by Jenna Kernan
He picked a beautiful spot to camp beside a rock-lined stream. Water cascaded down into deep pools providing places to bathe.
Lena decided the following morning was washing day. Troy sat back and watched her set about the task. After only a few minutes he clutched his mouth in an effort not to bust out laughing.
“And what, may I ask, are you snickering about?” Lena regarded him in the haughty attitude that once irritated him.
“I just never seen a woman rub soap into dry clothes before.”
“I suppose you could do better.”
“If that’s supposed to get me to leap up and wash your dirty clothes, you got me confused with a fool.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I’ve never done this before.”
“Now that don’t surprise me as much as you might think.”
She sat on the rock before her laundry, dresses in one pile and underclothing in another. Her expression of defeat changed to one of hope when she laid her eyes upon him.
“Surely you’ve seen someone do laundry.”
He straightened. “Seen?” Speech failed him. “You mean to tell me you ain’t even seen any laundry done?”
“My education did not include it.”
“Sounds lacking.”
She lifted her chin. “I’ll have you know I had the best education money can buy. I can read Latin and speak French. I studied Academies and Socrates.”
He lifted his eyebrows as if impressed. “Oh, well, then. Why not just speak some French at them stinky duds. That ought to impress them plenty. Won’t make you smell no better though.”
She glanced about as if expecting her maid to arrive at any moment.
“Oh, bother,” she muttered, then pasted a smile upon her face. The result affected his innards more than he cared to admit.
“Mr. Price, I am not asking for you to wash my clothes, but any relevant observances would be most welcome.”
“You asking for help?”
“I am.”
“Oh, well, I didn’t recognize it past all them two-dollar words. Where I come from, you just ask someone to lend a hand and slap a please on the end.”
She considered that. “Would you instruct me, please?”
“If I help you, then you let me wash my hair with that fancy soap.”
Her smile seemed knowing. “You help me, Mr. Price, and I shall wash your hair for you.”
He couldn’t quite keep the glee from his face when he offered his hand to seal the bargain. She hesitated a moment, then reconsidered and clasped his palm. Tingling warmth began at the point of contact and rippled up his arm. He scowled and then glanced at her to see her eyes wide in surprise.
He released her and cleared his throat, wondering why he agreed to let her touch him, when he’d spent the better part of the last two weeks avoiding her touch.
Longing and caution warred within him as he stared at her.
“Shall we begin?” she asked.
He drew a deep breath as if he were about to plunge head-first into the pool before him.
“Now, I ain’t never washed anything but woolens and cottons. I don’t know how them velvets will hold up.”
She nodded. “Understood.”
“Since we don’t have a kettle we’ll have to make do in the stream. Give them all a good soak first.”
Lena stood by the falls as Troy moved downstream, already anticipating the next catastrophe. She took her crimson skirt and held it in two fingers, then bent to douse it beneath the falls. The current swept the garment away and down into the pool where Troy waited to fish it out.
“Gad, I might have lost it,” she said.
“Try the still water and hold down what you ain’t gripping with rocks.”
He hadn’t meant to help her, but all the talk wore him out more than washing. In a few moments she knelt on the grassy bank as he sat on a rock that rose above the water, his breeches rolled up to his knee. He showed her how to dunk and beat the fabric on a rock. He told her not to twist the woolens as it made them shrink. Troy conserved the soap, using it only on the soiled places.
“Don’t daub at it. Rub it.” He grasped the nearest garment and showed her, then dunked it to rinse. The bathing soap she used for laundry filled the air with the scent of roses. He demonstrated, lifting the fabric. In that instant he recognized the thing, now as transparent as smoke. He held the source of many hours of lost slumber—her damned sheer sleeping robe. He stared at the thing imagining Lena that first rainy night, naked, wet and exposed to him.
Curse it all; the image seemed branded on his brain. He knew until his dying day, he would never be rid of it.
“Like this?” Lena followed his demonstration.
“I gotta get back to tanning hides.” He headed for shore, pausing only to dunk his head. The woman made him hotter than a horned toad in August.
The afternoon passed in the slow torture of watching Lena stoop and scrub her garments, presenting him with a fine view of her backside. Finally, she sighed and swept her forearm across her moist brow.
He helped her twist the last of the garments and then they hung them on the bushes to dry.
“I reckon you’ll be glad to get back home, where other folks do the washing.”
“I won’t miss the washing. But other things I will miss greatly.”
“What, for instance?”
He hung the last skirt and rested on the downed log as she considered the leafy cover above them.
“I’ll miss my freedom. I’ll miss waking up and wondering what the day will bring. At home my life is very predictable, tiresome really. The only joy I find is in my painting.”
“You do that real well.”
“Thank you, Troy. But soon I shall be back to painting bowls of fruit in the drawing room.”
Their gazes met and held.
He was sorry he couldn’t do more for her than help her find the animals she needed and keep her safe while she did her work. But he wasn’t willing to fall in love with her and lose his heart in the process.
He glanced away. No, she would soon belong to some thin-blooded Englishman who thought her spirit something to be squashed.
He ground his teeth together until they squeaked.
