by Shirl Henke
“The Osage are the most powerful tribe in the region. If they desert us, the Sauks, Foxes, Sioux and Kaws will certainly follow suit,” Shelby replied with a worried frown. “Since your traders travel through their territory, you should be concerned.”
“So should you after investing your life savings in my trading company,” Santiago said with an arrogant grin.
“The Osage nations have been our most loyal friends,” Elise interjected. Her husband was especially friendly with those Indians. “Chief Pawhuska pledged himself loyal to the American government,” she added as if that settled the matter.
But for Shelby, it didn’t. “He’s getting older now. What about the young hotheads I’ve been hearing about—Bad Temper and Man Whipper?” His eyes moved from his sister to Santiago.
Quinn shrugged. “Keep your settlers off their land and don’t let any of the white men start taking potshots at Indian women picking berries. Then tribal leadership will be able to keep peace.”
Shelby looked dubious as Elise continued to oil the waters between them.
Across the room, Olivia St. Etienne gnawed her lip as she watched the beautiful raven-haired woman place her hand proprietarily on Samuel Shelby’s arm. She recognized the other tall man engaged in conversation with them, Santiago Quinn, a trader from Santa Fe who was in partnership with a fellow Spaniard, Manuel Lisa, one of St. Louis’s leading merchants. But she had never seen the stunning female before. Whatever her relationship with the handsome colonel, it was obvious they were on very friendly terms!
Olivia had waited impatiently for weeks, watching every time the crude long rafts ferried travelers across the turbulent Mississippi, hoping Samuel would be aboard. Finally she had all but despaired, thinking he had perhaps only teased a love-struck girl with promises to see her again.
Last week she had abandoned haunting the hill overlooking the landing at the bottom of Market Street. The riverfront was rough, filled with odoriferous fur warehouses and loud taverns inhabited by foul-mouthed Kaintucks, bold French voyageurs, and even painted red Indians. Of course, no one recognized her for she wore a disguise in such a neighborhood, but it was nevertheless a foolhardy place for a woman alone. She had believed her watch in vain. Perhaps it still was.
“You are wondering who the handsome young American is, are you not?” a gravelly voice whispered in French with a conspiratorial chuckle.
Olivia turned from her shockingly unladylike perusal of Samuel to confront the social arbiter and first lady of the city, Madame Chouteau, Auguste’s mother. The elderly woman’s small black eyes were surrounded by crinkling skin darkened by the hot Missouri sun. All her long life Madame had been an avid gardener and beekeeper, a wealthy woman unafraid to do unconventional things. “I know who he is,” Olivia confessed. “Colonel Shelby and I met while I was in Washington with my guardian.”
A broad smile pursed Madam’s lips, stretching the thin skin until it was drawn tight, revealing several missing teeth. Her shrewd eyes took on a speculative gleam. “Ah, then it is the woman with Count Aranda you wish to know about!”
Madame Chouteau used Santiago Quinn’s Spanish title. The Santa Fe trader was mysterious and much whispered about in St. Louis, but Olivia was not interested in him. “Is she Spanish then?”
“No. She is American as is her brother, although her French is flawless as your own. She is Elise Quinn, Aranda’s wife...the colonel’s sister.”
“His sister.” Olivia tried to tamp down the delight in her voice but knew she failed when Madame’s raspy chuckle tickled her ear.
“True, his sister. The colonel is a fine figure of a man, young, strong and quite devilishly handsome. I found him most charming.” A sly smile played about the old lady’s mouth as she regarded Olivia, then Samuel.
Madame Chouteau had always been a bold and self-possessed woman. Married off at fifteen to a man three times her age, she had found him so uncongenial that she did the unheard of in eighteenth-century New Orleans society. She took their young son Auguste and returned to the convent where she had been raised, although she did not languish there long. She fell in love with a dashing young adventurer named Pierre Laclede, the founder of St. Louis. Madame lived openly with him as his wife, for there was no divorce recognized among French Creoles. She had borne Laclede four children and followed him upriver to settle the raw frontier at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.
