by Shirl Henke
By the time he reached St. Louis the weather should be breaking. The thought heartened him, as did the fact that he would be leaving Tish and her whole family behind. He threw back his head and took a deep breath of air. The slight movement saved his life as a bullet whistled a fraction of an inch from his temple.
Years of conditioning took over as he responded with pure reflexive action. He swung low to the right side of his mount, but before he could turn the horse and kick it into a gallop, another shot rang out. His horse stumbled to his knees. Samuel kicked free of the stirrups and threw himself away from the dying animal.
He landed hard, thrown onto his right shoulder, striking his head a glancing blow against the cold rocky earth. The gelding nearly fell on top of him as it convulsed in its death throes, then lay still. A third shot grazed his cheek before he could flatten himself behind the fallen horse. Quickly he studied the terrain, trying to locate better cover. There was a dense copse of pampas grass in a slight swale to the east of the road. His eyes swept the rest of his surroundings, searching for a way to cover his retreat even as his hands pried desperately at the stock of his Bartlett flintlock, which was wedged firmly in its scabbard beneath the dead horse.
No help there, and his Martial Pistols were not accurate enough at the range from which the assassin fired. Mercifully there seemed only to be one man, but he was damnably proficient at reloading and firing. Cocking a pistol, Samuel futilely returned a shot where he saw faint movement in the brush. Cursing, he pulled out the second pistol.
Quiet. For several moments Shelby heard nothing. Then another shot rang out, this time burning through his jacket sleeve and slicing a furrow across his left bicep. The killer had circled around to his left. Soon Shelby would be without cover. He surveyed the clearing in which he lay and decided his only chance was to make a run for the tall grass at the opposite end from which the last shot had come. If only his foe had not again circled back, waiting for him to do precisely that.
Shelby shook his throbbing head to clear it, ignoring the raw burn of his arm. Just as he tensed his muscles, preparing to make the deadly dash, the drumming of hoofbeats broke the deceptively bucolic quiet. A faint rattling of harness grew louder as the tempo of the hoofbeats accelerated. A vehicle was coming around the bend in the road, the galloping horses headed straight for him.
The driver, hidden in the shadowy interior of the small phaeton, slowed the team as they neared Samuel’s position. A high, clear voice yelled out, “Jump aboard!” as the wheels narrowly missed the fallen horse.
Samuel tumbled onto the seat, sprawling half on the floor of the small carriage as another shot rang out, whizzing past his head. The driver whipped the well-matched team of bays into a gallop with a sudden lurch. Dazed, he hung on to the side of the phaeton and struggled into the seat. Another shot whistled harmlessly over the top of the carriage as they hurtled toward the capital.
“You’re bleeding all over Uncle Emory’s new velvet upholstery,” a soft feminine voice said in lightly accented English.
“So, we meet again,” Samuel replied, arching one black eyebrow at his rescuer.
“We never met in the first place,” Olivia said sharply, recalling the cool way he had cut her, turning his back and stalking across the ballroom floor.
“We’ve not been introduced, no.” He could see that she was piqued at his dismissal last night. The spoiled little cat wasn’t used to having men ignore her. “Given that a beautiful young lady has just saved my life, the very least I must do is offer my name. Colonel Samuel Sheridan Shelby, at your service, my dear.” He grinned as her cheeks pinkened at the suggestive tone of his voice.
“I am not your ‘dear,’ “ she snapped, giving the reins a sharp slap although the horses were already galloping. “Use my scarf to bind up your arm. I can’t have you passing out and falling beneath the carriage wheels before we make good our escape.”
He pulled a heavy woolen scarf from her neck and wrapped the cloth securely around his throbbing arm. The roadside moved by them in a blur. When the phaeton took a curve on two wheels, then righted itself with a swaying bounce, he cautioned. “Careful or you’ll overturn us.”
"I’ve driven some of the finest and the worst carriages ever made as fast as they can go and I’ve never overturned one yet, ‘my dear,’ " Olivia replied smugly.
