Wild Dawn

by Cait London

  Mose laughed aloud, easing his arm under MacGregor’s for support. “Going to be crowded in that bed for a few months. You’ll ache worse than you do now.”

  ~**~

  Regina restitched MacGregor’s head wound, insisting that he drink a relaxing herb tea before sleeping. That night, in their new rope bed, she eased MacGregor’s head to her breast and stroked his hair as he slept restlessly. “My own dear heart,” she whispered achingly, then began to sing Greensleeves.

  MacGregor’s large palm settled over their baby, and he caressed a tiny, moving limb tenderly. “Violet, stay....”

  She lay quietly, savoring the gentle weight of his head on her breast. Venus whined softly in the shadows, and Regina bent to kiss MacGregor’s hot forehead. “Sleep, my love. Sleep and heal. While you are resting, I shall deal with my father.”

  Before dawn Regina and Lilly spoke quietly outside the cabin. “He’ll sleep this morning, and I will be back before noon. Will you please make certain that Jack doesn’t disturb him? I don’t want him to worry about me....”

  Pierre placed his arm around Lilly, kissed her cheek, then spoke to Regina. “Tiny said you want your horse saddled. That you want to have morning tea with Mortimer-Hawkes. I cannot allow this with MacGregor....”

  He shook his head helplessly. “Wait, chere, do what you must with MacGregor at your side.”

  Regina tugged her purple kidskin gloves higher and smoothed the long lace blouse covering her child. “I’m simply having morning tea with the marquess. I don’t want to be late.”

  She glanced at Je t’aime and the morocco saddle. “Ah, lovely day for a ride, Pierre.”

  “I go with you—” he began, silenced by an elegantly lifted finger.

  “I have no less honor than my husband, Pierre. I intend to settle the matter before it worsens. MacGregor drank a healing tea in the night and will sleep until I return. Then I will tell him what has happened.” She leveled a meaningful glance at the Frenchman.

  “Chere, you are an enceinte woman. The bebe....”

  Regina lifted a slender, winged eyebrow and looked up at him steadily with dark purple eyes. “Jack will have a beautiful sister, Pierre. Would you be her godfather?”

  Two hours later Regina shifted in her sidesaddle. She strained for a first view of the marquess’s hunting lodge, overlooking Primrose.

  Seated on a velvet-and-horn chair, Lord Mortimer-Hawkes sat drinking morning tea and considering his next move. Tall Tom and his men had disappeared, licking their wounds. They’d come back in time, lured by his offer of gold.

  MacGregor was too powerful now, Mortimer-Hawkes acknowledged silently. Only a man possessing Pagan and the Mariah Stone at the same time could have taken a bad beating, then acted out his revenge.

  Regina entered the room in the same manner as MacGregor, easing aside the muslin drape. “Ah, Father. A cup of morning tea would be lovely.”

  “Pagan!” Mortimer-Hawkes was on his feet, his hand gripping her upper arm painfully.

  “Loose me,” she ordered too quietly.

  The leashed fury in her soft tone startled Mortimer-Hawkes, and his fingers slid away. He bared his teeth in a smile. “Of course. I’m just so happy you’ve come at last. Tea?”

  “Lovely.” Sitting gracefully in a swirl of skirts, Regina plucked her gloves from her hand, finger by finger. After placing them neatly aside, she spread a napkin over her lap. She poured tea from the silver pot as though she were sitting in an English parlor.

  Mortimer-Hawkes sat, studying her expression. What was she up to, this new Regina? One who wore a simple gold band, when she could have so much more? When she already had so much more?

  Her gaze took in the short hair, marking the lock MacGregor had shorn. Mortimer-Hawkes’ anger flamed. “You’re aware I had a very unpleasant visitor last night, I presume.”

  “I am, indeed. I also notice that your men seem to have taken leave. Isn’t that so?”

  “They’ll come back, my dear. Just like you. But I’m afraid your ruffian has sealed his fate. He really should have paid attention to the fair warning.”

  “Tea in the morning is lovely, isn’t it? Americans prefer coffee at every meal, you know,” she said easily, then sipped the brew.

  “I’ve missed you, Regina,” Mortimer-Hawkes said, suddenly uncertain. “You’ve changed since yesterday.”

