by Lyn Cote
“Ash? What are you doing here?” Carson moved forward. Away from her. She stayed behind, her hands folded. I shouldn’t have come.
Ash hugged Carson and said, “Glad to see you, son.” Then Reva, Amos, Nancy, Emilio, and Sugar came hurrying to him. Mariel stayed in the background. There were greetings and much excited talk. All Mariel could think of was Carson’s lack of welcome and the upcoming duel.
Reva led Carson to their camp, set apart from where Sugar and Mariel had been billeted with the officers’ wives.
Carson didn’t look happy to see his sister either. “I know that I’m just your brother now. But why did Emilio bring you here, of all places?” He glanced at her as if to add, and why Mariel?
Mariel lowered her eyes. Was this the source of his unhappiness with her? Was it just because they had come here—where he didn’t want them to be?
“I’ll remind you that this isn’t the first time I’ve been to war,” Sugar said with a warning in her tone.
“This is much different. I wanted you…Mariel…safe at home, not here in this awful place.” He swung an arm around and made a sound of disgust.
Mariel understood then. He wasn’t angry with her and his sister, just angry over their coming.
Emilio put a hand on Carson’s shoulder. “Amigo, I know just what you are feeling. I also wanted my wife to stay at home—safe. But your sister was raised by Señora Quinn. How could I expect my wife to be less a Texas woman than her madre?”
Mariel watched as Carson took this in. He still didn’t look happy, but he gave his friend a reluctant grin and shook his head ruefully at his sister. Reva came forward with a cup of coffee and a biscuit left over from breakfast, which she handed to Carson. Then everyone moved to relax around the low fire. With his coffee cup in one hand and the biscuit in his other, Carson sat on the ground while Mariel perched on a three-legged stool behind him. In spite of his displeasure with her, the urge to touch him was nearly overwhelming. She folded her hands in her lap.
Carson spoke to Ash. “So you’re going to go live with Antonio? And he’s taken a wife. I’m happy for him.” Carson yawned. “Sorry,” he apologized. “We rode all night. Every night.”
“You should rest,” Mariel murmured.
“I will. Soon.” He glanced her way, then lowered his eyes. That made her wonder. Why wouldn’t he want to look her in the eye? Was he regretting that he had not welcomed her here?
“The four of us were just waiting for you to get back before we left,” Ash replied. “But now, since we hear you’re going to put on a show tomorrow evening, we’ll stay till the following morning. Antonio will enjoy hearing how you whupped Kilbride’s grandson.”
Mariel tightened her lips to keep from begging Ash to do something, say the right words to stop this duel.
“You heard about that already?” Carson did not sound any happier.
“Hey, I watched you knock Remy down,” Ash said. Amos chuckled.
“Stay if you’re of that mind, Ash,” Carson replied. “But there’s going to be trouble ahead with this war, and I don’t want you to run right into it. Get to Antonio’s as fast as you can and hunker down there.”
Ash was standing, leaning against one of the wagon wheels, his ankles crossed. “You think you’ll be doing much scouting?”
“McCulloch left a string of Rangers between here and Major Brown farther inland. We ran into him in our scouting. McCulloch also wanted someone to keep an eye out for Arista.” Carson blinked his eyes, as if trying to stay awake. “A few scouts are ranging nearer Monterrey, where Arista and his army are. If they see anything, they’ll head to Brown and send word.”
“I don’t know much about Arista.” Ash hooked one boot heel between the spokes of the wheel and folded his arms. “I’m glad General Santa Anna was kicked out of Mexico and won’t be in the mix this time. No one needs a butcher like him around.”
Carson rose. “I’m dead on my feet. I got to go sleep.”
He glanced down at Mariel, looking as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t decide what. After a round of “Get some sleep” and more teasing, Carson loped away. Even though she felt unwanted, Mariel couldn’t help watching him. He moved with that long stride she admired. He was such a tall man, long and lean. Yet strong.
He’d gone off with only a backward glance. Had he forgotten the kisses they had shared in his mother’s garden and the words he had said to her just before he had left with the Rangers? Or was he still trying to accept her presence here?
