Lord Rogue

by Patricia Rice

  Without giving another try, Travis spun on his heel and stalked back to his own room and the comforts of the whiskey bottle he had left there. Not even the companionship of his friends or the violence of a good brawl would relieve the pain and anger surging through him. He needed numbness in which to think.

  Millie, the farmhand’s wife who came in to help with the housework, passed on the message Travis had left for Alicia the next morning. “Travis done tole me to tell you he had business in St. Louis. He’ll be back with the next boat downriver.”

  Alicia accepted the cup of coffee Millie poured for her and stared out at the brilliant June day. She had heard Travis at her door last night, listened as he retreated to the other bedroom, and lay awake the rest of the night waiting for his revenge. She had been surprised when it had not come. No axes at the door, no ladders at her window, no silent figure dropping through the ceiling. Perhaps he really did not care.

  His leaving for St. Louis without speaking made her uneasy. If Travis went back to her father and demanded an annulment, she would have to reveal her pregnancy. The idea of that kind of emotional scene made her nervous. She didn’t want any more scenes. She only wanted to be left alone to make the best of what was left of her shattered life.

  With that thought in mind, Alicia set aside her cup and went in search of Becky. There were few children on the farm as yet, just Millie’s two boys and the son of one of the men whose wife had died. But few of the hands could read or write. It was time she offered to help.

  When Travis returned home later in the evening, Alicia had installed her class in the kitchen. The class was by no means a large one, but a studious one. An assortment of men and women bent over slates at the kitchen table. Not one man looked up as he stopped in the doorway. Rather than disturb the lesson, Travis walked out again.

  Alicia did not see him again until the next morning, when he strode in from the yard as she prepared breakfast. She had not heard him come to bed the night before nor heard him rise that morning. He came and went as silently as a mountain lion. And just as lethal.

  Other than a word of greeting, he spoke of nothing. Alicia waited for the blow to fall, the announcement that he would send her back to her father, annul the marriage, whatever plan he had made to even the score. He ate his meal, made a polite show of kissing her cheek for Becky’s benefit, and walked out.

  He drove her insane. No recriminations, no reproaches, no angry words. He simply went about his business, appeared in time for meals, and disappeared afterward. They exchanged nothing more than informal greetings or casual comments on the weather, like total strangers. Alicia considered swinging the frying pan at his head.

  But it had taken many months of practice to regain her restraint against excessive emotion, and her training stood her in good stead.

  He took her to visit Homasinee to see how she fared and to make arrangements for signals should help be needed. He hired men to take charge of the mares and foals he had purchased that spring. He showed Alicia where he kept the farm books and the money needed to manage day-to-day expenses and a copy of the letter he had given his bankers to assure her access to his accounts. Alicia stared at them with growing comprehension but no comment.

  Not until Saturday, when it came time to prepare for their weekly trip into the city, did Travis say one word of his plans. As Alicia packed a change of clothing for Sunday morning, he eyed her progress and offered advice.

  “You may want to take in enough to stay a few days this time.”

  Alicia’s fingers tightened around a petticoat as she glanced up at his noncommittal expression. “We will not be coming home Sunday night?”

  “I will be leaving after services on some business for your father. I thought you might prefer to stay in town rather than be out here alone.”

  There should be nothing frightening in those words. Her father left on business trips all the time. It took time to travel in the west. The space around them was vast, the population limited. Doing business required going where the business was. Alicia understood that. If Travis wished to participate in her father’s various dealings, it would help them both. She could have no objections. But a niggling fear took root in her heart and did not die.

  “I like it out here. Millie has agreed to bring her boys to class with her Monday night. They will be expecting me. Will it be too much trouble to return me here before you leave?”

  Whatever expression flickered behind black eyes was not revealed in Travis’s reply. “No. No trouble at all. I simply thought you might prefer the company.”

  They left it at that, neither of them with experience enough to speak their feelings. Travis kept his private hell behind the walls he had long ago constructed to face the world. They rode into town discussing nothing more demanding than the unusual coolness of the season. They rode home the next day with no words with which to bridge their loneliness.

  As Travis watched Alicia sway wearily up the long staircase to bed, he yearned for just one backward look, one sign of encouragement to give him hope. He received nothing. In actuality, he probably deserved nothing. He had gambled, and he had lost. Perhaps one of her civilized Philadelphia gentlemen would have known how to win and keep her, but he had been too long from civilization to react any other way than he had. He had tried to force her into the image he had in his mind, but Alicia insisted on being herself. It was obvious she would never forgive him, and he only made them both miserable by remaining. With that bitter thought in mind, he swung away and walked out the door.

  When Alicia rose the next morning, he was gone. No tender parting, no words of reassurance, not even a simple farewell. The churning in her stomach became bile in her throat, and she could not even drink her coffee. How had what once looked so bright and promising been reduced to this dismal grayness? Where was the joy and excitement she had experienced in wanting to share her news with the man who had fathered her child?

  Perhaps if she told him of the babe when he returned, it would be better. Perhaps she had been wrong in keeping the news from him. Travis used to laugh and sing and smile for no reason at all. Maybe the news of the child would return the arrogant pride, but it would also return the laughter. The grim, taciturn man who had left here was not the bold keelboat captain she remembered.