  “Yes. So I have. Yesterday was rather wearing.” She replaced the cup on the saucer and folded her hands on her lap. “Indians are so interesting. For instance, the honor of the Cheyenne Dog Soldier is impeccable. He buries his lance at the front of the battle and lashes himself to it. He’ll fight to the death rather than untie the tether or remove the lance.”

  “Interesting colonial tale,” Mortimer-Hawkes sneered.

  Regina’s eyes gleamed beneath her heavy lashes. “You are vulnerable now, Father. You do not possess me or the Mariah. I’ve hidden it with a friend, who at a sign of any mischievous action from you will destroy the jewels. I suggest you return to England... but you will not come near me, my children, my husband, or anyone dear to me. Do I make myself clear?” she asked as her father stared at her blankly.

  “You disobedient wench! I am your father,” he said when he could speak.

  “Then I disown you,” she said flatly, standing and carefully drawing on her gloves. “You should know... Mortimer-Hawkes, that when I was a child, Jennifer and my mother—Mariah—taught me something of the jewels and of my heritage. I’d forgotten, but your attack yesterday caused me to remember. I spent a poor night reliving the horrors suffered at your hands—the way you taunted my mother that she was soiled goods, the leavings of a cousin growing in her belly when you married her. I was only a child then, but I remember everything quite clear. Huddling beneath a bed while my mother was beaten and raped etched the details in my mind forever.”

  Regina straightened her shoulders. “I remembered every detail perfectly. One of your... ladies loved to send me off to bed with that lovely tale. Then when I was ten or so, one of your cousins decided to break me to his hand. He repeated the tale and Jennifer confirmed it while she was comforting me.”

  “I... raised... you... You owe me...” he stated between his teeth. “And those were only the memories of a child. None of that was true. It would be different with you—”

  Regina continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “MacGregor, my husband, is a powerful man. With him at my side, I could easily wrest Fordington from you. The estate is legally mine anyway, purchased for me by my real father, your cousin, to salve his conscience. You were in danger of losing everything before my mother’s unfortunate marriage to you.”

  While the marquess dealt with her statement, Regina added quietly, “Pagan, you call me... perhaps I am. We never know what savageness rests in our very hearts until it is tried. Do not try my patience.”

  “I could kill MacGregor’s brat and you with a blow!” he shouted, leaping to his feet and trembling with anger.

  Regally sweeping her skirt aside, Regina faced him like a tigress ready to strike. “You won’t hurt me, Mortimer-Hawkes. You would lose everything. Even now you are a shadow of the powerful Marquess of Fordington that I remember. Take the shreds of your dignity and return to England.”

  “You gave him the ring that was rightly mine!”

  “And so I did, because it was mine to give to whom I choose, the keeper of the Mariah and that would be me,” she returned coolly as she turned and walked from him as though he were nothing. Him, the Marquess of Fordington, a blooded royal... Dismissed as easily as if he were a servant. Stunned, then his rage returned, and he realized he stood alone...

  When the curtain fluttered closed behind her, Mortimer-Hawkes dashed the silver service to the floor. “I’ll have her brat soon. She’ll crawl back to me.”

  Then he shivered in fear. “That bloody MacGregor! He has my power! I must have it back! I must have Pagan and the Mariah Stone and that damn ring I should have had all along!”

 
~**~

  That afternoon Regina napped at MacGregor’s side and awoke to his tender kiss. When she yawned and arched against him, he groaned suddenly and stiffened.

  Taking her chin in his hand, he smoothed her bottom lip with his thumb. “If you ever count coup without me again, Mrs. MacGregor, your backside will feel my hand,” he drawled, caressing the rounded shape of her buttocks.

  “Promises, m’lord?” she purred, kissing a bruise on his bearded jaw. “My, you look handsome today. Like a knight of the realm at ease.”

  MacGregor studied the shape of her eyes, the inviting contour of her lips, solemnly. “Mortimer-Hawkes wants you, Violet.... In his bed.”

  She shuddered, remembering a deluge of the marquess’s sensual remarks and the way he held her against him as MacGregor was beaten. “I am the family secret, my dear. I remembered everything suddenly last night. The marquess was paid to marry my mother by my real father, his cousin. My mother’s dowry was quite attractive, too. I realize now that he has wanted me for years.... How did you know?”