Sugar came beside her and put an arm around her. “He’s glad to see you. It’s just that we didn’t mind him. We didn’t stay where he left us.”
Mariel nodded, thinking Sugar was right. They turned around to go to the wives’ camp. With her first step, fear leaped into her. “Sugar, how can we stop this duel?”
“We can’t.”
Mariel had no doubt that Carson was a better fighter than his cousin, but she wondered about the choice of weapon. Carson did not seem like a man who would know how to fight with a sword. Is that why the rude cousin had chosen that weapon? Mariel couldn’t put this into words. This duel must be stopped somehow.
Waking, Carson sucked in hot, sultry, late afternoon air. He was bombarded with noises—men marching to a drum, a voice singing off-key somewhere, and gunfire sounding like target practice. He rolled onto his back and gazed up at the clear blue sky, remembering where he was and why. All I have to do now is survive another war. There’s the duel. And Mariel here, not safe at home.
He grimaced and rose. His horse was hobbled nearby. He went over and picked up a saddlebag. Then he sauntered the half mile to the river, followed it far above the camp and found a lonely spot with bushes protruding out into the river. After cleaning up, he’d go borrow what he needed for the duel.
Wading into the slow-moving, tepid water, he soaped his buckskins while in them, then stripped them off to rinse them and spread them on a bush to dry. Using sand from the river-bed, he scrubbed two weeks of dust and sweat from his skin and hair. He finished with a final wash with soap. He wanted to go to his first duel looking the gentleman, not the frontiersman. Climbing from the water in the cover of the bushes, he dried off and drew on black trousers. Then he decided to shave for the occasion. And for Mariel. His cheek tingled when he imagined her soft palm touching it. Hanging his traveling mirror on the branch of a willow tree, he lathered his face and began shaving off a month’s beard.
Approaching, Niven called to him a few minutes later, “I find you at last. I hear you challenged my dear brother-in-law to a duel.”
Carson wiped his clean-shaven face with his damp linen towel. “Yes,” he said, facing Niven, who was carrying two swords on his shoulder. “Someone has to teach Remy the difference between being a man and a boy.” He pulled on his heavily starched white cotton shirt and began buttoning up. As he studied Niven, memories of Blanche’s wedding grated on Carson. “Remy forced the duel on me. I hate slavery, and, in any event, I won’t permit any man to abuse a servant in my presence.”
Niven held up a hand. “I don’t agree with you about slavery, but in regard to abusing servants, we are of the same mind. And by the way, General Taylor asked me why I hadn’t told him you and LaCroix and I were all related.”
“What did you tell him?” Carson wondered if Niven was ashamed to call him family too. He and his whole family had been given the cut direct at this man’s wedding, and this man had done nothing to change that.
Niven gave a wry smile. “Well, if you recall, you said you’d just as soon the connection not be made public. And frankly, I concur. Not many other officers are siding with my brother-in-law over this duel. He hasn’t endeared himself to others here. Most think he’ll do better with a set-down.”
Buttoning the final shirt button, Carson said nothing. He didn’t know Niven well enough to trust him. But he would take any help he offered.
Niven displayed one of the swords. “Anyway, I thought you might want to borrow a sword.
And do a little practice.”
Leaning against the tree on which he’d hung his traveling mirror, Carson folded his arms in front of him, smirking. “Don’t you mean teach me how to fence?”
Grinning back, Niven handed Carson one of the two sabers he’d brought. “No, something tells me that you know how to handle a sword. I get the feeling you know all the ways there are to fight a man—or kill one.”
The casual words sliced Carson, left him bleeding. This greenhorn had just demonstrated how little he still understood of war. Carson lifted his chin. “I’ve never used poison.”
Niven gave a bark of a laugh. “You Texans and that dry sense of humor.”
Carson moved away from the tree. His whole body, his entire mind, snapped to attention.
Without another word, Niven took up the classic fencing stance. Carson hefted the borrowed saber a few times in his right hand first. It had been a long time since he had held a saber. He tossed it back and forth from hand to hand. When the feel of it came back, he mimicked Niven’s stance.