Upon learning the older woman’s background, Olivia had immediately felt a kinship with her. They both lived unconventional lives. “How long has he been in the city? I had hoped...” Her voice faded away as she realized she might well be making a fool of herself over a man who cared nothing for her.
Madame Chouteau was swift to reassure her. “I am given to understand he only arrived yesterday. I think in light of your previous acquaintance that you should welcome him to our city,” she said, giving Olivia a gentle shove toward Samuel, who had just excused himself from Elise and Santiago.
Well, why not? The worst he could do was cut her cold as he had done at the Phelps gala back in Washington. Summoning her courage, Olivia walked straight across the crowded room toward him. As if by magic the laughing chattering guests seemed to melt away, clearing a path between them until he turned and saw her. At once those stormy blue eyes lit with recognition, but he stood stock-still in the center of the floor, watching her with an unnervingly magnetic smile on his lips.
Did he welcome her or scorn her impulsive boldness? There was only one way to find out. Olivia’s chin raised another notch as she sailed across the glassy floor with her heart ready to fly from her chest. Could Samuel hear it beat?
Chapter Five
Samuel watched her make her way across the floor toward him. Her bold walk held none of the sly, subtle nuances of the belle but rather was incredibly self-confident and forthright. Whatever she might be, Olivia St. Etienne was nothing like his soon-to-be ex-wife. Tish’s vapid blond beauty paled by comparison to the fiery freshness of the young Frenchwoman.
His eyes were not the only ones fastened upon her as she approached. Not a man in the room was immune. She was a vision of spring in pure yellow, a difficult color for many women. The vibrant sheer muslin whispered around her slender curves and set off her lightly sun kissed complexion. In contrast her hair, piled in bouncing curls atop her head, seemed as dark and bright as living flames. Her only adornments were the tiny pearls woven artfully through her coiffure, and embroidered across the neckline of her gown. The effect was exquisite yet virginal.
He desired her with a schoolboy intensity that appalled him. His eyes swept up the long-legged contours of her delectable body, past the set of that determined little chin to pause for an instant at the lushness of her slightly parted lips, then moved on to her exotically slanted cat’s eyes. The senator had given Tish an emerald necklace and earrings. The heavy deep green stones had overpowered her pallor, but he could envision them caressing Olivia’s sun kissed throat, dripping from her tiny ears, matching the dark fires in those incredible eyes. He could imagine her wearing the emeralds and nothing else. Stop it! Fool. What was it about this chit that so affected his lusty fancies?
As she approached him, Olivia watched those stormy blue eyes assess her with frank male appetite, but he made no attempt to meet her halfway. Rather, he stood arrogantly in the center of the floor, tall and splendid looking in the perfectly fitted blue uniform, waiting for her. Did he find her as beautiful as the sophisticated women he must have known in Washington? Could he see how she wore her heart on her sleeve? Before courage deserted her, she stopped directly in front of him and smiled, praying her voice would not crack.
“We meet once again, Monsieur Colonel. I warned you I would track you down.”
A small smile touched his generous mouth. “And you proved yourself an able huntress, but I thought we’d agreed to dispense with titles, Olivia.”
Just then the musicians resumed playing. Without thinking she raised her right hand and asked, “
Would you do a lady the honor of dancing with her, Samuel?”
His smile was a dazzling white slash now as he took her hand and swept his other arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him than was strictly proper, even in such a scandalous new dance as the waltz. They glided across the polished walnut floor to the lilt of violin strings, a striking couple moving with grace and verve.
“You are an exceptional dancer, Samuel,” Olivia murmured, positive he could feel the frantic tattoo of her heart keeping rhythm with the music.
“As are you. St. Louis is quite a surprise. No one back east would have imagined waltzing in the wilderness.”
“Last year a dance master from New Orleans set out an advertisement to teach the waltz and other of the latest dances from Europe. We’re not so backward as you Easterners believe,” she replied gaily, giddy with the magic of being held in his arms and whirled around the dance floor.