  Holding her closer, MacGregor breathed deeply. “One man knows when another wants a woman. It was there when we met in Primrose—the way he looked at you, kissed your cheek. Yesterday, he held you like a man holds a woman he wants in his bed, not a daughter he loves.”

  She stared up at him drowsily and yawned. “But I’m in your bed, aren’t I? Who followed me to my fa—to Mortimer- Hawkes’s lodge? Tiny? Mose? Or Pierre?”

  “All three,” he answered, before nestling his cheek on her breasts. “Soft and sweet here, my heart,” he murmured before sliding into sleep.

  ~**~

  August passed in hot, still days and loving, tender nights.

  Mortimer-Hawkes clung to his empty lodge like a spirit haunting a grave, his servants making necessary purchases in Primrose. Buzzard swept out of the mountains to marry Pierre and Lilly. The newlyweds occupied one bedroom of the MacGregor home for a week, then moved to a deserted cabin nestled nearby.

  The wind sweeping over the territory echoed with fearful whispers, grief, and rage. Quanah Parker, Custer, Stone Calf, Dull Knife, Fetterman Massacre... Cheyenne, Kiowa, Sioux... The Union Pacific Railroad pressed westward; wild game fattened for winter and renegades sold whiskey and firearms, trading white and Indian captives alike in Mexico.

  September entered with a blaze of orange and yellow, aspens brilliant amid the dark fir and pine.

  Ripening with MacGregor’s child, Regina was delighted with Mose’s gift of a spinning wheel. Mose spent hours carding the dyed wool as his mother had taught him while Regina began filling corn-shuck bobbins on her spinning wheel. They planned to spin the wool in the coming year, then dye and loop it into skeins.

  Tiny played his harmonica to the whir of Regina’s spinning every night; Jack clapped his hands and gurgled excitedly on his father’s lap. A Navajo family traded two ewes for coffee and cornmeal, then presented Regina with tiny, beautiful silver-and-turquoise buttons for her new baby.

  Tiny and Mose hovered near Regina from dawn until dusk, and MacGregor scowled from the lack of privacy. The men insisted that she rest in the mornings and afternoons, while they worked outside.

  From the men Regina learned how to dry green beans, pumpkin, cabbage leaves, and chili peppers. Garlic and onion braids hung drying on pegs, waiting to be stored. Regina experimented with cheese and minced meat for sausages to be smoked with jerked meat.

  She insisted that their large larder be stuffed with bags of beans and barrels of cornmeal and flour. Regina plagued the men to harvest and identify native roots and healing herbs.

  Custer continued the government’s policy of Indian Removal, and for a few days a small band of Southern Cheyenne camped in a hidden glade on Regina’s property.

  One evening, MacGregor visited the chief, Lean Deer, and they smoked Mose’s best tobacco twist in a long pipe. When he returned late at night, he slid into their bed and lay quietly, staring up at the ceiling shadows.

  Regina turned in her sleep and slid her arm around his shoulder, nuzzling his chest with her cheek until she slept again. Holding her in his arms, MacGregor ached for Little Beetle, who sang his death song, and for White Elk’s woman, who cried and slashed herself over his death. The Indian babies had already seen slaughter and knew hunger, while Jack slept safely in his crib.

  MacGregor stroked Regina’s rounded stomach and thought of the food she’d sent to Lean Deer’s people.

  Last week she’d sent Tiny to deliver a blanket, clothing, and lengths of new cloth to a settler’s family, burned out by a drunken miner. The settler’s wife accepted the gift with the condition that she sew and mend as payment.

  Emma Manson’s first creation from the flannel lengths was a baby gown, edged with lace tatting. Regina had cried, throwing her arms around MacGregor and weeping against his shoulder. “I’m so happy, my darling,” she had whispered when he sat, holding her on his lap.

  Violet. Her scent and silky skin warmed him, her arm tightened across his shoulder, hugging him to her gently.

  MacGregor closed his eyes, breathing lightly. Violet. Traveling from England to America to hold him in the night. To bear him a child....

  “A dream,” he whispered, awed by his fortune. “A dream that could end any time.”

  So small, he thought, caressing her back and hips. Indian women squatted for hours in the birthing position, pulling on a branch, until the baby slipped into ready hands. Other women gave birth in the fields, placed the baby in the shade, and returned to hoeing corn.

