“I’m glad to hear that you are so capable, Lady Amhurst. You won’t be offended then when I state my rules. We will begin at sunrise. That doesn’t mean we’ll get up at sunrise, have a leisurely tea, and be on the road by nine. It means things packed, on your horse, ready to ride at sunrise. We’ll head into Longmont first, which will give you a last chance at a night’s rest in bed before a week of sleeping on the ground. If you’re short on supplies you can pick them up there.”
No one said a word and even Amelia decided against protesting, at least until she’d heard the full speech.
Logan continued. “It gets cold at night. We’ll eventually be 7,000 feet up and the air will be thinner. Every morning you’ll find hoarfrost on the ground so staying dry and warm will be your biggest priority. Each of you will pack at least three blankets and a canteen. Again, if you don’t have them, pick them up here in Greeley or get them in Longmont. Ifyou don’t have them, you don’t go. Also, there will be no sidesaddles available. You women will be required to ride astride, so dress accordingly. Oh, and everyone wears a good, sturdy pair of boots. This is important both for riding and for walking if your horse should go lame. ”
“Mr. Reed!” Lord Amhurst began to protest. “You cannot expect my daughters to ride astride these American horses. First of all it is most unacceptable and second, it—”
“If they don’t ride astride, they don’t go,” Logan replied flatly. “Having them riding sidesaddle is more danger than I’m willing to take on. If you want them to come out of this alive, they need to have every possible chance at staying that way.”
“Perhaps, Amhurst,” Jeffery addressed him less formally, “we could arrange to employ another guide.”
Logan laughed and crossed his arms against his chest. “I challenge you to find one. I’m one of only two in the area who will even bother with you people.”
“And what, pray tell, is that supposed to mean?” Amelia interjected.
Logan met her eyes. “It means, I resent European tourists and rich socialites who come to take the air in my mountains. They don’t care for the real beauty at hand and they never stay longer than it takes to abuse what they will before going off to boast of their conquests. I made a promise, however, to pack you folds into Estes, but you,” he pointed a finger at each of the women, “are completely unsuited for the challenge. There are far too many things to consider when it comes to women. Your physical constitution is weaker, not to mention that by nature being a woman lends itself to certain other types of physical complications and private needs.”
“See here! You have no right to talk that way in front of these ladies,” Chamberlain protested.
“That is exactly the kind of coddling I’m talking about. It has no place on a mountain ridge. I am not trying to make this unpleasant, but we must establish some rules here in order to keep you folks from dying on the way.” Logan’s voice lowered to a near whisper. “I won’t have their blood on my hands, just because they are too proud and arrogant to take direction from someone who’s had more experience.” He said “they,” but his steely gaze was firmly fixed on Amelia.
“What other rules would you have us abide by, Mr. Reed?” the earl finally asked.
“No alcohol of any kind. No shooting animals on the way to Estes. No stopping for tea four times a day and no special treatment of anyone in the party. If you can’t cut it, you go back.” Logan took a deep breath. “Finally, my word is law. I know this land and what it’s capable of. When I tell you that something needs to be done a certain way, I expect it to be done without question. Even if it pertains to something that shocks your genteel constitutions. I’m not a hard man to get along with,” he said pausing again, “but I find the institutions of nobility a bit trying. If I should call you by something other than by your privileged titles, I’ll expect you to overlook it. During a rock slide it could be difficult to remember if I’m to address youby earl, lady, or your majesty. My main objective is to get your party to Estes in as close to one piece as possible. That’s all.”
“I suppose we can live with these rules of yours,” Lord Amhurst replied. “Ladies, can you manage?” Penelope and Margaret looked to Amelia and back to their father before nodding their heads.
“Well, Amelia?” her father questioned and all eyes turned to her.
Facing Logan with a confident glare, she replied, “I can certainly meet any challenge that Mr. Reed is capable of delivering.”
Logan laughed. “Well, I’m capable of delivering quite a bit, believe me.”
