Rescuing The Wildcat

by Angela Lain

  This evening, when they sat down by the fire to talk, Kanti seemed less spiky than she had been the previous evening. Jared presumed she appreciated the way he had worked with her father today, certainly he was weary from that work.

  “Tell me about England,” she requested.

  What to tell? There was so much.

  “What do you want to know? I was born in Leicestershire, a rural county about a hundred miles from London. I was born on a large estate owned by my father, who is Rupert, Earl of Edesbury. The house is huge, some one hundred rooms. I had a privileged upbringing, I am not poor.”

  “So, if you have all of that, why are you here?”

  “My father came here years ago. I told you, he travelled and explored, and he married a Cherokee girl. His son Lance was born here, and he lived in Virginia until Lance was about fourteen. Then he unexpectedly inherited the Earldom and moved back to England. We still have businesses in Virginia. I went there for a visit when I first arrived, then I followed in my father’s footsteps. I am seeing what my father, my brother and two of my sisters have waxed lyrical about for as long as I can remember.”

  “But… you are working, not just visiting?”

  “I have done both. Sometimes work is good for the soul.”

  “What is England like, compared to here?”

  Jared regarded her thoughtfully. To merely say ‘everything is bigger, here’ was avoiding the truth.

  “Here there is… space, and wilderness. You have endless woods and forests, endless seas of grass, you have wild people, and wild animals in abundance.”

  “You don’t have wild animals?”

  “We do, deer, rabbits, hares and many smaller animals, but we no longer have bears or wolves, we have too many people and too little space.” He paused to think. “Have you seen New York? Or Chicago, or even St Louis?” Kanti shook her head. “New York and Washington are big, but very different from London. The roads are wider, the buildings have been set apart to give more space. In London, and other English cities, the central parts are cramped and narrow. In London there are many churches and cathedrals, and ancient buildings, some of which are over a thousand years old. They were built when there were less people, and everything is crowded together. The place has history; we have buildings, you have mountains.”

  He knew his words could never convey the feelings. To him, England felt comfortable, safe and boring, while America was exciting and dangerous.

  “Tell her about the sea,” Reuben suggested.

  Jared obliged, and described his journey on the steam ship. Kanti was fascinated.

  By the time they went to their beds, or in his case, his blankets by the fire, he felt she had warmed to him.

  ***

  When she rose the next morning Kanti could hardly be critical of their guest. He was already gone from his bed by the fire. The bed roll and blankets were neatly stacked against the wall and he was nowhere to be seen. Whether he had risen willingly, or had been pulled from his bed by her father mattered little, he was man enough to be outside and working in the dawn light.

  She set about making breakfast, knowing her father and Jared would most likely be in for breakfast shortly. She was proved correct, they entered a kitchen a few moments later.

  “Coffee is ready, breakfast will be just a few more minutes.” She checked the biscuits, now browning in the oven.

  “It’s set to snow again I believe,” Reuben commented as he sat at the table.

  “Maybe I need to move on to Radnor Spring.”

  “That is sixteen-odd miles from here! How can you work from there? I need the help, pardner!”

  Kanti saw Jared eye her father in amusement.

  “I will help for a few days, but I can’t stay without a bed and a room!”

  She could only appreciate his concern on that front. She had no objection to him as a man, but it was awkward having him here with so little privacy. She knew their cabin was no different to many, where families lived cheek by jowl in the same room, but that was family, and that was different.

  The men ate their food, drank their coffee, and headed back into the cold wind. Kanti finished the house work and changed into her britches before she went outside to help as she had always done. She was no lady of the sort she assumed Jared knew in England. She had surmised that, as he was part of a noble family, he was used to servants, and ladies who had their own servants. She was closer to one of those servants, a girl who would and could work for her living.

  The men were replacing a fence, Reuben was putting in the fence posts with a large lump hammer, and Jared was fixing the rails. She moved to help Jared. This was the task she generally undertook, her father had the strength to wield the lump hammer, and he preferred that she kept out of his way while he swung it.

  “You don’t need to do this,” Jared said.

  “Really? Whose place is this? What am I to do? Sit in the house and daydream? I have always worked with my father, that is the way of things here.” She lifted her chin and stared him down. She was half expecting some comment about her britches, no doubt all the women he knew wore pretty dresses, but he said nothing.

  ***

  Jared accepted her words with a nod, and handed her the nails. “Hold those, it will save me keep bending to get them. Hold the end of the rail, with the two of us it will be much quicker and easier.”

  She was dark, and his older sister Susie was blonde, but he could see the similarities, give half a chance Susie would be outside, in men’s clothes, doing work which most considered the province of only the men.

  They worked, and they talked.

  “You are from a wealthy family, did you go to balls and dances?”

  “I did.”

  “Tell me about them, the music, the dresses. I’ve seen pictures, is it really so lovely?”

  It wasn’t that easy, he saw balls as a necessary evil, and he attended to see his friends, to talk, and to please his mother. He knew it was different from a woman’s point of view, but he tried to convey to her the pleasure his sisters seemed to get from the music, the lights, the dancing and the lovely dresses.

