Cheyenne Captive

by Georgina Gentry - Iron Knife's Family 01 - Cheyenne Captive

  “Except you, of course, Sister.” His fine, sensitive face looked into hers. “In the meantime, what are your plans? Surely you don’t intend to stay in this unhappy house the rest of your life?”

  She shrugged and turned away. “I—I don’t know what to do.”

  He put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. “I took the liberty of contacting Austin the minute I heard you were on the way home. He’s frantically trying to get leave to come from Washington for the holidays.”

  She turned a troubled face toward him. “I wish you hadn’t done that, David.”

  Evans came up the stairs.

  “Yes, what is it?” David asked testily. She knew he had no liking for the snooty butler.

  “It’s Mr. Austin Shaw,” the butler announced grandly. “He says to tell Miss Summer he’s awaiting her in the library.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Summer almost panicked for a long moment. David gave her a puzzled, troubled look as he dismissed the butler, “Thank you, Evans, tell him Miss Summer will join him shortly.”

  Twisting her hands with indecision as the butler went downstairs, she turned to her brother. “I—I really don’t want to see him, you know.”

  David frowned. “Sis, you’ll have to see him sooner or later. He’s gotten leave from his post in Washington just to see you and he’ll be in town all through the holidays.”

  “I don’t know what to say to him.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Sis!” His tone was warm and reassuring as he took both her hands in his. “You’re acting like the man is a complete stranger! It’s good old Austin, remember? He’s my best friend and we’ve been a constant threesome all these years, not to mention we’re distantly related through our relative who was hanged as a witch in Salem.”

  She paused, thinking. Would Austin be able to look at her and know she was no longer a virgin? Could he possibly stare into her eyes and see all the passion another man had taught her? Sometimes she had an eerie feeling that Austin had an uncanny perception, almost able to read others’ minds. She thought again of Angela Blackledge, the skeleton in the distant closet, the so-called witch.

  “Has it to do with your ordeal?” David asked sympathetically. “Austin will not ask, you know that. Would you like me to come down with you?”

  “No.” She pulled away from him. “You’re right. Sooner or later, I must face everyone’s curiosity and Austin will be the warm, wonderful person he has always been.”

  Resolutely she lifted her skirts and descended the curved stairway, remembering that the Cheyenne would disapprove any talk of marriage between two people even distantly related. The old people of the tribe checked into these things and if the couple were as much as sixteenth cousins, the marriage was called off.

  Opening the library door quietly, she studied Austin standing before the fire. He was five years older than she and every inch the polished, aristocratic gentleman he looked in the blue uniform with the second lieutenant’s insignia.

  He seemed to sense her presence and turned, striding toward her slim and tall. “Summer, I’ve been so frantic about you!” He crossed to her, acted for a moment as if he might take her in his arms, then characteristically hesitated and took her hands in his instead.

  “Hello, Austin,” she said, feeling his soft, fine hands on hers and trying not to remember the touch of large, callused hands. She had forgotten how handsome Austin really was with his wavy brown hair and deep hazel eyes.

  “I’ve just been worried to death!” His voice was cultured and educated. He squeezed her hands again.

  “I’m fine, Austin, really I am. There was no need to worry.” Disengaging her hands, she tried not to look into his eyes as she glanced around the dark library with its endless shelves of books and dark Oriental rugs.

  Austin’s eyes worshipped her and it was truly disconcerting.

  “You do look so handsome in your uniform!” she exclaimed, thinking that only his weak jawline and thin, compressed lips detracted from his good looks. “I thought you couldn’t appear any more handsome than you did in your West Point uniform when you graduated last spring but I was wrong! You’re positively dashing!”

  “Do you truly think so?” He exuded so little self-confidence that she wondered if he could ever function as an officer. “I don’t like the army as well as I had hoped I might, but Mother says a military background is absolutely imperative if I’m ever to run for public office; image and all that, you know.”