  Perhaps by denying the only thing they had between them, this physical attraction, she had denied him the only happiness he found in their marriage.

  With the stubborn determination that had brought her this far, Alicia set about working away the days of Travis’s absence. The men had their orders, but she learned to deal with the day-to-day mishaps that no man could foretell. She taught her classes in the evening, rejoicing when a new member joined, seeking out reasons when one dropped out. And at the end of each day, she left a lamp lit in the hall and went upstairs to kneel beside her empty bed and pray for her husband’s safe return.

  The days grew into a week without any word from Travis. He had not said how long he would be gone. She had just assumed it would be the few days he meant to leave her in St. Louis. It had been foolish not to ask. Perhaps her father would know.

  She traveled into St. Louis with Becky and Auguste that week. Chester and Letitia welcomed her with open arms and urged her to stay awhile. Alicia could not bring herself to beg the answer to her questions. She would not have them think there was anything wrong between her and Travis.

  The next week crawled by. July came in as cool as spring. The crops did not flourish. Travis did not write. Alicia’s life had become a string of non-events, measured by what did not happen. Even the child did not seem to exist, for there was no one there to share it with. Becky was too enraptured with her newfound status to notice Alicia’s growing waistline, and anyone else who might have noticed did not feel obliged to mention it. She quietly let out the seams of her bodice by herself.

  Her furniture arrived in mid-July, delivered by keelboat, and her father and Letitia rode out to celebrate the occasion. By the time they arrived,
Alicia was dusty and disheveled from running back and forth between house and river, guarding each of her precious possessions every step of the way, preventing their being carried upside-down or dropped in mud or worse. Letitia took one look at her and ordered Alicia back to the house.

  Her sharp command was so surprising, both Alicia and Chester turned to stare at the normally undemanding Frenchwoman.

  “This is madness! You are not to stir from the house, ma petite. Up the stairs. I will find that lazy, no-account maid of yours and she will bring you warm water and tea and you will rest. At once.”

  “But, Letitia, I cannot—”

  “You want to lose the little one?” Letitia demanded.

  Alicia’s cheeks colored at her father’s amazed look, and she shook her head. “But someone must direct the men—”

  “I can do that.” Firmly Letitia turned her toward the house. “To bed. Now.”

  Chester gaped after the retreating figure of his daughter. “She’s pregnant? The bastard rode off and left her pregnant?”

  Letitia granted him a scathing look. “And who sent him? Tell me, who? Men!” She flung her small hands upward in an expressive gesture and bustled off to find the lazy maid.

  Chester and Letitia remained several days, returning order to chaos, ensuring that Becky and Millie knew of Alicia’s condition and looked after her accordingly. They tried to persuade Alicia to return with them, but she adamantly refused.

  “Alicia, this is foolish. There is no reason for you to stay out here in the middle of nowhere in your condition. You should be with family,” Chester protested as they prepared to leave.

  “Someone must look after the place while Travis is gone,” Alicia said. “I have no desire to return to St. Louis. My life is here.”

  Chester looked skeptical, then noting the stubbornness burning behind his daughter’s eyes, he relented. Sorrowfully he wondered how long her mother had sat waiting in that big empty house in Philadelphia for his return. He prayed Alicia would never have to suffer that fate, but Travis had been gone far longer than necessary to complete the business he had sent him on. The countryside seethed with unrest. Anything could have happened.

  Not mentioning his fears to Alicia, Chester kissed his daughter good-bye and joined his waiting wife. Tecumseh had gone south not far from here, seeking recruits for the war he had declared on the Americans. The British had increased their virulent mischief upon land and sea, and the talk of war was on everyone’s lips. Travis, with his torn loyalties, could be anywhere. It would not do to speculate.

  Knowing little of current events and caring less, Alicia spun a cocoon of security about the nest she made. She continued to leave a lamp burning in the downstairs hall in case Travis arrived late. Each day she worked to arrange the house. A piano now graced a corner of the front room. China adorned the shelves of a graceful Queen Anne breakfront in the dining room. A silver tea service was unpacked, polished, and displayed on the mahogany sideboard. Flowers filled cut-glass vases and sunshine streamed through velvet draperies pulled back from casement windows. She would give him a home to be proud of, one that would welcome him when he returned.

  What she was doing made no sense. In some dark corner of her mind Alicia realized this way led to madness as surely as passion. The man who returned would be the same man who had left and nothing would have changed, but Alicia preferred to think of Travis walking through that front door and gasping with astonishment at the changes she had wrought. She imagined his black brows rising with pride and excitement as he sought her out, his dark eyes dancing as he discovered the burden she carried. He would know the child was his, he would sweep her into his arms, and they could be friends again.

  The cold summer continued into August, and Alicia shivered as she rose from her lonely bed and looked for her slippers. The morning nausea had passed and she did not yet move awkwardly, but the heaviness weighed upon her heart. Travis had been gone well over two months now without a word. She could see confusion and sympathy in the eyes of their workers when she gave the orders Travis should have been there to give. Even Becky, totally useless now that pregnancy kept her pinned to her chair with her feet up, spoke with caution when Alicia was about. It was annoying to be treated like a particularly incompetent child, but that would end when Travis returned.

