Lord Rogue

by Patricia Rice

  Alicia studied his face wistfully. “You cannot join me a little later?”

  He touched her cheek. “That was what I had planned, had the weather cooperated. I would like to make love to you to the rhythm of the river.”

  Alicia blushed. Passionate though her response was to his lovemaking, she still remained shy of this most natural of functions. “Keep your kisses warm for me. I will find a use for them later.”

  With that, he strode off, ordering the untying of ropes and the manning of poles while Alicia lingered in the doorway watching. Then she closed the cabin door and lay down on the bed that Travis usually slept in alone. She smoothed the fur as she tried to imagine sharing these quarters with him every night. Could she sacrifice her privacy and independence to this arrogant keelboatman, who made no claims of love but promised only the pleasures of his bed?

  The fresh scents of spring filled the air, and Alicia returned to the cabin door to watch the river glide by. Straight and proudly tall, Travis guided the frail craft through the flood’s debris, making the dangerous chore seem as effortless as rowing a canoe in placid waters. Was it possible to love a man who had no need of anyone, who walked hand in hand with nature, without the trappings of society?

  As Travis caught sight of her in the doorway, he winked, and Alicia knew it didn’t matter anymore. Her heart soared, and the electricity crackling in the clouds overhead only reflected the surge of power between them.

  Thunder rolled as the boat landed at a makeshift dock at the foot of a bank covered in blackberry brambles and sassafras saplings. A narrow stairway had been carved in the clay mud and lined with stones. Swooping Alicia up in his arms, Travis carried her up to the top of the bluff, leaving his crew to tie the boat.

  The land lay in rolling pastures as far as the eye could see. Streambeds could be detected from the fringe of willows and sycamores along their banks. To the right a grove of hardwoods interspersed with loose-limbed evergreens disguised much of the hill and house that commanded a view of the river. It was in this direction that Travis carried her.

  “Travis, for goodness sake, let me down,” Alicia whispered. “You said there would be workers in the fields and the outbuildings. We can’t arrive in this uncivilized fashion.”

  Grinning, Travis ignored her. Alicia was a good head taller than most women, but she was slender as one of those willows and just as light. He had wanted to do this since he had first laid eyes on her.

  The path through the field up to the house was muddy from the spring rains. His men followed at a respectful distance. Many of them, like Travis, had chosen to settle in St. Louis after that last trip from Cincinnati.

  As they emerged through a curtain of trees, Alicia gazed upon the house that could soon become her home. As Travis had warned, it was little more than a farmhouse, but the most elegant farmhouse she had ever seen. The bricks had been made of local clay that had mellowed to a deep rose almost hidden beneath intertwining vines. Leafless now, the vine revealed arched windows and deep green shutters that could be closed against winter winds.

  The previous owner had abandoned the building, unfinished, after his wife and children had died in a smallpox epidemic. Alicia spotted Travis’s handiwork in the scrolled columns of the shaded portico and the massive eagles spreading their wings on the entrance gate. The birds seemed capable of taking flight, and Alicia fell in love with them.

  “Oh, Travis, put me down. I want to touch them. They’re even better than the ones you lost.”

  With a pleased grin Travis halted to allow her to run her fingers over the wooden creatures, but he refused to loosen his hold until they crossed the threshold.

  As he climbed the steps to the front porch, Alicia admired the carved flowers beneath the roof at the top of each column adorning the entrance. There wasn’t a house in all of St. Louis that could boast such refinements, and she knew Travis had added these touches to please her.

  Travis halted just within the front door, while Alicia studied the elegantly wide entrance hall. In summer, the doors at front and back could be left open to air the house with breezes from the river, and the heat would be banished to the high ceilings. But it wasn’t just the high ceilings and beautifully polished oak floors that held her attention. She gasped in awe at the sweeping front stairs. “Travis, how can you call this a farmhouse? It is magnificent!”

  “Would you care to tour the upstairs or down, first?” he murmured huskily. He caressed her cheek, brushing aside a straying curl, then dropping his hand to the curve of her woolen bodice.