Chapter 11
Lena pressed her fists to her hips and surveyed her drying wardrobe. Then she stretched her back and Troy’s mouth went dry. When she turned to him, her eyes shone with an impish delight.
“I am prepared to fulfill my promise, Mr. Price, and play your valet this evening.”
“Valet?” He laughed. “I can wash it myself. Just give me the soap.”
She shook her head, sending the curls at her temples dancing. How he loved the merry color of her hair.
“Nonsense. We have an agreement.”
Well, he’d given her a chance to bow out. If she was dead set, he wouldn’t stop her.
Discomfort hit as he stared up at Lena, the lady of the manor, now prepared to wash his hair. He longed for her touch and knew that was why he’d accepted the wager. Imagining her slim fingers delving into his hair, massaging his scalp sent a pulsing of anticipation down his spine. Lena swept toward him then paused.
“Let me just retrieve my soaps.” She drew out a satchel and revealed six different cakes: three pink, one purple, one pale green and a strange translucent yellow. She sniffed the first.
“I do not think the rose will suit, nor the lilac. That leaves only gardenia.” She lifted the green.
“What about that?” He pointed at the yellow.
She giggled. “That is saddle soap.”
He lifted the cake and inhaled. The scent of a new leather rose to him. He extended the bar. “I want this one.”
She looked unsure. “If you’re certain. I don’t know what it will do to hair.”
The unease returned as they regarded each other in silence. She cleared her throat.
“Well then.” She extended her hand for the bar and he slid it into her small palm. “If you’ll just sit on
the bank. I’ll fill the water skin and bring it to you.”
He sat on a rock, waiting for her, listening to his heart pound as loud as a woodpecker on a hollow trunk. She swept up the bank, deposited the skin and then returned to her belongings. After rummaging a moment, she returned with a pristine white linen towel and silver comb and brush he thought she left back at Fort Union. She laid the towel before his feet and then arranged the soap and other items.
She swept a lock of hair from her forehead and stood before him.
“I’m afraid I’ll get your shirt rather wet.”
“You ever washed anyone’s hair?”
Her cheeks pinkened. “I shall be frank, Mr. Price. Before coming here, I never even washed my own.”
He laughed.
She rushed to recover. “But I know how to go about it. I’ll wet it first, then soap, then rinse.”
Troy doubted it would be so simple.
“If you’ll just remove your shirt.”
He did, standing to pull off the buckskin and set it beside her belongings. When he turned back he found the pink in her cheeks had migrated to her neck and the tips of her ears. Her chest rose and fell in a rhythm far too quick for a woman standing still.
His nostrils flared drawing in her scent. She looked like a woman waiting to be kissed. He realized he never wanted anything more than to draw her close and press his mouth to those full lips.
“If…if you will kindly sit now,” she said.
He stared at her lovely, nervous face. He could kiss her. Likely he could do more than kiss her. But he’d never keep her. Not for long.
This magnificent woman would make someone a damn fine wife. Just not him.
He plunked down on the log.
Why did that matter? He’d been with many women and they never cared that he would not stay. He took what they offered and enjoyed their coupling. So what made him care if this little slip of a thing left him at summer’s end? Regret he could not fathom pierced him.
“Lean forward,” she said.
He did and cool water streamed over his head and down his neck, trickling over his shoulders and back.
Lena grasped the soap and wet her hands raising a lather. Then she placed the soap against his head and scrubbed. Quickly the bubbles foamed. She worked the soap through his hair. He groaned and she stilled. Excitement vibrated from her fingers and radiated up her arms. Did he feel it as well?
She inched a little closer, keeping her fingers in motion as she stood close enough to hear his breathing. Sunlight danced over the smooth bronzed skin of his back. She noted how very pale were her forearms by comparison.
The impulse to touch his neck and rub his shoulders proved hard to resist as she worked down to his nape and then back toward his crown, building a foaming lather.
He sighed.
“How does that feel?” she asked.
“One step from paradise.”
She smiled and then frowned as she noted the lather leaning dangerously on his forehead. It slid down his brow and she scooped to stop it, but the suds slithered toward his eye. He reacted an instant later. She knew the moment of contact, for he lifted a hand to rub.
“Water,” he ordered.
She retrieved the skin and doused him, sending a torrent of soap streaming down his face.
He sputtered and stood, shaking his hair from his face, both eyes now pinched shut. His hand streaked out.
“Towel.”
She handed it over and he threw his head back. His hair flew up, landing in soapy strands on his back.
Bubbles trickled down his forehead, as an untimely mirth struck her. She pressed a hand to her mouth as he swiped the linen across his face. A very unladylike snort escaped her and he opened one eye to peer. Seeing her poorly contained humor, his eyes narrowed.
He fell to his knees upon the stream’s bank and dunked his head. Then he stood and shook like a wet dog, causing Lena to squeal as she threw out her hands in vain effort to stop the sudden shower. A devilish grin crossed his lips and he stalked forward to give another shake. She dashed up the bank, but not quickly enough, for he captured her ankle. She fell upon the grass.