  If he returned. Staring out over the verdant fields with unshed tears burning her eyes, Alicia finally considered the thought. Her father had often taken months to transact business. New Orleans was a long distance away, the farthest place she could think of that Travis might go. It was quite possible he was on his way home now. But that did not explain why he had not written, why he had not told her his business would take the entire summer. He loved this farm, had plans for it, and he left it at the most important time of the year. No, that did not make logical sense.

  The only thing that did make sense was that he was gone.

  Forever. Perhaps an accident. Perhaps at the hands of the thieves and rogues that swarmed the countryside. A bear. A snake. Anything. Or perhaps he had just gone as he said he would. The Indian version of divorce, walking out and not coming back. In a few months, a year, people would call her widow, and Travis would be forgotten. As he had told her.

  Tears trickled down Alicia’s cheeks at last. Had she driven him from his home, from his dreams? Was that sun outside shining on him now, poling a keelboat down some distant river, riding his horse across a grassy plain, escaping the horror of his life? She choked and turned away from that picture.

  She had been left before and knew the pain, the anguish that did not ever leave. He would not do that to her. He had to return. Had to. She could not live with it if he did not.

  Chapter 35

  On the only warm day that summer, the Indians arrived. Out in the chicken pen scattering feed, Becky saw them first, and screamed so loud doors flung open everywhere. Eight months gone with child, she could only waddle back toward the house. By that time Auguste had appeared to grab her by the waist and propel her toward the kitchen.

  Alicia stood at an upstairs window as she often did these days, polishing idly at the glass and dusting away the cobwebs, gazing out over the vast spaces to the horizon. Becky’s scream alerted her and she focused her gaze on the view and not her daydreams.

  From the woods along the riverbank advanced a party of feathered and tattooed warriors. She could not tell if the colors they wore were war paint or the fierce scars that designated their achievements and positions in the tribe. She had never seen them in war paint, didn’t know if they actually wore it. She simply recognized the tattoos from her visits with Travis’s tribe.

  Noting the men drifting from the barn, rifles in hand, Alicia shook herself into action. She would have no bloodshed if it could be prevented. These Indians were friends of Travis, and though they dressed as if for war, they appeared openly and without weapons drawn.

  The band of warriors and the ranch hands had met in the field in front of the house by the time Alicia arrived. Auguste attempted to prevent her from coming any farther, but she pushed past him, breaking through the wall of men to meet the savagely garbed strangers.

  Her gaze swept the band of Indians until it rested on a visage she recognized with confidence. Bear Mountain. At her look of recognition he stepped forward.

  “Lonetree?” he demanded.

  Auguste stepped to her side, barring the way with his rifle. “What do you want with him?”

  Alicia shoved the rifle aside, but she waited for a reply. It would not do to reveal Travis was not here and was not expected if this were an unfriendly visit.

  Ignoring Auguste, Bear Mountain spoke to Alicia. “Homasinee sends her gratitude. The child is strong and healthy and bears the mark of a man. She wishes to share her joy with the woman my cousin has chosen. Shall I take her word that Lonetree has planted a son of his own and that is why he does not come?”

  His speech was strangely formal and stilted, but Alicia caught the pride and happiness that h
is stoic training prevented expressing.

  “Lonetree has gone downriver and has not returned yet, but he will be most pleased to hear of his cousin’s son.” She gestured toward one of the men behind her. “Tell Becky to give you the shawl I have just finished knitting. Quickly.”

  Alicia met the grave stares of her visitors. “Would you come in and refresh yourselves? You may tell Homasinee that I carry Lonetree’s child and cannot come to her, but I would like her to have this gift for your child. Come, tell me how she fares.”

  A wry gleam very similar to one she had seen in Travis’s eyes lit Bear Mountain’s as he studied the armed and hostile farmhands. With wicked decision he nodded agreement to her hospitality. He spoke to his followers, and to the dismay of the others, followed Alicia through the gate.

  Alicia ignored the hawking and spitting and muttering from the farmhands. Travis had friends in many worlds, and he would want them treated equally. She saw no difference in entertaining keelboat crews or Indians.

  The Indians had brought gifts of their own, soft beaver furs and baskets of gourds and corn in recognition of their belief that Travis and Alicia had saved the life of Bear Mountain’s child. Alicia exclaimed over each presentation, though she could scarcely conceive what could be done with such largess. A gourd or two might be convenient for dippers. A basket of corn would make a meal for the evening. But what in heaven’s name would she do with all the rest?

  The men obviously knew, however, and they crowed with delight as they carried off the bounty. The quick about-face confused Alicia, but she covered her distraction as Becky appeared on the porch with the shawl.

  The delicately woven wool did not seem quite enough after the goods the Indians carried up from the river, and Alicia racked her brains for something of equal worth. Auguste’s whispered suggestion horrified her, but the enthusiasm with which the whiskey jugs were greeted proved him correct, producing a niggling suspicion of the trade-off between corn and whiskey.