thing.”
“Not to me, it isn’t!”
Deborah spoke sharply. Her twin was growing more restless all the time, bored with farm chores and The Clarion. She was terribly afraid that if John Brown or Jim Lane called him for some border exploit, he’d go. Rolf’s white teeth flashed as he smiled at her.
“Ah, Miss Deborah, I remember that you admire knives, which can be deadly, too.”
Would he give away the secret of her possession of a Bowie? She said grimly, “Blades are beautiful and can be used for other things. Revolvers are strictly for killing.”
“True enough.” Rolf shrugged. “Though I doubt if many civilized people eat with their Bowie knives like your squaw-man friend. I wonder if he has time now to make a Bowie for me.”
“I doubt it. With all these people rushing for Pike’s Peak, he has lots of horses to shoe and wagons to mend.”
“Now you’re being diplomatic.” Rolf’s eyes were very dark, like heavily tarnished copper. “Chaudoin will never have time to craft me that knife, but I’ll have one, anyway.”
Dissolving the tension, Father remarked that countless Bowies had been made in England, and the conversation shifted to trade and the dependence of English mills on Southern cotton, which might conceivably lead Britain to support the South if war came.
“But I don’t think we will, sir,” Rolf assured Josiah. “The Crimean War was costly, the Sepoy Mutiny shook the army, and I can’t believe that anyone but the cloth manufacturers would favor mixing into your internal affairs.”
“I hope not,” Josiah said. “I certainly hope not. The South has few factories, but if it could get its needed manufactured supplies from England, a war, if it comes, could drag on much longer.”
Covering a yawn, Rolf got to his feet. “I think my country’s learned its lesson about transporting troops and maintaining them on your shores! We’ll be celebrating that next week, in fact! You’ll be my special guests, and I’m counting on Thos and Miss Deborah to come in early and be sure everything’s properly arranged.”
“I don’t—” began Deborah, but Thos squeezed her arm.
“We’ll be glad to,” he said. “May I bring Sara?”
“Bring the blackamoor if you want,” said Rolf. “I’ll get a surrey, stop for you, and then we can collect Miss Field.”
The glow on Thos’s face kept Deborah from protesting again. He so clearly longed to squire Sara in public, show that she was his sweetheart and that he was proud of her. Not even Rolf could do much with her brother in the same carriage. It was a bit like riding with a muzzled lion, but at least that would be one evening when she wouldn’t sigh and cry over Dane and wonder why he’d left her!
Early on the Fourth, Rolf drove up in the livery stable’s grandest surrey drawn by a matched pair of chestnuts. Big rosettes of red, white, and blue adorned the top of the equipage, and the horses had multicolored cockades fastened to their reins.
The elder Whitlaws came out to admire the rig. They’d drive directly to town, taking the blackberry pies Judith and Deborah had made yesterday. Thos whistled joyfully. “Sara’s going to love this!” he cried. “She didn’t much want to come—said this was no celebration for her people, but she just has to like this!”
“Do you like it?” Rolf asked softly, helping Deborah up to the leather-cushioned seat.
“Very nice.”
“Careful, the sun might melt your words!”
His jaw corded for a second before he went around to tell Josiah and Leticia that they’d all meet later in town. Thos climbed in back, Rolf gathered up the reins, and they were off past the shocked wheat and the corn that would soon be ready for pulling fodder.
Daughter of the Sword Page 14