Chapter 2
Amelia spent the remainder of the afternoon listening to her sisters alternate between their praises of Sir Jeffery and their concerns about the trip.
“You are such a bore, Amelia,” Penelope said with little concern for the harshness of her tone. “Why, Jeffery has simply devoted himself to you on this trip and you’ve done nothing but act as though you could not care less.”
“I couldn’t care less,” Amelia assured her sister.
“But the man is to be your husband. Father arranged this entire trip just to bring you two closer. I think it was rather sporting of Jeffery to endure the open way you stared at that Reed fellow.”
Amelia gasped. “I did not stare at Mr. Reed!”
“You did,” Margaret confirmed. “I saw you.”
Amelia shook her head. “I can’t be bothered with you two twittering ninnies. Besides, I never said I approved of Father’s arrangement for Sir Jeffery to become my husband. I have no intentions of getting closer to the man and certainly none of marrying him.”
“I think Sir Jeffery is wonderful. You’re just being mean and spiteful,” Penelope stated with a stamp of her foot. A little cloud of dust rose from the floor along with several flies.
“If you think he’s so wonderful, Penelope, why don’t you marry him?” Amelia snapped. The heat was making her grumpy and her sister’s interrogation was making her angry.
“I’d love to marry him,” Margaret said in a daft and dreamy way that Amelia thought epitomized the typical addle-brained girl.
“I shall speak to Father about it immediately,” Amelia said sarcastically. “Perhaps he will see the sense in it.” If only he would.
Margaret stared after her with open mouth, while Penelope took the whole thing with an air of indifference. “You know it doesn’t matter what you want, Amelia. Father must marry you off before you turn twenty-one this autumn, or lose mother’s money. Her fortune means a great deal to him. Surely you wouldn’t begrudge your own father his mainstay.”
Amelia looked at her younger sisters for a moment. As fair-haired as she, yet more finely featured and petite, Amelia had no doubt that they saw her as some sort of ogre who though only of herself. Their mother’s fortune, a trust set in place by their grandmother, was specifically held for the purpose that none of her daughters need feel pressured to marry for money. The money would, in fact, pass to each daughter on her twenty-first birthday, if she were still unmarried. If the girls married before that time, the money reverted to the family coffers and could be used by their father, for the benefit of all he saw fit. Amelia knew it was this that drove her father forward to see her married to Sir Jeffery.
“I have no desire for Father to concern himself with his financial well-being. However, there are things that matter deeply to me, and Jeffery Chamberlain is not one of them.” With that Amelia left the room, takingup her parasol. By the time she’d reached the bottom step she’d decided that a walk to consider the rest of Greeley was in order.
Parasol high, Amelia passed from the house in a soft, almost-silent swishing of her pale-pink afternoon dress. She was nearly to the corner of the boarding house when she caught the sound of voices and immediately recognized one of them to be Logan Reed’s.
“You sure asked for it this time, Logan. Hauling those prissy misses all the way over the mountain to Estes ain’t gonna be an easy ride,” an unidentified man was stating.
“No, it won’t,” Logan
said, sounding very disturbed. “Women are always trouble. I guess next time Evans sends me over, I’ll be sure and ask who all is supposed to come back with me.”
“It might save you some grief at that. Still,” the man said with a pause, “they sure are purty girls. They look as fine as old Bart’s spittoon after a Sunday shining.”
Amelia paled at the comparison, while Logan laughed. How she wished she could face him and tell him just what she thought of Americans and their spittoons. It seemed every man in this wretched country had taken up that particularly nasty habit of chewing and spitting. No doubt Mr. Reed will be no exception.
“I don’t think I’d compliment any of them in exactly those words, Ross. These are refined British women.” Amelia straightened her shoulders a bit and thought perhaps she’d misjudged Logan Reed. Logan’s next few words, however, completely destroyed any further doubt. “They are the most uppity creatures God ever put on the face of the earth. They have a queen for a monarch and it makes them feel mighty important.”