  Butterflies flocked to Alicia’s stomach at this invitation. He had discarded his jacket on the boat, and she was all too aware of the virility beneath that loose linen shirt. She didn’t dare look downward. The tailored construction of his leather breeches disclosed every secret they were meant to cover.

  Travis awaited her decision. Without another thought, Alicia lifted her arms to his shoulders and daringly planted a kiss to the corner of his lips. “Upstairs, first.”

  Chapter 26

  Schooling himself to patience, Travis offered his arm and escorted Alicia up the elegant flight of stairs to the second floor. They traversed the polished stairs and upper hallway, halting at a door on the far end. Alicia clutched his arm tighter as he threw open the door to the room she knew he meant for them to share.

  As the door swung open, Alicia gasped in surprise. She had not expected the house to be furnished, and had seen no sign of so much as a rug in any other part of the place. But in this one room stood a high four-poster bed adorned with a sapphire blue silk canopy and draped in graceful folds of netting. Behind the netting Alicia could see the glimmer of a blue coverlet. Releasing Travis’s arm, she drifted into the room to lovingly stroke the polished and intricate carving of the dark posters.

  Sheaves of wheat wrapped the delicate pole, interspersed with a flower Alicia could not identify. The heavens in the form of the sun and moon overlooked the harvest, and a river wound between them, nourishing the plants. She did not know the exact meaning of the symbols Travis had chosen to mark their marriage bed, but she could guess.

  Her eyes filled with tears of happiness. “I’m not certain I deserve such beauty.”

  “To me you are worth the moon and the stars, Blue Eyes.” Travis rubbed the moisture spilling from her eyes. “I want this house and this bed to be yours as much as mine. I want you to be happy here. Do you think you could be?”

  A slow smile formed. “Yes, Travis.” As she lifted her arms to encompass his shoulders, Alicia repeated huskily, “Yes, yes, yes.”

  Thunder rolled in the distance and fireworks exploded in his brain as Travis heard more than he dared hope behind that single word. He wrapped his arms about her slender waist and searched her face. He could not disguise his eagerness as she rested in his embrace.

  “Yes, Alicia? Do I dare hope that yes, you will be happy here means yes, you will be my wife? Do not answer if you still have doubts, for I could not ever let you go once I thought you mine.” Raked with emotion, his voice was almost harsh, expressing his loneliness and hunger.

  “I don’t want to be alone anymore, Travis. Please, let me love you.”

  Choked with a wild surge of joy, Travis scooped up Alicia and rained kisses upon her face, nearly squeezing her to death in the process. Alicia’s laughing protests were silenced as his mouth pressed demandingly for reassurance. She gave it without restraint.

  She buried her fingers in his hair and melted into his embrace as he bent her backward in his eagerness to take possession. She pressed her breasts against his chest until their bodies became a single plane upon which danced a sheet of flame.

  With suddenness Travis set Alicia back upon the floor. He returned to the open bedroom door and slammed it shut, throwing the wooden bolt across it. “I installed the bolt myself. I’ll not have my nights with you disturbed for any reason. I cannot wait until our wedding night, Alicia,” he murmured, reaching for the pins in her hair.

  She oug
ht to protest. This was barely the end of March, and their June wedding was a long way away. She knew from the purposefulness with which he undressed her that Travis had no intention of restraining himself this time. And she did not care.

  With delight Alicia pulled his shirt tails from his trousers and ran her hands over the warm, hard planes of his chest. Travis grunted in surprise as she stroked the hardening points of his nipples, but nothing she did slowed his hands. Her bodice fell and he shoved the hampering gown to the floor. Neither noticed the lack of heat in the room as thunder rumbled and they tore at each other’s clothing.

  Flicking aside the netting, Travis whipped back the bed covers to reveal the sheets beneath. He flung her in among the pillows, and she wriggled out of her chemise as he removed his boots.