  “I remember your mother was wanting one of her sons to go into politics and Todd is rather hardheaded about letting your mother make his decisions. Senator Sumner has not improved in health while I’ve been away?”

  “No, not much.” He clasped his hands behind his back and cleared his throat. “The poor man has hardly made an appearance in the last three years so our state has only one vote most of the time. Imagine the effrontery of that Representative Brooks from North Carolina nearly beating a United States senator to death with his walking stick!”

  “I remember the uproar and the indignation,” Summer said. “I suppose feelings are running high on this slavery thing if one man will nearly kill another over a Senate speech.”

  “Of course the speech was about Kansas and that’s a terrible controversy,” Austin said. He hesitated again. “Would you mind terribly if I smoke?”

  Automatically, she shook her head and watched him fill his pipe and light it, enjoying the scent of tobacco.

  “I can’t imagine such a fuss over a little prairie territory.” She shrugged, trying to keep him talking so they would not get to more important, more intimate words.

  “The reason they call it ‘Bloody Kansas’ has nothing to do with that Territory at all, it has to do with power and whether the pro- or the antislavery forces will control Congress. Both sides are evenly matched right now and how Kansas representatives and senators would vote may swing the balance.”

  “Then there’s going to be war?”

  “Probably. In fact, a lot of young officers like myself are counting on it.” He puffed his pipe.

  She gave him a long look. “That doesn’t sound like the gentle Austin I know.”

  He cleared his throat, obviously stung by her implied criticism. “A war brings rapid advancement. Mother says if I reach major or colonel, in a few years, with the Shaw money and influence, I could easily become a senator.”

  If he quoted his mother one more time, she would break a tooth from gritting them, Summer thought grimly. She went over and sat on the cold leather sofa. If there were a more formidable dragon in Boston’s high society than the tiny, birdlike Elizabeth Shaw, she didn’t know who it was.

  “How is your brother?” she asked to change the subject.

  “Todd? Well, I suppose. I’ve been off in Washington as you know so I haven’t seen much of him, but I don’t think either he or David want to stay at Harvard. He wrote that he has no intention of taking over Father’s mills and is considering the newspaper business or going off with the antislavery faction to Kansas.”

  “That Todd!” Summer laughed, thinking how different the two brothers were. Todd was even more handsome, more dashing and reckless. “But he always seems to go his own way, no matter what! Is your mother having one of her famous fainting spells over it?”

  He cleared his throat and fiddled with his pipe. “I’m sure you’re not implying that Mother’s illness is not real!” he said defensively. “And I don’t think Todd has told her of his plans. You know he is the apple of Mother’s eye.”

  She felt sympathy for Austin. “Well, it’s your mother who has been leading the Boston social set against slavery. She should be pleased if Todd goes off to Kansas to fight slavery.”

  He smiled, chagrined. “It’s very fashionable in the best circles to come out against slavery right now. Mother’s been helping raise money to get all those settlers who are opposed moved to Kansas so they’ll be a majority vote when the time comes. And of course the Union will need all that gold t
hat’s rumored to be in the western Kansas area of the Rockies if there’s war!”

  Her heart sank. “That’s Cheyenne-Arapaho hunting grounds. We can’t just start invading that area by the thousands, digging for gold.”

  “You think not?” He fiddled with his pipe. “The army will just push those savages out of the Rockies. You don’t really think the government would let a few Indians stand in the way of our Manifest Destiny policy? It is our duty to expand our country’s borders from ocean to ocean and from Canada to Mexico. No one cares what happens in the process to a bunch of ignorant savages!”

  Summer felt small blotches of color come to her cheeks. Austin saw her expression and evidently misread it. “Forgive me, my dear!” He put his pipe down on a nearby table and came over to sit next to her, taking her hands. “I had forgotten your ordeal among them. It was unkind and thoughtless of me to mention them and bring back what surely must be terrible memories.”