  So small and fragile.... MacGregor’s fingers wrapped easily around Regina’s wrist, gauging her small bones.

  In her last month Regina nestled in MacGregor’s arms each night while he groaned and ached. The new walnut bed, exchanged for the makeshift pine one, creaked as he turned restlessly. “Darling.” Regina sighed, her breath sweeping across his chest.

  Her small hand moved and settled low on his stomach. Perspiration beaded his forehead, his body taut with passion as he slid quickly out of bed. Regina sat up slowly, staring at him sleepily, and yawned. “Is something wrong?”

  Jerking on his trousers, MacGregor looked down at her. A button had come undone on her gown, exposing her full breast. The other breast pressed against the cloth, a dark circle beneath the muslin. Dark tendrils escaped her single, long braid, and she yawned again, stretching until the cloth strained against her chest. “Come back to bed, darling,” she said with a sigh, lying down.

  The gown boldly displayed a ripe nipple, and MacGregor’s body tightened. “Violet,” he said between his teeth. “I’m checking on the sheep.”

  Her eyes opened slowly. “Now? Something is wrong. It’s hours before dawn.”

  She listened intently. “The dogs aren’t barking....”

  He bent to tug the flannel sheet and blanket up to her chin, concealing the intriguing rosy peak. Placing his hands on either side of her head, he nibbled temptingly at her lips. Working his way to the sensitive spot behind her ear, he stroked it with his tongue until she reached for him.

  MacGregor resisted her tug, smiling at her tenderly. “Violet, a man can take just so much. When a woman nudges and cuddles and strokes his privates in her sleep, he wants to do something about it.”

  She laughed, a low, seductive sound floating through the cabin. “Come back to bed. I can’t sleep without you. I’ve grown fond of being cuddled every night. A dragon thrusts boldly at my thighs, nearly tearing my gown as he seeks shelter from the cold.”

  MacGregor rubbed her nose with his, savoring the soft arms enclosing his neck and the small hands soothing his taut shoulders. Regina’s tongue slid along his lips. “I’d love one of those foolish kisses, my love. You’ve hoarded them lately and...”

  She ran her hand down his chest, toying with the hair covering the padded muscles. “Come lie down, my love,” she invited huskily, her fingers sliding beneath his trouser to enclose him gently.

  “Violet, you’re pushing.... The baby has
dropped into the birthing position... ah....” MacGregor closed his eyes, taut with pleasure as she drew him down beside her.

  “Shh,” she whispered. “One of the best parts of our marriage, my love, is the freedom to fondle you every night in our own bed.”

  He inhaled sharply as her lips brushed his stomach. Then she was leaning over him, her expression fierce with love. “I shall expect a proper romp after the baby, Mr. Two Hearts MacGregor. I’m going to do things to you that a lady never thinks about. Like this....”

  Her fingers slid down and began caressing him as her tongue entered his mouth.

  When he groaned, she bent to nibble his ear, her hand continuing its bold rhythm. “This is what I want to do after the baby comes, darling....” she whispered, punctuating the bold verbal sketches with flicks of her tongue into his ear.

  “That isn’t possible,” he rasped unevenly, his hips moving with her hand’s rhythm. He smoothed her breast, careful of the swollen softness.

  She smiled knowingly. “We’ll have to explore the matter. We’ve all our lives....”

  “Violet,” he said unsteadily, between his teeth, as she nibbled at his throat. He breathed unsteadily, his body taut. “A woman doesn’t come at a man like that, taking him—Ah!”

  Holding him tightly until his passion ebbed, Regina shook, enveloped with tenderness for this large, vulnerable man.

  Their baby kicked strongly, and she lay down beside MacGregor, placing his hand over their child. “You’ve made me so happy, my love....” she whispered, stroking his damp face.

  He struggled for breath, his heart beating rapidly. “Violet....” he managed after a time. “Where did you learn that?”

  “Lilly. She knows marvelous things,” she answered sleepily as he gathered her close. “Hold me, MacGregor. You have my heart.”

  Lying quietly while she dozed, MacGregor laced his fingers with hers and wondered if his happiness was a dream soon to be shattered.

  Regina snuggled her cheek to his shoulder, kissing it. “I love when you hold me, MacGregor,” she whispered drowsily. “Kiss me.”