  The sheets were icy beneath her bare skin as Alicia slid to the center of the luxurious mattress, but the fire inside her kept her warm. Brazenly sitting naked amid the pillows, her hair streaming in down her back, she watched as Travis stripped off the remainder of his clothes. The gray light through the bedroom windows shadowed broad, bronzed muscles, but she already knew them by heart.

  When Travis came to her, erect and ready, Alicia was prepared. His kiss sealed her lips with desire as his hard, lean length pushed her down into the feathers. Lightning flashed and thunder crashed overhead, but these forces of nature only provided a background to a more powerful act. Spread against the sheets, Alicia opened to him, and embraced his broad shoulders as Travis pierced her to the quick.

  Their cries mixed with the thunder as their bodies rose and fell with an urgency that matched the sudden downpour of rain. As the rain pounded harder, so did they, until no part of them remained separate. No longer alone, they merged as one, their bodies quaking with passion until the flood tide of life erupted, filling them with contentment.

  Alicia sensed the heated liquid of Travis’s seed spilling into her womb, and she cried with the joy of it. This was what lovemaking truly meant, and she rejoiced in finding a man with the patience to share it with her. Her mother had been wrong about so many things, it did not come as a surprise that she was wrong about this. There was pleasure in this act of becoming man and wife, and the pleasure was not all the man’s.

  Finding the tears, Travis kissed them away. “Alicia, my love, I have not hurt you?”

  “No, never. It is too beautiful.” Meaning this love she felt growing inside, the ferocity of the storm outside, and the man sharing them with her. Such perfection had no place on this earth as she knew it.

  Afterward, lying in Travis’s arms, her legs entwined about his muscular thighs, Alicia sighed with contentment. Months of indecision had ended, and she could look forward to the future. With Travis’s seed inside her, her thoughts traveled back to the prior spring, when another man had planted his child. The horror of that time still clung to her, and she burrowed her face against Travis’s shoulder.

  “Travis, I am scared.” Overwhelmed, by what they had done. This total loss of control he had taught her was not as terrifying as the violent anger that had once caused her to carry a gun, but she craved freedom from fear.

  Not understanding, Travis ran a broad, callused hand down her side. “There’s no need to be. The storm is almost past, and the sun will be out shortly.”

  It was too much to expect that he would know the fear of her woman’s body, how easily it could be hurt, how vulnerable it made her. In his masculine strength Travis would never understand. She had to trust him, had to allow this small bud of love and hope to flourish in his protection, the alternative was too lonely and painful.

  Travis nuzzled her ear, biting at the lobe to catch her attention. “When will your school let out?” he murmured.

  “Commencement exercises are scheduled for the first day of June.”

  “Then we shall have to set the wedding for the second day.”

  Alicia laughed as she read the heat of his desire in his eyes. “Perhaps you are right.” The need between them was so strong, she would most likely be swelling with his child by then. That thought excited her.

  Travis cupped her breast in his palm. “I am glad you are so agreeable. I look forward to having you in my bed every night, to waking up beside you in the mornings. I cannot think of a better way to start the day.”

  Since the timbre of his voice spoke what his words did not say, Alicia blushed even deeper. She brushed the tattooed band of blue around his arm, a symbol of those things that separated them. “Did it hurt?” she inquired, inspecting the scar.

  “Yes, but I was so caught up in becoming an adult and a part of the tribe, I did not notice too much.”

  Sensing some of the bitterness behind his words, Alicia sought a way of relieving it. “Did you not say some of your tribe lives near here?”

  Dark eyes watched her with a hint of wariness. “Yes, just south of here. They have been driven farther and farther west to avoid conflict with settlers. Once this land is made a territory, they will be driven on again.”

  “Have you been to see them?” Alicia ignored his political diatribe. She could not control the country, but people she understood.

  “Yes, before I bought the land. My cousins and their families live inside the southern boundaries of this property. The previous owner never cleared the land but had the legal deed showing it was his. It was one of the reasons I bought it from him, so my people did not have to move on again. Someday they will have to learn the white man’s laws so they will not be cheated out of their lands anymore.”