She kicked to no effect as he fell upon her in a wink and flipped onto her back, where she thrashed like an upended turtle while he straddled her thigh.
“Mr. Price. Release me this instant.” Her best incensed voice did not slow him, but rather only caused a devilish glint in his eye. Her stomach gave a wild flip as she struggled once more trying to push him off.
He clasped her wrists.
“You think it’s funny?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, not at all.”
He loomed and water dripped from his hair onto her face.
“You think it’s funny. Now it’s my turn.”
He shook as she screeched and gave one more pathetic effort to escape as he meted out his punishment. Droplets showered her, but still he was not satisfied until he actually rubbed his wet head against her cheek, sliding down her throat.
She stilled as the game changed from playful to sensual. A tingle rippled down her neck, making her chest constrict. The most remarkable, dreadful thing happened next, as her nipples hardened. She would have wrapped her arms about herself, had she had use of them.
He lifted his head, laughter silenced as his gaze met hers. His quicksilver reaction made her pulse race. Suddenly the game turned deadly serious as he held her motionless. His body stilled, except for the heaving of his beautiful bare chest. For just a moment she thought he might kiss her. No, she wanted him to kiss her, hoped—longed for his lips to brush hers, for his chest to cover the dreadful ache his antics brought to her breasts.
He released her abruptly and rolled clear, coming to rest a few feet from her. She sat up and wiped the droplets off her face. He watched her, his chest continuing to work at a rate much faster than necessary for the little exertion restraining her must have cost him.
A satisfied grin lifted his mouth and she thought him the most devilishly handsome man she’d ever seen.
“That was very naughty.”
He nodded. “So was running soap through my eyes.”
“That was purely accidental.”
“It was purely careless.”
She regarded him, wondering at the strange tension still tightening her belly. “No one has ever done that before.”
“What?”
“My mother called it roughhousing.”
“Did you like it?”
She could not begin to tell him how much, so she simply nodded.
“The men of my class are so self-important and, well, the servants would never presume to speak to me as you do.”
“Sounds lonely.”
She’d never thought of her life that way, but it was true. Once she believed this was just how things were, serious and formal. This man gave her a glimpse of a different life, one full of teasing and laughter. She straightened as she recognized she preferred this.
“Yes, it is rather.”
“What about your pa?”
“Oh, no, he is very austere. His position, you understand.” She saw from his confusion he did not. “Did your father tease you?”
“He put a garter snake down my pants once.”
She gasped. “How dreadful.”
“It was funny.”
“Funny?” She tried to imagine him as a little boy, dancing about with a snake in his pants, and giggled. “Well, I imagine it wasn’t funny for the snake.”
“He came out all right.”
“That’s a mercy.” They stared in silence for a moment as they exchanged a smile. This camaraderie…she’d never expected it and had never experienced such ease with anyone, especially not her parents. “I so enjoy your company, Troy.”
“Thanks.”
“I shall miss you when I leave.”
He said nothing for a moment, but his smile faded. “Lena, it’s none of my business, but if not for your promise, would you stay?”
&nb
sp; How she longed to say yes. It was the truth. If not for her obligation to her family, she would stay with him if he’d have her. But he had not asked that.
She sighed, suddenly melancholy. The foolish game and pleasure of only a moment ago disappeared like a puddle in the sun. She could not stay.
“Why, Troy?”
“I guess I’ll miss you, too.”
Her smile stood in opposition to the bands of sorrow now squeezing her heart. How unfair of life to show her possibilities that she could not explore, roads she might never tread. She needed some distance from him to think.
“I would like to bathe now.”
He nodded and cast his eye to the water.
“If you want a bath, this is the spot. I’m going to set camp up that way.” He pointed. “Keep your pistol and rifle nearby. There are bears about.”
Her eyes rounded.
“Ain’t seen no evidence. But fire a shot if you need me.”
He left her, giving her privacy to bathe. She glanced about as she laid her firearms upon the bank as instructed, but saw no wildlife. She remained in her shift kneeling on the shallow sandy bottom, astonished at the warm water that flowed gently by. After a time, she emerged, dried and dressed. Her hair took some struggle to tame and she wished for the assistance of her lady’s maid. Finally clean, she donned a pale yellow morning dress she had yet to wear and headed toward the thin wisp of smoke.
Troy glanced up at her appearance and his jaw dropped at the sight of her. His pulse leapt as he fought to keep from reaching out to her.
Lena had let her hair down. The red cascade of thick curls twisted and tumbled about her shoulders in a wild curling mass like water over a falls. His fingers itched to dive in.
What was she wearing? She stood before him in an impractical concoction of silk the color of butter that made her hair look bright as polished copper.
She noticed the object of his attention and fingered a curl. “It’s still wet, so I left it down to dry. Do you mind?”
His heart thumped against his ribs like a bullfrog in a bucket. Did he mind?
“It’s all right.” Damn him, his voice cracked.
He continued to stare. Most of the women he knew had thick hair—straight, dark hair. This unnatural color reminded him of fire and the texture—coarse and full of life. Such wild hair did not suit the proper little daughter of a rich Yankee.