Amelia seethed. How dare he even mention the queen. He isn’t fit to… The though faded as Logan continued.
“The Brits are the hardest of all to work with. The Swedes come and they’re just a bunch of land-loving, life-loving primitives. The Germans are much the same and always bring a lot of life to a party. But the Brits think everything goes from their mouth to God’s ear. They are rude and insensitive to other people and expect to stop on a ledge two feet wide, or any other dangerous or unseemly place, if it dares to be time for tea. In fact, I’d wager good money that before I even get this party packed halfway through the foothills, one of those ‘purty’ women, as you call them, will expect to have tea and biscuits on a silver tray.”
At this, Amelia could take no more. She whipped around the corner in a fury. Angered beyond reason and filled with rage, she took her stand. “How dare you insult my family and friends in such a manner. I have never been so enraged in all of my twenty years!” She barely paused to take a breath. “I have traveled all across Europe and India and never in my life have I met more rude and insensitive people than here in America. If you want to see difficulty and stubbornness, Mr. Reed, I’m certain you have no further to go than the mirror in your room.” At this she stormed off, feeling quite vindicated.
Logan stared after her with a mocking grin on his lips. He’d known full well she was eavesdropping and intended to take her to task for it quite solidly. The man beside him, uncomfortable with the display of temper, quickly excused himself and ran with long strides toward the busier part of town. When Logan began to chuckle out loud, Amelia turned back indignantly.
“Whatever are you snickering about?” Amelia questioned, her cheeks flushed from the sun and the encounter. Apparently remembering her parasol, she raised it to shield her skin.
“I’m amused,” Logan said in a snooty tone, mocking her.
“I see nothing at all funny here. You have insulted good people, Mr. Reed. Gentlefolk, from the lineage of nobility, with more grace and manners than you could ever hope to attain. People, I might add, who are paying you a handsome wage to do a job.”
She was breathing heavily. Beads of perspiration were forming on her brow. Her blue eyes were framed by long blond lashes that curled away from her eyes like rays of sunshine through a storm cloud. She reminded Logan of a china doll with her bulk of blond hair piled high on her head, complete with fashionable hat. Logan thought he’d never seen a more beautiful woman, but he still desired to put her into her place once and for all.
“And does your family consider eavesdropping to be one of those gracious manners of which you speak so highly?” he questioned, taking long easy strides to where she stood. Amelia recoiled as though she had been slapped.
“I see you find my words disconcerting,” Logan said, his face now serious. Amelia, speechless, only returned his blatant stare. “People with manners, Miss,” he paused, then shook his head. “No, make that Lady Amhurst. Anyway, people of true refinement have no need to advertise it or crow it from the rooftops. They show it in action. And they need not make others feel less important by using flashy titles and snobbery. I don’t believe eavesdropping would be considered a substantial way to prove one’s merit in any society.”
Amelia found her tongue at last. “I never intended to eavesdrop, Mr. Reed,” she said emphasizing the title. “I was simply taking in a bit of air, a very little bit I might add. Is it my fault that your voice carries above the sounds of normal activity?”
Logan laughed. “I could excuse a simple wandering-in, but you stood there a full five minutes before making your presence known. I said what I said knowing full well you were there. I wanted to see just how much you would take before jumping me.”
Amelia’s expression tightened. “You couldn’t possibly have known I was there. I had just come from the front of the house and I was making no noise.”
Logan’s amusement was obviously stated in his eyes. He stepped back to the house, pulling Amelia with him. Leaving Amelia to stand in stunned silence at his bold touch, he went around the corner. “What do you see, Lady Amhurst?”
Amelia looked to the corner of the house. “I see nothing. Whatever are you talking about?”
“Look again. You’re going to have to have a sharper sense of the obvious if you’re to survive in the wilds of Colorado.”
From around the corner Logan waited a long moment before deciding he wasn’t being quite fair. He reached up and adjusted his hat, hoping his shadow’s movement on the ground would catch her eye.
