Chapter 25
Daybreak found them on the banks of a small river. There was no sign of the Shawnee, not a man, woman or child. Not even an Indian pony or one of the yellow dogs that lived in the village and made a good stew when game was scarce. The people had melted away, like ice at the end of winter.
Lochranza jerked awake. The smell of smoke lingered in her nostrils and the memory of the dream, now clarified, stirred in her mind.
She closed her eyes to block out the terrible thing that had resurrected her childhood memory.
Ethan’s coat covered her and she felt the weight of his arm.
Sensing the movement of her body, he hugged her close, the whole length of him warm against her.
That he had half carried and dragged her all this way amazed her.
How far must they have come? Three miles? Four? Five? It might have been more.
As he lay there sleeping beside her, she took advantage of the opportunity to study his face.
The scar. The dark eyebrows. The sooty lashes.
The cheekbones that had an angular quality and his chin, dimpled at its very centre.
He needed a shave. Doubtless he wouldn’t get one for many days.
The last one had been at Fort Charlotte.
Fort Charlotte!
The name had become magical. She thrilled at the thought of their lovemaking and him admitting that he’d fallen in love with her back at Cleveland Court.
My word! The ball! It seemed such a long time ago and another world.
The thought of those dowagers, the prim daughters in pale-coloured muslin and what they would think of her exploits, made her want to laugh out loud.
Gently, so as not to wake him, she poked at his chin stubble, just enough to find that it was quite soft. It tickled when she rubbed her chin against it.
Once she’d started touching him, she found she couldn’t stop. Eyelids, nose, mouth, chin. The scar on his face.
She had a great need to know everything about him, both physically and mentally; the here and now of his being, what he had been like when younger, and what plans he might have for the future together, if indeed that was still possible.
What if he rejected her because she’d submitted to him even before they’d made their vows as man and wife?
Would he do that? She frowned. At the time, it had seemed such a good idea.
With hindsight, it now seemed foolish. She had acted out of jealousy, though she still determined to fulfil her promise to Venus.
Never mind this slavery nonsense, the girl was human.
Taking a thrilling satisfaction from the process, her fingers traced his muscles, prominent and hard through the thin cotton of his shirt and waistcoat. All her reservations about why he wanted to marry her were subjugated to heartfelt gratefulness, though with reservations.
A fish broke through the surface of the water, distracting her attention from him. For a little while, she considered what she had learned since knowing him – and also from her being reunited with Captain O’Neill.
Looking back on her meeting with the affable Irishman, she recalled his reticence about touching on her past. She had been only a child.
In an effort to shield her from nightmares, and perhaps even worse, her mind had obliterated the memory.
O’Neill had not dared intrude with blatant facts, taking the view that she must confront the scene in her own time, coping better with it that way.
A lesser woman might have been driven mad.
Ethan’s sleepy voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘You’re thinking deeply,’ he said to her, his eyes still closed and only the hint of a smile on his lips.
The weight of his arm was comforting. His fingers stroked her neck.
When he opened his eyes, his smile intensified and she felt as though the sun had risen early. Her heart palpitated beneath the weight of his hand, her breast thrusting up into his cupped fingers.
‘Are we safe now? Are they gone?’ she whispered.
‘If you mean our native friends, then the answer is yes. If you mean the outlaw band…’
His leaving the rest of the sentence unsaid was enough to tell her they were still in danger.
Feeling her suddenly tense, he hugged her close, burying his face in her hair. ‘Hold fast. We will get through this.’
The kiss on her forehead was reassuring, his breath, warmly comforting. The kiss he placed on her lips was pure passion, instantly igniting her own desire to make love as they had at Fort Charlotte.
‘We will get through this,’ he said again once his lips had stopped clinging to hers.
She agreed. ‘If you say so, I know we will. Is there anything else we need to do?’
His expression was impish, as though escaping from their present predicament was nothing more than a schoolboy prank.
‘I know what I would like to do, but time is of the essence.’ He kissed her again, caressed her breast, and hugged her one last time.
Rising to his feet was purposeful. He helped her do the same. She passed him his coat and tried not to shiver as the warmth left her.