“Not backward at all but quite unconventionally forward,” he could not resist teasing.
She felt the blush begin at her throat and rise to the roots of her hair. “Do you find me too forward?” she asked, then instantly wished she could call back the impulsive question when an enigmatic expression passed fleetingly across his face.
Then he smiled again. “And here I thought it was only American women who are so earnest and outspoken.”
“I am American—or at least, I am becoming American. I have lived in this country since I was fifteen, a mere slip of a girl.”
“And that, of course, was ages ago,” he replied gravely.
“At times it seems that way,” she said, thinking of her parents’ laughing faces, now gone forever.
He looked down at the thick dark red brushes of her lashes that shielded her intense emerald eyes. What made her so suddenly pensive? The French were ever mercurial in temperament. “And do you never repine for your old home?”
Olivia looked up, aware of a subtle shift in his tone. “I miss Maman and Péré terribly, but if you mean France...” She shrugged. “The Terror began when I was only a babe. I remember little about any of it and care less. We traveled from country to country throughout my childhood. ‘Twas a marvelous adventure but as I grew older I longed for a real home.”
“And is this home—St. Louis, a raw frontier town inhabited by fur traders, Creoles and Spaniards, surrounded by Indians?”
She could hear the doubt in his voice, see it in his faintly cynical expression. “I like St. Louis well enough. Someday it will be a great city and all the Louisiana country will become part of the United States.”
“You sound just like my sister,” he said, suddenly struck by the insight. In spite of their different coloring and backgrounds, Olivia reminded him of Liza.
“She is most beautiful. I confess I was taken with a fit of jealousy when I first saw you with her.”
He raised one eyebrow sardonically. “Were you now?”
She blushed again. “For some reason my mouth overuns my brain when I’m around you. A most singular occurrence. It seldom afflicts me otherwise.”
“I, too, must confess a certain...impulsive train of thought when I’m with you.” He stared into wide green eyes, as dark and fathomless as the waters of the Florida glades. Just as mysterious. And just as dangerous.
Olivia stared up at his harshly beautiful face, wondering what went on behind those piercing eyes, now storm tossed to a steely gray. Just then the music stopped. They stood facing each other, still touching, oblivious of those around them quitting the floor. “You sound as if you are angry with me because of this...impulse, yet it is you who have come a thousand miles to my city.”
“Point well taken,” Samuel replied, shaking his head ruefully to break the spell. He offered her his arm and they strolled through the crowd.
“Why are you here? I do not think it is because you have followed my siren call through the wilderness,” she added dryly. The question seemed all too natural to Olivia. She waited, wondering if he would answer since he had been so evasive about himself until now.
“Cat’s eyes and cat’s curiosity. Careful, puss, lest it get you in trouble, too,” he said, ushering her through a door which opened onto Madame Chouteau’s gardens.
“Am I in danger then?” she asked as they walked into the soft gold light cast from lanterns suspended overhead in the trees growing around the side of the mansion.
“In more ways than one,” he murmured, feeling the cool silkiness of her skin where his hand pressed lightly against her back. The delicate fragrance of redbud and daffodils scented the night air combined with the pungent moisture of fog that drifted up from the river after dusk. Yet he smelled nothing but the perfume in her hair and wanted nothing more than to spill its fiery splendor around her bare shoulders and bury his face in it.
The terrace was sparsely populated by strollers since the early spring evening had begun to turn cool. Then, too, proper young ladies did not wander unattended into the darkness with their dance partners. Olivia was acutely aware of the man walking beside her who guided her with the lightest touch as if she were his creature, utterly malleable, eager to do his bidding. That incredible and troubling kiss in the deserted Virginia cabin had haunted her dreams. She could still feel the heat and hardness of his body, taste his mouth, smell the male scent of him, as if he had marked her for all time with just that one brief encounter.
“I should not be out here with you,” she finally said as the glow of lantern light faded and only the sliver of a new moon cast its silvery light on them.
“No, you probably should not,” Samuel said, guiding her farther away from the house into the cool isolation of the yard. A large stone wall, ten feet high, surrounded the grounds. When they could go no farther, he stopped, uncertain of what he would do next.