“Very well, Mr. Reed.” Amelia sounded humbled. “I see your point, but it could have just as easily been one of my sisters. You couldn’t possibly have known it was me and not one of them.”
Logan looked around the corner with a self-satisfied expression on his face. “You’re a little more robust, shall we say; than your sisters.” His gaze trailed the length of her body before coming again to rest on her face.
Amelia turned scarlet and for a moment Logan wondered if she might give him a good whack with the parasol she was twisting in her hands. She did nothing, said nothing, but returned his stare with such umbrage that Logan was very nearly taken aback.
“Good day, Mr. Reed. I no longer wish to listen to anything you have to say,” Amelia said and turned to leave, but Logan reached out to halt her.
She fixed him with a stony stare that would have crumbled a less stalwart foe.
“Unhand me, sir!”
“You sure run hot and cold, lady.” Logan’s voice was husky and his eyes were narrowed ever so slightly. “But either way, one thing you’d better learn quickly—and I’m not saying this to put you off again,” he said, pausing to tighten his grip in open defiance of her demand, “listening to me may very well save your life.”
“When you say something that seems life-saving,” she murmured, “I will listen with the utmost regard.” She pulled her arm away and gathered her skirts in hand. “Good day, Mr. Reed.”
Logan watched her walk away in her facade of fire and ice. She was unlike any women he’d ever met in his life—and he’d certainly met many a fine lady in his day. She was strong and self-assured and Logan knew that if the entire party perished in the face of their mountain challenge, Amelia would survive and probably thrive.
He liked her, he decided. He liked her a great deal. For all her snooty ways and uppity suggestions, she was growing more interesting by the minute and Logan intended to take advantage of the long summer months to come in which he’d be a part of her Estes Park stay.
Logan stood in a kind of stupor for a few more minutes, until the voice of Lord Amhurst sounded from behind him.
“Mr. Reed,” he began, “I should like to inquire as to our accommodations. The proprietor here tells me that you have taken one of the rooms intended for our use. I would like to have it back.”
“Sorry,” Logan said without feeling the least bit apologetic. “I’m gonna need a good night’s rest
if I’m to lead you all to Longmont. It isn’t anything personal and I’m sorry Ted parceled out your evening comforts, but I need the room.”
The earl looked taken back for a moment, apparently unaccustomed to his requests being refused, but nodded as he acquiesced to the circumstances.
Logan took off before the man could say another word. He could have given up the room easily, but his pride made him rigid. “Oh Lord,” he whispered, “I should have been kinder. When I settle down a bit, I’ll go back to the earl of Donneswick and give him the room.” Logan rounded the corner of the house and found Penelope, Margaret, and Chamberlain sitting beneath the community shade tree. It was the only shade tree on this side of town. He couldn’t help but wonder where Amelia had gone, then chided himself for even thinking of her. There’d be time enough on the trip, not to mention when they reached Estes, to learn more about her. He could take his time, he reasoned, remembering that Evans had told him the party would stay until first snow.
Whistling a tune, Logan made his way past Amelia’s simpering sisters, tipped his had ever so slightly, and headed for the livery. Lady Amelia Amhurst, he thought with a sudden revelation. “There’s no reason she can’t be my lady,” Logan stated aloud to no one in particular. “No reason at all.”
Chapter 3
The following day brought the hunting party together. Lord and Lady Gambett arrived with their whiny daughters, Henrietta and Josephine. Both of the girls were long-time companions of Penelope and Margaret, and their reunion was one of excited giggles and squeals of delight. Amelia stood beneath the shade of the community tree and waited for the party to move out to Longmont. She studied the landscape around her and decided she was very glad not to live in this dusty community of flies and harsh prairie winds. To the west she noted the Rocky Mountains and though they were beautiful, she would have happily passed up the chance to further explore them—if her father would have given her the option to return home.
Logan's Lady Page 2