  Memories. Yes, there were memories.

  “It’s perfectly all right, Austin,” she murmured tonelessly, pulling her hands from his. “Are you going to be home throughout the holidays?”

  “Yes, Mother and Father arranged it so I could stay until after our New Year’s Eve ball.”

  She stood up suddenly and went to the window to watch the snow fall. “Would it surprise you very much, Austin, if I tell you I get a little sick of your mother sometimes?”

  He came over and put his hands on her shoulders very hesitantly and his lips were close to her hair. “I don’t understand why you’re upset!” he stammered. “Please don’t let’s quarrel, Summer, that’s not why I came all this way at all! I keep thinking that whatever has happened to you is my fault. I should have overridden my mother last summer when I finally was graduated from West Point and married you. If you had been my wife, you never would have gotten mixed up in that silly protest and your father wouldn’t have sent you away.”

  She didn’t answer as she watched the big flakes fall and wondered if it were snowing now up at the winter camp in the Big Timbers? Tears came to her eyes and trickled down her face.

  His fine hands trembled on her shoulders. “I never meant to upset you and make you cry.”

  She knew he was trying to get up the nerve to take her in his arms with reckless passion, but she knew, too, he could never do it. He was too timid and inhibited. If only, just once in all these years, he had swept her up into his arms with heated daring and said, “You’re mine! I’ll not take no for an answer!”

  Her mind went to the other man, the one she would never have met if Austin had stood up to his mother last summer. She would have married Austin then, probably. Now her heart belonged to a dead man.

  “Summer,” he began hesitantly and his hands tightened on her shoulders. “I wondered if . . .”

  He was going to ask and she had no idea what to say to him. “I think I hear David out in the entry,” she said quickly as she fled across the room. “David! Do come in and speak to Austin!”

  She flung open the door. “Come in, David!”

  Her brother had been going out the front door but he returned with her to the library. “Austin, old friend! Glad to see you!” They shook hands warmly. “How’s Washington?”

  “Buzzing with talk of Kansas and war. What do you think of Harvard?”

  David smiled and clapped him on the back while Summer gave her brother a look of appreciation.

  “I find Harvard dull, frankly,” David said. “The only real pleasure I get is sneaking off to set up my easel and paint. Like Todd, I’m thinking of dropping out.”

  “You’d better give that a lot of thought,” Austin admonished as he went over, picked up his pipe, knocked the ashes into the fireplace, and pocketed it. “I never do anything without giving it a great deal of thought. Haste makes waste, as Mother says.”

  Summer rolled her eyes in desperation at David and he took her cue and came to the rescue. “I was just thinking of getting the sleigh out. Why don’t you two come with me?”

  “What a wonderful idea!” Summer feigned enthusiasm. “It’ll be just like old times! Isn’t it a wonderful idea, Austin?”

  He looked unhappy at the interruption but he nodded reluctantly as she ran to get her heavy blue cloak with the white fur around the hood and the matching muff.

  In minutes, they were climbing into the small sleigh, with Summer in the middle. Austin pulled the fur robe over their laps as she shivered in the cold air.

  Stunned, she reached out a trembling hand to stroke it. “What—what kind of fur is this?” But she already knew.

  “Buffalo,” David answered as he flicked the little whip. They skimmed across the glittering white crust. The brass bells on the red harness of the black gelding jingled. “Buffalo lap robes are coming into fashion. I’m told they’ll be shipping more and more of the hides back east as they find ways to use the leather.”

  “Well, there seems to be an endless supply of the beasts.” Austin nodded. “And no one has any use for them so far but the savages.”

  Her hand shook with remembered passion. She stroked the fur ever so gently and saw a fleeting image of flickering firelight and strong, rippling muscles. Summer, my little love ... my dearest, take me now ... Please take me . . .

  The men did not seem to notice her silence. They fell into easy camaraderie, talked and joked about past times.