Olivia stood surrounded by shrubbery, her head and shoulders dappled by the shadows of a redbud tree which had just begun to blossom. She faced him and did not move. A slight tremor shook her slender figure as a breeze arose, but she did not tremble from the cold. A dark pervasive heat infused her being.
Samuel saw the tiny shudder, heard the soft expectant catch of her breath and he was lost. Uttering an oath he gathered her into his arms, pulling her against him as he stepped behind the redbud. When his mouth swooped down to hers, she gave a small incoherent cry and flung her arms around his neck.
From the opposite end of the yard a figure stood in deep shadows watching the young couple kiss with such fierce ardor. The embrace continued for several moments as Shelby slanted his lips against hers, shifting and deepening his caresses while Olivia molded herself to him, clinging and whimpering in acquiescence.
When Shelby backed against the cold stone wall, he seemed to regain his senses and broke off the wildly passionate kiss, holding her at arm’s length, then touching her face tenderly with his hand. They exchanged a few murmured words as she repaired her dishabille. He offered her his arm and escorted her back to the bright lights and music coming from the house.
Emory Wescott moved out of the shadows, his cold gray eyes narrowed in calculation. Then a slow smile insinuated itself across his fleshy face.
* * * *
Emory and Olivia rode up to the bluffs north of the city as the sun rose in dazzling splendor across the wide expanse of the Missouri River rushing below them. A wide open rolling stretch of grassland had been made into a racetrack where all the citizens of St. Louis congregated, from rough river rats to wealthy businessmen.
“Yer awfully quiet this morning, gel. Not feeling quite the thing? Did you drink too much of old Auguste’s French wine last night?” Emory studied her with hooded eyes.
“Of course not,” she replied more waspishly than she intended, then softened her voice assuringly, “I sipped only one glass of champagne. Never fear, I shall do fine this morning.”
“Only see that you do,” he admonished, squinting ahead at the gathering crowd as he reined in the carriage horses beside a thicket of sumac growing near the side of the roa
d.
When the phaeton came to a halt, Olivia seized a small carpetbag from the floor and gracefully climbed down. “The usual place after?” she asked. He nodded peremptorily as he snapped the reins and the vehicle lurched forward. Uncle Emory was really a terrible driver, she thought as she turned toward a narrow path snaking through the dense undergrowth, carefully holding the skirt of her stiff twill morning suit away from the scratchy weeds.
As she walked through the undergrowth, Olivia’s mind returned again and again to the preceding night at the Chouteaus’ soiree, or more precisely, to the interlude with Samuel Shelby in the garden. He had kissed her with such savage intensity and yet such sweetness. She had dared to hope that he planned to court her. She had melted into him, lost in that strange new maelstrom of desire to which he had introduced her back in that deserted cabin months ago. Touching her lips with her fingertips she could still feel the passion bruised tingling, remember the heat and the wild beating of her heart—before he crushed it once more by breaking away from her.
“This is insane, Olivia,” he had said raggedly, holding her at arm’s length.
If not for his support, Olivia knew she would have fallen to the ground and quite ruined her expensive new gown. She could not look at him for a moment, but then he had taken her chin in his palm and raised her face so she had to meet those troubling blue eyes. A blush had stained her cheeks and her heart was still beating like a mad thing.
“Once more I must apologize for manhandling you,” he had said ruefully as he gently tucked an errant curl back into place.
Anger fueled her boldness. “That’s it, then. Another apology, nothing else?”
“What would you have of me, Olivia? We’ve only met twice and both circumstances were only a bit less than scandalous. I’m here on assignment at Fort Bellefontaine and have yet to report to the post commander.”
He had seemed uncomfortable at that juncture and his loss of cool control gave her courage. She stepped closer and began to smooth her bodice as she spoke. “And once you begin your duties...what then? Surely the army cannot take twenty-fours a day of your time. The fort is scarcely an hour’s ride from my guardian’s house.”