He shook his head, gently placing it back on her shoulders. ‘No. You keep it.’
‘It’s too heavy.’
‘Keep it. I need to gather some berries. Bilberries grow in profusion around here. And loganberries. I’m sure I saw some of those too. Breakfast will be frugal this morning, but we have plenty of water.’
‘It doesn’t need to be just berries, surely?’
She jerked her chin at the river flowing like tarnished silver reflecting the early morning light.
‘No,’ he said, instantly reading her mind, a glimmer of amusement lifting his features. ‘If I am so lucky as to catch a fish, we would have to eat it raw. We daren’t risk a fire. Not here. It’s too exposed.’
‘Berries won’t fill us up and perhaps if we find somewhere more sheltered later on where we could light a fire…’
She did not tell him that she’d been thinking of boiling water, the steam rising from it in hot, whirling spirals.
The smell of… No. The smell was something she could not yet face.
The matter was fixed in her mind for future attention.
For now, she was hungry and guessed he was too.
In the meantime, she’d made her mind up.
Keep smiling and converse with him on any subject except that.
Be charming, witty and as coquettish as any simpering young lady in a pink dress and wearing feathers in her hair.
She remembered that she was indeed wearing feathers in her hair.
They were probably eagles’ feathers. The women back at the Indian camp had intertwined with them in the plait with great skill.
She had an inkling that the effect was quite attractive, if the look on Ethan’s face was anything to go by.
Ethan responded in a provisional manner to her remarks regarding breakfast. ‘Though with one slight reservation. Might I stress again the reference to me being lucky enough to catch a fish? I’ve never been lucky enough to land a fish. Not even a small one.’
‘Luck doesn’t come into it! It’s a skill,’ she said, feeling better after a night’s rest.
His hand alighted gently on her head, his fingers running through his hair. He looked lovingly down at her. ‘A skill. Yes. One I do not possess, my love.’
The look in her eyes was defiantly triumphant and edgily coquettish. ‘I do!’
After throwing off the heavy coat, she kicked off her boots.
Amusement dancing in his eyes, Ethan watched as she brought the back of her dress through her legs and tied it to the front, leaving her lower legs exposed.
If she looked only half Indian before with her plaited hair and feathers, she looked totally Indian now. What would London society think of her?
Amused by the prospect, he shook his head. ‘Are you really expecting to catch a fish?’
Halfway to the water, mud squishing through her toes, she stopped, looked at him over her shoulder and threw him a winning smile. ‘Jordan taught me.’
His eyebrows rose. ‘Ah yes. The gamekeeper’s son.’
Lochranza looked surprised. ‘You’ve met him?’
‘Your uncle mentioned him in passing.’
Acknowledging his statement with a swift toss of her head, she resumed her journey down the slippery slope.
The mud was cool between her toes, her dress got wet and gnats plagued her face.
Waving them away gave no respite. In desperation, she dipped her fingers into the mud and plastered a thin film of it over her face. The gnats left her alone.
Recalling a day as a child, up to her knees in river water, she could still hear Jordan shouting at her to face the sun. ‘You won’t throw a shadow and so they won’t see you.’
His advice still made good sense. She bent low, her bare feet sinking deeper into the mud before the bank dipped into the river.
Shaking his head at yet another demonstration of her less than ladylike behaviour, Ethan wandered away from the water.
A little foraging should harvest something towards their breakfast, at least sustaining them until they found a suitable place to light a fire and cook a fish – providing Lochranza caught one.
Luckily, he still had his tinderbox wrapped in a square of tarred paper.
A short excursion into the forest and he found dark purple berries growing in profusion. He wasn’t sure what they were. Taking one between his teeth, he bit into it, found it sweet and made the decision that anything tasting this sweet could not possibly be poisonous.
Assured that all was well, he placed the picked berries into his handkerchief.
It wouldn’t be much of a breakfast but would have to do in case she failed to catch a fish.
Just as well in a way. Although his stomach felt hollow, and he guessed Lochranza’s was too, he couldn’t risk lighting a fire just yet.
Smoke could be seen for miles on a flat plain and smelt in a thick forest like this.