“Beautiful and modest, too,” Shelby said dryly, his eyes assessing her delicate profile with amusement. Damn but she was a stubborn beauty with her chin jutting pugnaciously and her pink lips pursed in concentration. He was forced to admit that she handled the reins with considerable expertise. “Am I not to receive the favor of your name, at least? After all, according to custom, when one person saves another’s life, it belongs to the rescuer from that day forward.”
“I’ve never heard of such a custom,” she said, curious in spite of herself. She pulled on the reins and slowed the lathered team to a trot.
"‘Tis a common belief among certain of the Indians of the Far West."
“You’ve been west?” she asked, turning to look him full in the face for the first time. A slight bruise had begun to discolor his left temple and his face was smeared with dust and sweat in spite of the chilly air. For all that, he was still so devastatingly beautiful and disturbingly male, that her breath caught in her throat. Then he smiled, and Olivia was lost. The brilliance of that smile outshone all the candles on the biggest chandelier in the White House.
“Yes, I’ve been west. I’ve spent some time among the various tribes on the Great Plains, even those living in the vast mountain ranges that cross-sect the continent.”
“You sound as if you’ve traveled with Lewis and Clark,” she said, her eyes alight with curiosity.
Samuel realized he had already revealed more of his background than he normally ever did to a strange female, no matter how beautiful or plucky she might be. “No, I was not privileged to make that journey. I’ve had other assignments across the Mississippi. You still have not told me your name. I know you’re French.” He cocked his head, studying her with blue eyes so piercing that she looked away.
Olivia could feel his gaze on her and knew her body was responding most unsuitably, making her face an unbecoming shade of pink that clashed with her hair. Merde! Why did he have to fluster her so? “I’m Olivia Patrice St. Etienne. Also, it would seem, at your service for this afternoon’s work.” There, dare him directly! If only she could muster the nerve to return his stare. Olivia forced herself to meet those penetrating dark blue eyes, which at the mention of her surname seemed to grow an infinitesimal bit wintry. Then he smiled again and she was not certain if she had imagined it.
“Charmed, Mademoiselle St. Etienne.”
“How did you know I was French?” she blurted out, curious about his reaction—or her imagining of his reaction—to her name.
“Although your English is fluent, there is a faint trace of an accent,” he hedged. He had no desire whatsoever to discuss his mother with the beauteous Mademoiselle St. Etienne.
“Have you some aversion to my countrymen, Monsieur Colonel?”
“Certainly not to the lovely young lady who has just saved my life,” he replied gallantly.
Olivia recognized evasion when she heard it, having been raised by Julian St. Etienne, a luckless gambler who had been more expert in his choice of words than his choice of cards. She chose a frontal assault to test how much Samuel would reveal—or conceal. “Why was someone trying to kill you back there? Do you know who it was?”
Samuel shrugged. “I have no idea. Probably a simple robbery. My horse was quite valuable.”
“But of course! Precisely why the assassin shot it out from under you, so he could lug it off to the meat market,” she responded scornfully, meeting his eyes with a dare.
“Maybe it was an unlucky shot,” he said smoothly. “His first shot nearly took off my head. I was turning the horse suddenly, trying to reach cover when it went down. Lucky for me the brigand was something amiss as
a marksman.”
“He was not all that bad a marksman or you would not be dripping blood like that,” she replied with asperity. The woolen scarf was soaked dark red now in vivid contrast to the colonel’s face which was growing decidedly pale beneath his sun bronzed tan.
“Don’t worry. I won’t pitch over the side and spook your horses,” he said in grim amusement. “I’ve suffered far worse. It’s just a scratch.”
“That scratch is bleeding profusely,” she countered. “How can you remain so calm while your lifeblood just seeps away?”
“Practice.” He swore beneath his breath. Between the burning nuisance of his arm and the throbbing misery of his skull all he wanted was to lie down, preferably on some surface not bouncing wildly up and down.
Olivia reined in the team as they neared a farmhouse situated on the outskirts of the capital. There was a well by the roadside with a bucket beside it. “Maybe you’d better clean up your wounds. We must stop the bleeding before you ruin the upholstery. We could see if the people here have some fresh bandages. If not,” she fluffed her voluminous skirts and added boldly, “I can always use one of my petticoats.”