“En garde.” Niven lowered his sword. “Where did you learn how to fence?”
“From my father.” Carson lowered the saber, his eyes on Niven’s point alone.
Niven tapped Carson’s sword to initiate the contest. “And where did your half-Cherokee father learn swordplay?”
Carson blocked the first thrust. “A young gentleman who explored with Zebulon Pike taught my father so he’d have someone he could practice with.”
“Ah.” Niven thrust again and again, but in slow beats, as if letting Carson warm up.
Carson answered each thrust with a parry. Yet he kept back, not letting Niven advance past his guard. “I’ve been wondering about something myself. Mind if I ask?”
“Ask away, man. We’re alone here.”
Carson felt the rhythm learned so long ago returning. And the question he’d longed to ask this uncommon man popped out. “Why did you marry my cousin?”
Niven grinned broadly. “You’ve seen her and you have to ask that?”
“You married her for her looks?” Carson couldn’t keep the disapproval and disbelief from his tone. Tap. Tap. Tap—the sabers touched.
Niven chuckled. “You obviously had different reasons for becoming engaged.” Then, though continuing the steady beat of blade against blade, he held up his free hand. “Not to say that your fiancée is not widely reputed to be lovely.”
His fiancée. The idea did not anger him. Carson inhaled the warm air. Mariel was beautiful, as Niven had said, but he didn’t want her exposed to a whole army and a war. He didn’t even care for Niven’s words. “Careful what you say.” Possessiveness gripped Carson. “Want me to call you out too?”
“Decidedly not.”
“I hope no one has or will make the mistake of bandying my lady’s name about.” Carson’s words came out cool, but molten steel coursed through his veins. “If any man accosts my sister or my fiancée—” I will hunt the man down. And kill him.
“Never fear. Your reputation as McCulloch’s most feared and respected Ranger has instilled a universal respect bordering on fear.”
“Good.” Why had Emilio let Sugar and Mariel come along? Mariel was too frail, too fine for an army camp. Both of them were.
Niven tried to feint.
Carson blocked him with a straight thrust. Now was his chance to try to get some more of the truth. “While we are still talking privately of ladies, I want to understand why you married Blanche. I already heard about the romantic letters and your visit. That’s Blanche’s reason for marrying you—”
“Blanche’s reason for marrying me is that I am the younger son of a U.S. congressman from Virginia.” Their exchange of metallic beats punctuated Niven’s words. “And an honor graduate of West Point. And a man ambitious to gain higher rank. Marrying me, she gained prestige. It is a step up in her mind.”
How could Niven put such snobbish behavior into words and treat them so lightly? Carson’s mother had raised her children to behave toward every person with courtesy and regard, to have one set of manners for everyone. But Blanche had been raised by pretentious Jewell. “My east Texas relatives always have had a strange way of thinking,” Carson muttered, his arm muscles warming.
Niven laughed out loud again.
Carson became a bit more adventurous, advancing, trying to put Niven on his guard. “So Blanche is willing to have you gone all the time in the army as long as she has your prestige to keep her warm?”
“Exactly. I’ll tell you the truth. When I heard that Remy LaCroix had a lovely sister and his family owned a large cotton plantation in Texas, I struck up a friendship with him.” Niven stepped up the rhythm. “Her situation was just what I was looking for in a wife. So I started writing to her, and then when the army came west, I took leave for a visit and proposed.”
“Her situation?” Carson’s heartbeat sped up in time with the tempo.
“Yes, she is of a wealthy family in the West. Until I have a post of my own, she can live at home. And since she’s still at home, she costs me little now—when I am not making enough to keep a fine wife.”
“So you gain a wife, not the expense of a wife?” Carson turned back each thrust, his confidence rising, along with the cool relief that stuck-up, social-climbing Blanche had rejected him. Why was I ever attracted to her?
“Exactly. And in the future, if she doesn’t want to live at a frontier military post, I can visit her more easily than a woman on the East Coast. I need to visit often enough to make sure we have a family.”