  “Hey, I know!” suggested David. “Let’s sing!”

  “What shall we sing?” Summer tried to sound enthused and keep tears from gathering in her eyes.

  “That new song that came out last year about sleighing.”

  “Very appropriate!” Austin judged. “I’ll start: ‘Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way!’”

  “Oh, what fun it is to ride’,” David joined in lustily, “Sing, Sis! Sing!”

  She did her best to oblige as she breathed in the icy air. No one would ever know of her secret sorrow. She would survive, she thought grimly as they skimmed along with the men singing happily. She would survive because she was too strong to give up. Her beloved was gone. Still, she might be carrying his child and the thought strengthened her.

  As the days passed, she thought of nothing else as she made excuses to avoid Austin. But what of Austin? If she were pregnant with a savage’s child, would he still want her? Would he gather the nerve to stand up to his domineering mother? Could she make up her mind to marry him when her heart belonged to a dead man? She would think of all that later; right now, she could only hope for a child.

  But her hopes were dashed in a few days as her monthly period began and she had to face the fact that there was no child, would never be a child. She had nothing to remember Iron Knife by.

  No, that wasn’t true, she thought as she curled up in her bedroom wing chair before the fire. She had wonderful memories and she could live on those. She would hold onto each precious remembrance like old love letters and bring them out when she was low in spirits. He wasn’t dead at all; he lived on in her heart.

  She noticed in her mirror that she was getting shadows under her eyes and thought she looked more every day like her mother. The thought frightened her and she promised herself she wouldn’t retreat from life like Priscilla had done. Sometimes as she went up the stairs, she paused before her mother’s closed door and listened to the tinkle of the old music box from within and wondered what maze of time Priscilla inhabited.

  No, she was much stronger than her mother, she thought grimly as Christmas approached. Mechanically, she went through the motions of living. She would face life and give as good as she got. But what was she to do? There were no jobs open to a respectable young woman of her social class and she had no funds of her own if her father should cut her off.

  Her thoughts went to friends and relatives but she saw no permanent solutions there. The only aunt she really cared for was an impoverished governess in New York so she saw no help there. Her mother’s parents, the Blackledges, were reclusive, crabby people who only seemed t
o care for spaniels. Could she work as a governess herself? She winced, imagining her references being checked and the would-be employer finding the Boston arrest and the scandalous sojourn among the Indians.

  She began to see herself, years in the future, trapped as a powerless, graying spinster in this horrible house. Unmarried, childless, she imagined herself playing with David and Angela’s children when they came to call. She had little of any value to sell and she thought because of the cavalry raid, she would not be welcomed back by the Cheyenne if she should go back West. As the holiday approached and she stared into the fire, only one answer came to her though she thought about every angle: Austin.

  She had been careful never to be alone with him the last several weeks so that he would not have a chance to ask the question she was not sure how to answer. Austin adored her and always had. Before that fierce Cheyenne warrior came into her life, she had thought she loved Austin, too. Austin would take her out of this house, love her enough to soften her sorrow. She would have everything: power, money, social position. He might even become a senator and she would be part of the Washington scene. Would it be fair to him? Would he care that she did not love him as he loved her? Would he know that she had once made love to another man if she didn’t tell him?

  Night after night, she stared into the flames and puzzled over the problem of her future. The Harper’s Magazine, Godey’s Lady’s Book, and old copies of the discontinued Lily all lay unopened on the chair-side table. She had never had much interest in fashion and the suffragette movement seemed to fade in the reality of her own problem. Anyway, perhaps the answer for women was not to be so militant, but to exert gradual, constant pressure. Even water can finally wear down stone if it drips long enough.

  At last it was Christmas and the gloomy mansion gleamed with unaccustomed lights and gaiety. The Shaw family, Maude Peabody, and her elderly father joined the Van Schuylers for the festivities of Christmas Eve. The Blackledges were invited but declined, preferring the company of their spaniels.