He grinned at her cheerful voice, noting that she turned a bit green around the gills when she looked at his blood-soaked arm. “Now you must promise not to faint and fall beneath the horses’ hooves,” he teased.
Olivia gave an indelicate snort as she jumped from the phaeton, scanning the farmhouse for signs of occupancy. A mangy old yellow dog eyed them suspiciously from the rickety porch and bared his gums in a toothless growl. “No one seems to be about,” she said with a sigh, turning back to Samuel who by now had climbed out of the carriage.
He walked determinedly to the well and lowered the bucket, then cranked it back up with his uninjured arm. Lifting the moldy oak container, he leaned forward and poured it over his head, then let it drop by its rope once more into the depths below with a splash.
Olivia watched as he shook his head to clear it and combed his finger through his glossy black hair. Brilliant droplets of water sprayed around him in a rainbow arc of color. She felt her heartbeat accelerate when she observed a fine sheen of droplets forming on his face and rolling slowly over his boldly masculine jaw and down his throat to vanish beneath the collar of his uniform. This was not wise, not wise at all.
Other than the fact he was devastatingly handsome and charming, what did she really know about Colonel Shelby? He seemed to be involved in some mysterious intrigue and people most certainly were trying to kill him. She was altogether too attracted to this stranger.
“Damn. I lost my hat when I fell. It was brand-new. This whole uniform is ruined,” he grumbled, inspecting his bloody, torn and dirt smeared clothing.
“You...you had better see about that wound, else more than your uniform will be ruined,” she said, moistening her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue.
“Not out here,” he replied distractedly as he pulled up the bucket and unfastened it from its rope. “It’s a bit cool now that the sun’s setting...and it’s too exposed.”
After a quick glance back down the road, she watched him stride toward the front door of the log cabin. “What if no one is at home?”
He turned at the uncertainty in her voice and raised one eyebrow. “Then we just go in. I don’t plan to rob them, just use the shelter long enough to change this dressing...that is if the offer of your petticoat still stands good?” He waited, watching her to see what she would do.
She walked up to him as if taking the dare, but then as he turned to open the door she said, “It really isn’t proper for us to be alone...indoors, that is.”
Samuel threw back his head and laughed heartily. “You are a caution, ma petite. It is a bit late for the proprieties now. First you come thundering wildly to my rescue out of nowhere, alone and unchaperoned. Then you drive like a London hackney and nearly kill us both on the road. Now you suddenly turn vaporing belle.”
Olivia felt like stomping her foot at his mocking laughter. “For a man who owes me his life, you are very rude, Monsieur Colonel.” Anger thickened her accent.
Samuel noticed the shift in cadence as well as the blaze of emerald fire in her eyes. “My apologies, mademoiselle...but you still have not explained why you were driving alone in the middle of nowhere,” he could not resist adding as he turned and entered the obviously deserted house. The hound on the porch raised its head once, then thought better of the exertion of further protest and instead slunk inside the shelter of the cabin behind Shelby.
Olivia stood alone in the yard for a moment. The impulse to dash to the phaeton and take off leaving the arrogant colonel stranded was tempting. But he was injured, and she was more attracted to him than she had ever been to a man before in her life. Fool, she berated herself.
Chapter Three
Olivia reluctantly followed him into the dark interior of the cabin and watched as he unwrapped the soaked scarf from his upper arm. In spite of a slight wince of pain, his hands remained steady. Then he began to unbutton the heavy uniform jacket. As he slipped it easily off his good arm and began to work it carefully free of the injured one, Olivia stood rooted to the floor of the deserted cabin. The sheer, white lawn shirt beneath his jacket stretched across his broad shoulders and clung lovingly to every inch of his lean, muscular torso. Then he started to remove the shirt, too!
“What are you doing?” Her voice cracked on the last word.
“If I’m going to wrap this wound to stop the bleeding, I first have to bare the skin,” he replied reasonably, continuing to pull the ruined shirt off.