His pulse pounding at his temples, Carson grimaced at the man’s words and his quickening pace. “Grandchildren whom Henri LaCroix will support and raise while you’re away?”
Their blows were a constant tattoo now. “Just so. He looked to me to be an admirable man, and he will make a doting grandfather, I’m sure.”
Carson felt sweat trickling down his face. He had never met the like of this man. “Have it all planned out. Didn’t anyone tell you that life doesn’t always go as planned?” War doesn’t always end in victory or even survival.
“I’ve heard rumors like that. But that doesn’t mean a man can’t make plans. What are your plans for your future?”
The question made Carson miss a beat.
Niven, no doubt sensing distraction, finished with a flourish and touched the point of his saber to Carson’s chest. “I win.”
“You do.” Carson straightened and bowed. Niven’s lightly pronounced question pricked Carson. He wanted Mariel in his future. But first he had to survive another war. And this nuisance with Remy. And what if Remy got lucky at Carson’s expense?
Niven also straightened and bowed. “Shall we have another try?”
“If you don’t mind,” Carson said with a polite nod. “Then I have a fiancée that needs my attention.”
“Just so. You’ll have to take me and introduce me. I’m always most eager to meet my beautiful relatives.” Niven grinned, even his eyes laughing.
Unable to dislike the man, Carson grinned. “En garde!”
Mariel turned and saw Carson walking toward her. The dusty bearded Ranger had been replaced by a clean-shaven man no longer dressed in buckskin. Even so, he still moved with that masculine grace that seemed natural to him. She walked toward him, unable to resist his pull.
He had come back safely from scouting and fighting. She didn’t want to think about his leaving again. But the thought of this man, the best she had ever known, fighting a duel chilled her. Her steps faltered.
He approached her. “You look upset.”
Niven let out a crack of laughter. “Her fiancé is going to fight a duel tomorrow and you don’t think that should upset your lady?”
Mariel bit her lower lip. She was not a little girl. She knew better than to call a man’s judgment into question in front of another man. This only added to her tension.
Carson touched her sleeve. “Mariel, this is Anthony Niven. He is married to my cousin Blanche in San F
elipe. Niven, this is my fiancée, Mrs. Mariel Wolffe.”
She looked at him then. He had called her his fiancée. Why? And Blanche? His cousin? She recalled Sugar’s words when they had been picking grapes together. So this was the man that Blanche, the foolish girl, had married not out of love but a desire for gain. Niven bowed to her and she curtseyed, murmuring a polite greeting.
“I will leave you two lovebirds,” Niven said. “I see my pretty cousin-by-marriage Sugar ahead. I can’t pass by without paying my respects and kissing the bride.”
Carson shook his head and warned, “The man with my sister is Emilio Ramirez, another Ranger and her new husband. Don’t make him jealous. And thanks again for the saber and practice session.”
“No problem, dear fellow. I look forward to your trouncing our young relative as he deserves. And even after our brief acquaintance, I perceive that West Texas women choose men, not their fortunes,” Niven said, grinning. “They choose them by how well they deem the man will be able to protect them. I see by the look of her husband that your sister has evidently made a wise choice.” After tipping his hat to Mariel, the man hurried toward Sugar and Emilio.
Mariel stared after him.
“Niven is an interesting man. I don’t like half of what he says, but he’s so honest I can’t dislike him.”
Mariel turned to Carson. She wanted to ask, Are you angry with me? Instead she said only, “Must you fight a duel?” She flushed at her questioning him.
“I do, but I understand women don’t like fighting.” Then he glanced around, no doubt at all the officers’ wives who were so obviously watching them. “Let’s walk.”
She wanted to say more, but she had been struck dumb by her reaction to Carson’s nearness. She let him lead her away. When they were out of earshot of the others, Carson asked, “When did we become engaged?”
Mariel’s face blazed hotter, and she pressed a hand over her mouth, as if this could take back the words already spoken.
“I know you had a good reason for saying that we’re promised.”
Mariel tried to look at the ground; he lifted her chin with his hand. “Mariel, I won’t be angry. Tell me.”