  “Someday, will you take me to meet your family?”

  Travis jerked with surprise. “If that is your wish, I will arrange it. Do not expect approval, however. They do not acknowledge my ownership.”

  Alicia smiled. “That is fair. I’m not certain you would have my family’s wholehearted support, either.”

  Travis relaxed. It would be all right. She knew him for what he was, knew the obstacles they faced, and did not seem to care. “I will most certainly lose what support I have and probably half my hide if I do not return you to town this day. Much as I hate to mention it, we had better dress.”

  Sighing, she slid her leg along his. “We shall have to go to church in the morning and pray soundly for our sins.”

  With a kiss to her cheek Travis rose from the bed. “I shall pray soundly that they may be repeated soon.”

  Alicia flung a pillow at him. Grinning, he smacked her buttock as he stood up.

  “Remember, I don’t fight like a gentleman,” he warned before drawing on his trousers.

  Quite naked and unashamed, Alicia slid from the bed and raised her arms to pull her waist-length hair into order. “Then I shall just have to learn not to fight like a lady,” she replied.

  “Then let us hope we shall not have to fight at all,” Travis prayed fervently.

  Chapter 27

  Alicia dreamily stood in front of her mirror some weeks later. Early morning sunlight streamed in the bedroom window, as she gazed at where Travis had left his mark the night before. He took advantage of every stolen minute, and even when they were apart—like now—he was with her.

  Their wedding would be in less than a month, and excitement colored each passing day. She had sent for the furniture she wished to use in her new home, and he had turned over the decorating to her. She had never been allowed this pleasure before, and she delighted in it. But most of all, she delighted in the plans for the school his workers were renovating for her in one of the outbuildings.

  Running her hand over the fullness of her breast to the flatness of her abdomen, Alicia sought for some sign that her wishes had come true. A school of her own she could teach in even if she married, but pregnancy might slow her down. Still, she wished for a child as much as she did for the school. And she had some reason to believe it that she might very well be carrying Travis’s child already.

  That was the reason she stood here now, forcing herself to consider this logically. She had been pregnant before. She knew the sig
ns. The most obvious, of course, was that she had not had her monthly flow since well before that day Travis had first taken her to the farm. It was possible for a month to go by without her regular cycle if she were not well or if their lovemaking had interrupted the way of things, but this was the beginning of the second month. Yet she had suffered none of the morning sickness, none of the weakness and pain that had accompanied her previous pregnancy. And there were no outward signs, she decided with a sigh of disappointment. She wanted this child so badly, she could imagine herself pregnant. But it would probably be best if the seams of her wedding gown did not have to be let out just before the wedding.

  Becky met her in the foyer. Carrying baskets over their arms, they ventured into the warm May sunshine. After the cold dampness of the previous months, it felt delightful to turn their faces to the sun and breathe in the fresh scents of lilacs and honeysuckle. Spring had arrived at last.

  Singing to herself, Alicia perused the latest shipment of lace trimmings in the mercantile store, stopped to admire a lovely silk in the dress-goods window. She waited in the sunshine while Becky stopped in the greengrocer’s for a few items the cook had requested for dinner. Alicia waved as the carriage carrying Dr. Farrar rolled by, chatted with the mothers of several of her students, and smiled to Sam Howard from across the street. Already she felt a part of this community, and she seldom gave Philadelphia’s faraway streets a second thought.

  The arrival of a keelboat at the landing had produced the usual shouts and curses, but the din was settling. Alicia contemplated taking a peek to see if any new house goods had arrived, but a sudden dizziness caught her by surprise. She swayed and grabbed for the wall behind her. Faint, feeling as if she might fall to the ground if she stood a moment longer, she sat abruptly on the flour barrel outside the store. Her head spun, and she closed her eyes.

  This was foolish. She had never fainted in her life. She was not even wearing a corset. But she could not stand. She felt so light-headed that she would surely topple should she try to rise.