  “Some of the ladies look magnificent in their satin dresses with the huge crinoline petticoats. They always look impractical to me, but the ladies love to dress that way. The debutantes tend to wear very pale colors, that way you can tell them from the married ladies, or maybe the more risqué ladies,” he grinned.

  “Risqué?”

  “Oh yes, there are some who decide they will not toe the line, often slightly older unmarried girls who have become disillusioned with the whole thing. Some of them wear scarlets, and bright blues and greens. The ballroom can look like a rainbow.”

  “What of your family? Do they go to balls with you?”

  “Yes and no. Truthfully, my siblings are all much older than me. I am closer in age to many of my nieces and nephews. My particular friends, Barnabus and Edmund, are my nephews, we are almost of an age. We have a jolly time together. Or at least, we did; Barnabus has married, and ceased to be such fun!”

  “Too much responsibility,” Kanti declared.

  “True. What of you? Tell me about your life? You have travelled with your father, you are no stay-at-home miss who has never been off the farm.”

  Kanti told him of her first cattle drive, which he could appreciate, because he too had experienced the same thing only this summer.

  Day wore into evening, Kanti retreated to the house to cook the meal. They passed the evening as before, talking comfortably before the fire.

  Jared talked of his travels in the Yellowstone valley, and of the sights he had seen. Of geysers and hot springs and steaming rivers. Kanti listened with fascination.

  ***

  The next day progressed much as the one before, this time Kanti told him of her more recent adventure.

  “I couldn’t go with Papa this year; I wish I could, but it seems I am no longer welcomed on cattle drives. I am a distraction to the men.”

 
; Jared grinned at her, “I can’t imagine why?”

  She scowled back at him. “I now have to go to town and get a job. It is tedious, but I know Papa wouldn’t be happy if I was alone all summer. I went to Radnor Spring and I worked in the hotel.”

  “Ahh, a nice hotel? Would that be the place to stay when I go there?”

  “I think not! Mrs. Hislop, who was my employer, is most particular. She does not have single men staying, and I don’t mean with the ladies! She will accommodate a married couple, or ladies, but the single men are forced to go elsewhere.”

  “Ahh, pity, I thought I had a good thing going there. I could have mentioned you were a friend of mine.”

  “That might not have been in any way to your advantage,” Kanti retorted. “Anyhow, I cook and clean, and generally it is pretty mundane, but just before I left there was… an incident.”

  “Tell me more!”

  “A lady arrived, a Miss Tatum, and she was in town to meet a man. She was a mail-order-bride.”

  “Wow, I have heard of them, but I’ve never met one.”

  “Nor had I. I felt sorry for her. She was thin and unhappy looking, apparently she had been virtually kicked out by her father’s new wife. Which made what happened even worse.” She paused for effect. “The man she had come to meet was known to Mrs. Hislop, and apparently he is a bad lot. He comes from Files Crossing and he is a… a procurer, I think she said! That means he…”

  “I know exactly what that means!” Jared growled. “Did this poor girl marry him?”

  “No, I went with her to the saloon, just as company along the street, you understand, and he was vile. He was so rude, he called her old, and said she had lied, and he said she wouldn’t do. Then he said she owed him the money for her fare.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I took her back to the hotel. We talked with Mrs. Hislop, and I decided I would come home early and she could have my job.”

  “That was very good of you.”

  “Well, to be honest, I didn’t fancy staying in town any longer, not while he was there. I didn’t like the way he looked at me.”

  “Pardon?” Jared straightened from what he was doing to stare at her.

  “He looked at me, and he said I would do instead.”

  Jared regarded her, unsure of what to say. He was disturbed by what she had said. A girl, alone in town like that, she had been so vulnerable despite being employed in a respectable job.

  “Sounds like you were wise to come home.”

  “I thought so. Papa arrived two days later. But it was a bit of excitement, something out of the ordinary.”

  Indeed it had been!

  “Did this man have a name?”

  “Mr. Bradley Forncett as I recall.”

  “What did he look like, in case I should ever come across him and wish to avoid him?”

  “Big, in his mid-thirties I would guess, well dressed, with bay rum in his hair and a moustache with twirly ends. He though he looked wonderful.”

  Jared tucked it all into his memory, it wasn’t something he would be forgetting any time soon.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  J ared regarded Kanti as she washed the supper dishes. He had known her only three days, and already she enchanted him. She was beautiful, the curve of her face, the shine of her dark brown eyes, the swing of her soft dark hair. He was in love.

  No. Maybe he thought he was in love; it didn’t happen like that, surely? Or did it? Wasn’t that what had happened to Lance and Kit? To Eddie and Charlene? As he remembered it, both half-brothers claimed to have fallen instantly for their wives.

  But he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t fall in love; he had promised his father he would return to England. He should not return with a wife, and if he fell in love that would be the ultimate conclusion. He should not marry a girl like Kanti and drag her back to England. He knew his family, particularly his father and brother, would understand. Rupert had married a native girl, of course he would accept it.