She had thought his chest and shoulders were revealed through the sheer lawn covering. Now she could see how mistaken that assumption had been! Darkly bronzed skin rippled with sleek muscles as he tossed his shirt onto the crude wooden bench beside the table. Black hair sprinkled generously across his chest, then tapered into an enticing vee that arrowed down to disappear beneath the belt buckle at his narrow waist. Her eyes would have strayed scandalously lower but a bitten back groan distracted her.
Samuel cursed as he tried to flex his injured arm. “The bleeding’s grown worse. If I don’t get it stopped, I might pass out and bleed to death before you can summon help. I’m afraid I’m going to need those petticoats.”
‘‘M-my p-petticoats,” she stammered, then instantly felt like a fool.
“You’re not going to faint now that the shooting’s done, are you?” His voice was light but a sheen of perspiration glistened on his forehead in spite of the chilly evening air. “I’d search around here for some cloth for bandages but somehow I suspect that any to be found in here would blood-poison a possum,” he added wryly as Olivia came out of her trance.
His whole arm was soaked with blood and here she had been gawking at his naked chest as if she had never seen one before! Well, come to think of it, she had never seen a grown man’s bare chest before. With clumsy fingers she began to tear at the top layer of her petticoats but the heavy linen would not give.
“Here, allow me,” he said with mock gallantry as he knelt in front of her and reached for the snowy slip with his uninjured hand. In the other one a wicked looking knife gleamed. He sliced through the hem of the undergarment, then let her tear it until she had a little over a yard of cloth with which to wrap his arm.
“Tear another piece about the same length,” he commanded as he lowered his injured arm into the bucket of cool water he had placed on the table. A small hiss of pain escaped his clenched jaw but he made no further sound as he bathed the injury until the water ran red between his fingers.
Olivia stood holding the makeshift bandages, feeling utterly useless and somewhat queasy as she watched. An ugly furrow marred the perfection of his upper arm, slicing in a nasty angle across his bicep. She swallowed and moved closer as he raised his arm out of the water. “I’ll wrap it,” she said.
He held out his arm and let her cover it with the linen. He could feel the tremors that wracked her body vibrating
through her hands as she worked. “Pull it tight so the bleeding stops. Aargh! Yes,” he rasped as he pressed the end of the linen against the wound to hold it in place.
“I’m hurting you!” she gasped, dropping the bandage.
“No! I mean yes, but it can’t be helped. Just get the damn thing wrapped around my arm and tie it off good and tight.” He began to wrap the bandage himself. Suddenly Olivia’s fingers, soft and cool, brushed his hand as she once more took over the task, pulling on the wrapping the way he had instructed her.
As they worked, their hands continued to touch each other. Her skin felt silken and she smelled of jasmine. He watched her bite her lower lip in concentration as she tied off the bandage. Her mouth was soft, pale pink, utterly kissable. And he was utterly insane. He was still a married man and he knew nothing about her except that she was young, French and spoiled. That should have been enough to deter him but somehow it was not. Her hair had come loose from its pins during the wild carriage ride and a fat bouncy curl of pure flame brushed against the sensitive inside of his wrist.
Without thinking Samuel cupped his hand around the back of her slender neck and lowered his face to hers as he drew her against him. “Such good work deserves a reward,” he murmured as his mouth tasted the soft pink lips that had beckoned him.
Olivia felt herself melting toward the hardness and heat of his chest. Her palms pressed against the crisp hair and her fingers kneaded in it as her lips tilted upward to meet his descending mouth. The kiss was fierce and hungry yet oddly delicate and exploratory at the same time. His lips brushed, then pressed hers and his tongue lightly rimmed the edges of her mouth until she emitted a tiny gasp of delight, allowing him entry to taste the virgin territory within.
She’d had the adulation of legions of lovesick young swains but she had never been kissed like this. Olivia could feel the pounding of his heartbeat against her palms and the answering acceleration of her own wayward heart. The exotic texture of crisp chest hair delighted her questing fingers but it was her mouth that felt the full drugging persuasion of Samuel’s sensual coaxing. The tip of his tongue dipped and glided inside her lips, then danced a duel with her tongue and retreated only to plunge in for another jolting foray. She heard a low mewling sound like a lost kitten crying, without realizing that it was her own voice.