  No, it was Kanti he was thinking of, she would never fit in England. True, Lance had done it, but it was different for a woman. Society had high expectations, a woman could not step outside the norm and have an easy life. She would be snubbed and talked about. How could he ever thrust her into that? He would never wish her to be unhappy.

  He watched her, and realized how far he had already fallen. He was thinking of marriage. What did that say about his acceptance of loving her?

  ***

  Kanti worked at the sink, scrubbing the pan with ferocious concentration. He was watching her, she could feel him watching her. She wished he wouldn’t, it made her feel most peculiar, all hot and itchy, all silly and wobbly inside.

  She knew what it meant when a man watched a woman that way, he liked her, and he wanted her. It was not something she could ever allow, because she was a wild girl, the wildcat her father had always talked of. What would a man like Jared want with a girl like her? There could only be one end to it, disgrace for her. But how she wished it could be different.

  He was the only man who had ever made her feel this way. She wasn’t stupid, she’d had crushes on a couple of the cowboys when they had been on the trail. She had been young, but she’d known the feelings. She also knew that was why her father had stopped her from going with him, he feared her wild nature.

  Kanti had never had a mother to guide her, but she had eyes to see. Her father had warned her about men, and she had been proposition several times, but she had been wise enough to keep her distance, probably because she’s felt no attraction at all to any of the men who had approached her.

  Jared had been nothing but decent, he had been friendly and helpful, he had treated her like a sister, a family member, he had never tried anything untoward. But it was there, she could feel it was there. Maybe he would never act on it, but he desired her. She wasn’t at all certain she could force herself to stay away from him, should he actually act on that attraction.

  ***

  They sat in front of the fire for their evening chat.

  “It will be Christmas in little over a week,” Reuben observed. “Have you decided what you are doing? Are you going down to Radnor Spring before Christmas? You could stay here.”

  Jared flicked his eyes to Kanti, she was deliberately looking at the flames. She’d been avoiding his gaze all evening. They had worked together today in perfect harmony, it was only since they had sat down for supper that she had gone a little strange.

  Then again, she had changed into a dress and let her hair loose before they ate supper, she’d done it last night too. Did she do it for him? Was she thinking the same way he was thinking? The idea brought him up short. He had been watching her, working with her all the day. It

  made him think of staying, which he knew he could not do.

  “I think I need to go, even if I come back for Christmas day. Will you be heading to church at Christmas?”

  “Unlikely,” Rueben said. “We only get the circuit preacher in Miners Delight, and he won’t be back before Christmas. Radnor Spring is too far to go just to go to church.

  “Pity,” Jared mused. Not that he was a great devotee of church. He was a Christian, with Christian values, but he did appreciate the restrictions out here in the wild. He did attend church when he had the chance, and he would like to have done so at Christmas. At home in England he went to church as a matter of course, here, he often didn’t know it was Sunday.

  “Do you do anything special for Christmas? A special meal, gifts, decorations? The church service on Christmas day was always one of my favorites.”

  Kanti regarded him in wonder. “Is that what you do in England?”

  “Is that not what you do in America?”

  “Well, we read the bible, the story of Jesus, if we remember the date. It’s a lovely story.”

  “Have you never been to church at Christmas?” Had she honestly been to church much, ever?

  “Not recently,” Kanti murmured. “Tell me, what do you do
at Christmas?”

  “It’s a time for family, which in my case is a large extended family. We usually get together at Carruthers Hall in Leicestershire. There will be four or five families, and lots of children; grandchildren, nephews, nieces, everyone. The Hall will be decorated with fir boughs and holly and ivy and mistletoe. There will be lanterns hung and ribbons and bows. We’ve had a Christmas tree too. And we exchange gifts, the children get all sorts of toys and sweetmeats. We all go to church, and so do the servants. We have a huge Christmas meal, and the servants will have one too, later in the day. On Boxing day, that is the day after Christmas, we distribute gifts to the tenants and the village, generally food hampers and clothes where we know things are needed.”

  Kanti stared at him with her mouth open. “You do all that? Do you have many servants?”

  “My father has dozens, and many tenants too.”

  “You must be very rich.”

  Jared returned his gaze to the flames, aware that he must have sounded boastful about everything they had. But what could he say? He spoke the truth. As to being rich, well, it was what it was, he couldn’t deny his fortune.

  “My father is an Earl, part of the British government. He has always tended his estates and businesses. He does not waste or fritter money on gambling or mistresses or any such things as some gentlemen seem to believe their due. He is a man for family. I can only tell you that I feel privileged to be his son, and part of the Buckingham-Brown dynasty.” He paused to consider his words. “I will never be massively wealthy in the way of my father, or my brother Lance who is his son and heir, or even Simon, who is Lance’s son and heir. I am the second son, not the heir, however I will never be poor. That is the way it is.”

  He looked up at Kanti again, and she had tears in her eyes. She obviously cared the way he cared, and she could see this was as impossible as he knew it must be. She belonged here, he was a visitor and he would return across the water to his life of privilege. He had made a promise to his father that he would not settle here as Eddie had done, at least, not yet. His father had not asked it for himself, but for his mother, who would be heartbroken if another of her sons never came home. As long as his mother lived, he had to return to England.